Dealership Innovation Guide - Q2 2011 by DrivingSales, LLC

2nd Quarter 2011

Quarterly ranking of dealership vendors & best practice guide

Jon Sherrell

VENDOR RATINGS •

from RAIRDON AUTO GROUP tells us how a Solid SEO Strategy Earned them a

NEW CAR LEADS ILM CALL MANAGEMENT DMS • SEM/PPC USED CAR ADVERTISING WEBSITES • CRM • SEO CHAT • AND MORE...

Brand New Franchise

Dear Vehicle Manufacturers: Learn about Three ways you are killing your dealers p.36 at? QR is th QR Codes at Codes h W by Jared Hamilton

p.33

-The New Buzz Around

What are they? Dealers Must CLOSE THE SALE! p.28 by Grant Cardone How to Read QR Codes More Changes at Google in the Last Six Months Than in the Last Six Years p.41 A QR code (short for Quick Response) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. (*www.wikipedia.com)

Install a free app on your phone

by Richard Winch

iPhone

Scan - QR Code City Bakodo - Barcode & QR Barcode Scanner

Android

Scan Me!

QR Droid Barcode Scanner

How to Generate QR Codes 1 Go to : http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/ 2 Type in the website you want to direct people to. PNG - for web use 3 Pick the format you want the QR Code to be in: PDF - for printing it out 4 Hit Generate your QR Code your new QR Code and use it however you would like. 5 Save (right-click on image and save to your computer)

You Created a QR Code, Now what? So you have created a QR Code but don’t know what do with it? Be creative and put them anywhere you want to direct information. Here are some ideas:

• On business cards • On cars to provide more information

• In print advertisement for better tracking • Promotional Items, coupons

Get more tips like this from the world’s largest automotive social network:

DrivingSales.com is a Vendor Rating

and Best Practice community for Dealers and Dealership Managers to connect and collaborate on dealership strategies.

Pain Points ed! v l o s Re

What “pain” are you feeling — how to grow the business, reduce expenses, keep up with the social media scene, or ensure compliance on the many legal and regulatory requirements? NADA University offers a

These and many more critical topics are addressed in

broad selection of resources

the new Dealer Pain Points series from NADA

to support you. visit: NADAuniversityblog.com for the Dealer Pain Points and 30-Minute Meeting Guide. NADAuniversity.com to train, track, measure, and monitor with ease.

University—all at no charge. Short 2- to 3-minute video vignettes and a meeting guide provide the foundation for a productive 30-minute meeting with your dealership staff.

Straight-to-the-point videos instruct you on what to do to address the issues and opportunities facing your dealership. For more training resources, click on the PDF unique to each pain point for a listing of what is available and where to find it.

Skills + Accountability = Results

NADA U: We build champions! 2

NADAuniversity.com • 800.557.6232 2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

www.DrivingSales.com

Dealership Executives, As we approach the midpoint of 2011, it’s apparent there are some fantastic things happening in the market place. Inside the DrivingSales.com dealer community, there is solid buzz about increasing profitability within dealerships, consumer demand that continues to rise, and credit loossening up. Almost all franchises have hot new products hitting their showrooms and the outlook for the second half of 2011 is strong. There is solid growth ahead and it’s wonderful to see the industry on the rebound. DrivingSales has been busy growing, too. Last year, we grew about 380% and this year we are headed towards another year of strong triple digit growth. We are completely focused on finding new, innovative ways to deliver profit-building information to the dealer community. The market now changes at 100 mph, but most dealers still receive information at 20 mph… and often that information is tainted from its biased sources. If you don’t have the best information to make decisions, you’ll start every initiative behind the market. At DrivingSales, we are dedicated to getting you the information you need to run a more profitable store in this evolving environment. Make sure you take full advantage of the new and exciting DrivingSales resources: DrivingSales University In February, we announced an official partnership with NADA University to deliver the industry’s best digital marketing training in a fully interactive, online format. Investing in the Internet is the greatest opportunity for your store, and we are pleased to offer hundreds of classes with curricula for every dealership job role. Every class is accessible online from the comfort of your office, whenever your team needs it. All the training comes with full reporting and employee progress reports to manage your store’s training initiatives. See DrivingSalesUniversity.com or NADAUniversity.com for more information. DrivingSalesTV In January, we launched another industry first: DrivingSalesTV.com. It’s a web TV channel 100% dedicated to everything car dealer related. We cover industry news, technology trends, best practices and dealer interviews. Tune in at DrivingSalesTV.com DrivingSales Executive Summit

LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER: Jared Hamilton, Founder/CEO of DrivingSales.com, welcomes you to the 2nd Quarter Issue of the Dealership Innovation Guide! Dig in and enjoy, and don’t forget to share your thoughts online at DrivingSales.com!

DSES has sold out two years running, so we have expanded the space this year to allow for more dealers to participate. The summit is by far the best conference for innovative dealership strategies. It’s where the most aggressive and progressive dealership executive teams gather to be educated, inspired and begin creating their business plan for the following year. DSES 2011 will be at the Bellagio, Las Vegas Oct 9-11th. Registration just opened; be sure to reserve a spot for your team before it sells out. Dealership Innovation Guide Last but not least, at the request of the community, we have increased circulation of this magazine and now publish it quarterly. That means each quarter you will receive a current ranking of dealership vendors, as rated and reviewed by their dealer clients, as well as a collection of proven best practices to implement at your store. We have a new site dedicated to the magazine at DealershipInnovationGuide. com. As always, I encourage you to rate and review your vendors at DrivingSales.com. Each review is important to keep the Vendor Rating system your best resource for researching and learning about your vendor options directly from your peers, not from a sales pitch. If there is anything that DrivingSales can do to improve its services to you, please, reach out. We are here to serve the community.

“Two heads are always better than one. We’ve got the whole industry talking...”

Thanks,

Jared Hamilton Founder of the DrivingSales.com dealer community www.DrivingSales.com

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

SPEED | ACCESS | MOBILITY ››› Datamining, reporting, dashboards–all within seconds.

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DealerSocket 2011— Efficiency and Profitability at Your Finger Tips.

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VendorRatings 6 VendorRatings 7 Why Vendor Ratings? New Car Leads Websites LOOK 6 Why AT VendorWHAT Ratings Call Management 7 Dealership Websites THE DEALERS SEM - PPC 8 3rd Party Leads ARE SAYING: 10 DMS 8 Online Classifieds/Vehicle Don’t forget to rate Listing Services 10 Database/Owner Marketing your again. Management 10vendors Customer Relationship 11 Systems Search(CRM) Engine Optimization (SEO) You10 can now rate Dealership Management Systems (DMS) 11 Reputation Management every quarter! 11 Internet Lead Management (ILM) 12 CRM 12 Inventory Pricing 12 Inventory Pricing 12 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 13 ILM 13 Chat 14 Used Car Advertising

THOUSANDS!

8 8 9

BestPractices 14 Narrowing the Great Digital Divide ExpertArticles 18 The Proper Model for Advanced Dealership Marketing 14

Internet Trainers

Vendor Ratings Dealer Discussions Expert Blogs “How to” Videos Strategy Sharing Peer Networking

22 Six Technologies that will Transform Automotive Market 16 the Retail Just How Much Can Digital Marketing Do? COVER 23 New STORY: Social Media Strategy Transforms Dick Hannah Honda How a Solid SEO Strategy Earned a Dealership a Brand New Franchise JON SHERRELL 26 Why Velocity Management 20 Raising the Bar for Fixed Operations; Creating a Digital Strategy from 28RAIRDON Link Building Tips 23 The Road to Remarketing GET CONNECTED AUTO GROUP tells Do You Handle a Phone Shopper? 30 Selection, Hiring and Orientation26 for yourHow Internet Department us how a Solid SEO Automotive 34 WhyEarned your Service Department is28 Costing you Car DealsDealers Must CLOSE THE SALE! Strategy The “Next Level” is One Step Away 36 a Microsites, Oh My! them BrandBlogs, NewSocial Media, 31 34 The Four Basic Food Groups 39 Winning Online Franchise Dear Vehicle Manufacturers: Three ways you are killing your dealers 40 Social Media Marketing: a party36 not a pinch Execute More Changes at Google in the Last Six Months Than in the Last Six Years 37 Seven Process Points: Your Store41 Must - And ‘Places’ Is the Mother of Them DrivingSales.com All 44 ISM Pay Plans 45 Dealer Principals Need To Inspect Their Digital Investments 46 Internet Departments are on the Decline

2009

DrivingSales.com www.DrivingSales.com

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

VendorRatings Why Vendor Ratings? The DrivingSales Vendor Ratings site is the first formal mechanism for dealers to rate and review their vendors in a comprehensive, real time vendor directory. It empowers dealers by allowing them to learn about all the solutions available and to view actual customer feedback, both good and bad, about how each solution actually performs. The DrivingSales Vendor Ratings system is like a real time Consumer Reports* protecting dealers’ interests and helping them make more informed investments.

Vendor Ratings Rules & Safeguards

DrivingSales.com maintains and enforces a strict set of rules to ensure dealerships have accurate, honest and up-to-the-moment information. Rules • Only dealership employees can post ratings and reviews. Reviewers are verified to ensure they are valid and eligible to leave reviews. • Dealership employees can only rate and review the products they have experience using. The ratings are a chance to hear from actual customers with live experience using the solutions in their stores. • Each reviewer must answer three questions to complete their rating: 1. How many stars does the solution deserve? 2. Would you recommend the solution to a friend? 3. Why would or wouldn’t you recommend the solution? • All three components of the review, along with the job title of the reviewer, are posted live to DrivingSales.com for all to reference when selecting new vendors. Safeguards • DrivingSales.com protects the anonymity of each dealer employee who leaves a rating and review. However, DrivingSales requires valid name and contact information for each reviewer so that each reviewer can be validated. • Each review is passed through a variety of technological checkpoints to ensure vendors are not gaming the system. Furthermore, DrivingSales staff calls to verify a large percentage of the reviews. Vendor Ranking In each product category the vendor solutions are ranked in real time as each new dealer rating is submitted. The vendor products are ranked based on a weighted Bayesian Algorithm. This is a standard mathematical calculation that looks at the number of stars the reviewer gave as well as the statistically valid sample size needed, relative to the competitive set, to create a ranking based on the statistical accuracy of the results. Sometimes a company with 3 stars will rate above a company with 4 stars if mathematically the first company has a higher probability of success based on the submitted reviews. We encourage all dealers to rate and review their vendors by visiting www.drivingsales.com/ratings *DrivingSales.com is in no way affiliated with Consumer Reports. 6

2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

www.DrivingSales.com

Dealer Satisfaction Awards The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards recognize those solutions with the highest vendor ratings. For each category within the vendor ratings there are three award winners, the “Highest Rated” vendor and two “Top Rated” vendors. These awards reflect products and providers with a proven record of success and excellence in serving their dealer clients. The Dealer Satisfaction Award trophies are presented annually.

Rankings Only dealership employees are allowed to rate their vendors on DrivingSales.com and all submitted ratings are verified. The vendors are then scored and ranked using a weighted Bayesian Algorithm (shown below). Sometimes a company with 3 stars will rate above a company with 4 stars if mathematically the first company has a higher probability of success based on the submitted reviews. The Dealer Satisfaction Awards are based solely on the aggregate of all dealer ratings submitted from January 1 to December 31 of any given year.

New Car Leads These providers collect and aggregate leads from their web properties and from partner sites, then distribute these hot leads to dealers. Currently this category is for both finance and vehicle leads. Company

Product

Dealix

Dealix New Car Leads

Cars.com

NewLeadsPlus 20.5

66%

ZAG

Zag Sales Strategy

16.9

70%

AutoUSA

AutoUSA New Car Leads

13.7

88%

Autobytel Inc.

Autobytel New Car Leads

.37

77%

Black Book Online Division

Activator

.23

90%

Kelley Blue Book

KBB New Car Leads

.15

50%

Dealercentric Solutions

Get Preapproved in Seconds

.12

100%

www.DrivingSales.com

Score Rating

Recommended

26.9

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

85%

VendorRatings Websites These full service websites are built to be the main hub of your dealership’s online presence and are central to your dealership’s marketing, branding and customer service. Note: MicroSites and MobileSites are rated in their own categories on DrivingSales.com.

Company

Product

Score Rating

Dealer eProcess

Dealer eProcess Dealer Websites 28.2

Cobalt

Cobalt Websites

Recommended 100%

11.9

67%

Dealer.com SmartSites

11.5

82%

Nexteppe Websites

10.2

POTRATZ

Custom Auto Websites

1.97

85%

WorldDealer, Inc.

Ultra 7.0 Websites

1.93

100%

TK Carsites

Dealer Websites

1.39

64%

DealerFire

DealerFire Custom Websites

1.35

100%

Dealerskins

Dealer Web Solutions

1.16

65%

VinSolutions

VinSolutions Dealer Websites

.98

86%

eBizAutos

Dealer Websites

.39

66%

Reynolds and Reynolds

Dealer Websites (WebMakerX 2.0)

.32

58%

Driving Force Automotive

Driving Force Auto - Custom Websites .23

88%

100%

Call Management Solutions that track inbound calls through designated tracking phone numbers so that you can manage your marketing spend and increase ROI. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

CallSource CallTracking 2.96

92%

Who’sCalling Who’sCalling 2.75

67%

Callbright

Inbound Lead Tracker

88%

eLEAD

eLEAD Call Center

1.24 .38

2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

100%

www.DrivingSales.com

SEM - PPC These solutions help you determine how to invest and execute a Pay-Per-Click campaign on the major search engines for greatest ROI. Company

Product

Score Rating

POTRATZ

Search and Behavioral for Web

2.2

100%

PCG Digital Marketing

PPC Management Service

1.5

100%

Dealer.com

TotalControl DOMINATOR

.84

90%

The Local Search Group

Eagle Edge PPC

.15

100%

.14

77%

ReachLocal-Automotive Division ReachLocal Digital Marketing

2011

www.DrivingSales.com

Recommended

Only dealership employees are allowed to rate their vendors on DrivingSales.com, all submitted ratings are verified. The vendors are then scored and ranked using a weighted Bayesian Algorithm. Sometimes a company with 3 stars will rate above a company with 4 stars if mathematically the first company has a higher probability of success based on the submitted reviews. These Vendor Ratings are based solely on the aggregate of all dealer ratings submitted from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011.

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

VendorRatings Dealership Management Systems (DMS) Dealership Management Systems connect all your dealership departments with accounting and maintain your dealership data in one central place. These ratings are for the DMS systems themselves, NOT the solutions that plug into the DMS systems such as a Desking or CRM solution. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

Reynolds and Reynolds

Reynolds ERA DMS

45.0

56%

ADP Dealer Services

ADP DMS

29.6

46%

DealerTrack

DealerTrack Dealer Mgt System

3.5

68%

AutoSoft DMS

1.4

85%

Reynolds and Reynolds

Reynolds POWER DMS

.51

41%

Auto/Mate Dealership Systems

Auto/Mate DMS

.33

100%

Owner Marketing These targeted solutions help you mine and segment your customer database, and then market to them successfully. These solutions can market to your customers through email/direct mail/phone and other means. Company

Product

J&L Marketing, Inc.

Sales Events

Score Rating 77.9

@utoRevenue @utoRevenue 25.2

CIMA Systems

Complete Virtual BDC

Cobalt

Cobalt Owner Marketing

Recommended 100% 94%

23.7

100%

2.1

83 %

2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

www.DrivingSales.com

Reputation Management These products and services help a dealer manage its online reputation. They may assist with review collection, monitoring, resolution and promotion of online reviews. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

eXtéresAuto

Online Reputation Management

98%

DealerRater.com

Certified Dealer Program

9.7

89%

Time Media Inc.

Time Reputaion Mangement

.43

100%

PCG Digital Marketing

Reputation Management Services

.31

100%

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) These companies will help get your website optimized so that it shows up higher in the search engine rankings. These services generally include both on-page and off-page optimization. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

eXtéresAuto

eXtéresAUTO - SEO

20.9

98%

PCG Digital Marketing

PCG Strategic Digital Marketing

13.2

98%

Dealer.com ManagedSEO 1.5

92%

Cobalt

PowerSearch .76

81%

TK Carsites

TK SEO

.65

90%

Dealer eProcess

Power PageRank SEO

.27

100%

2011

www.DrivingSales.com

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

VendorRatings Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Variable Ops: these are CRM systems that track all your walk-in, phone and Internet customers through the complete sales funnel and owner life-cycle. They allow for advanced customer segmentation and marketing and track your sales activities by employee to make your team more effective at attracting customers and managing relationships. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

Autobase

Autobase CRM

18.3

94%

VinSolutions

VinSolutions MotoSnap CRM

10.5

89%

DealerSocket

DealerSocket CRM

10.2

88%

Reynolds and Reynolds

Contact Management

8.3

44%

ADP Inc., Dealer Services

ADP CRM

5.4

44%

eLead

eLead CRM

2.8

77%

CAR-Research

CAR-Research XRM

1.8

97%

iMagicLab

Dealer CRM

1.2

84%

The Higher Gear

Higher Gear CRM

.89

51%

Inventory Pricing With market volatility and transparency increasing online, knowing how to price your inventory is a science critical to increasing your store’s profitability. These “Inventory Pricing” tools collect various forms of market data to help define the optimum pricing for your inventory to maximize both Gross and Turn. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

eCarList TrueTarget 55.8

100%

vAuto

vAuto - Pricing, Appraising Tools 15.9

FirstLook

FirstLook - 360º Market Pricing

1.5

100%

DealerTrack

DealerTrack AAX

1.3

83%

VinSolutions

MotoSnap Market Pricing

1.1

83%

2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

98%

www.DrivingSales.com

Internet Lead Management (ILM) These Internet Lead Management solutions are built exclusively to handle incoming Internet leads and manage your Internet sales process. Many full service CRM systems include Internet Lead Management features, but the ILM systems listed below are stand alone utilities built exclusively for managing Internet Leads. Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

VinSolutions

VinSolutions MotoSnap ILM

2.1

89%

AVV

Web Control

.64

67%

ADP Dealer Services

NetTrak Lead Manager

.42

50%

Dealer.com

Control Center

.31

79%

iMagicLab

Internet Lead Management Tool

.16

64%

Chat These solutions allow you to meet, greet and converse with customers who visit your website, as well as set appointments, generate leads and provide better customer service. Company

Product

Score Rating

ContactAtOnce! LLC

ContactAtOnce! IM/Chat

Activengage

Recommended

13.6

92%

Activengage Chat

1.3

100%

CarChat24

CarChat24 - 24/7 Fully Staffed

.95

90%

Dealer eProcess

PRO-ACTIVE Live Chat

.43

94%

Client-ConneXion Chat-ConneXion

2011

www.DrivingSales.com

.20

100%

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

VendorRatings Used Car Advertising These consumer facing websites allow you to display your inventory to in-market consumers. They make huge media buys to attract customers to your inventory, and to increase your walk-in, phone and web leads.

Company

Product

Score Rating

Recommended

AutoTrader

AutoTrader.com 44.6

Digital Compass Marketing

Automotive Advertising Network 10.6

Cars.com

Cars.com Online Advertising

Dealix

UsedCars.com 2.6

90%

Dealer Specialties

www.dealerspecialties.com

.93

78%

Liquid Motors Inc.

Inventory Data Distribution

.17

100%

Automotive.com

Used Car Classifieds

.06

75%

AutoUSA

AutoUSA Inventory Listing Network

.04

100%

72% 100%

8.3

84%

Internet Trainers Consultants and trainers who focus on bringing online success to dealerships belong in this category. General Dealership Consultants, Sales Trainers and Fixed Operations Consultants belong in their own categories.

Company

Product

Score Rating

PCG Digital Marketing

Brian Pasch

16.9

100%

eXteresAuto

eXteresAUTO - Dealer Training

12.2

100%

DealerKnows Consulting

Joe Webb

.78

100%

Dealers Technology

Rafi Hamid - Auto Consulting

.34

100%

eDealer Solutions

Jennifer Suzuki

.31

85%

2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

Recommended

www.DrivingSales.com

“TRADE-IN MARKETPLACE BRINGS ME THE TWO THINGS I NEED THE MOST: BUYERS AND INVENTORY.” Marc Ray General Sales Manager/Partner–Grogan’s Towne Chrysler Jeep Dodge Toledo, OH

Jim Grodi Advertising Consultant AutoTrader.com

“Jim knew we were struggling to find additional inventory,

their car and usually I sell them a new one. It’s bringing

so he suggested Trade-In Marketplace. It’s been a great

me customers and cars. Exactly what I need .” To hear

solution. Customers are now coming to me to trade in

Marc’s success story, just visit WeWorkForYou.com/Marc.

www.DrivingSales.com

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

Jon Sherrell Rairdon Auto Group e-Commerece Director

Just How Much Can Digital Marketing Do? How a Solid SEO Strategy Earned a Dealership a Brand New Franchise by Lindsey Auguste

n Industry of Change

The automotive industry is changing and it has been for years. Digital technology is responsible for a great portion of that change and dealers have been doing their best to understand and harness the technology in order to capitalize on the huge potential it has for attracting, increasing, and converting business. Websites, blogs, microsites, SEO – all terms that at one time were just buzzwords are now an integral part of successful marketing strategies. If you’re not using digital marketing, you’re quickly falling further and further behind your competition, if you haven’t already dropped off the back to exit the race. These days, you have to implement digital technology just to stay in the race, and the more we come to learn about digital marketing and how to use it, the faster and more efficiently our business can grow. Jon Sherrell, eCommerce Director of Rairdon Automotive 1971 Fiat Cinquecento Group in Washington, is one such man who quickly understood that digital marketing would be the key that could open a new world of market reach, profits, and success. SEO, link building, and content writers weren’t just trends to him, they were actionable tools that could not only bring him to dominate the front page of search pages, but would eventually serve to acquire an entire franchise for his automotive group. Jon recognizes that the industry has seen a dramatic shift, particularly in the marketing realm. Dealerships, once heavy into newspapers, magazines, TV commercials, and radio have taken an abrupt

departure from print media and gone to a more aggressive online strategy. Most have completely dropped their newspaper advertisements altogether and gone online. The industry is slowly gaining a foothold in digital media. For many, this transition is a good one. More consumers are shopping online and we’d be hard pressed to find anyone who, when anticipating a major purchase, doesn’t first research it via the Internet. People want to check out pricing, review stores, and digest information about both the products and the sellers. This transition creates immense opportunities for stores to not only learn about what others are saying about them, but also provides a medium to deliver particular information to the customers d i r e c t l y. Jon hopes that an even greater transition will occur w i t h i n the online

2012 Fiat 500 Sport

world, one that will take a more accountable course, where dealers can get away from others marketing their cars for them and begin doing it themselves. “It’s time we get away from other companies

2nd Quarter 2 0 1 1 | DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE

www.DrivingSales.com

The number one technology in our store is our people. I can generate leads, build microsites, and run it all, but if we don’t have good people working the leads, it’s a waste of money.

advertising our inventory for us. It’s time we begin investing in ourselves and investing in our own strategies.” He hopes that the industry will get to a point where companies like Auto Trader and Cars. com won’t dominate the dealer space on page one of search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo. “It’s important for dealers to own their names and have their inventory on their own site, producing more search results,” a change he can definitely see the industry evolving into. It’s this state of rapid industry change that fuels the fire of excitement for Jon in the car business. He loves how this industry always keeps him on his toes, admitting, “I don’t think we’ll ever have it figured out. What worked yesterday might not work today and as for what works today, we need to keep refining it to make it work tomorrow.” Heavily involved in link building strategies and website building, Jon constantly keeps tabs on what he’s doing in the business and how it compares to his competition. He’s also always looking to see what he can do to jump ahead of his competitors, which is why he hired a full-time content writer to do all of the content for the group’s websites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and so forth. He’s certain that having someone really focused on the content and daily updating the cars and deals from his stores makes a huge difference not only in search results, but also in people finding out about his stores and learning about them. Additionally, keeping the websites going is a full-time job if there’s to be any success with it. “It’s easy to think you’ve got it all set up and working, and then leave it behind. That’s when the competition passes you up.” Digital media is changing day in and day out and being able to grow with it is imperative to continued growth in the store. In order to be successful in this industry, dealers must anticipate the change and think two or three steps ahead to keep in front of the competition. Jon did just that, www.DrivingSales.com

using his SEO strategy to acquire the Fiat franchise for his automotive group. The Strategy that They Couldn’t Decline A year and a half ago, when Fiat first announced that it was bringing the franchise to the US, Jon immediately began buying Fiat domains, and slowly but surely, they began owning top positions on search engines for the franchise. Mind you, Fiat was not even in the country yet. The strategy going in was to make the SEO and link building strong enough that when Rairdon applied for the franchise, Fiat wouldn’t be able to say no. And it worked. Fiat was impressed. While most dealer applications for a franchise are based on how much space they have to accommodate the new franchise and a plan on marketing and advertising, Jon and Rairdon already were advertising. When Fiat went public that they were coming over, they announced that Fiat would be a social mediaoriented brand, and that it would be web driven and a word of mouth car, so Jon and his team focused in on that in the application and in the strategy. Before they even submitted the application for the franchise, Jon already had a Facebook page for Fiat with customers not only joining, and “liking” their page, but submitting leads and wondering when they could get the new product. They purchased multiple domain names related to Fiat and planned those with exact match URLs dedicated to Fiat product as well as on other sites with linked strategy. They used an extensive link-building strategy with strong domain names and a number of microsites to dominate page one of searches. It was a calculated task for Jon: “We had to make sure we had the SEO and websites built with the content that would be accepted by search engines and would dominate the page one of results.” But even as meticulous as it was, the plan was executed to a T, just as they had drawn it up on the whiteboard when they first started brainstorming.

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

DrivingSales ExecutiveSummit.com October 9th-11th, 2011 at the Bellagioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tower Ballroom in Las Vegas, NV The DrivingSales Executive Summit is an exclusive event for the industry's most progressive and innovative dealers.

World-Renowned Experts

With world renowned speakers, dealerselected topics and an unmatched quality in education and environment, this collaborative summit is guaranteed to boost your dealershipâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profits! 2011 Summit Themes: Social media ROI for dealerships: principles demonstrated by worldrenowned experts.

Stunning Conference Atmosphere

Strategies to boost vehicle gross despite market pressures on price. Fixed Ops and the digital marketplace: how to increase absorption online. What are the hottest industry trends every dealer must follow as we emerge from this recent recession?

Follow: DrivingSales.com Facebook.com/drivingsales Twitter.com/drivingsales

Peer Networking

Seating is limited and will go fast.

DrivingSalesExecutiveSummit.com 18

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And in the end, Fiat couldn’t say no. With Rairdon showing up as number one on page one of all search engines, Fiat happily offered them a franchise.

the #1 Dodge and Jeep store in Washington and is ranked in the top 5 on the West coast, with their Nissan store also ranked in the top 3 in the state.

Not only was the SEO strategy successful in acquiring a franchise, it’s been tremendously helpful now that they officially have it: “It is easy now that we’ve got the dealership. We’d already had leads coming in before we had the franchise, and now that it’s up and running, the leads are just pouring in.” The question then becomes how are his stores set up to handle the Internet marketing and all of these leads? Jon himself floats between all of the stores for Rairdon and oversees the digital marketing for the entire group, handling the online websites, pay-per-clicks, and other digital media. But he doesn’t do it alone. At each store, Jon has appointed an Internet Director who monitors all of the leads, closing ratio, appointments, response times, and organizes a team of 2-7 individuals (depending on the size of the store). “The number one technology in our store is our people. I can generate leads, build microsites, and run it all, but if we don’t have good people working the leads, it’s a waste of money,” another reason why he’s spent so much time and effort into getting the right people in place in his Internet Departments. It takes all of the parts to be successful, starting with the right team. And creating the teams and system such as the ones Jon has implemented doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time to get the right people in the right place. It’s a neverending process, and according to Jon’s evaluation that longevity is not the auto industry’s strong suit, it’s an uphill battle. But the benefits can pay off. Rairdon has

More Strategies In addition to his well-trained teams, a major strategy that has brought Jon great success in keeping him ahead of the competition has been aggressive online pricing. His stores thrive off a volume of sales process rather than a gross process. The volume mentality keeps them putting their best deals on the forefront for customers. Putting those prices and deals right online gives their customers immediate access to them and challenges his competition. As dealers are often hesitant to put their bottom line offer on the table out of fear of being “nickeled and dimed,” Jon gains the competitive edge by not only doing so, but also making it visible for the market to see.

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The strategy remains so successful for his stores that he is now in the process of focusing in on the used car division. With the aggressive pricing model, Jon states that “new [cars] have been great, and it’s left us with a lot of great trade-ins, so we’re really honing in on that.” Of course, that means more microsites have to be built and more link building needs to be integrated and focused to be found on page one of search results, but Jon’s resume of previous SEO strategy leaves us confident that he will have no problem with it. How to Make it All Work Jon Sherrell has accomplished great things in his career thus far and there’s no doubt there’s more to come. A mover and a

shaker, and someone who refuses to be left behind in an industry of change, it’s inevitable that Jon will continue to grow and challenge all of us to make the industry better – for ourselves and our customers. But he didn’t get to this point in one small leap and by rejecting everything that wasn’t digital media. With an 8-year-old son playing baseball and a 15-year-old who is just now learning to drive, he’s got plenty of life on his plate when he’s not at a Seattle Seahawks game or playing some soccer himself. It takes this kind of balance to make it work, and he would say the same thing to anyone just getting into the industry in his position. “Try and take it all in. Get your feet wet and learn all aspects of it, but don’t overwhelm yourself. Some people try and do too much at first. Don’t. Try to refine the processes of your dealership, evaluate the company websites, and see what your digital footprint is. See what they have already in place and use that as a starting point to begin creating as much visibility for your store as possible.” It takes time. Baby digital footsteps. But as Jon has so deftly demonstrated, there’s no limit as to what a strong digital marketing strategy can do.

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Jon Sherrell is the e-Commererce Director at Rairdon Automotive Group. The largest volume Jeep, Dodge, Ram and Chrysler dealer with 4 locations in Washington: Bellingham, Smokey Point, Monroe and Kirkland. Also in the Rairdon Group are Fiat, Nissan, and Hyundai stores.

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

Marc McGurren Jerry Durant Auto Group Internet Director

Raising the Bar for Fixed Operations Creating a Digital Strategy by Marc McGurren

hat if, as dealers, we had a profit center that could soak up 75-100% of our major expenses? What if we had a profit center that retained our customers and kept them coming back to us to buy more vehicles? What if there was little to no competition in digital marketing to get those customers to actually spend money with us? Well folks, we do; it’s called Fixed Operations, and it’s the backbone of our businesses. Unfortunately, most of us put very little thought, time, and effort into our digital marketing strategies for our Parts and Service operations. I sometimes shake my head at myself: why, as an Internet Director for an auto group that will sell 12,000+ cars this year, don’t I have a handle on crushing our competition in fixed operations digital marketing? Why is it that I don’t spend more time on SEO; SEM; or a parts catalog where, instead of just sending in a lead, the customer can actually order products directly and schedule a service appointment? Just for the record, I am not pointing the finger at anyone other than myself. When I was asked to write this article, I wanted to know if there were any topics that DrivingSales wanted me to address, and they suggested something on digital marketing and Fixed Operations. I realized rather quickly how deficient my own efforts were toward doing any marketing for Fixed Operations, the could-be backbone of our entire organization. I can flash my fancy ROI reports and show how great (or not so great) we are doing on the variable side of things. I know what my closing ratio is on all my leads, cost per sale, cost per lead, etc., etc. I know where we rank in Google’s eyes. And I try to keep up with new processes and technologies that will actually help us sell more cars. But I rarely (sadly) put much time and effort into Fixed Operations.

So, what is the purpose of this article? To ask a simple question: Why? Why are we not doing more as leaders and innovators to digitally bury the independent oil change and service repair shops in our local market? Why aren’t we putting as much blood, sweat, and tears into pushing the envelope in Fixed Operations digital marketing? What is holding us back?

“Sales sells the first car, but service sells the second, third, fourth, and so on.”

These “simple” questions beg another, perhaps more profound: What is holding me back? I can give you a mile-long list of all my responsibilities, but ultimately that would just be an excuse. I have no excuse. I have no good reason except that I am not hungry enough. I don’t want it enough. Do I even care about Fixed Ops? (Let’s be honest: Do you?) As an Internet Director, I better darn well care. I HAVE to care. We MUST care about Fixed Operations in regards to digital marketing. You see, sales and month-end numbers are sexy. They have clout. They offer a wow factor to those around us. Parts? Oil changes? Absorption rate? Retention rate? Not so alluring and enticing. Yes, it makes money, but what do OEMs care about? Yes, we have our service reps, and yes, they go over our numbers, but when it comes down to it, if we don’t sell cars, we can’t fix them. OEMs and dealers alike are typically all about volume. Sell, sell, sell! My hope today is for you to put this article down

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after reading it and just Google “Oil Change (your local city).” Where are you? Where are your competitors? Where are the local independent oil change shops? Then try any other Fixed Operation terms and your local city and do the same thing. After that, go on your dealership’s website and try to set a service appointment. Mystery-shop your dealership. Mystery-shop your competition. Try to order a part. Act like a consumer. If you really want to know how you are doing, enlist some of your friends to do the same thing and see how “noncar people” view your processes.

Sales sells the first car, but service sells the second, third, fourth, and so on. Service is where we can WOW the customers. Fixed Operations is where we can motivate (inspire?) people to come back time and again— because they have a friend in the car business.

2011 to raising the bar for Fixed Operations at my dealership. Will you join with me in changing the face of how we do business? Will you be an innovator? Will you not be mediocre? The choice is yours…

When it comes to having a vehicle serviced, are we making it convenient for our customers (that we spend so much money on to get in the door), or are we making it convenient for us? Our employees? Our own shortcomings?

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________

Fixed Operations is what makes our dealership move forward. It is the backbone of our entire organization, and yet most of us are doing an extremely poor job of giving our dealerships a fighting chance in the digital realm.

The car business is a phenomenal business. I LOVE what I do and I LOVE making a customer smile. But really, if my digital marketing stinks, I might not ever get the chance to see that smile. To see that customer happy. To do what I love. I am committing

www.DrivingSales.com

Marc McGurren is the Internet Director for the Jerry Durant Auto Group located in Weatherford, TX. He is a graduate of Angelo State University (BBA, 2001), Dallas Theological Seminary (MA/BS, 2003), and the NADA Dealer Academy (2010). Most recently, Marc was awarded the DrivingSales Innovation Cup at this years DrivingSales Executive Summit for his mobile platform for engaging after hours customers at the point of sale.

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

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Paul Potratz COO POTRATZ

The Road to Remarketing by Paul Potratz

“M

ICHAEL!!! Do You Realize What We Will Be Able to Do Now?” Those are the very words I shouted with excitement at 3am on February 13th, 2007! We had discovered we were able to do “Targeted Online Advertising” by the use of HTML identifier tags, IP addresses, and cookies. I am talking about Remarketing, which is also known as Retargeting, Behavioral Marketing, Interest Based Marketing or Targeted Online Advertising.

Not to mention we could also use this technology for service, collision, parts, accessories, secondary financing, and extended warranties, which were all the profit centers they were very dialed in on. To say I was excited would have been an understatement. The meeting lasted for 37 minutes, and when I left that conference room, I was second-guessing my decision to keep Potratz solely focused on the Automotive industry. I was confused and amazed why they were not able to understand the competitive advantage and cost savings that remarketing would

“When Remarketing is done correctly we have seen return visits as high as 47% and conversions of leads increase by 13-19%“

By harnessing this new technology, Michael and I felt we could change the way our dealers and dealer groups were advertising online in a very positive way. On February 14th, 2007, we named our enhanced version of this new-found technology “Webratz” as a play off of Potratz. This new technology would allow us to improve conversions even more on PPC campaigns and also conversions in general since we could now target individual consumers that visited our dealers websites with an ad featuring the specific vehicle they had expressed interest in. Four days later, I was on my way to present our new Webratz technology to a large dealer group several hours away from our offices, and I knew what I was about to share with this progressive group would earn us our biggest dealer to date. Imagine the potential, reach, one-to-one advertising strength, and cost savings from serving the exact vehicle offer a car shopper had expressed interest in on the website. www.DrivingSales.com

offer. I even had a non-compete agreement I was prepared to sign. I felt like our project was never going to get off the ground before it even started, since we needed significant funding to purchase enough ad placement on the top sites we had picked. It Was A Fight Worth Fighting Well, I picked myself up and dug in as I started calling more dealers and dealer groups that I felt would be willing to be our beta dealer. The result... Dealer 2: NO It sounds like spyware; Dealer 3: You Can Do What? When? How? Well, Get Back To Me Later; Dealer 4: That sounds like big brother, no thanks. And then after the 17th door being shut due to the dealer’s website provider refusing to place our remarketing code in “Their Website” I knew I had to try a different approach. Then, I contacted the Business Review in Albany,

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NY, and Barbara Pinckney was happy to do an article about us and remarketing on June 25, 2007, opening two doors. But neither was automotive. In fact, these were a law school and a large furniture store wanting to give it that old college try. I was ecstatic since we finally had the funding to really start and test this new technology of remarketing. I am a gadget, software, and API fanatic so when I have new things like this to play with it is like Christmas, Easter, and my birthday all wrapped into one. What We Learned Was Fascinating We created a few hundred text ads and several hundred skyscraper, button, and leader board ads for our new clients as we tested and retested the results. It was fascinating as we watched the analytics and tried to sort why people clicked what they clicked and how the returning visits were being affected. We tested the website traffic by creating various campaigns ranging from “All Visitors,” “Subscribers,” and “Abandoned Shopping Carts.” Then the light bulb went off that we could also “Cross Sell.” Working with a college and a large furniture store was actually the best thing that happened to our firm since we learned so much by being able to move outside of the automotive industry and expand our minds seeing how other industries operate so we could apply these strategies to our automotive clients. Yes, we finally had auto dealers give it that college try. The Auto Industry is an e-commerce industry today, and to become truly successful as automotive marketers in the 21st Century we must think, act, and 24

operate like an online retailer... just like Amazon.com and eBay! Refusing to change and learn like the Brick and Mortar Blockbuster Videos will result in a “STORE CLOSED” sign, while companies like Netflix that learned to restructure, embrace, and change the way they market results in four digit growth. Choosing a Remarketing Partner That’s Right For You Today, remarketing is being offered by a number of companies, but I must warn you remarketing is not created equal, just like PPC is not. I encourage you to do your homework and ask how a company develops the strategy. Remarketing is an extremely time consuming marketing tool when you first begin, but once you get the foundation in place with the correct text ads, banner ads, video pre-rolls, and landing pages, it will be well worth the time and expense. Remarketing is not a “set it and forget it” strategy if it is to work and not burn through cash. When choosing a company for your remarketing or digital marketing, do they work with other dealers in your market or do they offer a non-compete agreement? If not, I would have second thoughts, since this practice drives up cost and will not allow separation of messages in addition to the concern of sharing of code on competing dealers sites to drive up click cost. Transparency in the true actual cost for each campaign is a must. Traditional Marketing or Digital Marketing or Combination We also learned that we did not fit the Automotive Advertising Agency profile since that meant traditional advertising in our minds. We had many dealers shut

the door on us since they felt we focused too much on digital marketing and did not talk enough about traditional marketing. Our reasoning? Yes, sure, we definitely do traditional marketing and have done so for years just as the dealers we spoke to, but what was missing is integrating digital marketing with traditional marketing to have a complete puzzle, which results in reaching more car shoppers more affordably. Do You Really Need Remarketing? It’s now 2011 and remarketing is gaining in popularity, which is perfect timing since it is a great marketing tool that no dealer’s marketing strategy should go without any longer. There are more vehicle makes and models than ever before and if a dealership is to continue growing in the 21st century they must reach a wider audience and do it for less! This fascinating old technology called Remarketing has left the Digital Technortti stage and should be part of every progressive dealer’s advertising strategy. When Remarketing is done correctly we have seen return visits as high as 47% and conversions of leads increase by 13-19%. What Is Remarketing? As an example, let’s assume Mary Car Shopper visits Potratz Audi of Albany via Google Search, PPC ad, Facebook Ad, Email Blast, or any means, and is researching a new Audi A6 Premium Plus. As she is completing the contact form, her work phone rings, so she closes the browser down and returns to her job. Ten to 15 days later, she decides she has time to shop for that Audi A6 again, but she can’t remember on which Audi dealer’s website she found the perfect

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A6. So, she begins the search again. The Potratz Audi dealer website she visited earlier has a 50/50 chance at best that she will return. However, if Potratz Audi used Remarketing... Mary would have been exposed to Potratz Audi as she surfed websites for the weather, news, recipes, hairstyles, etc. So Mary, now very familiar with this Audi dealer, could go directly to their site, stop in after work, or have clicked on one of the remarketing ads days earlier. Just think of all the sites you visit that have ads on them...those are the very sites remarketing ads could be served on! Remarketing is not a pop up ad...In fact, it is an ad embedded within websites like ESPN, ABC, Fox, Weather Channel and thousands of other top rated sites. This is a commonplace technology that is now being used by American Express, Bose, University of Phoenix and some car manufacturers. Are you using it? To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Paul Potratz is the COO of POTRATZ, headquartered in Schenectady, NY. POTRATZ specializes in digital and behavioral automotive marketing for retail automotive dealers and dealer groups across the United States. POTRATZ was also recently voted the Highest Rated SEM/PPC firm in the country by Drivingsales.com at the 2011 NADA convention. Paul is also the host of the popular podcast Think Tank Tuesday which is a free educational marketing series for the automotive industry available on ppadv.com and iTunes which has over 40,000 automotive industry subscribers.

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DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

Jerry Thibeau President, Founder Phone Up Ninjas

How Do You Handle a Phone Shopper? by Jerry Thibeau

ost dealerships have a process for handling a showroom customer or even an Internet customer, but few have a solid process for handling phone customers. Should we treat phone customers any differently? Absolutely not! An opportunity is an opportunity no matter how someone chooses to communicate with your dealership. If you want to start selling to more phone customers, you need to have a process that’s right for your dealership. The process needs to be measured and your staff needs to be held accountable, with you managing that accountability appropriately. Let’s start out by talking about practices that generally don’t work. The first is what I call the “Direct Ring to Salesperson’s Cell” method. Dealerships have adopted this approach with hopes of eliminating hold time. Most of these calls go to voice mail and often the caller won’t leave a message. Even worse, the salesperson will answer while in the middle of a test drive or delivering a vehicle. We even heard one opportunistic salesperson take a phone call while in the bathroom, and he even went so far as to inform the customer he was taking notes on toilet paper. Not exactly an image of professionalism. A second ineffective practice is sending sales calls to sales managers. Managers have a full plate as it is, so they don’t need to add phone-ups to their agendas. Sales managers are generally caught off guard when a phone-up arrives as they are generally focused on working deals or managing salespeople. All sales managers are not qualified to handle a phone customer. We hear our fair share of managers botching phone-ups right along with the sales team. The third and most common practice is to allow the operator to hand out phone-ups randomly. With this approach, the caller is generally parked and the first salesperson to dial an extension gets the phoneup. The problem with this strategy? There is no way to hold your sales team accountable. Many dealers

don’t even know how many phone-ups come in each month. Looking at a call tracking service will only provide inflated numbers since many inbound calls are directed to parts or service. And what about people who call your local number? So what’s the best way to manage your incoming sales calls? I favor a system that starts with the operator and ends with managers holding sales people accountable for the calls they’ve taken. Here’s a simple six-step process to get your dealership headed in the right direction.

“Taking a phone-up is not a RIGHT, it’s a PRIVILEGE, and it’s one that needs to be earned.”

Step 1: Operator The operator identifies the caller as a phone-up and inquires if he/she is looking for a new or pre-owned vehicle. A page is sent asking for sales to call the operator. The first salesperson to call the operator is given the phone-up. The operator then notes the time of the call and to whom it was given. A new or used car manager is notified to whom the phoneup was given. This can be done by a phone call or e-mail. Step 2: Sales Salespeople use an appropriate script that enables them to uncover the caller’s needs, obtain contact information, ask for an appointment, sell their information to the caller, and provide directions to the dealership.

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Step 3: Manager Briefing Upon completion, the salesperson is required to brief the appropriate new or used car manager on the outcome of said phone-up. Step 4: Manager Action Based on the outcome of the call, management staff can take one of several actions. • Congratulate salesperson for setting a solid appointment and then call the customer to confirm the appointment, better known as the management confirmation call. • Look to see if the call was recorded within call tracking and review the call for training opportunities. Salespeople can be given onthe-spot training for how to better handle tougher callers. • Call the customer back and try to set an appointment. Step 5: Reporting Track the weekly and monthly progress of your sales staff. You will need to know the following: • How many calls did each salesperson receive? • What percentage of names and numbers did they get? • What was the percentage of customers who were appointed? • What was the percentage of customers who showed for their appointments? • What was the percentage of customers who were sold?

and consider removing ineffective personnel from receiving phoneups. Taking a phone-up is not a RIGHT, it’s a PRIVILEGE, and it’s one that needs to be earned. By directing more of your phoneups to qualified salespeople, you’ll surely notice closing ratios improve. In closing, make sure you provide your staff with effective training that will help them become more effective on the phone. The average dealer can add a significant amount of revenue to the bottom line when improving their phone processes. Consider the average dealer gets 300 phone-ups per month. If your closing ratio is 10% percent, you are closing 30 sales per month from phoneups. At 20% you are closing 60 sales per month. If your average gross profit is $1500, that’s an additional $45,000 each month and over $500K yearly with just 30 additional closed sales. Isn’t it time you developed a process for handling phone-ups at your dealership?

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Jerry Thibeau is the President and Founder of Phone Up Ninjas. Jerry has personally trained well over 10,000 dealership personnel during the last seven years. While visiting dealerships, Jerry will often get on the phone and start scheduling appointments with customers, thus earning him the nickname, “The Phone Ninja.”

Step 6: Manage Accountability When reviewing reports, carefully identify those not meeting dealership requirements www.DrivingSales.com

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

Automotive Dealers Must CLOSE THE SALE!

Grant Cardone CEO Cardone Training Technologies

by Grant Cardone

oday’s retail landscape is a closer’s environment, not a sales environment. It is not the best product that wins, but the sales organization that can close the sale. There is only one lowest-price provider in any given market. It is not the lowest price, lowest payment, or even the best terms that wins, but the sales organization that is able to best make sense of their proposition. Let’s face it, your manufacturer has done massive amounts of research on the price points of your products and what incentives are necessary to make that product a competitive value. Lowering the price and improving the terms is a deadly strategy that’s left dealers without enough profit to make sense of selling new cars. There are only four ways to distinguish yourself in the market - price, product, people, and processes. Only two of the latter are those that you control. You don’t make the product and you don’t control the pricing. All of your attention and solutions should be placed on two things you can controlpeople and processes. The old sales process of keeping the buyer at your dealership as long as possible, negotiating for 4 hours to make a mini-deal, and trying to give as little information as possible is at best resisted and most would agree, over with! We live in the world of information, with buyers accessing invoice, financing terms, and trade figures over their smart phones! It is safe to assume that all buyers (not just some) are internet buyers today. This means if the buyer is better informed, you must better inform your sales people and management team! The old adage was, “The less my people know, the better off they will be.” This idea has resulted in catastrophic turnover and dealers paying for customer satisfaction scores. Information is the gateway to closing more deals. The more credible, believable, and expedient the sales person and

processes, the more likely a close and the higher the chances of profit! Long, drawn-out transactions result in lower profits and poor customer satisfaction. Your sales process should be no more than 5-6 customer valued steps and 30-45 minutes at the most. Here are our 5 steps that dealers have used to see improvements

“Your sales process should be no more than 5-6 customer valued steps and 3045 minutes at the most.”

in customer satisfaction, employee turnover, and increased gross profits. 1. The Greeting should be 30 seconds or less initiate the offer of providing the buyer with information. Why wait for the customer to ask? Offer it and separate yourself from the ‘caveman’ down the street. A powerful greeting would be, “Welcome to __________ what can I get you information on?” This makes it known from the beginning that the dealership is friendly and easy and that the sales person is able to assist the customer in providing pricing, payments, down payments, interest rates, and trade information. 2. Move the appraisal up in the sales process from the end of the deal to immediately follow the greeting. The fact that the buyer drives into the dealership with their vehicle makes this an obvious transition into the sales process. “Great car you have, can we get you figures on it?” The vehicle the buyers drives is loaded

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with information and offers a blueprint for the next unit. This is only a preliminary appraisal and opportunity to identify buying patterns and help you close the sale. (Email us at info@grantcardone.com for a list of questions to ask during the pre-appraisal.) 3. Selection and demonstration is done while UCM puts formal figures on trade, saving dealerships as much as 30 minutes in each transaction. “While the appraiser puts together values on your car, lets go find the car best suited for you.” This is the time to select the right vehicle based on what the sales person learned in the previous step. Insist on the demonstration and make sure that your people are welltrained to handle objections in doing so, “It would be a violation to my product and my profession not to show you these three things.” 4. Present your proposal. We recently did a mystery shop for a major manufacturer and found that 64% of the time the dealer did NOT offer figures to purchase. If you do not enter the negotiations, the buyer CANNOT buy your product resulting in wasted effort, resources, and advertising dollars. The dealerships where we implemented a five-step sales process with emphasis on how to close the sale experienced a 20-point increase in CSI over dealerships that did not (independent report done by JD Power). 5. Close or Exit. All sales training should start with the close, not the product or the road to the sale. Sales people www.DrivingSales.com

that cannot close will not do the other things necessary to be successful. This economy is a closer’s environment, not a sales environment. Make everything easy and transparent using electronic generated worksheets that

4) There is no value exchanged until a close takes place. 5) There can only be one lowest cost provider in any market so the rest of you will have to learn how to make sense of the money and close the sale!

can be CUSTOMIZED to fit different buyer situations. (Warning- do NOT use one worksheet for all buyers.) If you are unable to close the transaction, then make sure that your buyer exits with information packages and a manager using an exit survey.

Bring your sales process into the 21st century – Make your process quick, easy, and believable for your buyer, and then focus all your energy and efforts on training your people on how to close the sale. An organization that knows how to successfully close the sale is an organization that is closing more sales!

We recently did a survey with over 640 sales people and sales managers and found that 86% of all sales people wanted help with negotiating and closing the deal! Quick recap: 1) You are not paid to sell cars you are paid to close them. 2) It’s impossible to have customer satisfaction until you close the sale. 3) If your people can’t close, they will not be motivated to do the other things.

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Grant Cardone is an International Sales Expert, Sales Trainer, Sales Motivational Speaker and NY Times best selling author, whose programs have positively affected hundreds of thousands of people, and organizations worldwide.

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Rob Fontano Digital Sales & Marketing Director Marazzi Motors

The “Next Level” is One Step Away by Rob Fontano

he automotive industry is, by nature, a competitive beast. We are in a constant struggle to outmaneuver our competition with all of the tools at our disposal. Dealers spend tens of thousands of dollars each month in advertising in an attempt to drive traffic to their websites and showroom floors. There are countless mailers and promotional gimmicks presented that are sure to be a homerun and have the same terrific results for your store as the others who are using them. Dealers

The traditional dealer model has changed, and the addition of an internet department was a bitter pill for many dealers to swallow. So even though ecommerce has been accepted by most, who is managing it? Is the person or persons that you have managing your internet sales department and digital marketing strategies in touch with all of the leading edge processes and technology that are necessary to achieve your dealership’s goals? We have far more information available to us now than ever before. There are several very reputable digital marketing

“The dealer that is scratching their head trying to figure out why the store across town is killing it with their internet sales department and why they can’t seem to get theirs off the ground is only a few mouse clicks away from real answers.” are always looking for an edge; that is who we are. The unfortunate truth is that many of these surefire promotions don’t produce the results we were hoping for; yet, we are open and willing to take a shot at the next one that comes along. As the auto industry moves steadily toward ecommerce, dealers are even more susceptible to spending their hard earned advertising budgets on things that they may not even understand. Digital marketing is far more complicated than deciding which used cars to put in the paper this weekend or what channels to focus your television ads on. Even the most educated in the industry work at a break neck pace to simply keep up with the constant changes and innovations. Yet, most dealers don’t have a budget for education.

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websites and publications, such as DrivingSales, that are designed to help educate dealers and their digital marketing managers and keep them in step with the industry’s best practices. Recently, presenters for the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp were asked “How do we reach the dealers that really need this the most, the ones that don’t read the blogs and publications?” It reminded me of those sales meetings where a manager was taking care of “housekeeping issues” and how they would often say, “Unfortunately, the people that really need to hear this aren’t here.” The phrase “knowledge is power” has always been true, but the lack of it has never been so deadly for a business. The interesting thing is that information has never been so easily accessible. The dealer that is scratching their head trying to figure out why the store across town is killing it with their

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

internet sales department and why they can’t seem to get theirs off the ground is only a few mouse clicks away from real answers. While much of the information is available and free, the application can be confusing and hard to put into practice. Success requires a constant flow of education and the dedication to apply it. I realized while attending my first Digital Dealer conference back in 2006, that I was only scratching the surface. For me that first conference lead to internet sales boot camps and roundtables that helped me elevate my game and set our dealership’s internet sales department on a fast track to success. Most importantly, it helped me learn from other attendees and instructors what actually did and didn’t work. In a lot of cases, I came to know more than our vendors and could challenge them with intelligent questions about their products and questionable ROI. I could go to my general manager with the short story and explain why I thought something was or wasn’t a good fit for us. In short, the investment made in my education saved our dealership money as well as increased sales. It is not only important to understand that investing in the education of your team can help you in the here and now, but will be the key to your success in the future. The pace at which the industry is changing is only going to increase as it has for the past five years or so. It may be enough to have a talented internet manager in place now, but your desk managers are likely to find themselves completely out of step in just a few short years. It has never been clearer, that the dealers who are investing in education now are the ones who will reap 32

the benefits down the road. The opportunities for your dealership to not only catch up, but to get ahead are readily available. The commitment to education is all that is lacking. So just what is holding dealers back from sending their teams to educational boot camps and digital conferences? With respect to your advertising budget and the amount of money you will save in the long run, the cost of sending attendees from your store is miniscule. In many cases, it’s because conferences have always been attended by dealer principles and general managers. What has changed is that the application of what is learned at these events is not easily translated back at the dealer level. It is extremely important that the practitioner in your store has the opportunity to learn the latest and best practices and technologies first hand. For me, meeting and networking with my peers was priceless. I had the chance to meet people who were far more advanced than I was and who were willing to share information. If you are uncomfortable sending your internet manager alone, then the GM or dealer principle should attend with them. In any case, you should set expectations for the attending team member. General Managers should review the conference agenda with the attendee and decide which sessions would benefit their store the most. Look at the vendors who will be there and focus on the ones that have a product or service that you think would be a fit for your store. Agreeing on a list of objectives will give you both a clear understanding of what the “take away” should be. Give your attending manager a set and fair food and expense budget.

This will actually give them more of a comfort level while at the conference, since they will know exactly what the boundaries are. When your manager returns from the conference, schedule a meeting to review the objectives and decide which new practices to implement. Finally, find time for you and your team to participate in any of the available automotive digital marketing online communities. There is a wealth of knowledge out there and a lot of people that are willing to share it. These blogs and forums provide you with a chance to learn from the industry’s best and brightest. You will discover which speakers are more in tune with your dealership’s goals and objectives so you can plan which conferences are likely to benefit your dealership the most. Your internet and digital marketing managers will have countless resources to choose from and a network of support from their peers. I hear a lot of dealers saying that they “want to take it to the next level.” The first step to the next level is education, take it.

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Rob Fontano is the Digital Sales & Marketing Director for Marazzi Motors which includes John Marazzi Nissan in Naples Florida and Audi Jaguar Land Rover Fort Myers. Rob is also responsible for the management, training and continued development of the dealerships four websites and two blogs as well as all social media efforts.

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QR Codes -The New Buzz Around

? t a h t s i t a h W

What are they? A QR code (short for Quick Response) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. (*www.wikipedia.com)

How to Read QR Codes Install a free app on your phone

iPhone

Scan - QR Code City Bakodo - Barcode & QR Barcode Scanner

Android

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How to Generate QR Codes 1 Go to : http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/ 2 Type in the website you want to direct people to. PNG - for web use Pick the format you want the QR Code to be in: 3 PDF - for printing it out Hit Generate your QR Code 4 your new QR Code and use it however you would like. 5 Save (right-click on image and save to your computer)

You Created a QR Code, Now what? So you have created a QR Code but don’t know what do with it? Be creative and put them anywhere you want to direct information. Here are some ideas:

• On business cards • On cars to provide more information

• In print advertisement for better tracking • Promotional Items, coupons

DrivingSales DEALERSHIPsocial INNOVATION network: GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1 Get more tips like this from the world’s largest automotive

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Joe Webb President, Founder DealerKnows Consulting

The Four Basic Food Groups by Joe Webb

t was around third grade when the teacher pulled the class together and educated us on the four basic food groups. Much like many a youngsters, we were disappointed to learn that Gobstoppers and licorice rope were not on the list of “important foods,” but we all celebrated when we realized that a slice of pepperoni pizza included 4 of the 4 categories. Score! We could get all the nutrition we needed from Pizza Hut. Not too long ago, a fifth food group was added called Oil, Fat, and Sweets. These are the junk food offerings that may look and taste delectable, but do nothing for us. As time has passed, I’ve realized that you really can survive on just the basic food groups. Sure, I definitely dip into those sinful snacks that don’t make their way into the old-school nutritional pyramid – look at me and you realize that – but I’ve still accepted that it is possible for people to get by and even thrive on the basics. Your online advertising is no different. There is a ton of junk food out there being advertised to dealers. They tell you “it will taste delicious if you just try it.” Or “Take a bite, you’ll love it.” As we know, though, after looking back at the Return on Investment scale, these little treats just pack on pounds and add to the fat of your online budget. They are there to entice you and direct your focus away from those “important” digital food sources that help your dealership thrive. There really are four basic food groups of automotive digital marketing. These are the four essential items needed to exist and succeed as an online entity (and I will not include human capital or training in this mix even though well-prepared people are the most important factor):

1. 2. 3. 4.

Websites (with all the fixings) CRM Lead Providers Online brand advertising/merchandising

Websites (with all the fixings) These are the Grains of your online buffet of offerings. It is where energy is created and your online livelihood begins. You must have an attractive, easy-to-navigate website that acts as your primary internet presence. It has to be one-click away from everything important to your customers – inventory, pricing, availability, directions, contact info, value statement, specials, incentives and offers. However, your website cannot do it all alone. The “Fixin’s” must be added on. Think of them as vitamins that convert this food to energy. These conversion tools must be readily available on your website. Some important add-ons, in my opinion, are a trade evaluator, a strong Finance App/Get approved conversion tool, and live chat. (Quick quote requests on the homepage are just a good place to get mystery shopped so keep them next to your inventory.) And the second, and most important side item you must have with your website meal is SEO/SEM. We know your customers are searching and surfing for their next vehicle so you need to be where the people are…. on the search engines. Much of your SEO is not just from fresh content on your own primary site(s), but from multiple off-site channels – business listings, blogs, video (yes, I included video in with SEO/SEM even though video is one of my own personal favorite foods), press releases, social media, etc. While SEO, on- and off-site can get your site found on 20-30 (and with microsites more) keyword specific searches on sites, SEM can get you found on 1,000+ so you cannot overlook the power of being in more places. SEM gives you that added energy. CRM Your customer relationship management tool is the Dairy. It provides the strength to your internet sales goals. A strong CRM should be able (in this day and

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age) to do a few key things that will allow you to rise above your competitors. Your CRM should allow you to create automated follow up emails/triggers set by the minute and hour (not just Next Day or 2-Day options, etc, but by the minute, by the event). It should allow you to send video (not just links, but embedded, clean-looking video boxes in your emails). It should be able to have some custom reporting capabilities that measure things such as cost per sale, ROI, average response time, emails opened, appointment show and closing ratios among countless others. It is the second most vital tool you can have at your disposal and, if consumed correctly, helps your body grow more than any other.

thought. If a child or simpleminded adult prepares the meal – it will be forgotten. Grown-ups, however, recognize its importance. Once you’ve taken bites of the first three food groups, you need to advertise your dealership, your specials, your people, your brand, your value proposition, and your inventory to the public and let them know that your online body is open for business. In ALL of your advertising and marketing, you must be doing everything possible to direct them to either your website or your CRM. And recognize that you need to fill your dealership with the best vitamins and minerals money can buy. Taking in the vehicle nutrients that others NEED

“Dealers are ordering online offerings with their eyes as opposed to their stomachs.” Lead Providers Protein. Simple as that. It gives you the consistent, incoming fuel that lets your dealership keep moving the internet scale of success forward. In some cases, your websites supply all of the leads your body can handle, but often some basic lead providers (Cars.com and AutoTrader come to mind) give you the added shot in the arm to make you stand tall against any and all competitors. Online Brand Merchandising

Advertising/

Your online advertising is like fruits and vegetables. An afterwww.DrivingSales.com

and actively seek out what will empower you. Brand your body with the right inventory at the right price and market it to the public at the correct price point. In other words, merchandise yourself using a strong inventory management tool AND a vehicle market analysis tool. These are the many varieties of the fruits and vegetables you should be putting on your plate. As I mentioned, you can go online or visit any of the major automotive conferences such as NADA, DrivingSales Executive Summit, or Digital Dealer Conference and find a menu of delectable dishes to eat. The

exhibit halls alone are a virtual Cheesecake Factory of edible options – some healthy and some not so. After eating the digital food of choice, some will make you walk out feeling refreshed and powerful while others may make you sit at home holding your stomach and begging to take the hurt away. Every food can affect you differently. Some are essential to your survival and some are overpriced wastes of money that will clog your online sales arteries. I’ve heard people say, after ordering more food than they can handle “My eyes were too big for my stomach.” Well, dealers are ordering online offerings with their eyes as opposed to their stomachs. So look closely at the food you are consuming. Are you stuffing your face with the food that will help you thrive and stay healthy in today’s online economic automotive marketplace (or TOEAM – for a worthless acronym that will never take hold) or are you only devouring the digital junk being served to you that has no nutritional value? Know that it’s okay to nibble at the bad stuff if it tastes good and makes you happy. Just don’t ever lose focus of the four basic food groups that make your internet sales body strong.

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Joe Webb is an Auto Industry Expert in online marketing, e-commerce advertising, and internet initiatives who created and managed one of the car industry’s most successful Internet Departments and Business Development Centers in the nation.

DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

Jared Hamilton CEO, Founder DrivingSales.com

Dear Vehicle Manufacturers:

Three ways you are killing your dealers by Jared Hamilton

o Honda, Toyota, BMW, Ford, GM and all other vehicle manufacturers:

Having good strong relationships with your dealer network is a top priority; just as maintaining a good relationship with you is a high priority for your dealers. Neither party can exist without the other and when the tide rises, all boats in this relationship lift together. It’s disappointing to me that vehicle OEMs are making three huge mistakes in digital marketing strategies that are shooting your dealers in the foot, and thus hurting everyone involved. Mistake #1: OEMs have forgotten their dealerships in their social media strategies. Social media allows brands to connect with customers on a personal one-on-one level. I still brag about how Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, had a small conversation directly with me on Twitter. The personal attention he gave me, even through 140 characters, created a personal connection between me and Ford, as do all of the hundreds of thousands of people Ford has connected with through social media. When done right, social media humanizes your brand and forges deeper relationships with the customers. Social media success largely revolves around starting conversations through the sharing of good content. Think about how we communicate these days: we share content. When I’m proud of my son for a great T-Ball game, I share pictures on Facebook. When I’m frustrated with a product, I rant on my blog. Videos of my daughter’s dance recital can be found on YouTube. The world, especially generation Y, like me, communicates through sharing content. You, as an OEM, do an incredible job connecting directly with customers by sharing content. You are able to create a consistent brand message by creating

and sharing content with your customers via social media. Dealers, however, struggle to do social media well because they don’t have the staff in place to create the content. How many dealerships do you know that have a content writer or creative department on staff? Very few. In addition to participating in local community-related discussions, dealers should be publishing blog posts on your products, distributing local press releases when your incentives change,

“Your dealers are an extension of you at the local level... Bring them back in the loop.”

broadcasting video comparisons against your competition, and more. It would be immensely helpful if you as OEMs took the content that you already produce and make it readily available for dealers in a format where dealers could easily insert their city/state and share. And why not? You already make it available to consumers. Sharing it with the dealers in addition to the customers would serve to compensate for dealers’ weaknesses, and it would align that dealer better with your brand, creating a consistent experience for the consumer. I know you are focused and doing well at creating and sharing the content with customers, why not make an equal effort to educate and put that content in the hand of the dealers? Giving dealers easier access to your social media content and making it easy for them to share is a simple solution to implement with technology and would be a big boost in the reach of both you and

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11,123 used vehicles sold 2010

311

percent increase in used inventory retail turns 2009 to 2010

170

dollars of average price concession 2010

solution to master the market Before Jack Anderson started using vAuto’s RealDeal at his 18 dealerships, he was accustomed to pre-owned customers questioning his prices. Not because his vehicles were over-priced, but because the customers weren’t confident that they were getting the best value. RealDeal changed all that. Jack replaced negotiation with documentation, reducing his average price concession, tripling his pre-owned turn and selling more used vehicles than ever before. “I’d recommend vAuto’s RealDeal to any dealer. My sales have improved and so has our customer satisfaction.” With vAuto, Jack is now a Market Master. You too can become a Market Master. Visit vAuto.com/ja or call 877-828-8614 to learn how.

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Jack Anderson, Used Vehicle Director West-Herr Automotive Group Buffalo, New York

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your dealers. Think about how many fans you, as an OEM have on Facebook. At the writing of this article, Toyota, as an example, has about 380,000 people who “like” their page on Facebook. Let’s say 1200 Toyota dealers could accumulate only 1000 fans each, which is very possible. This would mean that Toyota stands to increase the reach of their Facebook brand message from 380k to over 1.5 million by adding their dealers to the social media mix. And not only would it create more reach, but it would tie your customers to your local dealerships, which is where your customers belong. The car business is still a local retail business, it’s the people business, but your dealers are totally left out of your social media strategy and that is a mistake. Please note that I am not saying to take control of your dealers social media efforts, that would be a disaster. Simply use technology to make your content readily available to your dealers to add their location, and personal touch and share through their channels. Your dealers are an extension of you at the local level. Don’t refuse them the tools they need to be successful for themselves and for you. Bring them back in the loop. Mistake #2: CSI is dead, move on and move the market to your benefit. The concept behind CSI is right on target: collect honest customer feedback so dealership performance can be measured and customer loyalty can be understood and improved upon. However, given today’s market, CSI needs to be phased out for something much more useful. There are too many flaws in our current CSI strategy. For starters, the collected feedback is not an honest representation. There is too much dealer “encouragement” on customers to give them good remarks, so the surveys do not reflect accurate customer sentiment. Until the scores are collected in a more verified manner, the sample set of data will remain tainted and not worth the paper it is printed on. Before you blame the dealers for tainting the data set, think of why they HAVE to be so concerned with those scores. It’s because of the pressure they feel from you – the OEMs who use CSI rankings to rank dealers and reward stores – that they can’t afford to let natural results come in. This tells me two things. First, the fact that OEMs need to reward and incentivize dealers to get good CSI means there 38

is not enough correlation (or the correlation isn’t communicated well enough) between good CSI and a dealership’s success. If CSI led to a measurable increase in deals, I guarantee you wouldn’t have to do a thing; dealers would naturally focus on it. I suggest you make the impact of CSI stronger by moving to a model of verified online reviews. Yes, I mean publish the results for customers to see and aggregate all other forms of verified dealer ratings as part of your score. Consumers turn to online reviews to decide where to shop and so this is the data you should be watching, after all this is the data your customers are using to make decisions. By moving to a model of transparently sharing verified scores you collect, or moving to just simply track the verified scores that are already aggregated online you will get a better view into customers’ true satisfaction, and you will move the market. Believe me, where the customers go, dealers will naturally follow.

“Either way, the solution starts with education. You can’t fix what you don’t know.” Second, today CSI is not about creating happy customers. Due to the overt pressure from you, at the OEM level, CSI is about creating good scores, not happy loyal customers. If the result is to grade a dealer on creating happy customers because happy customers create loyalty, reward dealers for selling repeat business. If customers are loyal, they come back. Reward dealers who successfully capture the repurchase, not create the illusion of potential loyalty. CSI is a sticky topic, I know, and the suggestions I have laid out have many details to be addressed, so let’s get to it. CSI is obsolete. It’s not accurate at tracking consumer satisfaction; thus, it does not create loyalty and your current incentive structure has turned CSI into a political process, not a happy customer process. It was helpful before, but its time to catch up with the times and do something that is effective today. We as an industry, waste too many resources playing this political game that could be successfully invested elsewhere... like in online reviews. Let’s stop playing politics and do something to benefit the market and all parties involved.

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Mistake #3: Your domain ownership rules are killing your online marketing and strengthening your competition. Too many manufacturers are enforcing stricter domain ownership rules upon dealerships that other online marketers don’t have to follow, creating a disadvantage for you and your dealers. Many OEMs are sending dealers letters, putting pressure on reps, and even suing dealerships for domain names that they don’t like because it contains the franchise name in it, such as PreownedLexusConcord.com. Manufacturers can hold dealers to this higher set of rules because of their dealer agreement, but unfortunately for the dealers and the OEM, this is a loselose proposition. The general public does not have to adhere to these rules, so the dealers are at a severe disadvantage in their online marketing strategy. Many current OEM rules state that a dealer cannot have a second website that uses the franchise name in it, even if it complies with trademark laws. In our example from above, Toyota will not allow a dealer to have PreownedLexusConcord.com, but the courts have made clear in multiple cases that as long as the content of the website does not impersonate the OEM and cause consumer confusion, anybody can own and operate such a site. This means a third party lead collector can use the site to collect leads and sell them, and an independent dealer who sells used Lexus vehicles can use the site to capture your customers. Yes, basically anybody except that dealer who must abide by these arduous OEM rules, can www.DrivingSales.com

“Reward dealers who successfully capture the repurchase, not create the illusion of potential loyalty.” use that domain to steal your customers. In other words, you are opening up the field for intense competition against your franchised dealerships by holding them back despite the courts having cleared the way for others as long as they follow trademark laws with the content inside the site.

Sometimes the dealers are ahead, sometimes you, the OEM , are ahead. Either way, the solution starts with education. You can’t fix what you don’t know, but hopefully now that we have brought these three issues to light, there can be some quick resolution, for there is much to gain.

Some may be asking “Why would a website with a domain like this be valuable?” Google has a history of ranking domains based on exact keyword match, so they are likely to rank domains high for keywords such as Lexus, Concord, and Preowned. Higher rankings gain more traffic and thus more car deals. But, again, because of your domain rules your dealers can’t compete on this front so your customers are being stolen right out from under the dealers, and all that traffic and those potential car deals are being passed on to Mr. General Public or any seller that is not a franchised dealer. Your domain rules are a big digital marketing blunder made on the part of your legal teams, someone needs to step in and get this corrected asap.

Dealers who read this, I encourage you to share the article with your factory rep. We need to call as much attention to these topics as possible. If you (or anyone) wants to comment on the article itself we will re-post it at DrivingSales.com/innovation and you are welcome to join the conversation. Factory reps, if you would like do discuss these topics with me offline, I can be reached at jared@drivingsales. com.

The bottom line is the relationship between OEM and Dealer must be strong. Its difficult to align strategies when OEMs and dealers don’t always have exactly aligned interests and are at different levels of digital marketing knowledge.

___________________________ Jared Hamilton, founder and CEO of DrivingSales.com, is often described as one part dealer operator and one part tech geek. He has over 10 years of dealership management experience in addition to his award winning entrepreneurial record. Jared is a highly acclaimed international speaker educating audiences across the globe about capitalizing on the Internet’s opportunities and how to invest and implement technology solutions inside businesses.

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Recognized by DrivingSales.com

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Richard Winch CEO eXtéresAUTO

More Changes at Google in the Last Six Months Than in the Last Six Years – and ‘Places’ Is the Mother of Them All by Richard Winch

he sheer number of developments on the Google front in the last 6 months has been nothing short of staggering. Google Instant: auto-generating search results as you type. Google Places: a dramatic shift in how local search results are displayed. Boost: a new PPC option launched with Places. Previews: view websites before you click. HotPot: a new social, location-based platform for posting/accessing reviews. +1: searchers “+1” (…‘like’) businesses and content, with these social recommendations baked right into search results. “Panda” algorithm changes: punishing low-quality, duped content and other

new format that hit in late October, but I’ll quickly nutshell this deceptively simple, but major, change in the way local search results are displayed: • Pre-Places, the Google Local listings and map were trailed by the (10) organic results. Now, first-page results are heavily dominated by Place Pages (marked with prominent red pins), which click through to the profile page for that local business. • A business’ aggregated review count, overall “star” rating, and links to individual reviews sites are now intensely visible/clickable on first-page

“Real-World Data Post - ‘Places’ Reveals Positive Reviews Are Earning – And Negative Reputations Are Costing - Dealers Business”

SEO scams. Personal Blocklist: blocks websites you dislike from future search results. Even as I write, Google just nixed HotPot as a name and separate platform, rolling the review system into Google Places (where it belongs), and expanded Latitude to smartphones, allowing users to check into locations to access local deals. Dealers are scrambling to understand these rapid-fire developments - and their search partners are, quite frankly, scrambling to keep up, too. These transformations taken together clearly show how crucial ‘local’ and ‘social’ are to Google’s future, ambitious plans. And no change has had – or will have - more profound implications for dealers than Google Places. Most dealers by now are aware of the

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results. At Place Pages, algorithmically-chosen review snippets are featured up top, while “Reviews from around the Web” are broken out below. • Remaining organic listings appear below (and sometimes throughout) Place Page listings. The most immediately striking aspect of Google Places is the new, in-your-face visibility for online reviews. Competing businesses’ online reputations are now stacked right on top of each other in search results…so gone are the days when consumers needed to navigate to review sites to read what other customers say about you. And because the Places layout features powerful visual cues encouraging searchers to click your Place Page rather than your website, your Place Page has suddenly become THE

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portal to your business. It functions as a quasi-thirdparty, standardized snapshot, where some of the information you have control over (business info, photos, etc.) – while some you have less control over: your reviews from across the Web. Inconsistencies and Headaches: The full implications of Places have been hard to digest because of all the inconsistencies and technical headaches characterizing its first five months. Near identical local dealership searches will, in some cases, return Places mode, while changing one keyword will return the old format Place results return differently in different markets Sometimes Place listings return on the top of the first page, sometimes in the middle. Some technical issues have been maddening: we’ve had many dealers legitimately claim/optimize their Place Pages and Google’s technology has subsequently replaced their data with info pulled from “trusted sources.” So, incorrect phone numbers are dialing into oblivion or a dealer group’s multiple brands (or dealers 42

on the same block) get merged in mish-mash listings, so people searching Honda stores get a BMW store’s info and reviews. (This has been affecting roughly 8% of dealers, and it takes weeks to reclaim the business, with only a 50-50 chance it will get fixed.) People often think Google is an omniscient, all-powerful god, but with Places, Google took a big step forward, and technologically, it has meant several big steps back. Today, Places may be in its worst iteration, and it should take a year to fully roll out the format, and more to fulfill its vision. But dealers need to know that Places isn’t going anywhere, and if their website has been the overwhelming focus of their search strategy, that will ultimately need to shift to a 50-50 Places/website strategy soon. Places represents the most impactful change in Search for local businesses in a decade. Five Months In: Real-World Impact of Places & Positive & Negative Reviews on Dealers:

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There’s been much talk about how the radical new prominence of reviews at Places makes a dealership’s online reputation more critical than ever, but precious little data. So, despite all the buggy inconsistency remaining in how local results are returned, we set out to analyze the real-world impact. We first examined traffic to 300-plus dealerships’ Map/Place pages Pre and Post, and found (no great shock) significantly increased interaction with Place pages: a 40-50% uptick on average. Note: all data compares the three months before Places hit (AugOct. 2010) to the three months after (Nov-Jan 2011). We then analyzed the phone traffic of 80 dealers – 40 (across diverse markets/brands) with an 85%-plus online satisfaction rating (i.e., 85% of their reviews are 3 star or above) vs. 40 dealers with a 40% or less satisfaction rating (i.e., 60%-plus of their reviews are 2 star or below). The results were clear: dealers with higher star ratings are now driving significantly more (16.3%) phone calls from Google/review sites than their less-well-reviewed brethren, who have seen those calls drop 14.8%.

Significant business is now being gained and lost: the market share gap between the increase in phone calls for well-reviewed dealers and the decline for the poorly rated stands at 31%. Analyzing the effect on website traffic proves trickier and less nationally representative, as all dealers studied had aggressive SEO campaigns underway, and organic performance is obviously a major factor in Places placement and Google-driven Web visitors. However, among the 80 dealers studied, we could substantiate that dealerships with 40%-orunder satisfaction scores witnessed, on average, a 15.5% decline in unique web visitors post-Places, compared with the 85%-plus positively rated group. Making the most positive impression at Places is also very much a ‘numbers’ game, given that aggregated and individual review site review totals are on full, first-page display. When we examined, on a more case-bycase level, dealers with very high volume (and market dominating) positive review counts, the impact on phone calls Post-Places typically proved nothing short of jaw dropping. Consider, for example, this dealership in a competitive metro market with 900-plus reviews and overall 5-star rating, whose 3 direct competitors

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range from (a respectable) 80140 reviews and average 3.5 star rating. In the three months Pre-Places, calls averaged 169 from Google/ the review sites; Post-Places they averaged 450…nearly tripling! From the month before Places to March 2011, calls have skyrocketed 482%. Astounding. Today, Places remains incompletely rolled out, but that will change. And it will keep getting harder for any dealership to dominate online without a high volume of positive reviews. This new data only details the dealership impact for the first three months, but Places will solidify and expand, and increasingly, as consumers seek local business info, they’ll mentally (if not actually) switch to ‘Places mode.’ If the need for a positive, robust online reputation has already redoubled, I predict it will re-triple… There are other actions dealers need to take post-Places that space precludes detailing here: 1) Optimizing your Place Page fully/ correctly, 2) Continuing to focus on great SEO, 3) Ensuring your site is fully viewable/attractive in Preview mode, now that Places

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redirects clicks away from your site, 4) Testing Google Tags and the new, promising PPC option, Google Boost, while making sure you’re not paying for keywords like your dealership name or those for Honda motorcycle dealers when you sell cars, and 5) Analyzing Google Places’ Reports regularly to track how people found you, search terms used, impressions, click activity, etc. Google Forward: Google Places is the most important development in local search in many years, and the platform will most certainly evolve and grow in both more – and less –foreseeable ways. Clearly, Google’s recent moves with HotPot and +1 indicate that more reviews, ratings, and social content will get pulled into the platform. And we need to keep in mind that if, for so many years, the technical gurus were running the Google 44

Show, now practical business models and monetization are a bigger focus. Places is, when you think about it, the super-logical springboard for the search giant to slowly evolve into a storefront - or the portal to a million aggregated, competitive storefronts. It’s potentially an (absurdly) monetizable environment where billions of transactions and conversations between businesses and consumers could get played out…The Mall of America…that could drive an unprecedented volume of business, and, if done right, could re-write the way people shop. Because when Google makes changes, it transforms consumer behavior. Our new data provides early evidence that the new visibility for reviews at Places has already changed which dealers get called and which dealer sites are visited. Businesses will win or lose based on whether they

accept and address changes in consumer and search behavior. Dealers need to do everything they can to shine at Places today, and keep a watchful eye on each next Google move.

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation ___________________________ Richard Winch is CEO and co-founder of eXtéres Corporation, the leading provider of advanced SEO technology and Search Asset Management solutions. With over 15 years of marketing experience, he is recognized as an authority on using organic search marketing to drive sales at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing and Internet referral programs.

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Bryan Armstrong e-Commerece Director VW Southtowne

Dealer Principals Need To Inspect Their Digital Investments by Bryan Armstrong

t’s no secret, nor should it come as any surprise to anyone reading this that on-line reviews are having a much larger impact on consumer’s purchasing decisions. If I look to my own life, I use them in everything I do, from downloading a new app for my phone to choosing lodging accommodations or simply finding a place to eat. On the sales side of any given dealership, more often than not, operators are expending more and more of their resources – both money and time – in an effort to get their consumers to respond to and answer positively the manufacturer survey. Multiple phone calls, e-mails, and letters are scheduled touting the importance of returning the survey. In fact, in many instances, the customer may begin to feel that our emphasis is on the survey rather than their true satisfaction. The most common justification I hear to bad CSI is, “well, most of our customers are happy but only the people who are ticked-off bother to return it.” So, how can we as dealers cheaply and positively impact our online reputation? Here are some simple, low cost alternatives that yield a high number of positive reviews by pro-actively seeking true satisfaction. On any given day there are more RO’s written on the Service Drive than vehicles sold or even live traffic in the showroom. These customers give us a wealth of opportunity to gain reviews, create loyalty, and improve our online reputation. By engaging these customers in simple ways, every Dealer can enlist these people as advocates to our reputation management process. “The buzzer” Everyone has gone to a restaurant and endured the wait patiently without badgering the hostess because, upon entering, they were given a cute little disc that www.DrivingSales.com

they were assured would buzz them when their table was ready. Yet, upon reading restaurant reviews, the focus is always on the service rather than the fact that they were left sitting without knowing whether their table was ready or not. I’ve never read, “Nobody kept me apprised of whether the waiter was done with the customer before me” or “I didn’t know what was going on until I complained and they told me I would be seated shortly.” If upon entering the Service Drive, every customer was given this simple device and told

“In many instances, the customer may begin to feel that our emphasis is on the survey rather than their true satisfaction.”

that, upon it’s activation, they could make their way to the cashier who would go over their bill and have the keys to their car, it could alleviate the time consuming inquires that plague every writer and cashier and hence speed up the entire process. This could be multipurposed to summon customers to a separate area to go over their inspection sheet and up-sell services. The privacy thereby provided would keep the surrounding customers from listening in and steeling themselves to say “NO.” It also would allow the Service Writer to address the customer’s true objections in a more private setting. It also would allow discretionary discounting of services for individual customers without setting a precedent for others to attempt to follow, expecting the same if not greater reductions. When the service writer closes the RO, buzz your customer and meet them in the cashier’s office. No more going into the waiting area where inevitably 1-2 other customers request “can DrivingSales DEALERSHIP INNOVATION GUIDE | 2 n d Q u a r t e r 2 0 1 1

you tell me what’s going on with my car?” The simple re-assurance of seeing others getting “buzzed” let’s everyone know they are not forgotten and that progress is being made.

“The hotline” Get an old courtesy phone – white, not red – which is strategically placed in your waiting area. A large sign above

“Building these types of customer-centric focal points into your Service Processes is much cheaper and easier to implement than subscribing to any of the “rater” sites that abound.”

“Flip it” Have a CSR assigned to the waiting area with a flip cam or other recording device that allows him/her to record customers and guide the conversation. “Why do you like servicing your car here? What do you think of our waiting area? Tell me who your advisor is and how long have you been coming to them/here? How do you like your current vehicle?” These are all questions that can elicit very positive responses. Have the customer sign a quick release allowing you to upload their video and then tag it appropriately. Have a viewing station that is set to your YouTube channel or website so they can immediately see themselves. People love to know they are valued and get to appear in one of your “commercials.” Better yet, you will quickly build a large library of positive video reviews that can be used across a wide variety of media and with great impact.

it can read “If you are not receiving the level of service you expect please tell us now,” signed the GM or Service Director. Have the phone ring to your BDC, Service Manager, GM or Customer Service Representative (that you probably have making outbound calls to yesterday’s closed RO’s customers) and have them immediately respond! It’s better and probably less expensive to head off a potential issue than to try and correct it later. “Review us” Set up a computer that is fixed onto the review site you need the most help on (in other words has a disproportionate amount of negative to positive reviews) and ask people “While you’re waiting please take a moment to share your opinion” monitor the site in question and if a poor review pops up address it immediately! This could/should be right next to your “hotline” as disgruntled customers will pick up a phone

before bothering to post an online scorching. In a worst-case scenario, you get a negative review that you can at least amend to reflect your amazing response to their posted concerns. Building these types of customercentric focal points into your Service Processes is much cheaper and easier to implement than subscribing to any of the “rater” sites that abound. Especially if you calculate in the unknown amount of lost revenue from your next Sales or Service customer that you never saw because they saw you first online. Cultures are created by repeated adherence to great processes and no matter how competent you may be, people will not care how much you know until they know how much you care. Sending a message of competency and concern doesn’t have to be expensive; it just has to be consistent.

To discuss this article and to view comments by others, please visit DrivingSales.com/innovation _________________________ Bryan Armstrong has tagged himself as “an Average Car Guy” for years yet the results he has been able to achieve are anything but average. He has been published and quoted in multiple Automotive mediums. presented at multiple Conferences and won Digital Dealer Conference’s coveted “Most Innovative Dealer Group e-Commerce Director” for his work with the Dahle Group in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2009.

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