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Newbie ISM needs lots of advice!

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M

madtownart

Green Pea
Mar 1, 2010
5
0
First Name
Art
#1
I was recently tasked with taking over our new car "internet department". We are a smaller franchise dealer. We've got Chevy, GMC and Buick. We sell about 450 new cars per year and about 600 used. We have a 15 mile proximity to a metro market with a population of 300,000 (Madison, WI) but we're rural. We get about 90 new car leads per month. My job is to organize and develop the department. Right now its me just responding to leads. No ILM tool, I'm tasked with finding one. Our General Manager's computer literacy level is less than novice and no, I'm not exagerating. Management basically knows nothing about internet sales.

I've been in the business for 21 years. I've got sales, used car manager and F&I experience.

I have a couple of questions:

1. I'm still getting paid like a sales person. How do ISM's get paid? I know it's generally salary + commission. What kind of compensation should I be askng for? My thoughts are at least $2k + comm.

2. I got a list of ILM tools from our SFE facilitator. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

3. General guidance and advice is welcomed.

Thanks in advance!
 
#2
Dealer.com isn't bad. If they would fix their Lead Lifecycles it would be significantly more powerful. That's the only one I can speak from experience with. If possible I'd get a CRM tool in place, like VinSolutions or iMagicLab.

But with management not understanding the work involved and/or the basics of internet marketing/SEO and possibly scared of technology......good luck.
 
#3
I've got Vin Solutions coming in for a demo tomorrow. Our SFE facilitator has informed them of the need for ILM tool. I just want to be sure compare the best ones and not waste time looking at vendors whos products are generally known to be inferior.
 
#5
Hey Newbie, I feel for you man !! I too work in the Madison, WI and metro and they don't get digital here all that well. They still people read the print ads!!! What you really need to take a dive into is the SEO, SEM side of your dealers web solution. The search side of the business was a strong effect to what you will be doing.

As for a dealer ILM tool, I think dealersocket is the best and they have the best rating as well. Getting your dealer to look at what you do well beyond just answering leads is a tall order but can be done. You need to think of yourself as your dealer's marketing manager from the digital side. I would suggest engaging in Social Media, Building a fan page on Facebook and engage with your customers......:D
 
#6
Hey madtown. As far as pay goes, if you're selling cars as well as running the "department" then get commission! Build your website when you don't have a customer LOL.

When you stop selling cars and focus on marketing, the website, and the CRM tools; that's when you go salary or a commission based on the entire store because the stuff you do WILL affect the entire store.

biggest question:
Does the rest of your sales department use any sort of CRM??! Its not hard to believe, it just seems unusual! When you're shopping around for tools, emphasize ones that make YOUR job easier. Tools that do the work for you heh. You're going to have a ton on your plate!!!
 
#7
Please explain SEO and how to utilize it.

We hav e a cobalt website.

We do not have a CRM for sales people. This not unusual for rural stores. I've used or have seen a demo of most of the CRM products out there on the job or as part of my research. I actually began work on a CRM product for smaller franchise dealerships in 2006, I'm about 80% done. Its an all in one solution without an ILM (yet). So a large part of my delving into this arena is to furnish my ambition with more resources. I will not be marketing my product in metro areas, its specific target is small franchise dealerships with the subset being independents because this demographic is by far the largest of its type and grossly misunderstood and underserved by vendors of CRM products. But I digress.

I truly thank you all for your input thus far, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to help me. What agreat resource this site is.

Thanks again and I'm looking forward to getting your input on the SEO side of things.
 
#8
SEO stands for search engine optimization. Literally optimizing your website for search engines.

SEO encompass pretty much anything you can do DIRECTLY to your website to make it show up on search engines organic listings (the listings you don't pay for).

This usually comes down to a few main factors. a website name that's been around for a while, a large paragraph at the bottom of each page chock full of keywords (but meaningful sentence structure), and image captions. Since most websites are full of images this is huge. Everything should either have a caption or alt tag (the mouseover caption on an image, see xkcd: Snow Tracking for an example of alt text)

There are many more pieces to the puzzle, but those are my favorites. Note: Flash on a website is great, but you can't optimize flash for search engines, so the more flash on your page the worse it will fare online. Its hard to show people your upscale site when no one can find it! Use HTML, CSS, AJAX, and other programming languages to build a website with pizazz without sacrificing your SEO to adobe flash.
 
#9
Congratulations on your new role running the New Car Internet Department.
Given that you are the only person at your dealership who responds to new car internet leads, you need to find a way to provide any customer who submits a lead with a high-quality and rapid response. Fortunately there are ways to ensure that every one of you 90 new car leads receives a multi-vehicle price quote in 10 minutes every time. If you are interested in learning more, go to www.responselogix.com. Best of success with your new responsibilities!!


 
#10
When creating or managing your website, you need to think like a customer. What words are people going to type into the computer to find you. So make sure you review your keywords. Here is something from google that may help you link

I am certain you have an area to create templates to help speed up the process of sending out quick and efficient information (price quotes, used car info, follow up ).
 
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