Are you sick of hearing and reading about the terrible state of the retail automobile industry? Sure, sales are bad, but everyone is affected by the downturn—and I mean everyone. The challenge for dealers is to adjust their business to changing consumer demand and that is not easy, nor is it achieved overnight, particularly if your lot is full of vehicles no one wants to buy. So when I was invited to attend Kelley Blue Book’s recent eNetwork Brunch in Seattle, I jumped at the opportunity.

As I reviewed the agenda for the day, I noticed their slogan: Life Creates Car Shoppers. Despite all the industry doom and gloom, this simple slogan serves as a positive reminder that people continue to buy cars for a ton of different reasons. Growing families still need vehicles with utility, teenagers are looking for their first ride, and farmers still need pickup trucks. Life and all of its vagaries truly does create car shoppers, and it was kbb.com’s intent to share ideas with dealers on how they can capture their fair share of them.
Led by kbb.com national sales trainer Rob Lange, the format for the half-day seminar focused on helping dealers fine tune their digital marketing strategy to sell more cars. Additional speakers included Liquid Motor’s Mark Burack, Carfax’s Jay Luna, and ADP’s digital “go-to-guy” Ralph Paglia. There was lots of good information provided, but a couple of key points stuck out for me and I’ll share them with you.

Rob Lange highlighted the results of a Cobalt Group study conducted last year where one million de-duped new car leads were surveyed. Fifty five percent of those leads resulted in a new or used vehicle sale. OK, nothing sinister there; however, of those one million leads, 90 percent of those shoppers decided to shop at a different dealership than the one they first submitted the lead to. Nine out of ten effectively said, “Nah, I’ll go elsewhere, thanks.” Admittedly, there are numerous reasons why a dealership fails to convert every potential sales inquiry, but as a dealer, this is an incredible chunk of the market you want to get a piece of, right? And that was the main thrust behind Lange’s message: In order to give consumers what they need, you need to know what they want. So what do they want?

Whether you like it or not, they want pricing upfront, multiple photos (new cars included), ratings, reviews, and comparisons. According to Lange, they are not as interested in dealer information, F&I information, or monthly payment. So give ‘em what they want and position yourself to sell to the online customer.

At the most basic level, you must have an effective sales and communication process in place to help get the lead on the phone and into the showroom. Next, you want to make sure your vehicles are merchandized for success and both Mark Burack and Jay Luna offered best practices to do just that. ADP’s Ralph Paglia in his final session focused on offering tips to effectively market your dealership and inventory online, but reminded dealers to consider an integrated approach using radio, television, and newspaper advertising. He highlighted the continued disparity between what a dealer spends on advertising and where they advertise compared to where consumers research to find their next vehicle.

According to Paglia, dealers continue to spend the most money in newspaper and radio, yet only five and twelve percent of consumers ‘consume’ those medias, respectively. Television remains strong capturing about 20 percent of the audience, yet dealers spend over 35 percent of their budget on TV. OK, not a bad move, but the big gap in spending occurs where most of the ‘eyeballs’ are—the Internet. Dealers spend a paltry 15-16 percent of their budget on Internet marketing, but the majority of consumers research their next vehicle purchase on the Internet.

Paglia understands that sinking 100 percent of your ad budget into digital marketing is not a panacea, but he does know the importance of having an integrated approach. Use offline media to your advantage and communicate the same message in all of your print, TV, radio, and outdoor advertising. You don’t need to spend more; Paglia simply suggests that you should adjust the percentages of your ad spend to reflect where your customer base is. Spend the same or even less, but get better results. How do you do that?
Ralph touched on a few options that Google offers online advertisers. Here is an overview: Google offers online advertisers the opportunity to place cable television, radio, and newspaper print ads through their Google Adwords program. Called Google TV Ads, Google Audio, and Google Print Ads, dealers can create, place, and monitor their advertising using an auction model and pay only for impressions delivered or cost-per-thousand. The benefit, according to Paglia, is that dealers have the opportunity to target ad messages in local and national markets using major newspapers, radio stations, and cable network shows during prime viewing and listening times at a fraction of the cost of what it would normally cost if you went through a media buying company or the media outlets directly. Now this sounds great, but do your homework as you may find that you don’t have access to your local market or prime times that you truly want. If they do have your local market covered and the stations that fit your customer profile, however, it just might be a cost effective option for you.

This half-day session generated a ton of great ideas, so attending this free Internet marketing seminar may well be worth your time and should be your first step—if you’re interested in earning your share of a changing market!
For more information about Kelley Blue Book’s e-Network Brunch seminars, please contact Rob Lange at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , call 949-268-3266, or visit www.800bluebook.com/events.