The New Wave of Selling Vehicles Online 01.31.08
Back in 1996 when the person who could turn on a computer at a dealership was automatically the person that was put in charge of the Internet... I got the job. I was pretty green in the car business to begin and it was more of an order taking position anyway; we got leads from Autobytel and would call the customer with a price. I remember the buzz though about how the Internet was going to change everything about buying and selling cars.
Over time car dealership websites began to take shape with dynamic inventory listings where potential buyers could browse through hundreds of cars quickly and easily. Other than the ability to do research quicker and easier not much has changed in regards to buying or selling a car. There are some cool new tools like vehicle configurators and chat windows on dealership websites, but the basic principles of buying and selling cars hasn't changed.
What I see as the next wave of online car sales is the ability to build relationships and drive traffic to your car dealership website when a person isn't in the market to buy a vehicle. This is a concept that has been around for years with customer relationship management tools and traditional advertising. With traditional advertising you run ads on tv, radio, and in newspapers in hopes that your potential customers remember you when their ready to buy a car. Then with a CRM you follow up with correspondence and value added offers so that you retain their business and hopefully pick up some referrals. What if you could drive potential customers to your site over and over again providing them with valuable offers and information in the middle of the buying cycle so that when the time comes to buy a new vehicle they wouldn't consider buying a vehicle from anyone other than you? This takes the concepts of a CRM and traditional advertising and combines them with technology to be both effective and cheap.
This is what has been missing with online car sales for years and is now a viable solution because of new content management and email management tools. I will be adding more information on this topic over the coming months so make sure and bookmark this page to discover how you can get the most value out of your car dealership website.
What is a blog and how can it help your dealership 12.10.07
As my first post in the Selling Cars Online Blog I would like to just touch on what a blog is and what it can do to help your online sales. A blog is an interactive way of updating content and information on your website that can be posted immediately for public viewing. It can be used to talk about your personal life and experiences or a specific subject that you are interested in. Using a blog on a car dealership website can be used for a multitude of subjects that your clients may be interested in from car related to something completely off the subject of cars. It is even possible to create a blog for each individual salesperson so that they can post things about themselves and what they like to do when they aren't at work, the electronic version of a personal presentation binder that we all used to have as salespeople.
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