David Andrew, aka “The Professor”

It’s been said that by 2014, the use of cell phones will be more than the usage of laptops. Of the 4 billion cellular phones being used worldwide, about one fourth of them are SmartPhones and at the very minimum SMS compatible. What does this mean for automotive dealerships? The automotive dealerships digital marketing and advertising space is heating up! Consumers nowadays are trying to find more and more information through their phones and through the use of the Internet. That means one thing, more competition for automotive dealerships!

People can do all kinds of things with their cell phones and computers. Everything from checking out the nearest coffee shop to checking out the status updates of their friends. With the click of a button, you can easily find all the information you need about a subject, a service, or a location. It’s a simple fact of our current time that people are relying less and less on traditional forms of print media and publications for purchasing decisions. The truly great automotive dealerships are entering the automotive dealerships digital marketing and advertising medium every day! Computers and cell phones have continually updated information and are the smarter way to go about conducting your day to day business and social activities.

The sad fact of the matter is that most automotive dealerships aren’t utilizing the Internet to get their advertisements across. Even though the effectiveness of print media is dying out, and costs to obtain paper and print media are up, traditional marketers are still trying to make use of this dying advertising medium. Traditional automotive dealerships advertising media like billboards, magazines and newspapers are more and more disconnected with their target audience compared to interactive digital media.

There are lots of ways for automotive dealerships to advertise on the Internet through digital marketing and advertising. One of them is to use Google Pay Per Click campaigns. Each time your automotive dealerships advertisement is clicked, you are charged a certain amount. You aren’t charged every time the automotive dealerships advertisement is shown, just anytime someone clicks. Unlike traditional advertising where you are charged for total “eye on” (even not in market readership). Another way to use digital marketing and advertising to your automotive dealership’s advantage is to show your advertisements in videos people are watching.

So what exactly is the point of all this? Digital marketing and advertising is your automotive dealerships best chance at getting new customers and to keep old ones coming back. Print media and older forms of advertising are far less effective. Their effectiveness has dropped by an irrefutable percentage since the advent of the Internet. With online marketing, automotive dealerships can see precisely who is generating clicks on your ads, the length of time they stay at your site, and whether or not they purchase something or sign up for your services. Nearly everything about a customer’s behavior can be tracked and used to your automotive dealership’s advantage.

Take a proactive approach to your automotive dealership’s marketing efforts and begin working with an online advertising agency at your next possible convenience. Look for online advertising companies with a proven track record of success and you’ll be one step closer to achieving higher and higher amounts of sales with your digital marketing and advertising campaigns. Within a short time frame, you will have new customers and you’ll be asking yourself why you didn’t start with digital marketing and advertising for your automotive dealership earlier!

Can the Automotive Industry Repair the Online Consumer Experience before it’s too late?
Written By David A. Pritchard (The Professor)

Core Issues:

1. The manufacturer destination site in many ways restricts Dealerships and Consumers to designated market areas.

2. Some OEM sites require the consumer to enter zip code prior to relieving desired information, then redirect the consumer to the Dealer assigned to the market area, regardless of the consumer’s choice of Dealer.

3. Some manufacturer site encourages the consumer in many ways to competitively shop other Dealers, placing downward pressure on price.

The Internet by nature levels the playing field. It’s like a Coke it tastes just as good no matter how rich or poor you are; the identical concept holds true for online markets. It does not matter how big your dealerships are or how small. It only matters how you choose to engage the consumer through the medium it’s the great equalizer that allows a little family-owned and operated store surrounded by trees and water to perform at the equivalent level as competitors in metropolitan areas.

The “manufacturer-preferred site” term is also Red Herring the inference is that manufacturer’s sites or site providers have the ability to provide special discounts over and above the dealerships normal pricing. This is simply not true,

• The manufacturer chooses the vendor that will provide sites to the Dealer Body.

• The website provider rolls out a beautiful presentation of their full potential for the manufacturer, the manufacturer then leverages their buying power to negotiate an affordable deal. The Website provider pulls together a lesser package of basic services based on the final agreed-upon price and then attempts to up sell the Dealers. This where the primary point of contention begins. The Dealer / Manufacturer website should absolutely be “Best in Class” but never is.

• The manufacturer site circumvents the Dealer relationship by offering pertinent ownership specific information throughout the ownership cycle directly to the consumer.

• If OEM wants to help dealers establish Owner Loyalty, then “consumer specific” “needs targeted marketing” should be provided at the dealership level and “perceived” as so by the consumer.  

• To ensure brand loyalty to the manufacturer provide consumers the ability to move ownership cycle data to another Dealership or track “servicing dealer history” and move data to the Dealer, whom is getting the customers vote through patronage.

• To maintain more consistent Brand Experience hold Dealers too more stringent standards.
  Provide all third party website providers with the ability to interface with the OEM manufacturer’s database. This way, all vendors and dealers have the awesome features that benefit the consumer most. Everyone wins most importantly the consumer. 

• OEM provided tools include centralized databases of products, available services, and are targeted to ownership cycle of individual. Including:

1.  Vehicle Build Pricing and locate features.
2. Accurate OEM Incentive info, including rates, residuals, lease pricing,
3. Integrated DMS Service Scheduling,
4. Access to membership rewards programs and points,
5. Up to service history
6. Up to date integrated national service campaigns,
7. Vin specific targeted service specials,
8.  Full line parts catalog, parts locators, parts ordering,
9. Online OEM Credit financing integration. 

• In the online space do not provide pricing and inventory at the OEM base site in the way they do now, redirect shoppers to their chosen dealer’s site for that information and allow them to browse all types of inventory from a national centralized inventory database (not individual Dealership inventory), post an estimated delivery time, and cost of good’s to dealership of choice.

• On OEM, sites allow customers to search for Dealership of choice by Dealership Name or provide multiple Dealership listing by a predetermined zip code radius (50miles)

• Once in the chosen dealer’s site, stop the return navigation or at least bring them back to OEM home page not back to the Dealership listing, this way its more difficult for consumer to place multiple quote request for the identical vehicle in a matter of seconds. The idea is to stop pitting dealer against Dealer or trying to segment dealer geographical territories in the identical way as they are set up on a map. That’s not how the Internet or the new market economy works. It’s a losing strategy for Dealerships, because in centralizes the focus on price, not quality of product and service.

If the OEM were to make these changes alone, Dealers could be more profitable because they would not be in a constant cycle of negotiation, OEM’s would sell more products and services because all products would be available to the consumer. The consumer wins because they have access to the right product from the Dealership, he or she desires to do business with. The consumer also wins because now the determining factor for doing business with the Dealership is the consumer experience the Dealer creates. 

The Auto Industry should look to other industries for great digital media marketing strategies. 

written by David Pritchard (The Professor) 

At iPitCrew.com we think The Auto Industry should look to other industries for great solutions on how to reach their target consumers. Why? Because ‘Interruption Based’ marketing hasn’t been cost effective for years. I am sure in the last six months your local cable, radio, or newspaper account sales rep has stopped in your store and told you viewers, listeners, or subscriptions were improving, and they have the statistical data to support it! I don’t know about you but not one of them has been able to show me DATA that “quantifies” the retention period or effectiveness of the message.

In the most sophisticated scientific studies done to date Martin Lindstrom and his group did just that. He writes about it in his most recent book, Buy-ology released in 2008. During one testing period while comparing Coke and Ford’s messaging aired on American Idol. Lindstrom’s group effectively proved that Ford’s traditional “at break interruption style messaging” had no retention effect on viewers, while Coke’s participation within the show itself, with color branding of the stage, drink props, etc. had a far greater top of mind presence among the viewers, and for longer, even though they never verbally mentioned the product.

Today, some of the team from ‘the crew’ and I were out and about, we saw a plane flying overhead with one of those banners trailing behind. Ironically it was an ad for a “Body Shop”, but not one of us can remember which dealer or brand it was just four hours later. We can pretty much guarantee if that Body Shop, had spent the same money on Digital Media, like iCrewMobile, iCrewmail, or iTurboLeads they would have gotten far more measurable results, and higher ROI. Why? Because the brand message is offered as a tool to assist the consumer at the moment in time the consumer is most interested, and most in need, of the Body Shop brand’s assistance. The “Super Charger” is that it’s also the moment when the consumer is most connected to that brand. We couldn’t call out to the plane and ask the questions that were most on our mind in the same manner, the paper, radio, or TV, won’t answer the questions we ask. The nitrous in all of this is that ‘online content’ last forever, when the plane was out of sight the messaging event was over, same with the paper that now lines the daughter’s rabbit cage, and the radio or TV ad that just finished playing, all are one and done, but online content is there to be seen over and over. Just food for thought the next time some fast-talking sales rep stops in. The only thing you ever need to ask is what’s the ROI.

The Three Phases of Digital Marketing (Uncut)  

Written by David Pritchard (The Professor) 

 You ask, “If you had to segment the Internet marketing down into four steps (the first being where a dealer would start and the fourth being what a top-notch dealer’s internet marketing consists of), what would be included in each step?”Wow! What a great question! Where would I start? Let’s see, if I were a Dealer….

 Phase 1: Enlightenment

Start by accepting a few truths about the evolution in consumer behaviors. In “The New Rules of Retail by Lewis and Dart” it’s referred to as a paradigm shift of power from producers to consumers. “Those who make to those who buy” says Harvard Business School’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter. That’s not to say Dealers should succumb to the downward pressures placed on dealerships by the consumers growing ability to harness the power of connectivity and free flow of information, it’s only to suggest that Dealers should accept the fact that the new market economy demands a new level of transparency.Dealers must understand that consumers have the ability to research and assimilate volumes of information in a matter of minutes. Mobile devices and smart phones allow consumers to do comparative geographical location based product and service analysis in real time. The Internet provides consumers with infinite choices, and consumers are leveraging that information to make comparison valuations on quality and experience.

Consumer Motivation

We are witnessing The Perfect Storm a convergence of Maslow’s Law of Diminishing Returns as it relates to the human condition (Hierarchy of Needs), and Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerated Returns, which is an expansion upon Moore’s Law regarding the doubling of technology every 12 months, in which Kurzweil describes an exponential growth of technological progress. This technological progress is creating affordable mobile connectivity for the masses, it is no longer one consumer influencing ten, its now one consumers immediate circle of influence being one hundred and fifty.
As consumers are transitioning to self-actualization, the highest level in Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” consumer satisfaction, or “happiness” as Maslow references; It is no longer driven by things, “satisfaction / happiness ” is now driven by “the experience”. How can this be relevant to the Dealer? Let me break it down like this. For the last ten years Dealer profit margins have been getting squeezed from all sides. The manufactures push production and supply-chain model, third party vendor’s exploitation of information, consumers desire to receive best deal, internet connectivity, information’s demand to be free, and dealer-manufacturer negotiation based multi-tier pricing strategy, have all placed downward pressure on profit margins. As the automotive industry struggled not to become the next victim of the Internet revolution, it’s the Dealer, who has been offered up as the sacrifice in the supply chain. But there is hope if things no longer motivate consumers, if satisfaction/happiness is driven by “the experience”, then price is no longer the motivating factor in the buying equation. If price is not the centerpiece of the purchase decision, then just as quality of product and experience improves for the consumer, quality of sale (profitability) and consumer loyalty for Dealer Brand also can improve, as does consumer demand for the manufacturer brand.The window of hope is small however, if Dealers cannot shift the organizational mindset to “profitability being a bi-product of the consumer experience in other words from selling cars and service for profit to selling the experience”, they will continue to be squeezed out of the supply chain. Why because the Internet isolates inefficiencies, consumers understand the middleman is an added expense, and manufacturers / marketers understand true Brand Dominance is achieved through consistent representation of “the brand experience”.

 Winning Hearts and Minds

Brands like Apple, Coke, and Abercrombie, are creating Dynamic Brand Energy by maintaining control of the entire consumer experience, then fine tuning those consumer experiences by leveraging neurological triggers, as Martin Lindstrom outlines in his book “Buyology”- Why We Buy. To better understand references to neurological triggers and the impact of Sensory Branding consider the elements present in the Tommy Bahamas store’s island like atmospheres, an Abercrombie’s club like atmosphere, or Apple’s use of white and stainless steel in it’s store’s attempt to create a subliminal association with a religious or healing experience.Science is helping us to understand that there is much truth in the saying “car buying is an emotional purchase” as recent studies show the pursuit and discovery process trigger the release of a chemical in our brains called dopamine, the same reaction one might feel during a life altering experience, intensely religious experience, gambling, fond family experience, etc.. Dealers who are able to successfully control their environments delivering dramatically superior consumer experiences will achieve Brand Dominance in their markets. Dealers spend exorbitant amounts of money trying to achieve top of mind dominant presence, Newspaper, Billboards, Radio, TV, the real secret is they don’t have too! Why? Because delivering a true powerful “World Class Consumer Experience” creates the neurological reaction, which as consumers, we are not even conscious of (remember that release of dopamine). The reaction leaves a marker in the consumers subconscious. When the consumer sees an advertisement or needs a related service or product that subliminal marker is recalled and the consumer is motivated to return to the source that created the marker. This is pre-emptive marketing. In the same way that some Dealers used traditional advertising in the past, to saturate print, radio, and TV effectively drowning out advertising messaging of competitors, pre-emptive marketing trumps all other. Dealers delivering true powerful “World Class Consumer Experiences” in affect receive more benefit from a competitor’s interruption style traditional marketing practices, because the consumer is subliminally recalling “the positive experience”, while simultaneously associating a negative feeling about the organization running the competitive ad. As tradition advertising, and marketers continue to lose credibility, word of mouth referral is gaining more and more power to influence consumer-buying decisions thus the importance of creating “the ultimate consumer experience”.Local businesses are outpacing larger big box retailers by listening to and understanding the invidual-ized needs of the consumer. Niche local brands are creating individualized emotionally connecting environments and in turn experiences giving them sustainable competitive differentiation against mass marketing mega brands, as consumers pursue individualized exclusivity. These trends are being accelerated by technology (Digital Media). No longer is it effective to use shotgun like “interruption style” marketing messages. Dealers can realize a far greater return in personalized individual “needs based” marketing/messaging delivered through an array of Digital Media Channels centered around individual consumer preferences, and lifestyles (The right message to the right consumer at the right time), best of all its measurable.

The Power of the Consumer Experience

The benefit of providing ‘the ultimate consumer experience” goes well beyond an improved profit margin, “the experience” generates “BUZZ, or Conversation”, from a trusted voice (source), it drives a desire in peers to seek the same experience (happiness). The connectivity (one consumer to another) provided by technology accelerates and amplifies the “BUZZ”. However, be forewarned there is no statement truer than “Your Brand is not what you say it is, it’s what your customers say it is” and under that premise (with or without your participation) “Buzz” can make or break you, and will definitely break the Dealers, who do not embrace the consumer transition to Self Actualization. In other words, the New Marketing Economy magnifies everything exponentially good or bad.Which brings me to the heart of your question. I don’t believe you can build a great Dealership Brand without accepting these truths as reality. Once a dealer embraces these fundamental truths he is ready to begin building an online presence equally as important as his bricks and mortar physical location.

Phase 2 Identifying Target Audience

Use Porters Five Forces Model to look at the landscape of the market. Ask specific questions about what the immediate market looks like. Identify the Blue Ocean opportunities and navigate away from the Red Oceans of the competition. Understand competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and how competitor strategies work for or against connecting with the Dealer Brands desired target audiences.

Phase 3 Develop Marketing Strategy

Setting the Stage

Develop a marketing strategy and marketing plan built upon the research and analysis of phase two. Invest in the best consulting agency or Internet savvy marketing person you can find. This person is critical to the success of your entire organization. In the past dealers have placed this position too far down the org chart in terms of compensation and organizational power structure. The “in Dealership” person filling this position wears many hats and is critical to the success of every department and the organization as a whole. Therefore it can be argued that the position warrants equal status and compensation to the General Manager’s position. Both positions are equally important. Most often if not always the General Manager is a car guy, he understands the intricacies of the car business. His experience may or may not prevent him from understanding the concepts presented here. One thing is for certain. He has a Dealership to run and doesn’t have the time to do the required reading, learning, research, or testing necessary to become an expert in the evolving new marketing economy. The position requires a highly motivated, highly educated, Digital media and Marketing savvy individual, not necessarily from the automotive industry. It’s not the non-producing salesperson; we want to find a spot for. The right person is going to drive sales, while simultaneously lowering cost, they are going to develop and implement strategy, champion new initiatives, and be instrumental in building organizational culture. Most often they are most qualified to make technology decisions, directly responsible for implementing technologies, responsible for all marketing decisions (including negotiations), developing processes that build on marketing strategies, developing e-commerce, and monitoring success of each of these initiatives. To further quantify or justify the expense beyond survival, and Brand market domination consider the total savings could be as much as $400 per vehicle sold. Another great measure could be advertising cost savings somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% to 60% depending on how much traditional untargeted marketing is still utilized.

Mapping the Course

Once your champion has been chosen, set short term and long-term goals. Establish short-term mile markers designed to allow for short term wins along the path to long-term goals. The short-term wins are going to be important motivators for your team to stay continuously focus on the end game. Gain buy-in from the most influential people within the dealership, those with both informal and formal power. Helping them to understand how the new or improved direction could specifically benefit each of them personally. Likewise, Have organizational meetings for gaining consensus throughout the dealer organization. Consistently measure and publicize results, create incentives, bonuses, rewards and recognition opportunities built around the strategic vision, and milestones.Organizational buy in is the key to success. I have learned over the years that technology is not a replacement for human capital. In the New Marketing Economy, every team member from the Groundskeeper to the Owner is critical to the overall consumer “experience”. You can tear down all the Silos you want but in the end it always has been, and always will be the human connection that is most important to the equation. With that in mind help key personnel to understand that unfortunately not everyone can or will rise to the new elevated standards, therefore a greater emphasis must be placed on best practices in recruiting, training, and development (after all you as only as strong as your weakest link).

Removing Barriers to Progress

Let me be clear on one other point related yet beyond the scope of this discussion. As it relates to downward pressure on price I can’t encourage Dealers enough to seek expert advice from those who discuss investment in terms of delivering quantitative ROI for the products and services. Additionally, I encourage Dealers to stand united in avoidance of third party lead providers who’s business models rely heavily on the leveraging of the Dealers brand and franchise brand to gain traffic. I would argue that most third party lead providers simply capture lead traffic destined for the dealership, and that funds diverted from third party lead providers and then concentrated on the Dealerships own branding, SEO, and other key Digital Media efforts would net far superior results. It’s important to note, this pre-emptive strategy can be applied to Online positioning as well.Furthermore, I encourage the Dealer Body to un-leaver itself from the OEM Manufacturers efforts to implement a one size fits all Digital strategy for its Dealers. The long-term relationships that are being established throughout the industry are detrimental to innovation, they serve little purpose beyond consistency of message and presentation, and are often forged with sub par vendors by decision makers not equipped with the complete technical knowledge to make informed decisions, merely adding additional cost to Dealers looking for innovative differentiation and competitive edge. The Dealer Body would be far better served seeking individuals to work on the Dealer’s behalf, even if they came at a premium cost.The importance of controlling the brand is obviously critical to the success of the manufacturer so it’s understandable that the OEM would like to be involved at all points of consumer distribution. Yet like the inefficiencies of big government and the unintended consequences of not allowing free markets to compete, the same holds true for manufacturers. Manufacturers should establish clear expectations and guidelines for both dealers and vendors. They might even go as far as to endorse “Best in Class Vendors” but not enter into agreements on behalf of the entire Dealer Body. 

Phase 4 Building an Online Presence

Based upon the strategic planning previously outlined, identify which best practices and processes will align the entire organization with its online presence. Match those needs to “Best in Class”technologies, within and out of the industry.

Dealer Websites

Great websites have:• Architectures that are “naturally favorable to search engines”• Sensory Branding Elements• Subliminal consumer hotspots• Strong calls to action/ clear points of contact• Self service and full service features• Strong brand value messaging• Readily available pricing with inclusion of manufacturer applicable rebates and incentives• Active specials in all departments• Inclusion of Real Time Social Media Elements and Engagement Opportunities• Inclusion of Fresh Relative Content• Ratings and Reviews• Live Chat, Hyper Connect lead contact• Inventory and Build your Own Vehicle Features• Real time Inventory Posting, Specials Postings• Intelligent reporting and tracking• Access to helpful widgets, and mobile apps• Strong manufacturer branding  relationship• Multimedia engagement

Beyond the Website

Great Internet departments actively manage online engagement. Using state of the art intelligent reporting analytics they consistently measure SEO, SEM, VSEO, Landing pages, and content marketing initiatives, ensuring it remains relative.Great Internet departments integrate email marketing, mobile text marketing, and mobile smart phone apps into their arsenal of consumer interaction.Great Internet departments effectively mine both internal and external data and use state of the art CRM tools to efficiently deliver engaging multi-media messaging to their target audience.Great Internet departments create visibility for the entire dealership organization assisting individual team members to maximize social capital by leveraging online relationships in social media channels.Great Internet departments serve as Public Relations departments, “Blogging”, implement processes for commenting, monitoring reputation, responding to ratings and reviews, publicizing unique fulfilling consumer experiences, posting relative informative content.Great Internet departments maximize the tools available today by building best practices and implementing effective processes to maximize ROI while researching emerging technologies for the cutting edge differentiators.Great Internet departments engage the entire organization with training and development to improve customer interactions, and gain understanding of marketing strategies.Great Internet departments analyze a wide array of Data Points to determine effectiveness of organization, individuals, marketing channels, and processes. Close ratios, length of time to first response, website and channel conversion ratios, over various time periods are only a fraction of data analysis.

The Future

What elements will Brand Dominant Internet Department of the near future possess? Internet sales departments will merge with traditional sales departments; there will be no differentiation. All personnel will be required to develop necessary skills to communicate effectively and professionally through online channels. The words will be real-time, and mobile will replace social media as the buzzwords of the moment. Tech toys like the iPad with integrated payment and RFID functionalities will take mobile computing and marketing to the next level. Mobile apps, text messaging, virtual, real time mobile marketing will become a primary focus, mediums like email marketing will fade much like traditional postal as “marketers” inundate mailboxes with irrelevant marketing messages, real-time 24-7-365 connectivity will become increasingly important. Dealers will shift the heavy lifting of communications to professional call center teams and virtual BDC’s with professionally trained and incentivized teams to cultivate ultimate consumer experiences on behalf of the dealer, including appointment setting, confirmation, lost sale follow-up, service reminders, customer service follow-up, targeted marketing initiatives allowing in store personnel to manage relationships and create environments and ultimate consumer experiences.

Social Media

The illustration below is what I like to call the Wheel of Fortune. It’s a great map for outlining engagement strategies across various social media platforms. The goal is to understand your target audiences touch points throughout the life cycle of the ownership, buying cycle (“consumer experience”) and to craft individual laser targeted personalized consumer experiences and messaging that reach the consumer in their preferred method of communication, in their preferred media or social channel, at points and times that are most relevant to their individualized needs. So many dealers and marketers today are placing the wrong message at the wrong time, in the wrong place.Social Media can be a powerful force for any business, including Dealerships, but it has to be engaging, and conversational. They call it social for a reason, its sharing, its community. The approach will be the measure of success. For instance, someone thought it was a great idea for dealers to place inventory, on Facebook and Youtube, but it’s really not, at least not in the way that most dealers and marketers are inclined. People are there to share with one another, or to be entertained, not to shop, or be distracted from their original intent. A conversation about a Dealer who created an awesome “experience” or a vehicle that is simply “amazing” is genuine and trusted. A dealer saying the consumer will be treated well or get your best deal today, is not trusted or respected. There is a time and place for everything, and dealers continuing to do so will eventually suffer for it. I hear the arguments for it and the cars sold by doing it, but for every car sold you lose hundreds of advocates.

Becoming a Market Force

A few years ago the best way to get competitive as a Dealer and improve bottom line profitability was to cut non-effective traditional media expenditures then funnel a portion of those savings into lower cost, highly track able, more effective Digital Media Channels. Today that’s not enough. As Digital Media Marketing Channels continue to create added value, demand increases, and Dealers flood the space; price of those products and services will increase, until we are again at unsustainable pricing levels. Additionally market trends, and technological innovation will continue to challenge and stretch the conceptual understanding of how to best capitalize on opportunities by Marketers and Dealers, as is currently seen in the social media space. Just as MySpace fell lost favor, there will be other Facebooks, Twitters, and YouTube trends. Search providers like Google in an effort to deter individuals bent on gaming the system is constantly changing the rules of the game with complex ever evolving SEO and SEM algorithms, and other structural modifications.Therefore, there truly is only one path to Market domination and it’s through Dynamic Brand Energy, and sustainable profitability. It’s a path that requires leveraging of innovative technologies, solid processes and best practices, transparency, and sense of community, to cultivate relationships, and establish the “ultimate individualized needs based “consumer experiences”. By doing so Dealers will no longer be at the mercy of today’s latest trend because the consumer will be the driving marketing force. In my mind that’s an investment worth making with an ROI like no other!

Sources:

• Martin Lindstrom-Buy-o-logy
• Chris Anderson-Free The Radical Future of Price
• Lewis and Dart- The New Rules of Retail
• Rapaille- The Culture Code
• Mitch Joel- Six Pixels of Separation
• Chris Brogan-Trust Agents
• Stephen Hall- Wisdom From Philosophy to Neuroscience
• Erik Qualman- Socialnomics

Online version: http://autodealermonthly.epubxpress.com/link/ADM/2011/jun/1?s=0   //

The erosion of consumer value to automotive dealerships by David Pritchard

When we first entered the Car business ten years ago we tried to make every transaction . One day we had a client who was not happy about anything no matter what we did. The owner stepped in and tossed the client out. I was  shocked ! He explained to us that some transactions just were not worth making because that client would never be happy and would only trash our reputation every time an issue arose.

I did not really understand it at the time, but now I do. In the same way that you attempt to create value for the consumer it seems that a growing number of consumers are beginning to have less value to businesses. The story of consumer power is being told from a one dimensional perspective , and no one is telling the customer that business is for profit. That’s not a bad thing. It allows business to contribute back to society.

Here at iPitCrew.com we are guilty of it ourselves (in our past dealings with vendors) of ‘brow beating’ the salesperson to a zero profit and in return getting ‘nothing service’. We are fortunate that our use of these products is beginning to carry a certain amount of endorsement value, or our success would have been limited early on. Today the challenge at every level of the consumer experience is to create “value” for quality of service into our pricing structures . We have to understand and exploit the difference between shopping, for example, at Wal-Mart or Nordstrom’s, or buying a Dell or an Apple, or even dining at a McDonalds versus a Ruth Chris,. We have to make sure the customer fully understands, sees, and feels the difference. Leave consumers to choose what level they want to pay for….

Is it really about the best price? Apple has proven the answer is resoundingly NO! Their products are consistently priced higher than those of their competitors, and yet they have dominated the market space even during the reportedly most challenging economic times since the depression. When others were slashing prices and liquidating inventory Apple was fearlessly launching great new products. Ford Motor Company is another great example of a corporation, which gets it. Their drive to build great products and fearless embrace of social media has given them the ability to by pass the media. Our goal is to help Car Dealers the and the automotive industry as a whole create the same type of dynamic brand energy that Ford, Apple, and other great brands are experiencing. The hope is a mutually beneficial relationship through conversations will bridge the widening gap between consumer expectation and consumer value.