I came across this report and didn’t know what to think.  It wasn’t sent to me by BZ, so I’ve covered over the URL’s used for this report.  You can click on the image to see a larger version.

This report was sent by BZ to solicit business from a non-BZ customer.  That dealership is denoted as “DEALER A” and one of their competitors is “DEALER B”.  The funny part is the third competitor’s URL is very similar to a national furniture store, so the person who created the report used the furniture store’s URL.

The second mistake is the use of Compete.com.  Don’t get me wrong, Compete.com is an awesome resource – I use it all the time, but I would never use it like this.  I understand web-hosting competition is fierce, but this just seems like a way to sucker someone who isn’t that educated on the Internet.  It is under-handed in my opinion, but I’ve been wrong in the past.

What do you all think?  Under-handed?  Fine piece of salesmanship?  Preying on the uneducated?  At least you laughed when I told you they’re comparing two car dealerships to a national furniture store!

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How many times have you heard or even said to yourself…

“I’ve sent this customer 5 emails and I have yet to hear anything back”
or
“These Internet customers never call me back”,
maybe even
“I send them a price and I never hear back”..

No doubt about it, sending emails to someone who never responds is frustrating. But who is really to blame..you or the customer?

You’re already aware there’s no Silver Bullet, no sure fire way of making every potential customer respond to your emails. However, many times your emails or email templates are an over looked vital element of your success in transitioning the customer from behind the computer to the phone and ultimately your showroom floor. There are proven methods that will increase your response rate and help transition your customer to the phone quicker.

When writing to your potential customer remember to include these 4 key elements in your email and email templates.

1. Grab your customer’s ATTENTION fast!

There are 2 main elements for grabbing your customers attention: the subject line and the opening paragraph of your email. You want your subject line to create trust while also creating interest and enticing the customer to open your email. Yes, I know we have all heard too much about the importance of your subject line..but what about after that? The opening paragraph of your email sets the tone and needs to keep your customers attention. If your message in the opening paragraph is weak you will quickly lose the reader.

2. Create the INTEREST.

You have now grabbed your customers attention so it’s time to deliver the information and create interest. How do you create interest? With options! Provide your customers with inventory options. If your customer is interested in a new Volkswagen Passat, provide them with information on one that closely matches their request. Provide a base model, the cheapest one you have on the lot, along with a more expensive one with more equipment. What about a used Certified Volkswagen Passat? Over 60% of your new car buyers will consider a certified or well maintained pre-owned vehicle. Think about that!

3.  Hint on the URGENCY

Urgency can be used to grab your customer’s attention in the beginning of your email as well as towards the end. I’m not necessarily a fan of statements like “Prices Only Good until this date” though this strategy can sometimes work. I prefer using phrases that hint at the urgency. For example: “Mr. Smith, we have some great specials this month” or “the incentives this month are some of the best we have seen”. Let your customer know that this is the month for a great deal. Also, when selling new cars and using availability to hint at urgency, you could refer to the model of interest as a “best seller” or “limited availability”. The point is to plant the seed of urgency rather than being blatant.

4. Keep the momentum going with the next step to ACTION!

I’ve read so many emails that end in..”I look forward to hearing from you” or “Call me at your convenience”. Why would you wait for the customer to contact you? If you get anything out of reading this, this is it! The “A” the “ACTION” at the end of your email is the most important of the four letters. End your emails by asking your customer to take the next step of action! That may be picking up the phone to accept your call or clicking on the link to your online credit application. I prefer transitioning the customer to the phone. A question as simple as “Kristy, would it be OK to call you in the next 10 minutes?” can yield you some great results.

Your emails need to grab your customers ATTENTION. Once you have their attention, quickly turn that attention into INTEREST. While you have their interest, establish a sense of URGENCY and keep the momentum going with your next step to ACTION.

The next time you think you are ready to click the Send button, give your email a once over to be sure you have included the 4 letters that will sell you more cars this month; A I U A.

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I know Alex is going to kill me for this but I didn’t want it slipping by. If you’re not already aware,
AutoDealerMonthly awarded Checkered Flag with top honors for Dealer Web Sites!
Checkeredflag.com swept the #1 spot with not even a close second or third (third was a Cobalt site?? No disrespect to Joe Carlson of course).

I know we sometimes make light of the all the dealer magazine awards here on DealerRefresh, but this is one award that I think is well deserved.

Alex was thinking out of the box with his hybrid Dealer Website/Blog design and in my opinion hit a homerun. It takes courage, knowledge and great support to move the needle like this. I’m sure Alex would like to thank
Dealer.com for providing him a
flexible platform and customer service that allowed him to move forward with his vision.

Therefore DealerRefresh is recognizing Alex Snyder as "KING OF DEALER WEBSITES".

Congratulations Alex!

Share the wealth!

Let’s all gather ‘round for a nice Internet Sales version of the game, “Would You Rather”.

It’s easy to do… just pick one situation (or all of them), and tell us which outcome you’d go for, and why. And remember folks, this is all hypothetical, so don’t go getting your britches in a bunch about having to choose one or the other. I don’t want to see any “well I’d do something entirely different” or “I have a solution for both”… just put on your crisis management hats and pick a side, okay?

Trust me, it’s good for the brain.

Would you rather…

A. Get three third party email leads
Or
B. Get one phone lead

A. Spend $2,000 on PPC
Or
B. Spend $2,000 on high-level SEO

A. Get an email from a customer saying “your price is too high”
Or
B. Get an email saying “you don’t have what I want”

A. Have a Service Appointment form on your site that never gets responded to
Or
B. Have no form at all

A. Have a competitor directly under you in the SERPs
Or
B. Have a negative consumer review directly under you

A. Have a payplan that pays out for previous Internet customers
Or
B. Have one that pays out for Internet-based Service revenue

A. Remove all the phone numbers from your site and rely only on the email forms
Or
B. Remove all the email forms from your site and rely only on the phone numbers

A. Lose your domain name
Or
B. Have your mail server blacklisted

Remember…it’s either one or the other. None of this.. "I’d do something entirely different". You have to choose form the given situations. Give each "Would You Rather" some deep thought and share your feedback. Have FUN!!

Guest posting by Mitchell Turck
Internet Consultant with
WebNet Services

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*Actual photos taken at the Digital Dealer Conference.

Was the Digital Dealer Conference a Smashing Success??

“We sold out everything,” said Michael Roscoe, Chairman of the event. “We sold out all our booth spaces, all our food and beverage sponsorships, all our title sponsorships, our room block…if it was for sale, it got sold,” Roscoe continued. “We beat the 300 dealership registrants from last fall by more than 83%. This conference was a smashing success!” - Mike Roscoe

This is a 2 part post. First mine then Alex.

Well it’s been a week since the Digital Dealer conference. Wait..is it the Digital Dealer Conference or is it the AAISP Conference? I’m always confused about that!!

Anyways, I had intended to write the post tracking it day by day but that never happened. So I thought I would give a brief run down from my side of the conference, the good, bad and maybe some ugly.

I didn’t fly in until mid-day Monday so I missed out one the 101 sessions. Props to Jesse over at
HomeNet for having me picked up in the stretch Hummer at the airport!

The Likes:

• The Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center was very nice! Great place for a conference like this.
• Meeting and placing faces with all the dealerrefresh readers and contributors that attended. (Alex has listed everyone below, sorry if we missed anyone!)
• Mr. Shaun Raines had a most excellent session "Why Most Dealers Can’t Solve the Internet Puzzle" was an excellent session. I always enjoy your message Shaun.
• The exhibit hall was decent, none of the vendors go way out like they do with NADA obviously but there are some players in there.
• TKCarsites was the center of attention in the middle of the exhibit hall for more then one reason. Wheeew.
• Apparently I won some Internet Sales Manager award.?

The Dislikes:

• Tuesday mornings general session ""Putting all the Pieces Together" was a waste of time. I’m sorry but that was not good at all.
• I almost fell asleep during the Marketing Mixology session. What was that?
• Technology-Assisted Relationship Sales with Jim Ziegler was really out there. Even for me! That was just enough information for a green pea to become really dangerous, and not in a good way.
• Dinner at Norman’s at the Ritz Carlton. The company was excellent but the food wasn’t.
• Missed some of the sessions because we couldn’t figure out the class layout
• I won an award but had do idea, so I wasn’t there to accept it. So TJ over
  at Homenet accepted it on my behalf. THANKS TJ!! LOL

The Neutrals:

• The Panel Discussion: "Technology:  What is Moving the Sales Needle from Some of the Best and Brightest" I thought was average at best. David Metter was the 1 person on the panel that I was impressed with. Someone kept talking about how they work to make their sites "sticky".
• I sat in on a session by Pat Ryan Jr. "Winning in Today’s Internet-Driven Pre-Owned Market". He focused on 360 degree used vehicle pricing and the 4 different type of buyers. The end of the session became a sales pitch for one of the many used car price to market software companies that seem to popping up all over the place. It was a decent session.

I really wanted to attend more of the sessions. Sorry I missed the " Selling Vehicles, Service, Parts and Accessories Online – Like Books and Music" session Wednesday morning, maybe Alex can talk more about that one since he caught it.

This was my 1st time attending a Digital Dealer conference and overall the conference wasn’t bad, good actually. A lot of information for the green pea. There were some sessions (apparently on Wednesday) that I missed out on that I heard were really good.

If you’re on the fence on whether or not to attend, I’d have to recommend it. If the conference keeps going with the same amount of steam it will definitely continue to grow.

I will say though..PLEASE, lets get some people outside of the industry to speak. I get a little worn out hearing the same people in our industry over and over.

A few side notes:

Buzzwords – "Sticky" and "Meta"
OEM’s were in attendance albeit incognito
Hangovers were still pretty bad
The camaraderie was awesome
Some returning link love to Chad over at
AutoRevo.

-Jeff

——————————————————————————

As Jeff stated, it has been a week since the DD Conference….and we’re just weak for not posting this recap till now.  Sorry guys!

Mike Roscoe and the gang deserve high marks on picking the venue this year – the Gaylord resort had just about everything the Conference could need.  The only issue we had was on finding some of the classes.  It doesn’t seem this was the fault of the Digital Dealer crew, but more the resort’s infusion of what seemed like three different conferences sharing space on the second floor.   A big THANK YOU for having Dasani water readily available all the time!

After check-in, I got lost trying to find my room. I think the hotel staff intentionally give bad directions as a joke.  However, I eventually found my room and all the accommodations (especially the alcohol-serving ones) the Gaylord had to offer (yes, that sounds bad).  Many meals were had in the Italian/Med restaurant; where I grabbed dinner with my boss Monday night, and ran into Brian Hoecht (AI-Dealer), Shaun Raines, Jamie Adams (Reach Local), and Ken Lees & Jeff Clark (Skoots) who had pioneered the phrase DGI. 
DGI is what it is all about in 2008!  The dealer with the biggest DGI has no problem getting a date to the prom…or selling more cars – however you wish to think of it.

I also didn’t get started on the classes till Tuesday. It was definitely school for green peas:  Internet 101.  There were some good sessions though: Jeff mentioned Shaun Raines’ class, and I found Brian Hoecht’s panel to offer some good points as well. David Metter definitely owned the panel he sat on, and Jim Ziegler helped me bust a gut a few times. Some of Jim’s proposals on how to use social marketing frightened me though.  I also enjoyed a session from someone at Cobalt, but I cannot remember his name. This was the Wednesday morning session Jeff missed. It was an excellent presentation on how to incorporate most areas of this "new marketing" mix we’re in by putting it all in plain terms.

I want to say it was nice seeing some old faces: Gilbert Chavez, Ken Lees, Jeff Clark, Tom Bernardcyk (sorry if I butchered that), DJ Ports, Mike Dee @ Dealer.com, of course – Jon Bon Kershner, and many more.  Even better, I had the pleasure of meeting these folks:  Dean Evans (you would have thought I’d have met Dean before now being a Dealer.com customer for so long – Vermont is slacking ), Patrick Workman, Mark Rikess, Jennifer Picheco, Shaun Raines, the rest of the MileOne crew, Alex Bravvy, the HomeNet gang, Kevin Frye, Ralph Paglia, Andrew Difeo, Jaime Adams, Brian Hoecht, and many more…if I listed everyone, we’d be reading for a much loooonger time.

The best part of the conference was actually having my boss, Pete Lively, there. It was great to see him grow a better appreciation of things – not to say he didn’t appreciate this side of the business before.  Having him there made the conference invaluable for me!

I’m looking forward to 2009′s Digital Dealer/AAISP conference….or whatever it is called?

-Alex

—————————————————————————-

So what did you think of the Digital Dealer Conference?
What was your fav?
What was your least fav?
Will you attend again and would you recommend it to others?

The 5th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition,
will be held at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in
Grapevine, Texas, six minutes from the DFW airport, October 5th-8th.

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