I would like to start this thread by proposing that the Internet be considered as more of an environment than a communications or advertising media in the more conventional sense of a media channel… Think of it this way, if you advertise on the radio, then people have to listen to a radio station to hear your spot. If you advertise on TV, then prospects must be watching TV, in order for your dealership to receive an opportunity. This marketing conundrum situation is the same for newspapers, magazines and outdoor. Well, maybe less so for outdoor advertising… With the Internet, we now have a place where over 75% of car buyers spend far too many hours of their time. A place where over 65% of new car buyers go to look for information that helps them decide what vehicle to buy, and where to get it. It is an environment, with multiple channels and multiple media available for consumer consumption.

From 2005 through 2007 I worked for a family owned dealership that asked me to maximize their Internet sourced sales opportunities… In August 2005 the store received about 1,200 Internet Leads from all sources combined. In June, 2006 we received well over 3,000 Internet-originated sales inquiries, and we had over 30,000 unique visitors browse through over 20 web-based properties. In January, 2007 we received over 5,000 Internet based sales opportunities, most of which originated from over 120,000 unique visitors to over 30 web sites controlled by the dealership. All this activity was driven by a single-point Chevrolet dealership in downtown Phoenix, AZ. In March 2007 (my last month at the store) the Courtesy Chevrolet eBusiness Department hit their all time peak sales results with over 400 new and used vehicles sold by the Internet Sales Teams and to appointments set by the Business Development Center (BDC). From August of 2005 through March 2007 we increased the store’s Internet sales by over 200% while increasing Interactive marketing expenses by 40%. Process execution improvements contributed about 30% of the sales increases, but marketing efficiency improvements generated far more sales increases than our improved processes did..

Along the way, we have learned that having a single dealership web site is the equivalent of having a single outdoor billboard and calling it a “campaign”. One dealership web site is simply not adequate enough to support a true online marketing campaign. While growing into this highly effective lead generation “monster”, most of us at Courtesy Chevrolet did not intend to create a strategy that included a wide array of various web sites, micro-sites and landing pages… It just became so apparent that multiple web sites were more efficient and cost effective at producing large volumes of high quality exclusive leads than is possible with a single web site. In some ways this effect reminds me of using a multiple choice closing technique… It is always more effective to ask “which one of these terms and payments better fit into your budget” than it is to show a single monthly payment to a car buyer and say “take it, or leave it”. Let me share with you an experience that illustrates how effective multiple web sites can be from a purely financial perspective.

As many people reading this already know, Courtesy Chevrolet has a long and successful relationship with BZ Results, a web site and CRM solutions provider that was acquired by ADP in March 2006. In the Fall of 2005 we were approached by The Cobalt Group and told that we “had to purchase” a GM approved PowerShift web site from them if we wanted to be a GM Certified Internet Dealer. Although that statement turned out to be untrue, what was true is that as a Chevrolet dealer, if we wanted a direct hyperlink from the dealer search results within the Chevrolet.com web site to a dealership web site representing Courtesy Chevrolet, then that site had to be a Cobalt site. Gm would not provide a link from either the GM or Chevrolet web sites unless the dealership purchased a web site from Cobalt. When we asked how much the Cobalt sites were at that time, we got a range o answers, but ended up leveraging our contacts at GM to compel the Cobalt sales representative to sign us up or the minimum GM PowerShift website package at around $375 a month.

The GM recommended Cobalt site averages 10 - 20 leads each month and 1 to 3 sales from those leads. This is certainly nothing to brag about, but from a financial perspective it does boil down to an average lead cost of less than $30 each and an average cost per vehicle retailed (PVR) of less than $300 each. Granted, the volume is low, but the concept of having more than one site intrigued us from a cost effectiveness perspective. Since 2005, Courtesy Chevrolet has launched over 40 web sites and micro sites, each focused on specific topics and customer segments. This strategy of developing a portfolio of online properties has proven to be much more cost effective in selling cars than if those same dollars were redirected into buying leads or any other form of advertising. Here’s a few examples:

Full Featured Web Sites
www.HouseofCourtesy.com
www.Courtesyfleet.com
www.CourtesyOnBell.com
www.CourtesySanDiego.com
www.LatinoChevy.com
www.Phoenix-Courtesy-Chevrolet.com

Micro Sites
www.Chevy-Malibu.com
www.Chevy-Tahoe.com
www.PHXfinance.com
www.CaliforniaCorvetteKing.com
www.PhoenixChevyImpala.com
www.PhoenixChevySilverado.com
www.Phoenix-Chevrolet-Dealers.com
www.WeBuyChevys.com

Ad Campaign Landing Pages
www.ChevyPriceQuote.com
www.AZCentral-Chevrolet.com
www.Autotrader-Phoenix.com
www.Tucson-Chevrolet.com
www.ChevyRedTagEvent.com
www.GM-Employee-Pricing.com
www.LifeBeyondBankruptcy.com

The bottom line is that creating and launching multiple web sites targeted to specific customer segments, multiple micro sites that are hyper focused on specific models or parts o the buying process and landing pages designed to achieve the highest conversion rates from clicks to phone calls and leads… All of them are a far more effective use of marketing dollars than that same old full page ad in a local newspaper, stale direct (junk) mail campaigns or a series of radio spots.


About the Author - Ralph Paglia currently serves as ADP Dealer Services’ National Director of Digital Marketing. He has enjoyed a variety of retail management and eBusiness roles in his automotive sales and marketing career which started in 1981. Ralph started generating emailed auto sales leads by using his CompuServe ISP account and defense contractor Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) in 1986.

This information you have posted is probably the best advice for any dealer that is currently having success and for the many that are not. "Tarketing" your website marketing through multiple sites and microsites not only reaches the consumer who is captive to that segment but allows the dealer to intelligently plan future use of marketing dollars. As an individual with 20 years on the retail side of the business, I cannot imagine being back in the sales tower on a Saturday morning wondering if my newspaper ads for the weekend would be fruitful. Even worse, the thought that if they were, How would I know what had brought the traffic in ? Thankfully I now work for the most innovative, dealer-centric solution company in the world. I have the ability to carry the message and assist multiple dealers get a grasp on the dollars spent and make decisions based on proven profitable website and front end solutions. Thank you for your valuable article.

Lora Hamilton
ADP Dealer Services

To add...

A new relationship forming in the car industry- specifically between a consumer wanting to sell their car and dealers. We all know the CARMAX method was created to avoid consumers having to haggle in the buying process- well now there is a new consumer portal process that ALSO allows dealerships to GAIN a potential HOT lead to their lot by way of caroffer.com. Read the article below- Internet is making way for some very fast advances in the industry! National rollout of this model is set for March 2008. What better lead is there to show up at your dealership than someone who has just sold their car?

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--lanelogic® believes a real cash offer to acquire a vehicle in minutes is very compelling to the consumer. By leveraging the Internet traffic already driven by its dealers’ Web sites, partnering with some of the largest Internet search and content sites in the country and capitalizing on Pep Boys foot and Web traffic, this new application is expected to drive thousands of cash offer requests a day.


lanelogic® will introduce a new, revolutionary online product, caroffer™, at this year’s National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) conference in San Francisco, CA. caroffer™ gives consumers the ability to get real cash offers for any vehicle they wish to sell in a matter of minutes. The caroffer™ banner is linked on a dealer’s retail Web site, allowing them to offer the public a quick and simple way to sell any vehicle online. This new product gives lanelogic® dealers a powerful tool to source inventory and drive retail traffic.

Once a consumer clicks the banner to sell their vehicle, the lanelogic® trade desk will take over. The consumer will be directed to a world-class Web site that walks them through a very simple online selling process. If a consumer accepts our cash offer, they will receive a voucher that can be redeemed within 72 hours at the dealership through which the offer was facilitated.

lanelogic® announced last week that it had partnered with The Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack (NYSE: “PBY”), the nation’s leading aftermarket retail and service chain, to launch caroffer™. This partnership gives consumers access to up to 600 vehicle drop-off and inspection locations across the country, and provides a pool of used car inventory for lanelogic®’s dealer partners.

“We believe the Pep Boys partnership will produce a phenomenal source of inventory for our dealers,” said Bruce Thompson, lanelogic’s® founder and CEO. “We anticipate that most vehicles acquired through this alliance with Pep Boys will be three to five years old and valued at under $9,000. These are the most desirable used vehicles and our dealers will have the first opportunity to purchase them.”

Being an SEM specialist I understand the need to creating multiple paths to increase your percentage of traffic at any given portal. My point is instead of creating the nightmare of managing so many sites why not build modules within on URL frame. A good example of this would be http://www.somedealersite/malibu or any other target keyword.

By either method more leads should be generate, and in fact the growth could overload any rather quickly staff if done right. I make it a point to advice my customers that is better to have to much than to little. The key ingredient is getting to the hot one's faster and letting the cold leads wait.

Managing leads and getting the good ones to filter to the top is very important and I have seen a lot of programs say they will do just that, but I have yet to see one I like. However I am hearing some really good things about a new program that is just now coming out called Carfeine . If any one is using this Purelead/Analytics solution I would like to hear about the results.

Your comments regarding the use of Deep Links to specific content sections created within a car dealership's primary web site are certainly relevant and in many cases appropriate. Although I have seen many instances where the use of microsites for highly focused topics, such as a new model launch, or special finance needs of credit challenged people has accomplished far more marketing objectives than could be achieved using a primary dealer website sub-section, the most effective digital marketing strategies will incorporate the use of four types of designated URL destinations:

1. Primary Full-Featured dealer websites
2. Highly focused and relevant to specific topic microsites
3. Conversion optimized campaign-specific landing pages
4. Deep links to specific content within the dealer's primary site

I have posted an article on Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community which illustrates the use of deep links connected to keyword enriched URL's which can be seen using the following link embedded into the article's title: Using Inventory Deep Links As Digital Advertising and Paid SEM Landing Pages

However I have never understood the term deep as it applies in this case. Why would we refer to a subdomain as deep when it can be addresses as simply as www.somedealer.com/topic. Additionally when there are so few domains available and search engines index by site name that are keyed to keyword selection I would think this would further establish the strength of using subdomains.

I think the origin o the term deep link comes from the reference to any domain inside the web site normally accessed via the home page, but instead goes directly to the page "deep within" the site... I dunno, as I did not coin the term, but most people seem to know what it means.

I think its still depend if you place it the right place. I mean your target country. If you want to sell your car in USA, India, UK or Australia. You should place in in the right target.
I agree that link is also important. . .

__________________
Tonneau Covers || Truck Lift Kits || Warn Winches