I’m still amazed at some of the basic things that auto dealers miss such as ROI, poor lead management, and too many HIPPOS. Sometimes some of the best local Internet marketing is free or minimal cost, but most auto dealers won’t pay attention unless it cost $500 or more per month.

There has been many post & discussions in regards to the Internet Directors position in the past and have touched a bit here and there. With this post you have provided all of us the endurance of true aspects to the new marketing formula.

The Internet Director should be right at the level of the GM & GSM. Be part of the weekly Monday meetings, or however yours is set up. The Internet Director should have the authority to go right to the decision maker at the dealership. Providing the support to the IT department, that department will shine!

AKA THE GOLDEN DEPARTMENT. This is where your best bang for your buck is.

It gets very frustrating when planning a great marketing idea based upon the Internet when you cannot get to the decision maker. Work up the chain of command, for which your ideas get thrown to the side.

The Internet Director should be the individual to oversee all CRM activities, website, marketing oh yes and sales staff. You may be asking “why in the world the sales staff”?

•Providing the importance of the Internet
•Having them be noticed on the internet (I had my prior sales staff write up an About Me for each one)
•Get them on a schedule for following up with old prospects, daily work activities and mailers to their prior customers for upcoming birthdays, holidays & service deals.
•Work as a team for creating marketing ideas. You can get lots of feed back when you take your sales staffs ideas into consideration. (Instead of throwing them off to the side).
•Set Tasks in the CRM tools for them if needed (depending on the size of your staff)

If there is a CRM tool that’s in place at your dealership and no one is using it….. Eeeeek! Do you realize how much $$$$$ is setting there. I am not talking about the cost of the CRM tool!

I am talking about the customers that are in that CRM tool…

I would have a field day or should I say a kid at Christmas!

Let me see, if I ran a dealership or owned a dealership my Internet Director would be right at the top level of management.

Having the Marketing Agency, Dealership, IT Department & Manufacture work together with all marketing tools that are available you will succeed.

If you are missing links in the formula then you can’t ride your bike. Yeah you can sit there look cool, tweaking your little mirror, checking out your cool noisemakers you got installed on your spokes!

However it would be a lot smoother to your coolness when cruising!

Thanks again Alex for this post. I may have got a little off track but as a true supporter for all Internet IT Departments & Business Development Centers I speak from past experiences.

The whole point is prepare for the future and build towards it instead of waiting for disaster them trying to correct it.

That has been the way it has been done until now because it’s do or die for each and every dealer because the factories are hoping to save themselves and there are no more free passes on to the lifeboats.

Holdback? Factory to dealer incentives? Going, going, gone. MAP (minimum ad pricing) pricing is something that could happen if bankruptcy is declared and no more franchises but factory owned stores. Never say never and I can tell you how they would do it because one of then has a Plan C in tact. I read it.

It really would not be a bad thing as far as I am concerned. Would it not be great to be given stock in the company that makes the products you sell. Heck with the lame cheesey spiffs and make people feel pride and part of the whole I say.
id and look what happened…

Let’s have a sit down and let’s look at this Internet Director Pay Challenge, not from the bottom up, but, from the top down. Bare with me. I’ll try to make it fun to read.

Let’s say Mr. Big Dealer (MBD) has 1,000 units on the ground & he turns his inventory 4 times a year. MBD has an annual sales volume of 4,000 units.

As is the norm, MBD has spent years building his biz, has quite an investment in traditional media and has his branding game working. Let’s assume that MBD is spending $350 p/unit retailed in ad spending.

MBD’s ad budget is $1.4million dollars annually.

This next step is where Darwin’s rule of nature kicks in (strong eat the weak) and now. the fun starts!

MBD has had an epiphany and now “gets it”. Gone are the days when Mr. Big Ad Spender had “control” over the shopper. In days past, Mr. Big Dealer’s large ad dollars spent would drive traffic to his door. MBD liked this arrangement. But, in our NEW world, MBD sees that 90 of 100 shoppers hit the web from home and work and it’s here shoppers decide who they’ll visit.

MBD wants confirmation, he institutes a post sale survey and realizes that 95% of his buyers visit his site prior to purchase, yet, few reveal themselves prior to purchase.

MBD says to himself:

“Oh oh. there’s a new “Step” in the sales process and I am flushing precious profits down the toilet because I don’t have my internet game plan rockin”

MBD asks his web IT people for visitor info to his web site and is shocked. “Look at this! Can this be right? 11,000 visitors per month and I sell 330 of them?!? Whereinthehell did the other 10,670 visitors go? 11,000 visitors and all I got were 93 emails?”

MBD gasps, “It’s worse than I thought! Or. wait a minute; maybe, it’s better than I thought”. Just how big is my web audience? MBD now sees his website as an extension of his lot. His web site isn’t there to keep his ISM busy, it fuels his entire operation.

MBD wants change. He drops his MBD ego (aka HIPPO), puts his shopper’s hat on and “walks his virtual lot” like a shopper would. 10 minutes into his shopping experience, he mutters “what good is my $116,000 per month ad spend if my pics suck, the options are generic, there are no personal descriptions AND one of my most popular pages, the specials page IS EMPTY!! Arrrgggg. Hey! whyinthehell isn’t my web site carrying my “sale of the month” message?”

MBD is now frustrated. “I don’t know this web stuff, I know I gotta get it amped up, but whointhehell is knows the Web and selling cars, who is going to help me lead this attack?”

Enter: The Internet Director (ID).

This is my fun little exercise to demonstrate just WHO is responsible (MBD), to WHO the ID should report to and WHY it’s not deeply integrated into the Auto Dealer’s culture.

This new player, The Internet Director (ID), is deeply involved with all departments (sales, service & parts). ID participates in all marketing meetings, oversees and optimizes the visitor experience and the tools that all employees use to improve MBD’s ROI.

Marketing is a “top down” exercise and the ID is deeply involved with the Advertising side of the balance sheet. Paying the ID can be easily offset with a reduction in spending on the traditional side. But, the ID works the web audience to produce ROI (not just shift costs from one side of the spreadsheet to another)

Every MBD’s effort should be finding ways to push shoppers to their site. For every 100 units MBD has on the ground, he can expect a visitor to remain for one minute, so, our MBD with 1,000 units has his visitor for 10 minutes. To every dealership, that visit is priceless.

If the ID is given support & does their job, web metrics will improve like: time on site, pages viewed, % returning for 2nd, 3rd, 4th visit. Up counts will increase. Because 95% of buyers visit the site 1st, SERVICE APPOINTMENTS from the site should rocket.

If Mr. Big Dealer (MBD) is truly eager to leverage the efforts of the ID (better pics, options, descriptions, etc.), they both drink some vAuto koolaide and their eyes pop wide open.

MBD works vAuto hard, sits back and waits to see what happens. After week1, the Internet Director tells MBD that call counts and email leads have exploded. By week 2 MBD is seeing a noticeable change in AutoTrader.com and Cars.com traffic (as seen from his post sale surveys). By week 4, vAuto’s platform is projecting his annual turn rate moving from 4 up to 5 turns per year. MBD discovers other vAuto dealers can reach up to 10 turns per year.

Mr. Big Dealer busts out his calculator and runs scenarios on how more turns makes his dealership go into RACE MODE. His ad cost per unit will drop, his floor plan per unit will drop, his parts and service department will enjoy the windfall from all the new prep work.

Regardless of size, the Dealer’s Website has now become the core of a dealers marketing efforts, and because of this, the Internet Director should be a “cabinet Level” position, involved with all departments.

IMO, smaller dealers should assign this to the GSM and the GSM gets an assistant to execute these tasks.

Brian Hoecht – You hit the nail on the head.

I tell dealers that it isn’t the economy that’s hurting your business, it’s your competitor down the street that has a system in place and is marketing themselves effectively online.

Jeff K – I hate that math too.

To a dealership, salespeople are free. Either they exceed draw or they’re gone.

Great post, and your comment about the not being able to save your way out is spot on, though so many dealers try to do just that. Rather than being bold, most of the time a dealer simply shrinks back at exactly the wrong time.

When do you like to buy a stock? When it is going down? Absolutely, assuming it is a viable stock and not heading to zero. Advertising is the same, but is not viewed. I don’t know how many times a dealer has advertised in a newspaper for about 3 months of my advertising budget to get a pittance in return, and then complains when I only closed 10-12% of the leads we got for $2500.

When all the other dealers in your area are shrinking, step up. I have seen the results of the shrinkage of advertising dollars in the market, and we are positioning ourselves to capitalize on my competitor’s absence.

Bobby Compton