My email address is axsnyder @ Checkeredflag dot com – I’m more than happy to discuss Dealer.com with you. How’s the young Swope? I had fun hanging out with him at the last smart Car meeting.

By the way, I just got back from two days at Dealer.com headquarters in Vermont – great bunch of people, very cool facility…..I had a great time! Some cool stuff in the works – be on the lookout for a new Checkered Flag.com!

AND…
I’d like to take a minute to thank all the other web site providers for making it easy for me to dominate our local SEO rankings.

Joe

The automotive industry is starting to catch on to the fact that online marketing is the future, but the “recommended” vendors and the vendors so highly praised in the dealer publications are outrageously expensive. The online marketing vendors exclusive to the automotive industry charge 10 times more than other industries. They want to charge thousands of dollars per month to host websites, manage email marketing and SEO. Why would I want to pay my website vendor thousands per month to “optimize” my Flash website. Shouldn’t that be included? Why not use a different platform? And I don’t even want to go on about the outrageous fees for managing SEM. Even if the manufacturer co-ops 50% of your Google budget, you still have to pay their vendor an outrageous fee to manage the SEM for you. Anyone else relate to this?

Great posting. I too would like to see more ISM’s comment on how well they think their manufacturers are doing with their online marketing presence.

I think overall Mercedes-Benz does a decent job. I use the word decent lightly because there is a lot more they could and should be doing.

Being apart of the Mercedes-Benz Internet Marketing Dealer Advisory Committee I see where Mercedes-Benz is focusing a lot their online marketing efforts. I know the new MBUSA.com website is going to be a huge improvement over the current. Redesigned dealer OEM sites are also in the near future. They are hardly spending the amount they should be on online marketing but the “new crew” over at Mercedes-Benz corporate that is in charge of online marketing are trying desperately to change this. I can only imagine how difficult it is to deal with the old school German mentality of Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes-Benz doesn’t have a choice BUT to be aggressive with their online marketing. Their direct competition all but crushes them when it comes to internet efforts from the manufacture and dealer level.

Can you say Lexus? Lexus seems to do a better job then any other premium vehicle manufacture in the United States (I’d give Audi a close second but only on the manufacturer advertising level). I know Mercedes-Benz USA does recognize this and will continue to push forward. They just need to better tap into the younger market. The new C-Class can and I hope will do this. It’s the prime opportunity to do so.

You’re probably correct, but I think the Automotive Dealers of today have at least accepted the Internet is not going anywhere. Many more are on their game than ever before, and that increases daily. I believe some of the manufacturers are slowing us down from playing in this competitive world today. Sure, a few years ago their programs were an absolute necessity. They were certainly ahead of the “dealer pack” in coming to the “Internet realization”, and some are still. However, the early 2000′s policies have not changed while the industry has.

Yes, the top percentages of the automotive Internet industry may be participating on DealerRefresh, but we’re still missing quite a few: Koons, Galpin, Longo, etc. Of course, Checkered Flag is here so we’re all good

Anyway, I would love to see some of our manufacturers crack the whip a little softer in this area. I would be unbelievably ecstatic if they all developed the same approach Toyota took.

Thanks for the responses so far. Feel free to take this thread deeper – we have not dived into specific manufacturers who do a bad job (other than Nissan).

-Alex

Kudos,
Joe

To discuss the business models and sales disciplines of “dealers” in one broad stroke is a grossly prejudiced notion. If you’re an old school guy and your GM is shoving new technologies and standards down your throat, you can pack your things and walk down the street to a dealer who still sells like it’s 1997. How can you refer to that industry in the collective sense?

Given that situation, think about the millions of dollars any manufacturer spends on branding, advertising, market research, and statistics. They’ve got their identity and strategies running smoothly(well, relatively smoothly)… maybe it’s not the smartest thing to cram compliance down a dealer’s throat, but when you’ve shelled out all that cash to run your business a certain way, it’s certainly better for your peace of mind to align the dealers with your own approach than to let them run rampant and hope for the best.

Let’s also keep in mind that anyone commenting on this artlce is 1) Internet savvy, and 2) probably pretty damn good at their job. If you could drag a few old timers to this post and let them comment, I’d bet the argument would swing the other way, because they’d rather have the manufacturer figure this “Internet” thing out for them. We’re more than a bit biased here… most dealers in the country don’t have personnel in the same strata as ourselves.