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Lincoln Website

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M

MidwestFord

Full Sticker + Prep
Feb 24, 2012
22
2
First Name
Brian
#1
Does anybody know of any low cost website solutions? We are a Ford and Lincoln dealer, but Lincoln is now requiring a separate website for Lincoln inventory. They originally said we could create a splash page that linked to our regular site with Lincoln inventory but now they are picking apart our original site and say it will not work.

We are a small dealer and we usually only have about 3 or 4 new Lincolns in inventory. I am looking for the cheapest way to deal with this. I would like to hear from other Lincoln dealers if possible to see how you are dealing with this.
 
#2
Only 3-5 cars in stock and you need to have a separate website?

There's a thought. Sign up for a Tumblr blog and post your actual inventory (photos, description and data). In about an hour you would have a full website with info pages, inventory and contact info that you could manage right from the Tumblr iPhone or Driod app.

Unless of course you need to have a website that follows strict rules around compliance. but I can't imagine they would make you do that for 5 cars. Unless there are some additional politics involved.
 
#3
Lincoln is getting aggressive! We made our own site and used Dealer Trend to plug inventory into the site. It's a wordpress platform so it's an easy integration via plugin and with a StudioPress template it was easy enough to create.

If you talk to the folks at DealerOn (or your preferred web dev company) they'll give you a cheap rate to throw up a simple template site. I would assume you could grind for $400-$500/mo or get away with $300 or so a month if you build it yourself on wordpress via DealerTrend.

Capital Lincoln site
 
#4
Thanks for the thought Jeff, but yes there is a lot of compliance involved.

Mitch, are you saying that the inventory plugin alone is $300 a month? Is it a flat fee or is it based on number of cars in inventory?

This Lincoln thing is getting ridiculous. We are also having to remodel the dealership to have a separate delivery area for new Lincolns.
 
#5
Hey Brian,

Our company works with many smaller ford dealers in the Midwest. I can share these with you over a phone conversation. We have created cost effective website solutions specifically for what you are asking for. They start at $200/mo. Call me if you are interested. 702-596-0869
 
#6
MidwestFord said:
This Lincoln thing is getting ridiculous. We are also having to remodel the dealership to have a separate delivery area for new Lincolns.
Click to expand...

I feel your pain, we had to re-submit our 3rd party website 4 times for compliancy and each time they had a new set of rules as to why it was not compliant. One had a tail-light of a mustang going around the corner 200 ft in the background of a Lincoln inventory photo and they zoomed and and flagged it as not compliant because a non-lincoln car in the picture. Kind of hard excluding any other brand in the shot when only 10% of your inventory is Lincoln.

Just curious, why you are not considering the base clickmotive dealer connection site Ford/Lincoln already forces you to sign up for? They are going to charge you $299 per month no matter what you do and I believe they are allowing Lincoln Ad Spend funds to pay for it, or you can go with the advanced package for another $399 also covered. At least they guarantee compliancy, I don't know if I would want to deal with the approval process for 5 cars.
 
#7
paulray said:
I feel your pain, we had to re-submit our 3rd party website 4 times for compliancy and each time they had a new set of rules as to why it was not compliant. One had a tail-light of a mustang going around the corner 200 ft in the background of a Lincoln inventory photo and they zoomed and and flagged it as not compliant because a non-lincoln car in the picture. Kind of hard excluding any other brand in the shot when only 10% of your inventory is Lincoln.

Just curious, why you are not considering the base clickmotive dealer connection site Ford/Lincoln already forces you to sign up for? They are going to charge you $299 per month no matter what you do and I believe they are allowing Lincoln Ad Spend funds to pay for it, or you can go with the advanced package for another $399 also covered. At least they guarantee compliancy, I don't know if I would want to deal with the approval process for 5 cars.
Click to expand...

Paul I may be mistaken. I thought from the wording they meant we could use their site or use our own. I didn't know they were going to charge for theirs regardless. I will talk to the GM and see. You may have solved our problem. Thanks Paul
 
#8
paulray said:
I feel your pain, we had to re-submit our 3rd party website 4 times for compliancy and each time they had a new set of rules as to why it was not compliant. One had a tail-light of a mustang going around the corner 200 ft in the background of a Lincoln inventory photo and they zoomed and and flagged it as not compliant because a non-lincoln car in the picture. Kind of hard excluding any other brand in the shot when only 10% of your inventory is Lincoln.

Just curious, why you are not considering the base clickmotive dealer connection site Ford/Lincoln already forces you to sign up for? They are going to charge you $299 per month no matter what you do and I believe they are allowing Lincoln Ad Spend funds to pay for it, or you can go with the advanced package for another $399 also covered. At least they guarantee compliancy, I don't know if I would want to deal with the approval process for 5 cars.
Click to expand...


We are a relatively small Lincoln dealer and this is exactly what we did...took the $299 package and are making the best of it. You are going to get charged $299 no matter what, that is correct. I'm not spending $299 per month, then building another site to move 4 Lincolns per month.

The compliance is a pain, we just got our group site approved.
 
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