The Internet has become a great way for car dealerships to expand their market share with a very reasonable level of investment. But like any marketing investment, it's important to put your online advertising dollars to their most effective use. Online car buying services, corporate manufacturer web sites and individual dealer web sites are the three major automotive players on the Internet today. All three, in one way or another, claim to help dealers sell their products and services online. Understanding the different online automotive players and what each one has to offer your dealership will help you use the Internet to your best advantage now and help you plan for the future.
Buying Services
Online buying services work to connect the consumer with a new or used car with minimal dealership involvement. These services are popular with car buyers because they perceive that they are getting the best deal from an impartial source. To increase consumer awareness and market share, buying services spend their advertising dollars promoting their web site. While their market share and consumer awareness are consistently increasing, buying services do not actively promote the individual dealership's brand.
Buying services can be a strong source of new and used car sale leads, but they do not market the other profit centers of a dealership. Focusing your online marketing budget exclusively on a buying service leaves out the important process of establishing a relationship with the buyer that leads to future car, parts and service sales.
Manufacturer Web Sites
Most online consumers who are shopping for a car pay a visit to the manufacturer's web site at some point during the buying process. Manufacturer web sites focus on building the corporate brand and provide extensive model information. In addition to the advantages of strong branding, individual dealerships profit directly from these sites when the manufacturer site actively funnels online traffic to the individual dealers. The most effective way to do this is with a dealer locator that links directly to dealership sites.
Dealer Web Sites
With an individual dealer web site, there is nearly limitless opportunity to market the dealership's brand and services to a targeted audience. However, while most dealerships are now on the Internet, they vary widely in how well they market their showroom services online. Those which have learned how to create a highly effective site are earning significant benefits by gaining a source of high quality leads. Dealerships that do not understand the features that are essential to an effective web site are passing these benefits along to the dealers that do.
The most effective web sites take an integrated approach. This means leveraging the brand recognition and traffic from a corporate site with the local branding and robust services on an individual dealership site. A customer-focused web site that touches on all the profit centers of the dealership, including parts and service departments, will gain the most by establishing a solid relationship between the customer and the dealership.
Finally, it's absolutely vital to find the best ways to promote your site in order to maximize traffic-a topic with many options to be discussed in a future article.
Each web site solution you might choose has its advantages. Integrating all three into your overall Internet strategy is key to long-term success. Understanding the players on the Internet today will help you get ahead tomorrow.
John Holt, co-CEO of the Cobalt Group is the nation's largest provider of Internet marketing solutions to automotive dealerships, currently serving more than 6,500 dealers nationwide. If you have specific questions or require more information about this subject, please check the appropriate box on the reader response form on page 3. jholt@dealeronline.com