Brilliant interaction and discussion here. Myself challenged around 18 months ago, when MINI Cooper USA decided to go with a one vendor solution only, I certainly was not all too happy about this declaration and my assumption that I now need to compete with my lovely competition on the same website template and no individuality.
I am totally honest. The beginning in learning the new back-end tool and following accordingly to compliance rules with MINI USA (which is known as one of the strictest OEM's out there when talking about Branding and Image) was indeed an ordeal.
However what I certainly appreciated was the fast and seamless support from Cobalt’s end, when questions or problems occurred in getting feeds set up and so on. The time saved on these operational tasks I used more in the things we are suppose to do: Selling Cars or make or sales teams stronger and being more involved in their daily tasks instead of fulfilling the job duties as a webmaster.
As we all agree OEM’s and dealers are spending tons of money for bringing their “message” in front of their potential customers. Seeing it from the OEM perspective I can certainly see also their frustration, when for example “Mr. Opportunity for Honda is knocking at your screen” and only 6 out of 18 Honda dealers in the South-East region are having the branding message “Hello Mr. Opportunity” on their website shown” after being mystery shopped by Honda Motors.
As long OEM's are recognizing this kind of disconnect with their dealer's Internet Departments, I guess it will be difficult to get OEM's listening more to the Internet staff but instead articulating their frustration to the dealer principals and GM's.
I believe that is typical evaluation for the current situation in the e-commerce world.
The “good ones” among us Internets Sales Director, e-Commerce Director, etc, who take pride in doing something different on their websites and bringing traffic through these messages into the dealership are getting punished, and the other ones, who may don’t have the capabilities, or the ideas, or the time, or….you get the point, don’t even see what is wrong with this picture.
Let’s be honest, with approximate 18,000 dealerships we should have around 15,000 Internet Sales manager or whatever the title is - How many of these Internet managers are actually showing up at Digital Dealer Conference or are a member and active visitor of the ADM or DealerRefresh websites?
Am I wrong when I assume it is below the 3,000 mark? I think it is time that every Internet Sales Professional needs to be joining the groups, blogs, communities and discussions to find out where help is needed.
My point is that the good and old Pareto principle of 80/20 is right on, once again. For us remaining 20% we just need to follow our instinct and do things differently than others do. We still have chances to be unique and to be engaging with other channels during this “digital revolution”.
I have sworn to myself “whatever decision is made by one of my OEM’s” I will deal with it most likely Hannibal The Great did, when he was on his way through the Alps and stated “We must either find a way or WE MAKE ONE”…
With this attitude in mind you’ll be able to set yourself apart from the competition, even so “your homepage and your competitor’s website” looks the same – also when they are not. Think about your content and the usable links you can include in your website. Set direct links your facebook page, to your Blog (which I have shown worked for me and now generated than 60,000 visitors in 12 months), get a life-link set up with your “dealerRater.com” onto your website pages. Yes even your staffing page, we have “simpsonized” or sales people with their portrait, which a) was approved by MINI and b) people actually ask on the phone when calling us if we really look like the cartoon character.
I know extreme measurements (almost like my thick German accent), which I’ve applied in my 8 dealerships, but believe me they have worked fantastically for us – even so we have an OEM “suggested” dealer website.
I am totally honest. The beginning in learning the new back-end tool and following accordingly to compliance rules with MINI USA (which is known as one of the strictest OEM's out there when talking about Branding and Image) was indeed an ordeal.
However what I certainly appreciated was the fast and seamless support from Cobalt’s end, when questions or problems occurred in getting feeds set up and so on. The time saved on these operational tasks I used more in the things we are suppose to do: Selling Cars or make or sales teams stronger and being more involved in their daily tasks instead of fulfilling the job duties as a webmaster.
As we all agree OEM’s and dealers are spending tons of money for bringing their “message” in front of their potential customers. Seeing it from the OEM perspective I can certainly see also their frustration, when for example “Mr. Opportunity for Honda is knocking at your screen” and only 6 out of 18 Honda dealers in the South-East region are having the branding message “Hello Mr. Opportunity” on their website shown” after being mystery shopped by Honda Motors.
As long OEM's are recognizing this kind of disconnect with their dealer's Internet Departments, I guess it will be difficult to get OEM's listening more to the Internet staff but instead articulating their frustration to the dealer principals and GM's.
I believe that is typical evaluation for the current situation in the e-commerce world.
The “good ones” among us Internets Sales Director, e-Commerce Director, etc, who take pride in doing something different on their websites and bringing traffic through these messages into the dealership are getting punished, and the other ones, who may don’t have the capabilities, or the ideas, or the time, or….you get the point, don’t even see what is wrong with this picture.
Let’s be honest, with approximate 18,000 dealerships we should have around 15,000 Internet Sales manager or whatever the title is - How many of these Internet managers are actually showing up at Digital Dealer Conference or are a member and active visitor of the ADM or DealerRefresh websites?
Am I wrong when I assume it is below the 3,000 mark? I think it is time that every Internet Sales Professional needs to be joining the groups, blogs, communities and discussions to find out where help is needed.
My point is that the good and old Pareto principle of 80/20 is right on, once again. For us remaining 20% we just need to follow our instinct and do things differently than others do. We still have chances to be unique and to be engaging with other channels during this “digital revolution”.
I have sworn to myself “whatever decision is made by one of my OEM’s” I will deal with it most likely Hannibal The Great did, when he was on his way through the Alps and stated “We must either find a way or WE MAKE ONE”…
With this attitude in mind you’ll be able to set yourself apart from the competition, even so “your homepage and your competitor’s website” looks the same – also when they are not. Think about your content and the usable links you can include in your website. Set direct links your facebook page, to your Blog (which I have shown worked for me and now generated than 60,000 visitors in 12 months), get a life-link set up with your “dealerRater.com” onto your website pages. Yes even your staffing page, we have “simpsonized” or sales people with their portrait, which a) was approved by MINI and b) people actually ask on the phone when calling us if we really look like the cartoon character.
I know extreme measurements (almost like my thick German accent), which I’ve applied in my 8 dealerships, but believe me they have worked fantastically for us – even so we have an OEM “suggested” dealer website.
