A Toyota dealer in Los Angeles wants Toyota USA to help curb what he calls “abuses of online marketing by some competing dealerships”. Apparently some of their competitive dealers are buying their dealerships trades name in the search engines and believe the practice is diverting shoppers looking for his dealership to a competitor’s store.

(Click here to read the Full Article in Automotive Magazine.)

I agree, this can divert the shopper. However, I’m not sure if there is anything that can or should be done about this (other then retaliation).

I have heard through the grapevine that several Manufacturers have been talking about getting strict with their dealers practicing this BUT what can they do about 3rd party websites doing the same thing? Is the manufacturer going to be able to police this as well? What about if your buying leads from Dealix, and Dealix is buying leads from the website that is bidding on your dealers trade names, and your competitive dealer is buying that lead from Dealix..WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? Just because it’s not direct…you’re basically contracting another company to run SEM on competitive dealer’s keywords then buying that lead. I just don’t see how you can police this.

My current opinion is to keep it open. As long as the dealer is not using your actual dealers name in the text of their ad, I think it’s ok. It’s no different then a dealer renting a Billboard right down the road.

Take a look at this…I did a keyword search on Google for “Hagerstown Mercedes Dealer”. You can see..#1 and #3 are my competitors (I’m in the middle) and since they are in the top positions, this reflects a high CTR (click through rate)..meaning people are indeed diverting from their original search and clicking on my competitors ads.

Note: Sorry for the Blacked out text but I do have a few secerts I like to keep to myself, HAHA..

I could get mad about this but it’s the game. I recommend setting up a separate campaign for your trade name keywords and having selective copy in your ad to better focus the customer towards your ad, what they came looking for anyways. MORE IMPORTANY..statistics show that “natural listings” have a higher conversion, so BE SURE that your dealers website is number 1 or more in the natural listing for these keywords as well!!

What do you think is fair?

Take the poll and be sure to share your thoughts and comments!

I’m honored to have contributed a small article, “Four Ways to Improve Your Web Site” to the latest issue of Digital Dealer.

In the Article I touch on 4 simple key elements that an ISM can quickly do to improve conversion on their dealership website. I know it’s some really basic stuff but I bet only 10% of dealer’s websites implement all 4 of these.

1. Phone number placement throughout the site
2. Update your specials..I try to have no less then 10 used cars on special.
3. Pricing – have some sort of pricing on your site
4. Multiple photos

Follow the link to the article. While your there, check out the latest issue of Digital Dealer, Mark does a great job with the publication.

Here is a copy of the complete article:

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While some of these items may seem very elementary, I think it’s good to review some design and functional basics on the site. With hectic schedules and changes in the Internet department, it’s always a good time to review simple tactics that are critical parts of making a customer feel comfortable on your web site.

1. Phone number placement on the site

Is your Internet sales number placed in the top right corner or the very bottom of your web site or is it visible to customers all the time? Your dealership’s phone number is a call to action! Use it. Don’t make your customer have to look for your phone number. Don’t hide it on the Contact Us page. When they see a vehicle they like on your vehicle details page, make sure your phone number is right there – smack in their faces! An e-mail contact form is nice and can help conversion but some customers want to start the transaction on the phone and this helps you to better control the sales process. Text on the site should read “Call Our Internet Sales Department at 1-800-888-8888.” Get it out there and make it easy to find!

If you want to get fancy and take things to the next level, obtain services from one of the call tracking services, and use a totally designated number for this specific area on your site’s details page. This will allow you to track your conversions and activity from different places on your web site.

2. Update Your Specials

I can’t tell you how many dealer web sites I visit only to find they never update their specials page. The specials page is one of the most visited pages on a dealer’s site. Why would you not keep your specials updated? Get your old-age units on there with an aggressive price. Take it a next step further and use another separate phone number on this page to track its performance.

3.  Price, what price?

My favorite: “Call for Price.” I’m a firm believer that you need to have some sort of pricing on your site. Our customers want to see a price, even if it’s not a sale price; they want to know what they have to work with and if a vehicle is in their budget range. Can you imagine going to your local retailer to purchase a big screen TV and none of the TVs had any pricing? How frustrating would that be? In the customer’s eye, it really is the same deal. If you’re going to have Call for Price, then take it a step further and have “Call 800-888-8888 for a quick special Internet price.” Add the phone number and make it a part of the call to action!

4. Load up the photos

Photos help with conversion, so why would you have a web site without a multitude of them? Try and get a process set up so you have your photos taken right after the car has been detailed. No one wants to see photos of a dirty car! Build value in the vehicle with your photos. Do a full walk-around of the vehicle, catching every exterior and interior panel. If the vehicle has a special feature like a CD changer, heated seats or navigation system, take a close up shot of these accessories. Put that customer in the seat of that car and let them start taking ownership. If you’re using a service for your photos, take the time to pull your cars out and show exactly what you want and how you want your photos to look.

I’m always on the prowl for new software to add some spice to my online marketing. I came across this program, FastStone Photo Resizer.

FastStone Photo Resizer is an image converter / resizer intended to enable users to convert, rename, resize, add text and watermarks to images in a quick and easy batch mode.

The features that I find most handy is the text and watermarking. Getting your contact information (phone number and dealers URL) on your vehicle inventory photos is a great practice. I subscribe to several different ad sources for our pre-owned inventory and send many of our vehicles to several different free listing sites. Many of these sites don’t have your phone number prominently displayed nor do they allow you to have your dealers URL displayed on the vehicle details page.

With the watermark feature you can get fancy and place a CPO Logo on your photos. Why not build value in your vehicles with your photos as well?

Most of the features (convert, rename, resize) you won’t need if you have a decent vehicle inventory management system (like Homenetinc.com ..yea that was a plug but they don’t pay me for it.) but if you want to send your photos somewhere like a free listing page, they sometimes restrict the size of photo you can send. So the resizing feature can come in handy.

If you’ve been wanting to add your phone number or your dealerships URL to your inventory photos, this is an easy to use software that will get the job done for you quickly! Check it out!

Note: I don’t know these guys personally but if you use the product, donate some money their way via PayPal or pay for a licensed version. It’s cheap!

Go here to DOWNLOAD

The "email price quote" is always a huge debate. Do you email price quotes or don’t you? Should you? Maybe…maybe not? What’s your opinion or what do you practice at your dealer? Take the Poll, share your thoughts and leave your ideas and comments!

I just stumbled over your web site. Your the first person / site that seems excited about internet sales and help. I just took over the internet side of a growing Toyota Cadillac dealership in Iowa after 6 years of sales. The goal is to create a department.

The sale steps are the same however I am looking for tools of training and lead management that does the kind of email and web site editing you talked about on your page.

What do you recommend for lead management and training or advice for getting past first and second emails without price.

I will book mark your page and review often any help you might be willing to give is awesome.

Purpose:

Thanks,
Eric Hippen

Ever since I started this website/blog I have had the opportunity to meet some great people in this business. I often receive several emails a week from ISM’s just getting their feet wet. Every now and then you meet someone that really sticks out from the rest of the crowd. Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak with Jake Wirth, ISM for a smaller Suzuki dealer in Indiana. Jake was just getting started at the dealer as their new Internet sales manager, we were talking about everything from Dealer websites to follow-up process to CRM/ ILM software.

Jake put his thoughts and some of his beginning experiences on paper and asked me to share it on DealerRefresh.

Wow…some companies are ruthless. I was doing a general search on Google for “websites for auto dealers” and found this Sponsored Link that reads like this..

OUCH! This ad is obviously going after BZ Results and targeting dealers that use BZ.

The link took me to MJMI. "Building America’s Best Dealership Websites" seems to be their tag line. Sort of a strong statement if you ask me. I don’t know though, I’ve never worked with or used any of their products. Their sites look “ok” and their ILM/CRM is nothing short of BZ Buzztrak.

I don’t really have an opinion on this but found it interesting how aggressive some of these dealer website site companies are.