News

It’s good to know that people are reading my blog posts. Just after I posted a recent story that Dealer.com was selected as a preferred website provider by BMW USA, I received two emails informing me that I did not have the whole story. Indeed they were correct.

This of course is a good time to remind vendors to send us press releases when new products or announcements are made.  PCG always tries to communicate products and services that can benefit car dealers.  Future announcements can be sent to: news@pcgdigitalmarketing.com.

The Power Of Three

BMW USA in fact had selected three website providers to bestow the coveted “preferred” website vendor status. The preferred website providers will work with BMW dealers and BMW USA’s compliance partner Williams-Forest, to ensure that all BMW dealership websites achieve their new written website standards by April 1, 2011.

All BMW dealers must achieve Level 1 compliance by April 1, 2011. Dealers who comply with Level 2 website standards can apply to have co-op dollars used for their website marketing costs. The co-op funds max out at $2,000 a month which is not an insignificant savings!  Dealers should request details on which products and services qualify for the $2,000 co-op funds.

BMW dealers by now have most likely received their website compliance letters and actions that need to be taken.  The clock will be ticking to meet the mandatory website standards by April 1st. The three companies approved for BMW dealer websites are well versed on what is needed to achieve Level 1 and Level 2 compliance.

Cobalt BMW Websites

Cobalt has created a PDF document that outlines their specific services and website opportunities for BMW dealers. You can download that PDF on this link: Cobalt Websites For BMW Dealers.  Cobalt also offers a special bonus for BMW dealers.

According to the Cobalt brochure: “All Cobalt-endorsed website packages include pre-owned vehicle listings on BMWUSA.com and your regional marketing sites at no extra charge. This is a $300 per month value and a significant source of additional exposure for your pre-owned BMW inventory.”

BMW Dealers can call Cobalt for more details on this program using this special BMW dealer hotline: 1-888-434-1053

Reynolds & Reynolds BMW Websites

Reynolds has created a microsite dedicated to their BMW dealership offering.  That website can be reach on this URL: http://bmw.reynoldswebsolutions.com.  Dealers interested in the Reynolds BMW website solutions can reach them at: 800-767-7879.

Dealer.com BMW Websites

As previously stated, Dealer.com is also a preferred partner and Matt Murray added these notes to the original story we posted:

“Those centers compliant with Level 2 standards will be able to submit their website invoice to NSI for retail co-op reimbursement beginning May 1, 2011. Eligible items will include general website management, search engine optimization (required to adhere to BMW policy), chat, mobile, video products and reputation management.

These costs will be reimbursed at 50%, not to exceed a co-op reimbursement of $2,000 each month. A onetime set-up fee for one of the BMW preferred website providers will be reimbursed at 50%. More details will follow with the revised retail co-op guidelines in February. If there are questions regarding this or any other facet of the program dealers should feel free to call Dealer.com at 888-437-8159 or email sales@dealer.com.”
If you are a BMW dealer and would like to reduce your website marketing and support costs, you should check out this new offering by Dealer.com. The website links that explain the program are: http://bmw.dealer.com.

We received a letter from BMW North America last week from their legal department requesting that we change the name of our SEO blog since www.bmwseo.com had their trademark letters in the name.  I was a bit taken back by the letter since this website offers advice and services to BMW dealers which will help them sell more cars.  And since we have BMW dealers as clients, the name was chosen to attract BMW dealers looking for help with their Internet marketing.   So much for that plan, but we have a backup in mind.

I thought about the hundreds of websites that existing that use the letters “BMW” in their domain.  So, I called back the person who wrote the letter and chatted about this matter.  It seems that the letters BMW can be in a sub-directory structure of a URL but not in the URL.  So, www.cars.com/bmw is valid but www.newjerseybmwcars.com is not possible to own unless you are an authorized BMW dealer.   It is not clear whether http://bmw.carsales.com, which is a sub-domain, is permissible.  The letter of the law would indicate it is permissible since it really points to www.carsales.com/bmw

So, I asked about the sheer number of sites on the Internet that use the BMW name that still operate today.  The staff response was that as long as the site was not making profit off the BMW trademark that those sites were tolerated. 

So I brought up and example, a BMW forums called www.bmwzine.com.  Forum websites may look like a non-commercial enterprise but in fact this website is running banner ads and must be collecting advertising revenue.  When I brought this up, I was told that this was a gray area under consideration. 

Without any effort I was able to pull up sites that use the BMW trademark in the URL that are collecting revenue from Google Adwords, Contextual Ads or direct banner ads.  Some were direct retail sites that had no clear relationship to an authorized BMW dealer.  My search revealed sites like:

• www.bmwdirectory.org
• www.ultimate-bmw.com
• www.bmw-forums.net
• www.bmwproblems.com
• www.alloembmwparts.com
• www.advancebmwparts.com

I’m a business owner and I understand the need to protect trademarks so I immediately complied with the request after I did some research on the matter.  The interesting this about this whole matter is that having the letters “BMW” in the URL strong but so is a sub-domain or sub-directory that uses the name BMW.

If you go to Google and search for “2008 BMW cars” you will see that the top placement goes to sites that use BMW in their directory structure.  Examples on Google page one are: 

• www.motortrend.com/new_cars/01/bmw/index.html
• autos.yahoo.com/bmw  
• www.automotive.com/new-cars/01/bmw/index.html
• cars.about.com/od/bmw/a/BMW_new08.htm

BMW is standing firm that having BMW in the URL will confuse the public into thinking that the site is related to BMW.  The good news is that Internet marketers can use the name in directory structures to help consumers find their articles and related goods for BMW cars.

So, it now is very clear why so many BMW forums sites called themselves “bimmer” sites.  I guess they got the letter before me or were better advised.   There are some other interesting consequences that I see in the future for people marketing BMW related services.  This is a big can of worms.  I’ll share more thoughts on this topic soon.

For now, my Google PageRank took a hit from 3 to Zero.  I’ll have to build new links to www.dealer-seo.com and hope that soon the site will be back up in the search rankings for automotive SEO topics.