This blog will be about advertising online. Specifically, advertising your automobiles online. Now I can guess what you're thinking, "Not another person that's going to try to sell me something like a service or their online advertising." Here's what I want to explain, I have no agenda. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I just want to share my years of experience to try to help you save some money on things that are not beneficial to your dealership as well as ideas to help you be more successful. You're probably wondering what I bring to the table. Well, here is some information about myself.
I have been in the computer industry in one way or another since the 1980s. Programming was my major interests but, growing up in sales (my father owned a lawn and garden business) I always enjoyed working with the public. I started selling cars and motorcycles in the mid 80s and became familiar with the auto industry. I decided to get out of the auto industry and get a degree in computer technology while working at a distribution center. Shortly after I obtained my degree I went back to work in the auto industry in 2002 as an Internet Manager as well as the New Car Manager at a Lincoln Mercury Jeep dealership in Pennsylvania. It's amazing how far the Internet has come since 2002. Many dealers didn't even have a website. I know we didn't. I designed the website, signed up with AutoTrader.com as well as DealerSpecialties for pictures. I think back then we got New cars listed for free on AutoTrader.com. I worked with my brother at that dealership for about a year and a half before we moved to a Buick GMC Nissan dealership in Ohio. I was still the Internet Manager but I had come up with a few other thing to help me be successful. One thing I did was have the my email notify my cell phone when I got an internet lead through text. I also set up an autoresponder. The great thing was if I wasn't with a customer and I got a lead I was calling them right after they submitted the lead. Customers weren't used to that. Sometimes I even caught them off guard. There weren't many quality CRMs back then and this worked out great. Shortly after I used my programming skills to create a CRM for the automobile industry called INetDealer.com. My brother and I brainstormed to come up with a system that worked best for the dealership. I did all of the programming but the sales was never there to support us even though the system worked great so we had to close it down after about 2 1/2 years. At that point I worked for AutoTrader.com as an Advertising Consultant for 6 1/2 years, did a short stint with Cars.com and am now back as an Internet Coordinator for a dealership group.
My experience with computers and the internet started before the internet caught on with the public. When we were using 14400 modems (you know, the ones that worked through the phone line and screamed at you) I ran a BBS out of my house so people could share files, play games and communicate with each other. I am an entertainer and I was one of the first to hard code in HTML to design my own website to promote my ventriloquism and magic. I remember doing a search one time on AOL and there were only a few ventriloquist websites including me, Jeff Dunham and a website that taught ventriloquism. Now if you type ventriloquist in Google there are about 745,000 results. I have been studying the internet since before most people even knew what it was. I remember using AOL when it was called PC Link while my Uncles used to get on the internet with Compuserve and Prodigy. That was back when 64 and 128k was a big deal and if you had a 40 meg hard drive you were rich!
It's been a fun ride. It's been an experience and it's been an eye opener. I can still learn something new at every internet training I go to. I don't know it all by any means but I do know the internet has change the car industry by leaps and bounds. Gone are the days where you knew more than the customer both about the new car and their trade. Now the dealership has to be transparent. When a customer calls today and asks for your best price you'd better give it to them. Chances are they just called 3 other dealers and they already have Invoice minus Hold Back plus all the incentives. You want to make sure they don't come in? Don't give them a price or try to schedule an appointment without a price. They may make the appointment but make sure you tell them to ask for Blue Boy because you'll be holding your breath waiting for them to come in.
All this to say I have studied and done a lot of research online as well as in life itself with my job and I want to give you the best advice about what works best, how to make it work better and where you might be throwing your money away. Well, I really wanted to get in to internet advertising but I've gone on long enough for today. Next time I'll discuss SEO/SEM.
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