DealerInternet101.com

Facebook recently announced their advertising platform and with it came the ability for businesses and individuals to create ‘fan’ pages. These pages are a great way generate buzz around your dealership and further extend your brand online.

Here are a few reasons it is a good idea to build a Facebook ‘Fan’ page for your dealership:

1. Fan pages are public pages. This means that they will be indexable by the search engines. Normally, Facebook pages are accessed through a login that is password protected. By having a Facebook ‘Fan’ page, hopefully customers will stumble upon your page while searching for automotive related terms in your area.

2. A ‘Fan’ page is a great way to provide updates to everyone in your network. Whether it be a community involvement project, or a weekend event, your updates will appear in each on of your fans newsfeeds.

3. When somebody becomes your ‘Fan’, everyone in their network will be notified via their newsfeed. This is a great way to get your dealership’s name in front of a large amount of potential customers through an online viral marketing effort.

4. You have 100% control of your page. Make sure you capture at least your dealership’s name before someone else or one of your competitors does.

5. Facebook ‘Fan’ pages are 100% FREE, easy, and only take a few minutes to create!! All you need is some basic information about your dealership, a logo, and your dealership website URL and you are done!

To create your page, click this link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Internet Marketing Information Facebook for dealerships

Here is my response in the Autotrader.com Pricing??? thread from DealerRefresh.com.

It’s a shame that far too many dealerships are more concerned with finding sales and service opportunities through 3rd party sources when they have a website that their customers can’t find online. AND…when their customer’s do find them online, they are forced to listen to cheesy jingles or Charlie and Chocolate Factory mini people talk about how great the dealership ‘experience’ is.

Goto Amazon.com, eBay.com, Google.com, BestBuy.com, Walmart.com, etc. and see what the biggest and brightest players online are doing. Try to emulate their Internet presences vs. trying to build a Walt Disney like experience on your website.

Here’s a secret…consumers have better things to do than visit your website to listen your jingles and TV commercials!! They won’t come back daily to ‘check you out’. The WWW has far too many options for your dealership to become the online version of WallyWorld.

Step back for a moment and take your Internet advertising offline…

Do you spend a majority of your offline ad budget on off-site sales?

THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHEN YOUR BUDGET IS GOING TO 3RD PARTY PROVIDERS!!!

Invest in yourself before you spend your money elsewhere. If your virtual dealership isn’t the best it can be, why would you concentrate ANY effort on online portals?

Internet Marketing Information AutoTrader.com Pricing

With the annual increases in each of the 3rd Party Lead Providers monthly fees, the question of ‘what have you done for me lately’ really needs to be addressed.

Typically, dealerships will view a ’successful’ campaign by how many vehicles were sold as a result of a particular marketing effort.  ‘7 people brought in our newspaper ad this weekend and we sold 2 cars.  What an ad!’ is the way ROI is typically measured with print, video, and radio advertising.  The beauty of the Internet is that you can determine, down to the penny EXACTLY what each Internet Lead provider is worth to your dealership.

If you are not doing this exercise on a monthly basis, I recommend you start ASAP!!!:

1.  Identify each of your Internet Lead providers.  These are your dealership website, your 3rd party leads, your manufacturer leads, and any other lead source that is supplying you with customer information in your market.

2.  Get the last three invoices from each of your Internet Lead Providers and find out if you are bound by any kind of contract.

3.  Using your ILM, CRM, or (if you are a caveman) your email account, calculate how many leads in the form of emails and phone calls each source has produced over the past 90 days.

4.  Average your monthly fee from your last three invoices and your average lead count from the past 90 days to determine the Cost Per Contact of each lead source.

The Cost Per Contact is the reason you are advertising online!!  The Internet is supplying leads to your dealership at a rate that is SIGNIFICANTLY less than ANY offline advertising source (See for yourself by performing the above exercise on your newspaper, radio, TV, and direct mail campaigns.  Prepare to be shocked!).  Make sure you are aware of the cost per contact for each one of your lead sources to REALLY determine what is cost effective and what isn’t.

BTW - Don’t be surprised if you find some $400/lead costs for 3rd Party Leads.  Just make sure you know about your contract end dates so you can take care of this problem once it is identified!!

I’ve complained to lead providers that they aren’t providing us with ‘good leads’, and in some cases, depending upon what their definition of a lead is, this can be correct.  BUT…a lead is someone that has expressed some interest in a product that you sell.   When all is said and done though, each incoming lead to your dealership is JUST like a walk-in customer, somebody looking for information on buying, trading, or servicing an automobile.  Make sure you have processes in place for constant communication for each of your customers and watch yourself sell more and make more!!!

Internet Marketing Information dealership 3rd party leads

I posted the below message on DealerRefresh.com today.  I’ll never understand why dealers are paying to have their inventory leverage leads for themselves AND other dealerships in their market.  Crazy!!!

The most unfortunate part of this lengthly thread is that a majority of dealerships don’t understand what they are doing by participating in AutoTrader.com.

Without YOUR inventory, the 3rd party lead generating, portal business model doesn’t work!! If every dealership shut off their inventory feeds to Autotrader.com tonight, where would Autotrader.com’s website be tomorrow?

Here’s an exercise…

1. Pick a vehicle from your website and copy it’s VIN number

2. Paste the VIN number into Google, Yahoo!, or MSN

What do you see?????

Does the vehicle show online shoppers that the VIN number is parked at your dealership’s URL (your virtual lot)? Or is your vehicle only visible on the 3rd party sites that you subscribe to?

Web Design 101 isn’t being practiced by a majority of website providers in the Automotive Internet industry when it comes to your most valuable (and expensive) asset, your inventory.

Too many dealerships are 100% reliant on 3rd party lead providers because their inventory has been framed in using another 3rd party solution on their website due to their ‘website’ company not having an inventory module!! If your inventory is framed into a ‘New Inventory’ or ‘Pre-Owned Inventory’ section of your site, the ONLY chance an online consumer will find it is if they manage to stumble and fumble through your pieced together clunky website (very unlikely) or through an online automotive portal.

Here is Google’s take on frames:

‘Frames can cause problems for search engines because they don’t correspond to the conceptual model of the web.’

Until customers in your market are able to discover YOUR inventory on YOUR website through the search engines, sit back and enjoy the price hikes from each of your 3rd Party Lead sources…or do something about it!!!

Make sure your dealership isn’t cruising down the Information Superhighway in a 1972 Ford Pinto! The results are explosive.

Internet Marketing Information AutoTrader.com Pricing

This is a great post from the guys at Dealer Website Review

While many directories & websites on the internet have recently been penalized by Google, niche directories have survived the storm. Directories & websites that are human edited and focused on a general topic can give site owners some powerful link juice as well as drive highly targeted to traffic to their site. Below we have compiled 10 high quality automotive directories & websites that are worth a visit and your dealership should be listed in.

1. AutoElf.com
This automotive search engine and directory site offers free listings in a variety of auto related categories. Get a preferred listing for maximum exposure.

2. DirectoryCar.com
An automotive directory that has everything you need to know about the auto industry. Free submissions with recipricol link.

3. Allthewebsites Directory
Website Promotion for webmasters and web site owners. Relevant categories such as Arts, Career, Automotive, Government, Internet etc., for promoting your website.

4. AngleseyMotoring
AngleseyMotoring is a directory of over 200 motoring related businesses and services on or near the Isle of Anglesey and Bangor, North Wales, UK.

5. Auto Enthusiast Online
Visit Auto Enthusiast , a resource for car enthusiasts to help them find information about all the automotive events (car shows, cruise-ins, conventions, races, track days, etc.) taking place March-November in the Southeast.

6. Global Auto Index
A comprehensive automotive directory featuring 1700 car makers and over 100,000 photos. This is a must see!

7. AutoFinder.com
A car buying guide and resource for consumers. Includes resources, links, articles and more.

8. Carvoice.com
Car Voice is your online review source! Features reviews by Aaron Esslinger as well as useful links, buying tips and more.

9.Crunchy LINK

10.Blog Directory

Internet Marketing Information Automotive Directories, Automotive Directory, Automotive SEO Directory Index

You’ve heard about blogging and the benefits it might have for your dealership…but now what?

Managing and maintaining a blog with current content is something that you are going to have to work with your staff to accomplish. Blogs can be used for a variety of purposes. You can let customers in your market know about events at your dealership. You can inform the world about the community service and charity work you or your employees participate in. From a customer service standpoint, blogs are an excellent way for your customers to let you know how they feel in a moderated online environment.

Below are a few popular blog services:

Blogger is a free blogging service that was recently purchased by Google. WARNING - If you are serious about starting a blog for your dealership, DO NOT START WITH BLOGGER!! Blogger is extremely limited in terms of what you can do with it. If you start blogging with Blogger, you might discover that it will not handle what you would like and you’ll end up having to start over. You’ve been warned…

DealerInternet101.com is powered with Wordpress. It has a fairly robust user interface and…is free! You have alot of flexibility with a WordPress blog when it comes to customization and your user interface. Signup for an account for your dealership…what can it hurt??

I haven’t used TypePad, but I’ve heard that it is a good service. I do know that one of the best dealership blogs I’ve seen, Checkered Flag’s Blog, uses Typepad…

If you build a blog for your dealership, or if you are just starting, comment below to let us know what is working and what isn’t!!!

Web 2.0 Opportunities

Flickr is a photo sharing site that allows you to post pictures of anything at your dealership. You can post your inventory, post pictures of your dealership, or post pictures of your events in second! Flick (owned by Yahoo!) is a free service.

To register for a Flickr account, goto this website: www.flickr.com

The nice thing about Flickr is that you can ‘tag’ each one of your photos to explain what they represent. If done properly, this is a great way to brand your dealership online with multiple images posted across the Internet with keywords and terms related to your store.

If you know of any dealerships using Flickr, or if you just signed up for an account and got started, comment below and let us know!!

Web 2.0 Opportunities Flickr for car dealers

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking sites on the Internet. It is very similar to MySpace, but with an easy-to-use interface. They have recently allowed businesses to create profiles on their website, which is a free service.

Facebook’s claim to fame are the millions of applications the company has allowed developers from around the globe build on their open-source platform. These applications range from music players to photo slideshows to crossword puzzles. I don’t of any dealerships that are using actively using Facebook, but with hundreds of applications being developed daily, it’s only a matter of time before your inventory and specials could be integrated into a Facebook Application.

To register for a Facebook page, visit this website: https://register.facebook.com/

If you know of any dealership’s with Facebook pages, or if you just made one yourself, comment below and let us know about it!!

Web 2.0 Opportunities car dealers using Facebook, Facebook for car dealers