Dealix conducts a nationwide survey tracking the activity dealers are seeing from Cash for Clunkers.

Guest Posting by Kevin Hunt

Earlier this week, Dealix conducted a nationwide survey to learn more about what activity dealers are seeing from Cash for Clunkers. Hundreds of dealers responded, and even though the rules about how the program will be administered won't be issued until tomorrow (Friday, July 24), three out of ten dealers report having made a sale involving a "Cash for Clunkers" voucher.

Despite this early success, dealers expressed to us confusion and frustration over the lack of clarity provided so far around the program. In fact, almost 90% of dealers responding to the Dealix survey said consumers had either low or moderate awareness of the program, and two thirds (66%) said information given to dealers up until this point is "insufficient."

Dealers Already Making Sales with Cash For Clunkers


Our survey showed a real bright spot for dealers. In addition to the 34% of respondents who said their dealership had made a sale involving a to-be issued voucher, dealers reported that the program has increased shopping activity and that auto buyer interest in the program is strong. We had 68% of the respondents report an increase in traffic to their showrooms, and 65% reported an increase in interest online, as demonstrated in more sales leads generated from their own and independent, or third party, websites.

This is an amazing sales opportunity. Although program max will be about 250,000 qualifying deals, the interest generated could translate into an increase of showroom traffic into the millions. Take full advantage of every lead it generates.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has noted several times that finalization of key elements of the bill - including how dealers will be authorized to issue vouchers, and how fuel-inefficient cars will be scrapped once exchanged for vouchers - would require time to finalize, and they have established July 24 as the target date to issue complete details. In the interim, the NHTSA has established a website - cars.gov - to extend information and has paired with the North American Dealer Association (NADA) to conduct webinars about the program. We strongly recommend dealers frequent the site and get involved in as many educational opportunities as they can around the program. I also wanted to outline six key steps that we are advising dealers to take to get the most out of the CARS opportunity:

1. Register & Get Certified if you haven't already. Learn more on the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, or NHTSA, website http://www.cars.gov/.
   
2. Prepare and train all staff, including your service department to field inquiries. Set systems and procedures for qualifying and non-qualifying trades. Edmunds.com also has a list of all eligible trade-ins at http://www.Edmunds.com/CashForClunkersEligibleVehicles. The dealers we surveyed believe information on the program has been insufficient for both consumers and for the dealer community. The majority - 90% - of respondents said that consumer understanding of the bill was either low (61%) or moderate (34%). So, be sure to educate your staff and look for every opportunity you can to educate your customers.
   
3. Incorporate news about CARS into your advertising and marketing messages and create onsite excitement and atmosphere in your showrooms and through customer interaction. Make sure that customers know you are participating in the program and that they can come to you to cash in. Answer their questions, engage them in the discussion and use every department (sales, service, finance, etc) to do this.
   
4. Continually update yourself on the program. To help dealers and consumers take advantage of the CARS program, Dealix publishes a blog entitled CashforClunkers.org, and has also posted a recording of a recent webinar we hosted on the subject with Edmunds.com, in addition to other materials, on Dealix.com. The NHTSA, which will implement the program, is also regularly updating their website.
   
5. Be Ready to Make Deals for Non-Qualifying Trades. Even if a customer's car is not eligible, this is still a great sales opportunity. If they are reaching out to you, seize the opportunity to offer them a great deal and get them in a new or used vehicle outside of the program.
   
   • Have deals prepared to make the $3,500 offers they expected for aged Inventory or retired brands.
     
   • Be ready to evaluate many trades and balance with possible pre-owned inventory wish list.
6. Review your lead supply! Make sure you are ready for this opportunity to pick up some market share.
   
   • Buyers who are trading in their old cars are likely to evaluate car brands they haven't bought in the past. To do this research and to gain confidence in switching models, buyers will turn to "independent," research-based, internet sites.
     
   • Ask yourself...are you partnering with a lead supplier who can get you access to the buyers on the most popular and trusted "independent" sites like Yahoo! Autos, MSN Autos, KBB, Edmunds, AOL Autos? These are sites that consumers will visit to learn more about new and different brands. Neither your own website nor your OEM's site is likely to help you find the buyers most likely to consider your brand for the first time.

Good luck in making "Cash for Clunkers" a "More Cash for You" program!
About the Aurthor: Kevin Hunt is the Vice President of Sales for Dealix, a division of Cobalt. He can be reached at Kevin.hunt@dealix.com.

"Social Media Marketing", "Social Networking" catchy buzzwords used to push new platforms and for dated industry "experts" to claim a new found mastery.

Opinions on proper use of popular platforms vary immensely.

• From one tweet a week to many per day.
  
• Website providers putting Digg and Delicious buttons on Inventory?
  
• Ning sites for car dealers?

The real question is what are you using different social media platforms for and what are the methods you are using to promote awareness?

The image above comes from a viral event as a result of an idea on Facebook.com. Users in the UK plotted to reproduce this commercial by T-Mobile in real life and effectively closed down Liverpool Street Station in London. (<also source of the image)

Think of the cheap marketing that T-Mobile got, even if the whole thing was plotted by a social media marketing firm or happened "organically".

Click to expand...

To be effective using social media to drive awareness and sales it requires GREAT CONTENT and a network that will respond.

Effective Social Media Content

The quality of your content is the most important factor, the better it is the more it will be passed around to create a viral effect. Without content that has the potential to go viral it's usually a waste of bandwidth and spam. (Don't even get me started on using social media spam as a "SEO tool", that's a series of posts) Others will link to it and get people talking about you, your company, your products and interacting and viewing your content.

"Direct marketing will reduce the chances of a piece of web content going viral. People do not want to be sold to, the initial social media marketing push should be more about the conversation than the sale. A more aggresive sales angle can be added later, once the social media push has ended." - Wordtracker.com

Building a Social Media Network

To effectively promote content via Social Media and Social networking you have to be networked. A twitter account that follows noone, a digg account that only self promotes, a facebook profile in the name of a dealership, linkedn profiles for corporate mascots, ning sites for car dealers that only consultant participate in really serve no purpose other than to republish content and has zero Social Media value.

To make sites like digg, facebook, stumbleupon and twitter work you have to work them or find some someone to work them for you in concert with yours and others GREAT CONTENT. Each site has it's own rules written and understood. Promoting your own content on twitter is completely acceptable and doing it on digg may cause you and your domain to be banned from digg and place your site in a social media "sandbox".

Each site offers levels of connection with other users and those friends make using these destinations not only easier but profitable as well.

• Want a car story to go popular on digg.com? Get a high end user to submit it for you. It got us national press and we sold cars from it!!
  
• Want to test out the drivingsales servers on traffic from twitter? Tweet a story that others will retweet.
  
• Want your commercial to get over 300,000 views from youtube.com? Make it worth watching over and over again.

Cuban Gynecologist: Local Car Commercial

Automotive Content can get noticed and drive traffic. Just remember what the users of the sites want to see and build your network in each location and connect with other users who can help you drive traffic to your content. While at the same time remembering that social networking is a give and take, you have to promote their content as well.

Here are some easily identified noneffective uses of social media and networking sites.

• Bouncing JPEGs of used car inventory on video hosting sites.
  
• Having delicious and digg button on inventory.
  
• Feeding your your inventory to twitter.
  
• Stumbling and digging your new microsite.
  
• Fictitious zip based twtitter accounts.
  
• Ning Sites and facebook profiles for Car Dealerships
  
• Scrapping email addresses to send spam to from social networks. (Sorry couldn't resist)

About the author: Paul Rushing provides SEO services, microsites and craigslist inventory distribution to car dealers nation wide. His business has been completely built via social networking and inbound marketing. He can be reached at 912-266-1629.