Integral Dealer Developments Inc

Marketing Consultation

2019-06-26

Marketing is not a problem you can expect to solve by throwing money at it. There is no quick fix. The only true solution to a sustainable, long-term marketing approach is a comprehensive strategy that best utilizes your resources. Our consultation is fully customized, detail-oriented, and uses transparency as well as education to help you make decisions that are right for your business. We take a bottom-line approach and focus on increasing net profit as soon as possible while systematically encouraging long term growth.

Comprehensive marketing consultation analyzes the overall health of your business and the strategies you currently have in place. The first step involves an audit so we can paint a picture of the dealership from the owner’s point of view. The more information we receive, the better we can help you. Having a third party look at your business helps you objectively analyze your strengths and weaknesses. Even the most disciplined business owners are usually caught up in day to day affairs and have some difficulty with the balancing act. We will help you make executive decisions and bring a fresh perspective to your seasoned outlook.

First, we look at financials. Our audit analyzes gross sales, profit, and your gross marketing budget on an annual, quarterly, and monthly basis. This illustrates sales trends over the last few years as well as month by month. This information allows us to assess your financial strength, trajectory of your business, and marketing trends within your dealership. We examine which factors have influenced sales and isolate variables to determine internal and external factors that have affected your business. You only need to share information you are comfortable disclosing.

During the audit process, we breakdown your marketing approach by category. We look at every outlet independently while using compelling metrics to assess which strategies are most effective. We examine third-party websites, traditional marketing strategies, radio marketing, tv marketing, call center marketing, direct mail marketing, social media, google-AdWords, SEO strategies, web development, customer retention, email marketing, and more. We assess your budget for each category, strategies in place, call to action, target demographic, and more. We then breakdown each category further to assess the average number of leads per month, average cost per lead, average number of units sold, average customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, average net profit, and more. This data can show you which areas are most effective within your current strategy and shed light on how to move forward.

Lead generation is only effective if you have the infrastructure in place to convert leads into sales. Your business development center needs to be trained on best-practices to help receive leads and reduce friction as they are converted into a sale. Our consultation assesses your business development center in a systematic manner to view strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. We analyze your conversion rate through every marketing avenue, look at engagement rates on social media, examine remarketing strategies, reputation management, and more. Whether we work with the owners, a secretary, or an entire business development team, we will fine tune your strengths and weaknesses to help increase sales and maximize return on investment for your marketing budget and fixed overhead for salaries/wages. Before launching or tweaking any marketing campaigns, we ensure you have the personnel in place to capitalize on the increased number of leads and improve the conversion rate of your marketing strategy as it stands.

Social Media for Car Dealerships

2019-05-16

Social media is a great tool for both customer acquisition and customer retention for car dealerships. Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram are both free to use and invaluable when it comes to branding, customer acquisition, and customer retention.

Building an audience on social media can be difficult. Fortunately, car dealerships have plenty of resources available to them for creating engaging posts. First of all, most dealerships have massive inventories. Put these cars in front of potential customers by taking high quality photos and videos of your inventory. In addition to posting pictures on a daily basis, promotions, discounts, and other calls to action can help build a fan base and keep users engaged.

Branding is an important aspect of social media utilization. Always be sure to stay authentic and true to your brand. Distinguishing yourself from your competitors with clever hashtags, competitions, and promotions, can have a huge impact on word of mouth business. Social media is an extension of everyone's social circle. It is a modern day word of mouth and can be extremely effective if you work the system.

Don't be afraid to set a bit of money aside to promote posts and subsidize your following. Building a social media presence takes time but throwing a bit of money at the problem always helps. This is especially important if you want to push particularly unique or compelling content.

Customer Retention

2019-05-16

Customer acquisition is the most difficult aspect of marketing. There are no shortage of car dealerships and getting a new customer through the door can be time consuming and expensive.

An often overlooked aspect of marketing but equally valuable to any business is customer retention. It is much easier to retain a customer than it is to find a new one. It is important to offer a quality product or service and make sure the consumer has a great experience. Assuming you satisfy your customer, the next step is retaining this customer as a long term repeat.

The most common methods of customer retention in the car business are through social media, service departments, email marketing, direct mail marketing, and follow up calls. By staying in touch with the customer and providing them incentive to come back to the dealer, you are positioning yourself for a future sale. If your customer acquisition costs are $1,000 per unit through traditional marketing, what would 5 free oil changes really cost if it keeps a customer happy and coming back to your dealership? At the end of the day, your cost on these oil changes might be $100 but when the customer wants a new vehicle, he'll know where to go. Service and direct marketing are a deadly combination to keep customers coming back for more.

If you don't have a service department, don't worry. You can still keep customers engaged through social media and email marketing. Both of these methods are free and easy to utilize by a capable BDC. Simply compile all of your customer's contact information and provide them with quality content, promotions, etc. to keep them coming back for more. Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and more are all avenues through which you can keep old customers engaged. Try offering how-to videos, articles, cool photos, competitions, and anything you need to keep your audience engaged.

Email marketing is another free tool or minimal expense through companies such as Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. These websites allow you to draft compelling emails that are aesthetically pleasing and even provide you analytics on email marketing campaigns. They help you understand what your customers want to read and keep that communication line open for a future sale.

BDC Consultation

2019-04-10

Google Search Network for Car Dealerships

2019-04-10

Search Results for Car Dealerships

2019-04-10

Car Dealership SEO Strategies

2019-04-10

Vehicle Service Contracts Myths and Stigmas

2019-04-10

Gap Insurance

2019-04-10

Claims Process

2019-04-10