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If you were to make an Automotive Marketing Company...

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#11
My goal here is to make a product that solves a wide range, if not all, of your marketing needs.
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My advice is to try not going from 0-60. Don't try to do everything and be the best at it - because the reality is people have been working on these things a lot longer than you have. You'll be surprised when it comes time to compete with them.

Carve out something painful dealers have to deal with and make it easier. If I were you, I'd visit different dealership forums and look for signs of frustration, complaints, and the like and work on finding a solution. People will pay you for it. Don't focus on making something prettier, because most of the time it doesn't matter. Start with a small solution and go from there, though. You'll waste way too much time and resources trying to do everything and ultimately won't accomplish very much. You'll probably find some of the things you care about your target market doesn't - and some of the things your target market cares about you don't. Try to start thinking like the latter and I think you'll win some business :)
 
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#12
this is what i was looking for, thank you Chris!


maybe I should have been more clear. I am not new to this, i've been around automotive marketing in a dealership and currently do it for a marketing firm that does everything. I know what dealerships need for marketing, i was just looking for some more input from the dealers themselves.


When i say the "same BS" that all other marketing companies provide, is the false sense of "getting clicks" and traffic to your websites. I want the dealers here to look at the marketing reports that their digital marketers provide them. How many clicks do you have and what percentage are from the "branded" campaign? I'm going to guess 40-50% of your clicks?


I have looked at reports, i have worked with the "top" automotive marketing firms, and this is the case across the board.


when you question this to your digital marketer, what is their response? "there is competition out there and you have to protect your brand from people trying to conquest your dealerships name" This is somewhat true, however what they're really doing is stealing clicks from your SEO efforts.


Think about it... someone is googleing "your dealership" and clicking on the first thing they see... which is a paid ad. User clicks on this, submits a lead, and bam. your amazing marketing firm just got you a lead! but what they're really doing here is taking away from the SEO that you have worked so hard for.


This is something that would really piss me off if i were a dealership. This is not TRUE marketing, its just stealing credit from something that is already established, your brand name.


so I'll ask again, what are some thing that piss you off about your current marketing efforts?




Chris Cachor said:
My advice is to try not going from 0-60. Don't try to do everything and be the best at it - because the reality is people have been working on these things a lot longer than you have. You'll be surprised when it comes time to compete with them.


Carve out something painful dealers have to deal with and make it easier. If I were you, I'd visit different dealership forums and look for signs of frustration, complaints, and the like and work on finding a solution. People will pay you for it. Don't focus on making something prettier, because most of the time it doesn't matter. Start with a small solution and go from there, though. You'll waste way too much time and resources trying to do everything and ultimately won't accomplish very much. You'll probably find some of the things you care about your target market doesn't - and some of the things your target market cares about you don't. Try to start thinking like the latter and I think you'll win some business
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#13
1) If balloons sell cars, good popcorn could sell dealers...there's a company that does well using cookies after all.

2) Don't call at the end of the month to show me something; don't over promise and under deliver; research don't stalk the dealership; offer something we don't obviously need - if it's THAT obviously lacking, apparently we're not interested; don't try to stand out the same way everyone else does; LISTEN to what dealers tell you.

3) Trade show floors are flooded with the newest, shiniest, loudest toys. Some things are promoted of the person's reputation by their group of followers and others on the merits of the product. Look at yourself, your passion and your drive; look at your past-successes and failures-there you will see your path. Before offering it to the community, make sure it's not based on perceptions but facts people that do not know you can understand and believe in.

4) I wish I had a "BSS" or "BS Sniffer." Someone who was paid a small fee to find the real answer to all of the BS lines we're pitched. Whether by a current or prospective vendor or partner, we are told about abilities, integrations, stats, profitability, ect that are usually not true. With an existing list of products and tools, my BSS would be on call to find the real answer saving the dealership time and money.
 
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#15
Kelly Wilson said:
1) If balloons sell cars, good popcorn could sell dealers...there's a company that does well using cookies after all.

2) Don't call at the end of the month to show me something; don't over promise and under deliver; research don't stalk the dealership; offer something we don't obviously need - if it's THAT obviously lacking, apparently we're not interested; don't try to stand out the same way everyone else dpleaseoes; LISTEN to what dealers tell you.

3) Trade show floors are flooded with the newest, shiniest, loudest toys. Some things are promoted of the person's reputation by their group of followers and others on the merits of the product. Look at yourself, your passion and your drive; look at your past-successes and failures-there you will see your path. Before offering it to the community, make sure it's not based on perceptions but facts people that do not know you can understand and believe in.

4) I wish I had a "BSS" or "BS Sniffer." Someone who was paid a small fee to find the real answer to all of the BS lines we're pitched. Whether by a current or prospective vendor or partner, we are told about abilities, integrations, stats, profitability, ect that are usually not true. With an existing list of products and tools, my BSS would be on call to find the real answer saving the dealership time and money.
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I pride myself on my ability to sniff out bs. I've seen Charlie bono's work first hand and it's solid
 
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#16
Daniel J. Mondello said:
I pride myself on my ability to sniff out bs. I've seen Charlie bono's work first hand and it's solid
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No one called out Charlie's work...

Anyway,

Charlie, you seem to be looking for a better way to present reports to the dealers and break down the data better to identify the effectiveness of e-marketing.
I suggest you check out Brian Pash's Roibot, while it is not perfect it is a good way to gather a lot more information together for dealerships with multiple campaigns, advertising channels, etc, going on.

Other than that, mostly everything you are talking about is recorded in G. Analitys and webmaster tools, both of them have API's that you can use to break and use their data. Even more advanced if you want to incorporate pre-roll ads, etc, you also have and API with Youtube.

All the tools are there, you just have to build the reports.
 
#18
Have i not been engaged in the conversation? I'm posting this as someone who is fed up with how other vendors are duping dealerships claiming that they're providing them a false sense of marketing, and ways to change that. I'm not out here pitching something, because i dont have anything to pitch yet. When I do, I'll be sure to follow those rules.
 
#19
Kelly Wilson said:
1)
4) I wish I had a "BSS" or "BS Sniffer." Someone who was paid a small fee to find the real answer to all of the BS lines we're pitched. Whether by a current or prospective vendor or partner, we are told about abilities, integrations, stats, profitability, ect that are usually not true. With an existing list of products and tools, my BSS would be on call to find the real answer saving the dealership time and money.
Click to expand...


I used to love doing this with vendors that came into our office, and one of the main reasons why i made this post. I was looking at reports from other marketing groups and saw that they were spending a majority of the money on "branded" campaigns with SEM getting clicks and false results. Another example was claiming clicks or conversions based off of display ads that the user might have been shown, but never clicked on.

In the reports, it'd show high clicks and graphs pointing up, so everything must be good! When in reality, they were just getting screwed.
 
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