Car Dealerships what do you?

There are a lot of variables... It depends on what that particular car dealership needs. I'd suggest you take a consultative approach with the business owner, find out what they're doing now, what their goals are, and then make recommendations based on services that will help the business to make more money.

Of course, if you already know some information about this business, feel free to let us know and we'll provide as much help as we can.

simply just ask them 'what services they need?' and most importantly
ask 'what is your budget?'

its the best thing i could recommend as they might have a huge budget or they could be just 'tyre kickers'

to SEO a local Biz who would be the best to outsource that to ??? i dont know how to personally do alot of these things but i can talk the talk just need to find some back ups so i can deliverer QUALITY to my potential clients....

You need to ask questions to get a general idea of what they do to generate business online. The way they answer that question will help you determine what kind of service(s) to offer.

I take the jump ahead approach where I created a landing page and captured about 250+ names and emails that are looking to buy cars in the same market then I went to the dealership with that list gave it too them and told them to follow-up with them and then come back to me. I got a call 2 days later after they had sold 14 cars and signed a contract for $10,000 a month with $20,000 upfront.

The point is you need to think outside what everyone else is doing. Car dealers are getting slammed every day with promotional companies that want to do work for them. If you can give them results before they pay they will often come back to you to keep making them more money.

They got rid of one of their marketing staff just so they could justify paying me. be different and unique and read books like how to win friends and influence people and how to close the deal. Great books to read if you are targeting automobile companies

I would think working in "craigslist" and possibly even "ebay auto?" into a general seo package would really get the ball rolling. At least in my area, these car dealerships are absolutely STRUGGLING. I'd think PPC and an optimized "A" maps local listing would help get things rolling the quickest as well. Bid/rank on keywords like "yourtown used cars", etc.

I know auto dealerships around here are really big on "contests" and "radio promotion" as well.

Just some food for thought.

- Jim

Just don't overwhelm yourself thinking about what to do with your new contact. Talk to them and get an idea of what they are currently doing online to increase their business. Then go from there. Chances are you're going to be able to help them.

After seeing this thread, I decided to post my needs assessment questionnaire on my blog to help out fellow Warriors... It's free to download:

Needs Assessment Questionnaire | Joshua Hayes

Car dealerships can benefit from many different online services.

For example any car dealership will benefit from optimized GP listings, local SEO, video marketing.

As a consultant you have to determine with the client exactly what services they will benefit from the most given their particular situation. This can only be established once you get to know the client and their business.

Once you understand their needs you then need to establish the value of the service you recommend.

Riz

Joshua yes i would also like to see or hear about some examples on what was actually done to create that scenario

In my experience, dealers spend a lot of money driving traffic to their dealership websites. But are then perfectly content converting only 1% of the traffic to someone they talk to and letting 99% go to the competition. We came up with something that converts many times that number and creates a monthly recurring income. Since this has to do with a future product we're working on, I won't post what we did here. But feel free to pm me.

i would love to pm you but i cant yet can you send me a message

Hey sorry everyone I was unaware people where still posting on this post. I am back now to answer all the questions.

@ Digital Info Diva: Thanks for the praise it is much appreciated. As for the problem of the car dealerships referring me to the ad agency. I took the approach of a stalker like person, I watched the GM of a medium sized car business, found out where he eat, what he did etc. Eventually I found that he used to run every morning about 20mins from my house. Funny how I just seemed to bump into him week after week and this went on for about 3-4 weeks, just running and talking. I never talked about what I did or my business until he asked and then I gave the elevator speech of...

"Well bob I have the pleasure of helping out small to medium sized business just like yours make and extra 25% on their bottom line through online marketing where most ad agencies are missing the mark."

and we go on a bit about this and that and how it works etc.. Next day I am in the office talking to Bob about this new strategy. This is the plan I used to get the first car dealership after that I used the leads created before method plus testimonials from the other dealers of the same brand in different areas, to do other contracts in similar dealerships.

@Humbledmarket: Again I am humbled by your praise.
for the list gather it took me about 2-3weeks with PPC and SEO.

As for contacting the several BMW dealers they were all done at seperate times so I would I started off with one built the system (which is where the money is at) then go to the next dealership and show the results of the previous dealership (who I am still contracting for) plus give them a new list of 200+ leads to play with. (the leads are always rebuilt as they would not be great leads if one list is targeted for Sydney Australia and I am trying to get a guy in Las Vegas to sell to this list. It just would not work!

So there was no privacy issues as I only work for 1 dealership in that area.

As for phone numbers they where collected at a later date after the initial option when they wanted to get the second free ebook/report and video series.

@pwk2000 Thanks for the praise it is very much appreciated and I am very humbled.

I agree with what others have said: You need to dig a little deeper and see what their needs are. I've had auto dealers paying as much as $8k month to as little as $500 a month. It really depends on what they're looking for and expectations.

For instance, if they're looking for a "long-term" play, then SEO in conjunction with other tactics would price them much higher then doing, so just an auto-responder setup or doing a few videos and uploading to the web for organic rankings. Or maybe they just want someone to post to Craigslist. And all this is just online marketing; we're not even talking about offline marketing.

First you better be ready if you are going after local auto dealerships. You have to educate and close at the same time but you also have to compete with Dealer.com | Car Dealer Marketing and Automotive Websites, Auto Dealer Website SEM and SEO

Not every dealer uses this but many do and other companies like it!

Another thing offline biz is not like the IM world you really have to "show them the money" not as easy as people lead you to believe that is why there are so many products being sold in the WSO

the thing that stinks about these types of businesses is: so many people want to call or visit and will never mention they came from one of your sources. has anyone figured out a solid solution for documenting them?

I am intersted in a Hyundai. I would like to leass it for only 2 months but on the website it only says the buying price. What kind of math operation do i have to do so that i can find how much a month i would have to pay? For example do i have divede by somethingg or add you know like that. I really want to know what i have to do with buying price to find out the leasing price a MONTH. Easy 10 points please help me!!

I used to work at a car dealership as a salesman for Nissan. I worked there for over two years. I was about 18 when I started there. Any ways, every morning on Tuesdays there would be a guy and his son that used to drive a truck with a barrel in the back filled with some solution and water. They would pressure wash all the vehicles on the lot, and they did all the dealerships in that auto mall... there was about 6 dealerships.

You can do anything you want. Businesses need so many services, I don't think they even know themselves.

Just my $0.02

Best Regards,
Anthony La Tour

Offer to sell their cars on eBay.

Most car dealerships are only seen by people who personally visit the dealership or to simply put it. most dealerships are local. You could offer the dealer to sell their cars. lets say you see a car that is selling for say $2,000. you tell the dealer that if you paid $1500 in the next couple of days would he take it? if he says yes. then you go to eBay and list the car, with a disclaimer that the car is advertised else where. you list the car for $2500 and allow buyers to make you a best offer. automatically go to the accept offers above $2,000. once the eBay buyer has bought the car and paid. you go to the dealership give them a check and you pocket your profit. most buyers will come with cash.

For those who have questions, as i do not come on the forum very often here is the idea:

Sell cars on behalf of car dealerships on eBay. negotiate the price the dealership wants to for the car, then list the car on eBay. for higher price and make the profit.

Dealers are hit constantly with people coming in trying to sell the latest technology and most dealers don't want to hear it and don't have the time to listen to things over and over again. Big dealers have factory sponsored programs that do a lot of what you want to do and the dealer feels loyal to the factory.

Try going to the little guys first on a consultative basis and find out what they are all ready doing. Usually it's not much, they try and move some stuff on eBay or Craigslist and not much else. The little dealers are desperate but they don't have time for some big fancy sales pitch. Get to be their friend and show some sincerity on trying to help them. Don't oversell, start with a couple things you know will help and add to it is things start picking up at the dealership.

Once you get a good foothold on what you're doing and gaining some successes you can move on to the big guys.

These people have very little patience when it comes to marketing. But they will spend. Their focus is on local market. I beg to differ on some that suggest going to talk to them first. My opinion is to do up a small prototype using a mobile app (these salesman are extremely mobile and they use phone more than they use the laptop) and get them interested.

One of the things I see dealership not pay attention to is adwords, specifically buying and testing keywords related to their market. For example, "Ford Fiesta <city>" "Cheap reliable car" and geotarget.....in other words, at least in my city, they are clueless and it is the greatest value I can add to their business.

Also I would target free ad sites such as Kijiji as that is where people are looking for cars! I can make adwords ads only appear on Kijiji if it is still the same as before.

I do trade services with one used car/mechanic and he does each thing I have told him and grew EXTREMELY fast. Most had to do with signage and having a really good offer to draw people in. He also uses Kijiji with fantastic results. He is not able to afford adwords yet, but with time I know he will kill with it.