Marketing & Communication Channels

Since the dawn of time, dealers believed that automotive marketing vendors are trying to push more point products on them in order to upsell and increase their commissions:

Search Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Social Media
Chat
Video
Mobile
eMail…

Dealers are absolutely right. We are. But are we taking you down the garden path?

A new study proves that multi-channel marketing (use of five or more marketing channels such as email, social media, advertising, website, etc. used in a coordinated campaign) is actually far more effective than buying any individual channel in getting the real business growth metrics we all live for.

According to Aberdeen’s “July 2012 Customer Experience Management: Using the Power of Analytics to Optimize Customer Delight” research, businesses who engaged in multichannel marketing saw growth in key performance improvements across the board, such as: a 6.8% increase in customer retention, a 5.1% increase in customer lifetime value, and a 4.0% increase in customer satisfaction.

These findings grow even starker when compared to those businesses not engaged in multichannel marketing. Multichannel companies improve customer retention far more than all others on a year-over-year basis. They also double the year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction results, compared to companies without multichannel account management.

To get even more granular, multichannel marketing also improves campaign participation and conversion rates of digital marketing programs. Another Aberdeen study reported that businesses that use three or more channels achieved 48% better year-over-year result in terms of unique website visitors.

This makes sense. In an environment where your buyers interact with a rapidly changing mix of media: content sites, email, social, OEM & dealer sites, etc., you need to be present throughout their entire journey and cater to their preferred media mix.   You can fail to win their hearts by either not being present where they are, or by having inconsistent messaging as they weave an unpredictable path through the web.

Now, needless to say, organization is the difference between an army and a mob. You can’t just throw more channels in the mix and expect to instantly improve results. But, if done strategically, when it comes to marketing, it’s better to leave no stone unturned. The challenge has been that this is hard, sophisticated, marketing that has required a level of marketing expertise and technology access previously only available to top tier advertising agencies.  The good news, however, is that several vendors are now offering multichannel automotive marketing solutions designed for dealers that don’t require a PhD or expensive agency.  It’s never been easier for you to get involved with multichannel marketing.

Does that mean you should abandon “point” solutions like premium SEO, SEM or Reputation Management services?  Of course not, these can be an important foundation for all of your marketing execution.  Just evaluate multichannel marketing programs and make sure they are high up on your budget priority list.  They work.

Questions

Is the tide turning in Automotive from focusing on independently managing a set of discrete digital media toward more integrated multi-channel marketing?

What is reasonable for the marketing manager in the store to do vs. one’s marketing vendor or agency?

 

time efficiency at the dealership



Can You Sell Cars Working 4 Hours A Week?

Can you imagine? Instead of working 60 plus hours per week, you show up at 9 AM on Monday and weekend is just four hours away! What would you do with all the free time? I would probably play enough golf to be on the PGA tour, lift weights and work out everyday, and then on Saturday, maybe go to Home Depot, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath & Beyond, I don't know.

For those of you who haven’t read The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, you’ll be really disappointed to know that I am not starting a revolt to reduce dealership hours from 9AM-9PM Monday through Saturday to 1 4-hour workday. However, I am confident that I will save you a ton of time and be able to help you make more money.

Let's get started..



Stop checking your email every five minutes!

Prior to reading the 4-hour workweek I was super guilty of this. By checking your email every minute you can’t get anything done. What happens is you start to work on something important like an email blast, website analytics, advertising, etc. Then you get an email from your factory rep with daily sales update, while checking this email you get a SPAM email that you have to unsubscribe from, and then you get a bill emailed to you that you print out to authorize payment for and before you know it it’s been a half an hour and you completely forgot about your email blast.

Instead of checking your email every 5 minutes, set 2 times per day that you check email say 12 PM and 5 PM. I’m sure it’s your habit to check their email the first thing you get into work each day, but you must break this habit! Henry Evans in the book The Hour a Day Entrepreneur uses a sports analogy, rather than start the day on the defensive responding to emails you want to start the day on the offensive. Making stuff happen, making profit happen.

It is a difficult habit to break, but you must keep Outlook closed and even turn off the email notifications on your iPhone. Some of you might have managers or the owners above you whose emails you feel obligated to quickly respond to, however if you explain to these individuals that you are only checking your emails at 12 PM and 5 PM each day in an effort to increase efficiency and for them to call you with anything urgent. You will find that responses to most of their emails can wait and that they will call you if they truly have something urgent.



Single tasking is the new multi-tasking!

Poker is a passionate hobby of mine and I play in the WSOP main event most summers, but the majority of my play used to be online before it got shut down in the US. When playing online poker I had 3 22” monitors set up playing 12 tables

simultaneously (there are people who play many more tables than this!). While it was fun and exciting to play so many tables, I found that my win rate was much lower than if I played only 3 or 4 tables. The reason... playing less tables I was able to focus more on maximizing as much profit from the hands I was ahead in and minimize loss in the hands I was behind in.

The same principles can be applied in the dealership. At one point, I would have my email, Facebook, Twitter, CRM, website editor, vAuto and instant messenger all open at the same time. Why? Because it was awesome and made me feel really important to have so many windows open. Naturally all of this leads to little focus and a lot of distraction. Now, I’ll try to keep only the things open I need, for the most part this is just one program. However, there are times where I’ll need multiple things open like if I’m desking deals for instance that I may need multiple things open.

In terms of getting things done. I set 12 month, 6 month, and 1 month goals and funnel each of these goals to specific daily to dos. I use Evernote the night before to prioritize the entire next day to do list. As I mentioned you want to head into work on the offensive making stuff happen. On a given day the priority might be a customer we are real close with closing, sometimes it’s working on the CRM action plan, writing a press release, sales training, etc. However, they are prioritized and align with my goals, instead of someone’s email.



Eliminate work other people can do

Prior to reading the 4-Hour Workweek there were countless things that I would do on a weekly basis and the entire time while doing them I would be thinking someone else really could be doing this for me. The reason I didn’t, I was too lazy to teach someone else how to do it. I am sure there are countless things that you could have someone else do as well. A few things that come to mind are reporting sales, sales logs, and dealer trades but I am sure there are countless other things that you can have someone else do for you as well.

Below is a great chart that is included in the 4-Hour Work Week on finding stuff to outsource to a personal assistant. I have found that there are enough people in the dealership to keep busy that a personal assistant isn’t necessary. Finance Managers are great people to utilize because they are detail oriented and while they aren’t selling products you might utilize their skills rather than have them checking Facebook while they are waiting for another deal. Other people that come to mind are secretaries or warranty administrators. I would recommend not having sales people doing stuff like this because there are a lot of sales people who will make these things a higher priority than selling cars.



Empowerment

Another thing that is mentioned in the 4-Hour Workweek that is a big time saver is empowering your employees. Now, truthfully I’ve yet to implement the majority of the stuff I am suggesting so these are merely ideas. However, Tim Ferriss shares about how he would get 200+ emails per day from the customer service side of his business about different customer complaints and how each should be handled. He would spend 9-5 replying to each email about how to handle the situation. Ultimately he empowered his customer service to fix any customer problem under $100 without contacting him and this instantly reduced his emails from 200 per day into fewer than 20 per week.

In the New Gold Standard is explained how the Ritz-Carlton empowers each employee up to $2,000 per day to take care of any customer issues and also to exceed their expectations. Naturally this empowerment must been managed, but both Tim’s company and the Ritz-Carlton note that such empowerment has had little to no effect on the bottom-line. Yet, the quick resolution of problems has undoubtedly increased customer happiness. Even if such empowerment does minimally affect the bottom-line, the freedom from constant interruption this provides you and your managers makes it well worth it.

Dealership specific example of how this could be effectively implemented would be to provide a structure for internet pricing for BDC or Internet Sales Reps so they don’t have to check with a Sales Manager for every price. Also for Service Advisors to take care of any problems and unhappiness on the service drive.



Time Vampires

In Dan Kennedy’s book No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs Dan talks about one of the of the biggest threats to your time and energy, time vampires. Time vampires can come in the form of coworkers, vendors, and even customers who have no regard for your productivity and are constantly interrupting you with meaningless questions, stories, or gossip. Some time vampires he talks about in the book are Mr. Have-You-Got-A-Minute, Mr. Trivia, and Mr. Soap Opera. These people need no description, you know who I’m talking about.

A couple of things to drive a stake into the time vampires is to end the open door policy! If you are working on something and can’t be interrupted put your phone on do not disturb and put a big sign outside your office to not come in for a set period of time. I tend to bounce around from dealership to dealership and therefore don’t have an office so when I sit down to get work done I put on headphones. When people see me banging on my keyboard and working diligently with my headphones on they know it better be good to interrupt me.

The last time vampire is Mr. Meeting.

Meetings

I have gone full circle on meetings. I used to be a Mr. Meeting. I thought that the old school car guys were crazy because they never seem to ever have meetings. However, after reading the 4-Hour Workweek and some of the other books I’ve mentioned I have realized that there can’t be anything less productive than a meeting. I used to take every meeting asked for by AutoTrader, Cars.com, CARFAX, and if you are vendor reading this and I forgot your company I apologize but the good news is I probably had a meeting with your company too.

So don’t let the vendors talk you into going over your account performance because this is simply an opportunity for them to upsell you on a higher version of their product or waste your time. Meetings should only be used to solve a pre- defined problem and must have a set agenda. So if you are having a problem or want to know about a higher version of the product, you set up the meeting with them.

Side note: one meeting I do recommend having is a morning meeting, most call it a save a deal meeting. I think it is so important that i will go over it in another blog post.

Questions:

Have you read the 4-Hour Workweek and if so what did you get from it?

Are you applying any 4 Hour Workweek rules at your dealership or to your personal process?

mobile app madness

5 Ways to Promote Your Dealers Mobile App

Mobile app promotion was easy in 2008. App developers could submit their application to Apple app store and compete amongst the thousands of other apps for user's attention. "Thousands" being 10,000. End of 2008 - five months after the mobile app store launch only 10,000 total iPhone apps existed. If an applilcation was popular, it would make the top 25 list in multiple categories and enjoy front row promotion to users around the world.

Today, over 500,000 apps exist on Apple's store alone. Complex and large dollar promotional strategies back new attempts to crack the top 25 category - even for a day. Companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for faux downloads, contracting "incentivized install" companies that use virtual and real currency to pay users a fee to download the app. If enough downloads can be driven for a particular app, it has a chance to crack the top 25 of a given category.

This leaves a hole for quality mobile applications targeted at a smaller audience. How do we compete with the launch strategy for the next Angry Birds release? How will our customer find us amongst a sea of "other apps"? The answer is they won't. Not in the app store.

Dealer mobile app promotion "for the rest of us" centers outside the app store. Creating an effective strategy requires leveraging many of your existing channels and creating new ones.

Top 5 ways to get your app into customer’s hands...



1. App Option Code

This is the #1 way your customer should find your app. You spend thousands each month promoting your URL, driving your customers to your website. A simple install of detect code will allow any customer on a smartphone visiting your site the option of downloading your dealer app.

No searching through an app store. Visit your site. Click OK. Download app.

Try it here by visiting http://rosevilletoyota.com on your iPhone or Android.



2. QR Codes


A quick scan of a QR code by your customer gives them access to your dealer’s mobile app. Despite the controversy - Use QR codes on window stickers, print brochures, and marketing materials to get the app to your customer fast. Use the digital QR code version for newsletters, email signatures, and online banner advertising.

Click here to view an example of a dealer using QR codes on print brochures



3. Post-sale Install

Make sure your mobile app is installed on your customer’s phone after the sale. Show them how quickly they can access roadside assistance, schedule service, and get contact information for the dealership.

RO’s are a great place to feature your app’s QR code. Train your staff to suggest an install after the sale.





4. Facebook Promotion

Let your customers know you’re mobile friendly. Use links, images, and video to get your app to your network quickly. Promote on a recurring basis. Some of our most successful dealers tie facebook promotions, such as giveaways or specials, with their mobile app launch.

Click here to see a great facebook giveaway example.



5. On-site Advertising

Use links, images, and video on your standard HTML and mobile sites to let your customer know they can communicate with you on the go. Place QR codes on your standard HTML site (they can be scanned on screen with a mobile device) and direct links on your mobi site.

Click here to see an example

Questions: What are you doing to effectively promote your dealer mobile app? What’s worked? What hasn’t?

Did your mobile app developer help you launch and promote your dealer app?