Tips for Profit

Do you remember the scene from Titanic where the band played as the ship sank?

Some Dealers continue to repeat the same mistakes in marketing and advertising over and over again, which haven't worked in years. Sales decline or stagnate yet they continue to play the music as their ship begins to take on water.

Let's look at traditional advertising and ask ourselves.
1. Do you use the yellow pages?
2. Do you read newspaper and magazine advertisements?
3. Do you listen to advertisements on the radio?
4. Do you watch television commercials?
5. Do you read "junk mail" advertisements?

Here's the numbers.
1. Fewer people are using yellow pages each year. According to Autobytel 90% of car buyers use to internet to shop for a vehicle.
2. News paper sales are declining according to newspaperdeathwatch.com.
3. Customers are not responding to radio causing revenue to decline. Source,reuters.com/article/idUSTRE4B287U20081203
4. According to the NYTimes.com September 28,2009 addition, people record top shows then skip commercials.
5. Did junk mail ever work?

Ok, so where are your potential customers?

Online.

70% of Americans are online daily, checking emails, facebook, google,etc. Google alone gets over 91 million searches daily. According to QVC.com, QVC expects that 50% of its sales will come from the internet by 2014. Facebook has over 320 million users.

Understand that 70% of Americans online includes 70% of your previous customer, 70% of your future or potential customers and 70% of your service customers. Also,your sales force, your family, everyone and this number is growing.

Go to where your customers are.

I see no downside to branding yourself online. It's cheaper than traditional advertising and it's 100% trackable. Marketing ideas can be implemented instantly, measured and changed with a click of the mouse.

What are your thoughts? Feel free to comment.

A lot of Car Dealers have graduated from "sleight of hand" advertising to full blown false advertising.

In the mist of shrinking sales and declining revenue, some dealers have forgone tomorrow’s business for today’s floor traffic.

In what appear to be a price war one would believe this to be a great time for customers to find great deals. Although this may be true, many would-be customers are being manipulated by deals that are too good to be true.

A large dealer in my area spends a lot of money advertising low prices on new vehicles. I mean the lowest in the state, by a large margin.

Customers walk into what appears to be a deal of a life time. Everything is good until they review the first numbers. They quickly discover that the advertised price included a $500 college rebate which they don't qualify for. An $800 owner loyalty rebate they don't get. A $2000 rebate if they give up the special financing. $800 destination, $300 for nitrogen in the tires which has to be added back, $300 military discount, $250 for etch and on and on. That's almost a $5000 difference.

This dealer would say that the tiny print that reads "includes all rebates" is enough.

This business model won't stand long term. It may bring in traffic and some do end up buying after negotiating however the ones you sell will not be back. Nor will they refer anyone to you. Your sales people get burned out from trying to intelligently explain the deceptive ad and quit.

Dealers who think long term look for study consistent grow. They put customers first. They realize that buy killing them with kindness, being professional and by offering a fair deal, they will be very successful.

Dealers should look towards technology as a means to generate traffic and leave the gimmicks alone

What ever happened to record players? How about Beta tape players? Anyone remember pagers? Here's a good one, typewriters.

One thing is for sure nothing is forever. No matter how useful or advanced, it to will one day be obsolete.

Now in my mid 30's, I remember thinking how hip and cool my generation was. I can only smile as my kids today refer to my generation as "old school".

Today I would classify most Auto Dealers as "old school". Within about 10% - 15%, most Dealers operate the same they have for the last 20 years.

Here's the proof. Do you or any of your people use terms like: bouge, lot up, phone up, used car appraisal, 4 square, if I could would you, if it was that cheap why didn't you buy it?

Still running Ads like;
Push pull or drag... any trade welcome
Double your rebate/down payment
low interest rates
No reasonable offer refused
Liquidation Sale
Inventory reduction sale
Used Car blow out

Any of this sounding familiar? I see the same combination of ads I saw 16 years ago. The culture of the stores are the same, even the vocabulary is the same.

In any other industry, you did what you were doing last month, you could be out of business.

In the mid 90's when the internet started becoming popular. Dealer would get emails from 15 year old kids asking about their high priced sports car. They hated it. Now guess what? The 15 year old kids are now in there 30's. These adults are now part of your market.

A lot of Auto Dealers thought the internet was a "fad". "This is a people business. You can't BUY a car on the internet".

Well Ebay sells a car every 60 seconds.

You want to know which new technology will affect your business tomorrow? Look at what kids are into today. Think for a moment. Who started the YouTube movement, Facebook and Twitter?

Kids today consider email to be for old folks. They "instant message" each other. Statistics show that instant messaging will replace email in less than five years.

Are you connecting with your customers through iphones, videos, texting, share sites, blogs, surveys, rewards club, monthly contact, video follow up, pay per click, banner ads, referral marketing, instant messaging and web chat?

We live in the best times, in the best country ever given to man by God. Take advantage of all the resources available to you.

If your not everywhere online...your nowhere.

Become an expert in technology... or hire one.

What say you? Feel free to comment.