Dealership Racketeering, Part III
Read Part I or II
When I engage with dealers about how blogs and social media can effectively cultivate sales opportunities, they like what they hear. They get charged. But often in the midst of battle some dealers seem confused and unsure of their role. They struggle to incorporate these new tools into their existing BDC processes.
This is not the case for all dealerships and in fact some are vigorous in their online networking, but there is a persistent sense for many of “when will it pay off”. But this is dangerous thinking. It’s not a matter of when but rather a matter of how. It pays off when you address the “how?”.
A blog isn’t a showroom like your website. It’s more like a radio station, a television channel, or even a broadcast network. Find a way to harness the power of that with customers and see how sales get.
As a car dealer, you must take that one step and start blogging. I don’t mean to get a blog to look at, but one to play with. Surround yourself with people you trust that have proven methods and innovative ideas. Get your brain wrapped around things that are new (to you) and be creative in finding ways to engage with your audience. Build trust and the car sales will come.
Invent for yourself the possibility of being a truly approachable dealership. Your website can not accomplish this but your blog can. This must start at the heart with you and those working with you at your dealership. Otherwise, your blog will just be a front for typical dealership “racketeering” (that’s a Landmark term in context, not mine).
Dealership Racketeering, Part II
In the early days of Internet and the auto industry, some dealers jumped in to having a web presence and either made it work or didn’t. Some didn’t bother. Some waited a while and let things develop. Some pioneered. I remember the bitterness dealers would have for “Internet” customers because they had too much information accessible to them to be ripped off.
This has settled and today essentially every dealership has an “Internet Department” which, really seems archaic now. Why is the Internet still considered a separate doorway to sales? Do dealers have a “radio department” or a “TV department” or a “billboard department”? No. They don’t. So why an “Internet department”? I don’t have an Internet department.
For more than two years now, the possibility I have seen the Internet offer dealers is the opportunity to establish genuine trust and confidence with their customers AND their employees. To accomplish this dealers must lead the way. If they sit back and count on others to do the thinking for them they will be led astray. Dealers need to take responsibility for their desired result which begins with a genuinely perceived possibility.
There is a lot more talk than action out there. The angles dealers take with their advertising is not much different from before and when it comes down to it, dealers just want to sell more cars. By this I mean that dealers struggle to find the vision and lasting patience for cultivating and nurturing sales opportunities. Websites are designed to convert now buyers and the only real Internet tools dealers know how to use for retaining potential customers is their newsletter and CRM.
Dealers must make their blogs tangible to customers AND employees. If you treat your blog as a microsite you degrade its potential power.
Dealership Racketeering
Instead of attending NADA this year in New Orleans I participated in a Landmark Forum which was a 3-day 33-hour workshop designed to help participants bring forth the presence of a new realm of possibility for yourself and your life. While I do appreciate some aspects of New Orleans, attending NADA there at this particular moment in time for the auto industry was not sounding attractive, and so I opted to pursue something different in hopes of attaining something more extraordinary.
Well, EXTRAORDINARY it was.
Like most people in the Forum, I wasn’t particularly excited about being there but my neighbor who introduced me to Landmark has been an active participant for more than 20 years now, so I estimated that it must have something of value to offer. Despite nearly walking out on it multiple times, by the end of the weekend I had experienced a breakthrough that made the grueling effort worth it a hundred times over.
The leading theme of the Forum was about possibilities and I couldn’t help but contrast the message with what I see going on today in the auto industry, particularly with car dealers. The possibilities presenting themselves to car dealers today seems astounding. I would compare it to 10 or 12 years ago when car dealers first began harnessing the Internet.
Next week I will offer some perspective on what possibilities I see today for car dealers and what they can be doing about it. Stay tuned…
The State of America
When you consider the irony of America, what comes to mind for me is how soft we are.
Highly polarized social issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and terrorism perpetuate anger and confusion while real economic situations such as declining real estate values, limited credit, and widespread corruption restrict the people, and soon our own governments.
A Morality Issue
The United States is clearly on the brink of moral insensitivity. This would be grim for us. It never works out for civilizations. Liberals blame conservatism and the Bush Administration for global chaos while keen citizens and individuals have forewarned us about these circumstance for the past 20-plus years.
For instance, In 1989 Charles Colson suggested in his book Against the Night that government policy was “mortgaging our future”. Seems obvious now, right? Of course. But not so then.
Another example is this citizen in Ann Arbor Michigan who in 1999 calls out the Clinton administration for urging sub-prime lending on its banks like Fannie Mae. Sub-prime as we know descended upon multiple industries including automotive.
Automotive Economics
With credit now less available for automobiles, legislation is in the works to put money into consumer wallets for the purpose of buying automobiles. Consider this Maryland Tax Bill referenced on DealerRefresh.com and ADM. This is a good idea, but why don’t we also sever our economy from the source of the problem while we have the chance – UNIONS.
Re-vitalize our Unions
Eliminating unions is not a populist choice and I realize that, but clearly something needs to be done about our worker unions. They hold us back. Giving money directly to consumers is good medicine but unless we address the source of the problem we will just re-visit this situation again.
Now, as Emeril Lagasse would say, let’s “kick it up a notch” and re-purpose automotive unions altogether. We should be able to lower production costs and make American automobiles more valuable. This also would free up workers for use in areas more in tune with our future such as Energy.
Shift Workers to Domestic Energy
By freeing up the unions workers could be applied towards a variety of other job types and industries, particularly in Energy Supply. The economic possibilities of this would restore value in the U.S. dollar making our own goods and services more affordable. Bring provision back to the Home Land.
These things could happen but it may be a rough road. With social integrity on the brink of collapse we risk being continued targets to global hatred indefinitely. We must establish our own beacons of light to weather through this period that could concievably last beyond your own lifetime.
Bloggers, Automakers, and Eco-sustainability
There is a revealing report out by JD Power about what bloggers think about automakers. You can read an article about it here.
You will see from the report there is a hefty emphasis throughout the blogosphere on eco-sustainability, i.e. the environment and economy. This comes as no surprise considering the economic situation in the U.S. and throughout the globe and the exponentially increasing awareness to and passion for more environmentally sound choices in all industries not just in automotive.
Blogging is no doubt powerful. You could suffice to say that it has become a vital part of most cultures, especially in the U.S and Australia in my own observations. This demonstrates the increasing importance for car dealers to not just embrace blogging but to get good at it and to partake in these ether discussions in a creative and productive manner.
Blogging is simply a means to an end. There is no better way to get good at something than to go out and do it. The risk in blogging is that you will spend too much time doing it and not see the results you might expect, but the benefit is that you spend the right amount of time doing it and see the results. There is nothing new about the essence of blogging for it is merely people communicating in certain ways, which dealers must learn to do.
Dealers should be encouraged to know that consumers are interested in what dealers might have to say. Just be sure to take the time and understand what your customers want to hear from you. There is no yellow brick road here. Just some fundamentals, some imagination, and dedication to success.
Promise in Automotive Blog Marketing
Just returned from a workshop we held today with the Automobile Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia (Shouts out to Greta, thank you). The workshop concentrated on providing attendees with an applicable technique they could deploy at the dealership using their Blog, Email, SEO, Social Media Networking sites, and Video.
Interestingly, none of the near 30 attendees representing more than a dozen dealerships reported their dealership having a blog. While I am not surprised by this, I do think it hints at the blue ocean still remaining before us in the auto industry of incorporating blog strategies into a car dealer’s Internet Marketing Strategy.
The purpose of our workshop today was to show dealers a real-life way to utilize their blog in their Business Marketing and Advertising plans, the importance of permission-based email marketing, and how SEO must be considered a core part of any online marketing campaign. It was presumed that attendees had already crossed the Internet bridge and the SEO bridge, and we anticipated that many people present would be hoping to learn how to get a blog or start blogging. I confess not clarifying well enough in the beginning that our emphasis was on how to utilize your blog versus how to get one but I am confident people still were able to take something home that was useful.
The message we shared today is one that I have seen evolving in recent years and fortunately being embraced by most dealerships today. It’s the idea of selling a relationship and not a car which really is just Sales 101. But more important than the message is the “How?” and “Why?”. While the idea of selling a relationship and not a commodity sounds good and all, pulling it off is a challenge, especially for car dealers. And that is what we really covered today. Why use a blog and how it can be utilized?
So while the dealer industry is still in its infancy for incorporating Blog Marketing Strategies into their Business Marketing and Advertising plans, it was evident today seeing how much more welcome the idea of using blogs has become for dealers. A year ago I would have been chased out the room for saying the “B” word. Today it seemed we couldn’t talk about it enough.
