Sean over at Dealer Synergy wrote a great article for Digital Dealer last month titled "Mastering
Objections, Expectations and Rebuttals". If you have not read it, I do suggest
doing so.

Sean gives some insight on how to deal with those objections that we hear all
too often;
“What’s your best price?”
“You are too far away”
“Is it on your lot?”

Mastering Objections, Expectations and Rebuttals - Sean Bradley..

I sat down with Mercedes-Benz USA for quick interview. Nothing earth
shattering here but a decent read if you like. Short and to the point.

You can read the article below or

follow this link.

Jeff Kershner, Internet Sales Manager at Mercedes-Benz of
Hagerstown, Maryland, has witnessed the rise of Internet marketing and
the importance it now plays in his business.
MBUSA.com sat down with Jeff to discover how his dealership is so
successful online.

Q. What percentage of total vehicle sales can be attributed to your
Internet marketing efforts?
A. We are at an 18-vehicle-per-month average. There have been a few
spikes. One month it was 48 percent of total sales but the average is
close to 30 percent of total sales being attributed to our Internet
marketing efforts.

Q. How are you tracking your leads and how has it helped your dealer
with your Internet process?
A. We’re using the eLead evolution Customer Relationship Management
(CRM). eLead software does a good job of managing our Internet leads,
and showroom and phone traffic all in one CRM. eLead looks and functions
a lot like Microsoft Outlook, so it’s easy for most people to use.

Q. What is your Internet lead process?
A. All leads come through me first, and then I’ll personally follow up
and make contact by phone and email. I will then schedule the
appointment and greet the customer myself.

If I am unable to get the customer on the phone right away, I’ll send
the lead to one of my trained salespeople.

Q. What is your dealership doing to ensure that shoppers have a good
experience on your dealer website?
A. Information! Generation X, my generation, is now making up a large
percentage of our buyers, but most of the dealer personnel — especially
in upper management — are of the Baby Boomer generation.

Baby Boomers are accustomed to "push marketing” which is achieved
through TV, radio, and print advertising. Today we’re selling to a "pull
marketing" society and of course, the Internet has had a huge influence
on this change. The Internet allows one to pull information, research,
compare, and read other people’s reviews of the same product before they
make my decision.

Q. Is there anything you are doing on your website to convert
shoppers into buyers?
A. I don’t think there is one thing that you can do here. The focus of
your website is to convert shoppers into a lead. Again, this is done
with information, a little persuasion, and the right amount of calls to
action.

Q. What are you doing to ensure customers find your dealer website?

A. We have a very strong presence in the search engines, incorporating
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). You
have to be careful, though.

I also get my inventory to all of the free listings like Google Base,
Oodle, Craigslist.com, and a few others.

Q. Are you still using third party lead providers?
A. I’m currently down to using only one lead provider. The quality of
the leads was getting worse and the time I was putting into the leads
was not making any sense.

I quickly found that the typical Mercedes-Benz buyer in my area are
different from what I had experienced in the past. Before, I could get
someone to travel over 50 miles to save a few hundred dollars. So when I
started here, I was buying leads from all over — even the metropolitan
areas that are just over an hour away. After about six months of
tracking, I found I was wasting my money.

So I cut back on buying leads from those areas. My closing ratio went up
and my overall ROI increased.

Q. How has the Internet changed the shopping process?
A. I think it has changed the way many people shop dramatically. For
example, I never go to the store and buy something before researching
it. When I shop for anything, I try to remember that I’m now the
consumer and I track my thoughts and the process that I go through
before making my purchase. I’m very conscious of this and always compare
how consumers are purchasing vehicles.

I just heard through a source that Reynolds & Reynolds (ReyRey) or UCS (Universal Computer Systems) whatever name they were going by, has bought or acquired The Cobalt Group AND Who’s Calling.

I heard they will drop the Cobalt name and go by "The Reynolds Company" ??

I would think they could potentially own the majority of the market. What will they do with the wonderful Nitra platform websites?

I’ll be sure to post something official once I get a solid word.

*Yes..this could be just a rumour!!

It’s hard enough to compete with all the other dealers on AutoTrader, now I have to compete with Dan Marino loosing 22lbs?

I find these non automotive related ads to be annoying. But, I’m sure they’re making the money from it.

Here’s another gripe. I pay big money for the Partner Listing with AutoTrader. This package includes top placement for my Mercedes-Benz inventory listings, it gets me additional photos, the notorious “Dealer Search” feature, and a rotating banner ad in the Mercedes-Benz search results. However, after doing several searches I started to take notice that the only banner ads I was seeing were for “Land Rover”..over and over and over again. So..I thought I would see how many refreshes it would take before my dealers banner ad showed up. It took 73! Amongst that I bet I saw the other Mercedes Partner dealers banner ad about the same amount as mine. The rest were for Land Rover.

I bet Land Rover is paying big money to have their banner ads to rotate (and having a permanent banner ad on the right) throughout the Mercedes-Benz search results. Apparently enough money to bump out the Partnering Mercedes dealers from the normal rotation.

Could this be a double edged sword for AutoTrader? I’m sure they hard sell this ad space to competing manufacturers and figure most dealers won’t pay attention to it anyways. I’m paying attention and I don’t really like it. Then again, maybe Mercedes-Benz had their opportunity to buy this ad space and didn’t do so. Either way..the Partnering Dealer banner ads should receive equal rotation.

This article popped up in my Gmail alerts this morning. Apparently this was old
news that finally came to a settlement. Not a huge deal here I just thought it
was slightly interesting to see two 3rd Party Lead vendors duke it out.

Autobytel and Dealix Enter Settlement Agreement

The Agreement Provides for Total Payments of $20 Million to Autobytel, Mutual
Releases, and License of Autobytel Patents and Patent Applications.


Here is the settlement article.

In 2004, Autobytel announced that it had filed a patent infringement suite
against Dealix Corporation. The company claims that the competitor is infringing
upon a patent it received in 2001 for matching customers and sellers in
purchasing goods and services over the Internet.

I need some help from my readers. Who is using or has used ADP web CRM and desking tool?

Fill myself and other readers in with the good and the bad.

• What features do you like and/or dislike?
• How would you rate their customer service?
• What ongoing issues have you had with ADP web CRM?
• How strong are the Internet Lead Management features?
• Would you recommend their CRM and Desking tool to other dealers?

Whatever information you would like to share would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance to anyone that has some information to share.

Share your comments.

Sorry for the lack of posting here lately. I’ve been a busy person over the last 2 months and now with the holidays approaching..need I say anymore?

Here is a quick update on what I have been working on.

A NEW website for my Mercedes dealer.

I wanted something less templated and more custom. The problem is, it’s hard to find a vendor that does custom work AND when you do, the pricing seems to be out of the reach of the typical ISM’s budget. Dealers will spend thousands every weekend for a newspaper ad but when it comes time to divvy up for a new website, they want to be cheap about it. I think I have found the right company with the right solution! I’ll be writing more about this once the new site goes live.

Ad Words and SEM has been another focus of mine. Being a Mercedes dealer, I have not had much success pulling customers from too far out from my market for new cars. When I was at a Volkswagen / Mazda dealer..I could get a customer to come in from well over 2 hours to save a few dollars on a new car. That’s not the case with the majority of Mercedes consumers in this market area. With this in mind..I’ll be read re-adjusting my SEM strategy for 2007 and focusing more on local SEM.

eBay Local - Being located in the Washing DC market, I was invited to participate in the new eBay Local listings. This allows me to send ALL of our used and or new cars to ebay for a 30 day listings using the “Best Offer” feature. I’ll let everyone know how it goes once I have some time on it to give a fair assessment.

3Rd Party Leads – I had reduced my 3rd Party leads providers to just 1, AutoUSA. After a year of tracking, they produced the best overall ROI compared to the other providers I was using.  When I had more then 2 or 3 providers, I was spending too much time managing duplicates. I was content with using just 1 lead provider but then an iMotors (Reply) sales rep kept calling me and calling me. I’ll have to admit, I finally broke (maybe it was her angelic voice that won me over) and signed up AGAIN with iMotors. However, I told them that I was going to track every lead 100% through the cycle and I wanted credit for every leads that was junk! We were able to work out an agreeable term. I’ll be writing more about this as well.

I have a few more tricks up my sleeve for 2007 that I will be sharing over the next few months. Happy Holidays!!