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Posts with traffic tag.
What Will You Focus On Tuesday After Clunkers Shuts Down? Start Inviting Your Customers In Again…

Imagine, if you can, that business becomes painfully slow. Sales, traffic, even service, is down anywhere from a little bit to 'oh-my-gosh-how-can-we-survive?' slow.  Then try really hard to imagine some gift-from-above program from an unannounced source drives a bunch of customers to your store for a few weeks.  Then…the program ends abruptly.  At the same time, consider that you expected the program to end at any time so you are not completely surprised by the news that the masked crusader and his money left town.

What will you do the next business day? How prepared you are, how well you communicate with prospects and customers alike, how creative you are and where you know your business comes from will dictate if Tuesday is satisfactorily busy or if it is just like another day before all the loads of Monopoly money arrived.

Most people we've heard from consider C.A.R.S. a blessing with all of the traffic and sales it generated, as well as a genuine pain in the butt.  Of course!  If you had the program to do for yourself, would you have done it any differently?  You absolutely would have.  So why are you going to be twiddling your thumbs come Tuesday?  What program you run is up to YOU, every day.

Now, that's not to say that you're going to be able to come up with $4,500 of "it'll get here someday" funds on nearly half of the deals you do next week or any other day.  However, it's entirely up to you how to drive people off of their scared little (and big) duffs and into your business.

It's not up to the factory, it's not up to the million-dollar advertisements, it's not up to the region or your 20-group and gosh-forbid it's definitely not up to the government.  Don't you want them out of your business…not in it?  What happens in your business, positive or negative, is up to you, your brand, your staff, your effort and your planning.

So when the here today-gone tomorrow spigot of funds is finally turned off by someone making a lot more than you with nicer benefits than you have and a pension you can't even dream about, get back into the habit of making your business happen.  Less business?  Get a bigger piece of a smaller pie!

Can't figure out how to make it work?  Ask someone for help or at least tell the receptionist that you're not "away from your desk all day" and that you'll start taking meetings again.  Business doesn't happen from thin air, it takes a lot of work and some good consistency.  And sometimes it takes outside ideas folks, as painful as that might sound to some 20-year plus veterans.

Besides, whether you call it natural selection, survival of the fittest or one of a myriad of other expressions that refer to 'business better then usual', it is always best when you're the master of your domain rather than waiting for the next shot in the arm.

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

August 20, 2009 by Gary May 1
How And When Do You Generate Your Traffic? Your Own Program Or Someone Else’s This-For-That?

Whether or not the money lasts in the government's C.A.R.S./Cash For Clunkers program, one thing is clear: automotive retail still waits for someone or something outside of the dealer to drive the traffic. With few (and great) exceptions, people started hitting lots hard over the weekend.The question remains: what happens that's entirely up to you before and after programs?

A couple of OEMs started a little early by creating buzz around doubling or even advancing dealers money. Dealers even sent out email and direct marketing (along with radio and newspaper….aaaaarrggggh!) to promote the fact that they'd have the CARS program at their dealership! Folks, that's just not enough. Remember that people what to know what's in it for them! If they can get $3,500 or $4,500 (or more) for their car ANYWHERE, why are you yelling that you simply have the program? Is your banner bigger? Big (something) deal!

Why not detail how you understand the program's details, that you have a special team at the dealership to promptly handle customers, that you have a 'Clunkiest of Clunkers' competition for a prize or that your staff's outfits are "older than your trade!' and have them come in powder blue ruffled suits? Now, I'm not saying that you need to look like your favorite scene for The Wedding Singer or a bit part in one of my favorite industry guy's videos…what I am saying is that you have to get your head out of the "same place, same thing" mentality and start thinking about how YOU drive traffic.

No consumer typically wakes up in the morning and says "I've got to make it by some dealerships today and spend some time at each one!". That should not be news to anyone. What differentiates you (or doesn't) is the special events, programs and 'why-to-buy-here' calls to action that invite people in. Why continue to fight over the same piece of pie when you can make yours bigger? And with the current economic issues, simply take a bigger piece of a smaller pie! But your way of doing business can't stay in "wait and see", "hold on for 90 more days", "not going to do anything just now" or "watching how effective (fill in the blank)'s promotion goes before we do anything" mode.

Look at your numbers, especially your regional/area performance. Losing sales in your PMA? Why? Asked your customers why lately? How many times have you blind shopped the competition? Did you optimize your website in the last 30 days (or simply put up a C.A.R.S page and/or compete for the same keywords)?

To expect business you need to plan for business:

  • Listen to everyone (yes, your staff is part of everyone)
  • Understand trends and performance
  • Track and adjust in real time
  • Communicate and set expectations
  • Brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand

And remember, you can't live on someone else's brand (including the government's). It is also important to be real. If you don't understand something, say so! Ask questions or your vendors, partners, consultants and industry resources (as long as you are actually using them). If they can't do something, ask them to it and if they can't/won't: drop 'em like they're hot.

See the traffic on the highway? They are all going somewhere. They either have to or want to go where they're going. You might just end up being more people's destination if you play your cards right, plan to be successful and don't reply on ANYTHING outside your place of business to bring in the business.

Be a 'traffic-generating' leader, not a 'take what's left' follower…

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

July 31, 2009 by Gary May 0
Webinar: Using Your News To Drive SEO

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With more than 70 million people getting their news online every day, your news is about more than just reaching the media.

Your news can be a powerful tool to directly reach the millions of people searching for information online, drive traffic to your website and maximize your online visibility.

News search engines like Yahoo! News and Google News offer a great way to direct targeted traffic to your website and help you generate awareness about a topic or your company.

Join Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing to learn how to make use of tactics such as press release and news content optimization to take advantage of the potential traffic news search can generate.

Register for this webinar today to learn how you can achieve SEO success.

Topic:        Using Your News TO Drive SEO
Speakers:   Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing
Date:         Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Time:        2:00pm Eastern Time/11:00a Pacific Time
Cost:         FREE

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March 12, 2009 by Gary May 0
Taking The Fear Out Of Online…One _______ At A Time

Even though you've already heard it: If you want to succeed in business today, it has to take place online. For us in the auto industry, that's truly more the case than not. But the fact is it's not harder than it looks or sounds if you have the right assistance.

Maybe it used to be much easier, in some sense, years ago when you'd place an ad insertion, sit down on Saturday, Sunday or whatever day of the week your ad would display, grab your coffee, flip the right page open and smile. "There's my ad" and "oh, so much better than their ad!" (looking at a competitors ad). You could touch it, feel it, see it and gloat over it. Somewhere before the newspapers started failing rapidly, you were paying A LOT for advertising there and in other media that is not capturing an effective audience today…in the least.

Now here comes the Internet, offering the ability to reduce budgets by 30, 50, 60 and even 75% percent and get a more effective (yes, more effective) reach and ROI, let alone transparency and accountability. You can hear the dealers backing away from their monitors right now. How (and why) can you have faith in something with no true ability to be tracked, where circulation and impression rates mean practically nothing, then look at the web and say it's not for you?

We are not talking about the "I don't get it" excuse. Let that flimsy fallacy go the way of the Dodo Bird. This is the simple message: In most markets $2,000-$4,000 monthly of well-placed spend after 60-90 days will replace what $15,000-$25,000 plus used to drive. Absorb that…call your website or SEO/SEM company and start, today. And stay in it for at least 90 days before you make any judgment. This is not a 'run and gun ad' world. This is a 'stick with it' world.

So it doesn't matter if it's one ad, one car, one store, one promo, one incentive, one anything. The only way to take fear out of something is to do it. Stop making excuses: you're astute, successful, experienced and capitalistic, even though somewhere along the line fear replaced confidence and the Internet replaced the 'Sunday Times'. Oh, you might even end up building a brand…imagine that!

And by the way, if your website company can't handle it and/or you don't have an SEO specilist, head to NADA in a couple weeks and to Digital Dealer in April and get one (see you at both events!)

Best practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

January 15, 2009 by Gary May 0