I was reading a very interesting blog post (that I found out about on Twitter) this morning. Thought all of you AutoRevo-ites would find it an interesting read as well.

Revamp Your Website for 2010

A few highlights, and and my thoughts on them:

“The first thing that dealers need to realize is that the Internet has become the first, and sometimes only, place that consumers go to research and sometimes even buy their new vehicles.”
It’s amazing, but there are still a ton of dealerships out there who aren’t embracing the Internet yet. As one of our dealers said in a recent interview, “you can have the best inventory in the world, but if it’s not exposed to John Q. Public, it’s not going to do you any good”

“If you want to stay in front of consumers, you have to keep your website and Internet marketing up-to-date.”

“if your website doesn’t have the features consumers have come to expect, you can hurt your image in the eyes of the consumer”
Your website is a reflection of your dealership – take a look at your competitors… if their sites are nicer than yours, or have more featuers, or are easier to navigate, then potential customers will most likely do business with them instead of you…

“don’t make the mistake of focusing on what [you] want and what [you] like personally on the Internet, and not focusing enough on what the online auto buying users want and need”
This is vitally important. Every so often we have dealers who insist on certain “questionable” design elements in their sites… trust our design team, their ONLY job is to make our dealer websites look amazing.

“One thing that almost all internet marketing experts agree on is the importance of tracking the results of your Internet marketing.”
This is what our TruLogic reporting system is all about, and our recently released Inventory Intelligence reports are a vital addition to our already robust reporting and analytics package. Now you can really slice and dice your data to see exactly what’s selling, what’s not, and why…

Have a great week, and as always, let us know if you have any questions!

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We took a quick trip down to San Antonio, Texas, yesterday to film a little Dealer Profile video for one of our really successful dealers (www.trucksintexas.com).  We got some amazing footage, so make sure you check back soon to see the finished product once we get it edited.

Luckily, we took Erik the Intern with us
to help carry all the camera equipment
and lights and cables and microphones…

And even though he was just along for the ride, and didn’t have to carry any of the stuff, our National Sales Director still got so wiped out that he slept all the way home…

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This is the second in our series of videos covering our recent integration of YouTube videos into the AutoRevo system. This video covers the three vital bits of information that will help get your YouTube videos to explode your site traffic and online sales.

Help us stump Erik the Intern! We’ve had a few questions come in so far, but they’ve all been really easy to answer – we really want to try to stump him, so send us some tougher questions! No matter how random or off-the-wall it is, we really want to see him squirm! Email your questions to askerik@autorevo.com.

Don’t forget – we’ll be publishing a new Tip video every Tuesday, so make sure you subscribe to the blog if you use a reader, or check back every week if you don’t… If you’d like to see something talked about in the videos, email us at tipoftheweek@autorevo.com. See you next week!

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The Senate approved the “Cash for Clunkers” program yesterday, so now the bill goes to the President for his final approval… This is exciting news for all the dealers out there, as it is expected to produce a huge influx of business. If you’re a participating dealer, here’s a list of important preparations to make that will help maximize your potential sales from the “Cash for Clunkers” program:

1) Prepare your website - Potential buyers are already hitting the Internet to find out more information about the program.  You should create a custom page on your site to help educate potential buyers about the program… explain the qualifications and the difference between the $3,500 vouchers and the $4,500 vouchers.  Not only will your site benefit from featuring fresh content, you’re more likely to snag a few extra visitors who are looking for information on the program. Most consumers out there don’t even know what vehicles will qualify, so providing that simple information can result in significant increases in web traffic.

2) Prepare your staff - You’re bound to get a lot of calls from potential buyers who want to know more about the program.  You’ll also have a lot of in-person questions to answer, and you want to be sure that your staff is fully up to speed on all of the program details.  Don’t lose any sales because your employees can’t answer a potential buyer’s questions!

3) Prepare your inventory - Since the program will award vouchers based off of gas mileage, make sure you’ve got window stickers prominently displayed on all of your inventory with better gas mileage.  You might even want to order special window sticker stock to use for the 3-4 months that the program will run. Get your staff ready to showcase all of the available inventory to potential CFC buyers.

4) Prepare your strategy – The program is only slated to run for a few months, so you need to be able to hit the ground running.  You’ll want to be sure that you get the most out of the program, so it’s all about short term profitablilty – there’s no long term plan needed here – just prepare your staff and your inventory to ensure maximum effectiveness.

As always, comments are encouraged – if you’ve got any other ideas that will help maximize the results of the “Cash for Clunkers” program, let us know!

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Yes, we are always adding 3rd party sites we integrate with and we have 4 new ones this week.  If your dealership is using any of these please call or email us to get set up.

Izmocars.com
iSeeCars.com
CarFinder.com
Local-Cars.com

Check out how we integrate dealer websites with any automotive shopping site!

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So I know it sounds like I’m talking crazy talk, but bear with me…

We all know that we’re in a recession. We all know that car sales are lower than they’ve been in years. The important point is this – because of the tough economy, fewer people are buying cars… but that can be a good thing! People want to be sure that their money is well-spent, so they’re doing more online research before making a purchase than ever before.

Consumers want to buy a car that not only satisfies their needs, they want to pay the right price and buy it from someone they can build a rapport with.

Getting found in the search engines can be your white knight that saves you from the evil dragon of the recession.

Here are three tips that will help you boost your site to a higher level:

1. Local business is key. While the good ol’ days of people driving around and browsing for cars is long gone, consumers still tend to purchase locally. Your address is already on your site, but make sure you have text on your Home page and your About Us page that mentions where you’re located. People like to know that once they find a car they like, they can come by and take a look in person.

2. Your inventory should be your focus. Your inventory is already working for you – all of our inventory pages have unique URLs, title tags, and meta data, which is vitally important for helping to rank higher in the search engines. What’s important here is to write good descriptions for all of your vehicles – the VIN exploded information isn’t enough, you want to add a personal description that will catch a potential buyer’s eye. Our automatic description builder can help with this, but it’s always a good idea to add your own personal touch.

3. Make sure your site is appealing. Your site is an extension of your business, and you want people to see your site and WANT to buy from you. Your home page should have nice graphics and well-written text. Your site should be informative and easy to look at.  Appealing graphics are extremely important, not only on your home page, but on your inventory pages as well. Taking the time to get great photos of each car will make a huge difference when it comes to sales.

Our sites are highly optimized to help with search engine rankings right out of the box, but if you follow these tips, you’ll be maximizing your site’s potential.

As always, comments are welcome – let us know if you’ve done something with your site that’s boosted business so we can share your success with others.

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Ok, let’s state the obvious and get it out of the way.  You fill in the blank: We are witnessing the __________ economic time since the Great Depression.  Glad we got that out of the way.

Most are calling it a recession.  I’m calling it a Revolution!

Wikipedia defines a revolution as: a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.  Their results include major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions.

Do you see a revolution going on around your dealership?  Do you see a revolution with the way customers are shopping your inventory?  The answer comes with a resounding YES!  Let’s break down the definition:

Fundamental change: consumers are changing the core elements of the shopping process.  One example is the use of comparison pricing tools given to the consumer by sites such as Vast.com, Oodle, Edmonds, and many others.  We then say pricing tools become the golden egg for car dealerships to competitively pricing inventory.  There were many elements leading up to this change and many since, but the principal is fundamental change.

Relatively short period of time: a recession is defined as a decrease in a country’s GDP for at least two quarters.  Mmmmm…I think we have covered the two quarters.  Certainly the OEMs didn’t help anyone with their timing of financial assistance needs, but we are there.

Major changes in culture, economy, and socio-political institutions: There is definitely a different culture created for the consumer and in the dealership sales process.  I don’t need to go into the economy part (enough said).  Finally we set history this November in politics with the election of Barack Obama.  The political climate has certainly changed as President Elect Obama will be solving challenges  he never dreamed of through his campaign.  Isn’t it so true that all of us are interrupted by the uncertainty of life.

Since we are talking revolution I had to look up “revolutionary“.  To paraphrase again from wikipedia:   A revolutionary has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose (sell cars), one thought (sell cars), one passion (sell cars) - the revolution.  Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world (working 80 hour weeks in the car business); with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world.

Is that us or what!?  I see our industry as FULL of revolutionaries!  Bring it on, we will survive!

I would say after being a business owner the number one challenge faced is dealing with uncertainty.  We plan, strategize, and move to change an industry but many times we encounter so much uncertainty that it challenges the plan or strategy.  So to counter the “Revolution” definition I tell our dealers it is simple:

1. Master the “Fundamentals” of selling a car online (with AutoRevo of course).  Not the way it was, but the way it is NOW.
2. Make “Major Changes” in your business.  Example: put your General Manager back in front of the customer.  Get them out of their office on a Saturday looking at leads data reports (that is for Monday morning).
3. Leverage the “Revolutionaries” at your store.  Cut the bottom 10% performers immediately and meet with your best resources to communicate the game plan.

The reality that businesses and dealerships are not run in straight lines is more evident than ever today.   Accept the uncertainty as a part of business and life.  Getting to your goal may have a different path than anticipated, but you still get there.

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Bring your paper based delivery documents online!  AutoRevo’s DigitalDocs is a flexible workflow to complete the sale with your customers accurately and easier than ever before.

When a new or existing customer comes to your dealership, you have an exciting opportunity to make a lasting impression.  A smooth and easy process can improve your customer relations and encourage them to do more business with you.  It can also give your employees a better opportunity to provide great customer services.  The less time you have to spend processing forms, the more time you have for advising customers and suggesting products they would have otherwise not known about.

Most processes can be time intensive, error prone, and paper driven.  With paper driven processes, these forms are not linked together and  employees have to enter this information multiple times.  This is usually when errors occur.  Studies show that 25-80% of paper based forms contain errors.  Every time one of these errors occur the dealership must go back to the customer sometimes even requiring them to begin the process from scratch : resulting in time loss, cost, frustration, and poor customer service.

AutoRevo offers DigitalDocs to send attractive online documents that are intuitive to your customer and customized to your dealership.  Customers receive the delivery documents right to their inbox, complete the paperwork quickly and accurately, and return it to your dealership.

It’s your dealership.  Put AutoRevo DigitalDocs to work for you!

Benefits

• Complete sales online faster and easier….no more shipping fees or handwritten documents
• Auto-generated documents
• Auto calculates sub-totals, taxes, and totals
• Laser-quality generated PDFs
  

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Here we go again…distributing our dealers inventory to even more places. The 3 most recent:

CarTango.com – Girl Meets Car

AskPatty.com – Automotive Advice for Women

LemonFree.com – Automobile Search Engine

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