Archive for 'Internet Marketing Plan'
Sales People Make Economies not Marketing by Grant Cardone
Posted on 08. Mar, 2009 by admin.
Economies do not exist until somebody BUYS something! And economies cease to exist when a sale is not made. Management then decides “customers aren’t buying anything so let’s just cut heads, slash budgets, hunker down and shrink our way to greatness!”
Prospecting, Interviewing customers to properly identify problems and opportunities and then collaborating with them to find appropriate solutions seems to be a skill set lost to an entire generation. How did this happen?
Two major shifts drove this change. In the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, virtually every company had a sales force that were required and depended on things like; prospecting- the creation of customers, product knowledge, application knowledge and selling skills. Great companies were built on great sales teams who were responsible for creating opportunities not for just selling them. The sales team was the engine, leading the charge, driving the revenues of the company! In the 90’s sales teams were deemed to expensive to maintain, inefficient, difficult to manage and the responsibility for driving revenues shifted to the marketing department. The theory was that the company could create demand for products and services through advertising, promotion and gimmicks then the company could merely harvest the flood of incoming orders with call centers or order desks. The second major shift currently taking place is from traditional marketing to internet marketing.
But, what happens when customers stop looking and searching the net and the phone stops ringing? Because selling is a lost art the solutions are limited to- increase the advertising, make even bigger claims of the importance of customer satisfaction, lower prices (again) and increase gimmicks like no money down, rebates, zero percent interest and free trips. Companies started spending more money on ad campaigns and google search then the entire sales force makes in salaries and commissions. While these marketing shifts created breakthroughs in the ability to reach greater numbers of potential customers, the fact is it failed! You don’t have to look far to see the corpses of companies who relied on marketing and disregarded the sales team; Circuit City, Heard Automotive, Dilliards, Sears, Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Merrill Lynch. These companies failed because of their dependence upon their marketing campaigns and their inability to sell their products! Marketing without a trained sales team is a “one way” vehicle, causing the company to only activate at the point of marketing and then become passive at the point of creating an opportunity or even closing on those created.
These marketing methods virtually eliminated management’s expectation of the sales team and their abilities. This is a critical problem in a recession, maybe event the cause of it, whereby the customers stop looking for new products and services, and therefore are immune to the wiles of marketing and promotion. The consumers’ focus in now also on cutting expenses and unless your product or service can help them save money without any investment, they simply won’t pay attention. Search engine optimization is useless when potential customers stop searching.
Companies must return to the creation of true sales skills and sales teams because without them nothing happens! Management, marketing and customer satisfaction does not sell product. Sales people sell products and you must have effectively trained salespeople that can (1) generate a prospect and (2) know how to determine what is needed, (3) how your product or service can satisfy that need and (4) how to justify a purchase decision. The lost art of real salesmanship must be restored in order to create the revenue a company desires.
A well trained sales team, not management, not the internet, not customer satisfaction and not marketing is the only thing that can cost effectively create customers in this economy. Economies exist only when someone finds a prospect and then sells that prospect a product or service at which point they exchange money with your company. Sales people drive entire economies and without them we have no economy.
Grant Cardone, Author of Sell to Survive
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Checklist for Internet Marketing Success for Dealers
Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by admin.
Use this Automotive Internet marketing “cheat sheet” to see how your dealership is performing on the Internet. Are you conquering all of these areas and performing automotive internet marketing as well as your competitors? Although success or failure in these areas could imply that you need improvement, it does necessarily mean you are not an expert in your marketing area since so many other businesses and dealerships are failing to execute even a small portion of these requirements.
We built this simple checklist and refine it as needed to determine the “health” of a dealership’s website or marketing efforts. Many car dealers feel they have everything handled, or have concquered all that is available online but the truth of the matter is they usually have much to learn or are not succeeding in one area or several.
Take a look through the following and rate yourself, or we can perform a rating for you.
Automotive Internet Marketing Success Checklist
New Vehicle Marketing Checklist:
- Google search displays client franchise with state name (Chevrolet dealer NJ)
- Google search displays client franchise with County name (Honda dealer Bergen County, NJ)
- New Vehicles Featured on website Homepage
- Google Search displays ad to dealer’s website for a model name (Honda Civic)
Used Vehicle Marketing Checklist:
- 90% of their Used cars on Craiglist:
- Preowned Vehicles Featured on website Homepage
- Preowned Specials are on dealer website
- Google Search displays link to website for used, franchise, state (certified Honda Delaware)
- Google Search displays ad to dealers website for used model search (used Ford)
Automotive Brand and Reputation Marketing Checklist
- Client’s name is found in #1 position on Google
- Dealer Rater /Rip Off report is not on Google page one
- Negative reviews not found on Google page one
- Is your business listed in all yellow page directories? Yellowpages.com, yellowbot.com, superpages.com, local.com, etc
Online Marketing Link Checklist:
- Site has dozens of pages indexed in Google: example, search site:mainlinehonda.com
Dealer Website Marketing Checklist:
- Internet Savings coupon on site
- Current Ad on site
- Video player on site with compelling video or youtube video
- New Car Specials on Site
- Used Car Specials On Site
- Service Coupons on site
If one of several of these areas are lacking then you may be missing out on some great conversions of traffic into leads. When you are looking for an Automotive Internet Marketing expert, make sure they are looking at all of these areas. If not, contact PureDealer at 609 977 5050
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Think Small for your Automotive Marketing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Posted on 31. Dec, 2008 by admin.
The big automotive marketing companies think big, act big, make big deals with the manufacturers. Major marketing contracts are negotiated on the manufacturers (dealership’s?) behalf and the best automotive website and marketing solutions are chosen based on some factors that occur behind closed doors without dealership involvement, intervention, or say in the matter.
However, when the big marketing company represents YOU and also ALL of your local competitors, who benefits the most? How does the Internet, Google, the manufacturer, and this big automotive internet marketing company decide who will rank #1 on Google for “Honda New Jersey” or “Houston Honda Dealer”? You paid your money just like the other 10 guys in your market, but why is the other guy beating you in the search results when you have made the same investment, paid the same bill, to the same manufacturer or vendor?
Who will get the #1 spot? Will it be the big Chevy dealer or the little Chevy dealer who wins in Google? Is money a factor, luck, favoritism? Is it first in first on top?
Well, some of these questions can be put aside because here are some good points to ask the “big web developers” or “largest automotive marketing firms” in the US when they ask for your business…
A few questions to ask the Large automotive marketing companies
1) How do you get me ranked higher than my competitor, when we both use the same exact site and SEO?
2) Am I allowed to choose the phrases I want to win in the search engines and if so what exactly will you do to ensure that I get there, and how much will it cost?
3) What comes for free and what is extra, regarding search engine optimization and SEO-based keywords?
4) What can I do, and what tools are at my disposal to self-manage my destiny on the Internet or has my fate already been decided when you signed the deal with automotive-marketing-company.com?
These are some tough questions that will make the big guys squirm because they really, truly have no alternative but to dodge the question or provide you with some lip service. “You’ve always been my favorite, you’re the best, we will get you #1 for what you need”, etc etc”. Just sign here on the dotted line… They are hoping you do not check, forget about it, or in a few months will let you know they are working on it, hoping to buy more time. Chances are good that your personal account rep will have left within 6 months anyway so all feelings of the sweet whisperings will slowly turn into a feeling of rage.
The Benefits of a smaller automotive marketing company are large:
1) We serve you, the client and do not have major conflicts of interest like the 500 pound gorillas do.
2) We can hand-craft a marketing plan that matches your exact needs to sell the cars you want to sell.
3) We move fast, have no red tape to cut through, and are on the forefront of the most current marketing techniques because we use them for ourselves. We talk the talk and walk the walk.
4) We do not have to cater to the manufacturers and limit your website, microsites, pay per click marketing, or automotive Search engine optimization to specific demands (unless co-op is involved of course)
Picture yourself for a moment inside a supermarket, in front of the ice cream freezer. There are 40 choices but the flavor is only vanilla. Who determines which vanilla ice cream container is placed in front? When you choose a major automotive web site marketer who also handles 39 other dealers in your DMA, what is the likelihood that you will be the ice cream in the front of the freezer?
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Automotive Internet Marketing Plan
Posted on 16. Dec, 2008 by admin.
automotiveinternetmarketingplan
Putting an Internet marketing plan of action into effect can help your car dealership or business survive through that hard times and prosper in the good. However, this is one of the most difficult strategies to master. It takes a lot of foresight, planning, and also requires buy-in from everyone from the dealership owner down to Internet Sales managers and staff.
There are many things to manage including the ongoing battle between Internet budget and traditional budget, where the money is spent, and how much will be done by dealership staff versus being outsourced. Obviously all of the media comes into play as well as the message- what is your offering and where do you make the offer- on third party automotive lead sites or on your own site?
Decisions needs to be made on who the Internet marketing plan revolves around- the Internet department, the dealership, or the 3rd party lead provider.
PureDealer can help you through this process. Depending on the size of your dealership, staffing, even location and brands that you sell, we take all of this into account when helping you with your marketing ideas and planning. Contact us for more details on how we can help you with your Automotive Internet Marketing plan.
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