Car Dealers Seek Competitive Edge

This week I met with Stan Sher (aka RedNumbat) and his passion for providing car dealers with a new way to generate quality sales leads was very clear.  His willingness to step out and join an entrepreneurial endeavor is just what the car industry needs.   Innovations in the car industry could not come at a better time.  Car dealers are eagerly searching for ways to lower advertising costs and still drive quality leads to their website.

The idea of a “RedNumbat” or a “Twitter” or a “Facebook” innovating car dealer sales just a few years ago would have been met with frowns. The Internet is creating new communication tools and channels that can deliver messages to thousands of “followers” in seconds.  No wonder why the idea of an instant car price quote from a Red Marsupial has traction in the marketplace. 

I look forward to testing the RedNumbat technology on a few client websites in the coming months. I’ll report my findings on this blog as soon as  we collect enough data.  www.rednumbat.com

Protecting Your Dealer Name

In the past few weeks I have been talking with dealers across the US and Canada that were inspired by a free webinar I conducted with Dealers Edge on March 10th.  From the calls, it is clear that the economy has reignited a passion for car dealers to compete on the Internet.   Dealers want innovators to step up and shake up the old establishment; they are just cautious about spending money.

Significant interest from callers was focused on protecting their dealer name from third party lead collectors.  This is one of the easiest things that car dealers can do to increase consumer direct leads; get third party leads collectors off of Google page one for searches on their dealer name. Dealers should roll up their sleeves and use free web publishing tools like:

• www.merchantcircle.com
• www.vox.com
• www.blogspot.com
• www.squidoo.com

to create “dealer name” branded web assets that they can use to share content about the cars that they sell; talk about promotions, rebates, safety or third party reviews.  The key is to “name” these web assets with their dealer name so they appear for dealer name searches.  Think of these web assets as your free blogging tools without expenses or the need to know HTML programming.

What About Facebook

This week I was speaking with a dealer that said that their Facebook project sold three cars this past week.  This was exciting to hear that car dealers are testing and measuring some of the latest trends in social networking.  It is too early to definitively say how to use Facebook efficiently. Anyone with experiences with Facebook I encourage to share on this forum by sending an email to me at brian@paschconsulting.com.  Your feedback will be welcome since Facebook is hot topic of conversation amongst marketing professionals.

What About Twitter

I’m still waiting to see the results from using Twitter, so if anyone has some data to share, please send me an email.

If you would like to join me on my next Webinar on April 2, 2009, click here:  SEO Webinar

Reader Feedback – March 25, 2009

Brian,

I have just started using facebook for marketing. I think it is going to work well. I have sold cars for 20 years. I have a data base of  over 2,500 customers. I have started inviting each one to be my friend on face book. I am surprised that 50% of them are on facebook. If they  are not I invite them to join. They often do and it is great to be the one that introduced them to facebook. if they are on I send a personal message. I ask how their car is and what have they been up to.

Once  they accept me as a friend, I look at there pictures. I find something I am interested in. Art work, or a fishing trip and ask a question about it. I also invite people that buy a car from me to be my friend and they almost write something about their new car. I take a picture of them with their new car when they buy it. I email it to them. I am asking them if I can post it on the dealerships facebook page, which I  am a fan of.

I really hope they will post the photo I email on their facebook account. Some have but it too early to see what the results 
will be. I mix friends and work on facebook. I get lots of comments from customers that they like the way I blend this and am real and that I use marketing, social networking and friendship the way it was designed to be used.

I think this is going to be great.

Chance Black
Internet Manager
Subaru of Georgetown
www.chanceblack.com

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Tags: dealer marketing, facebook, red numbat, rednumbat, twitter