April 2, 2008
I had coffee a couple of weeks ago with Jim Guise, who used to be a regional sales manager for Auto Mart Diablo Dealer. Jim has helped us better understand and support the needs of the used car market. Jim did a great job explaining some of the inner works of user car dealerships. “Turn” and Making Money According to Jim, a used car dealer’s profits really lies in their turn. “Turn” is a term used in the industry to represent the amount of time a used car sits on the lot. In general, if a user car dealer is able to turn a used car in 10 to 20 days – they make money, if they turn a used car in 20 to 30 days - they break even, and if it takes 60 to 90 days to turn a car – they loose money. 
Acquiring Used Cars Used car dealers usually acquire their cars one of four ways:
- On a trade, when a customer trades in an old car towards the purchase of a newer one
- From a user car wholesaler, who purchase excess inventory from banks and other dealers
- At an auction, where dealers pay to have the car in the auction, and dealers pay to buy used cars
- From a private party, usually through classifieds
Marketing Used Cars Once a used car dealer acquires a car, they will spend on average about $300 in marketing cost to the car off the lot. “Low Gross” dealers will try and make at least $500 of profit on each car. “Middle gross” dealers look to make $1,200–$1,500 per car. “High gross” dealers, who look to make $3,500–$4,500 in gross margin per car, are rare in today’s economy. Used Cars and the Real Estate Market The down turn in the real estate market has actually hurt the use car market in recent months. Most affected are used car dealers in previously hot real estate markets like California and Florida. For example, San Francisco bay area BMW dealers who might have sold 1,000 cars in a 3 month period last year, are off the mark by as much as 70% in the same 3 month period this year! In the past, many home owners would refinance their home and use the proceeds to buy a new or used car – those days are gone for now!
So How Can vFlyer Help?
So how does vFlyer help a used car dealers become more successful in the increasingly competitive marketplace?
- Making your Product Look Good According to Jim, “You have got to make your product look and seem better”. Jim correctly notes that potential car buyers no longer “pack up the wife and kids” and cruise down to the local auto dealer”. Instead they start their search online! The Internet has become their ‘virtual lot’ and buyer are armed with more than just the MSRP! Auto dealers have the option of having their classified ads look ordinary or extraordinary – that’s where vFlyer can help!
- Bigger is Better Jim made an interesting point that in order to capture more of the consumer’s time and attention, bigger is better! Bigger photos, more photos, more information and more options! At vFlyer we allow you to include more photos in your gallery! You can customize flyers to add more information or options. Use the premium layout to make your ads really stand out! Use enhanced HTML templates for Craigslist that feature large photos on Craigslist and more!
- Market Cars on the Internet In the past, the biggest bulk of a used car dealers ad budget went into newspaper. With the advent of the Internet, this has all changed. A medium-sized dealer these days has a monthly marketing budget of $35K-$45k and as much as 25% to 35% is being spend on Internet. Cost-effective vFlyer allow you to significantly improve online distribution without the high cost associated with other marketing options. With vFlyer, you can get your entire inventory online the same day. Unlike TV and radio, the Internet is a point of sales (POS) vehicle that can work in conjunction with brand advertising to increase customer acquisition.
February 19, 2008
This week’s Watermark Plus image of the week comes from John Baker of the Lithia Internet Sales Center. Like other Internet-savvy auto dealership marketers, John uses Watermark Plus to add sales information to images that could help take them off the lot! It’s no surprise that Watermark Plus is so popular with auto dealers! Image merchandising has been used by auto dealers in automotive classified advertising magazines such as AutoTrader, Trade Magazine, Dupont Registry and Zoom Photo Ads. Watermark Plus takes the process online and allows car dealers to merchandise photos for free in a few simple clicks and then use them in online classifieds!
February 15, 2008
This week’s vFlyer of the Week for a 2005 Honda Accord EX Sedan comes from the very web savvy vFlyer professional subscriber Sonny Baird at Anderson Honda direct. Sonny’s use of the new premium flyer layout really set’s all of his listings apart! Sonny’s elegant use of vFlyer also set’s him apart from other auto dealers when it comes to online marketing!
February 14, 2008
A growing number of subscribers are using the new premium flyer layout! There are a handful of examples of the new layout available as part of the vFlyer Starter, Basic, Premium and Professional subscriptions:
Compare these to the standard layout to see the difference!
If you are subscriber, simply preview your flyer and select Premium layout while in Preview mode:
This new premium layout applies only to the landing page for your flyer. The standard layout will continue to be used for Craigslist postings, Email, and Print/PDF.
You can upgrade today to take advantage of this new premium layout option!
February 10, 2008
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The National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA) annual convention comes to San Francisco this week! The NADA was founded in 1917 and today represents more than 19,700 new car and truck dealers, both domestic and international, with more than 43,000 separate franchises!
With more and more auto dealers embracing vFlyer as part of their online marketing efforts, the vFlyer teams has been meeting with both existing and perspective customers and partners in San Francisco. Automobiles are the second largest product category on vFlyer as auto dealers are becoming more and more Internet savvy! The Internet marketing teams at auto dealers like Anderson Honda, CarSmith, Escobar Motors, Romi Motors, are great examples of this new Internet-savvy breed of auto dealers! Many dealers are using the flyers on Craigslist, Ebay, and other sites. In addition, they appreciate the automatic submission of their ads to other marketplaces such as Google base. |
August 7, 2007
June 27, 2007
A recent trend we have noticed among both auto dealers, real estate professionals and HR professionals is using RSS to syndicate their listings! The value to web-savvy consumers if obvious! Mark at Inkbots makes a good point:
One of the many hassles in buying an automobile has been driving to a dealer (or calling them) to see what they have in their inventory. In either case you usually have to dodge a salesman who really wants to get your name and phone number. All I want to know is whether you have a silver Eclipse, okay?
The basic idea is that prospective customers can easily subscribe to your inventory (in the same way they would subscribe to your blog) using your RSS feed and their favorite news reader. Some of the more innovate auto dealerships offer RSS feeds of their inventories (Ikon Auto, Mall Cars, i.e.) and I am certain some smart real estate agents are doing the same thing.
The good news for vFlyer users is you already have an RSS feed of your flyer inventory! Just in case you haven’t noticed, each user has a gallery (See Example) – your gallery is a graphic summary of all the flyers in your account as well as your business or contact information. Subscribers can customize their galleries (See Example), while non-subscribers get the basic gallery view (See Example). All users, however, get RSS feeds of their flyer!
You will notice at the bottom right hand corner of your gallery page there is an RSS icon that points to your RSS feed. The url to your feed looks something like this:
http://www.vflyer.com/home/Listing.jsp?acctId=551040&format=RSS
Users can add this url to their favorite RSS news reader and voila! – they have subscribed to your RSS listing feed! For most, it’s as simple as clicking on the link. All of the new browsers have made it a lot easier to subscribe to RSS feeds.
There are also many free online and desktop RSS news readers available to users. For online users, My Yahoo, Google RSS Reader, Bloglines and Newsgator online are some of the most popular readers. You can also download and install as browser add-ons or applications desktop-based readers. For more on the subject of readers, you can visit the Wikipedia.
June 25, 2007
A couple of days ago I talked about the importance of high conversion rates and promised to share some points on improving your conversion rate in general and more specifically using flyers.
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Improve your Response Time
Today most customers move at “Internet speed” so don’t delay following up on leads! When using vFlyer give prospects more than one way to contact you – remember some people prefer email over phone calls and vice versa. Consider including your IM information or using services like click-to-call to make it easier to get a hold of you. If you have a web-based mobile phone, use vFlyer Mobile to check on flyer leads and stats even when away from the office! More… |
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Personalize your Message
Customers like to feel special and important (after all they are!). When sending flyers or other communication via email you may want to include a personal message. Knowing your market will definitely help you better understand their needs. Understand the market dynamics such as pricing trends, market conditions and other factors. More… |
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Grow your Number of Leads
Get your message out as far and wide as possible! It’s not rocket science but the more people who see your message, the more leads you’ll get! vFlyer allows you to distribute listings to a broad range of online marketplaces. Consider posting your flyers to marketplaces like Craigslist, Backpage and eBay (classified and auctions) or using widgets to draw more leads on your blog. More… |
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Manage your Leads More Effectively
It may make sense to invest in contact manager, customer database or what is know in the industry as a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Make sure each lead you get is stored somewhere safe. vFlyer forwards leads via email, also it will soon be possible to receive them as vcards that can easily be cut and pasted into your contact managers (such as Microsoft Outlook). Ask leads if you can add them to your mailing list and communicate with them regularly via email by sending them flyers or newsletters – who knows, they may become a future customer! More… |
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Reduce your Marketing Cost
Reducing your cost allows you to do more marketing. Doing more marketing gets you more leads! Services such as vFlyer are a great way to reduce online marketing costs. Distributing your listings to free online marketplaces is a great way to supplement (or replace) some of the more expensive lead generation mechanisms you may be using. Using other free features like widgets, PDF generation, Watermark Plus and email only compounds your savings. More… |
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Present a Professional Image
Put your best foot forward! Services like vFlyer were designed to help online sellers present a more professional image online. Including items like photo, company logos and association logos on flyers definitely boosts your professional appearance. Subscribers can also use company-specific themes to show their affiliate with a national brand or franchise, again boosting one’s professional image. more… |
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Improve the Quality of your Information
By using a flyer, you are on your way to improving the quality of your information! Be sure to include as much information about your product on the flyer as possible. Consider adding links to reviews or a PDF version of your flyer. Subscribers can add video to their flyers. Consider adding product information to your photos using Watermark Plus. more… |
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Test your Marketing Material
Good marketers always tell you to test everything! Here is an idea – create a flyer for your listing or product. Next, clone your flyer (or duplicate it), modify the title, modify the copy or use slightly different photos and finally publish both! Then using vFlyer’s built-in reporting and analysis tools compare their response rates. This is an easy and affordable way to do very basic A/B testing for your flyers to find out what messages or copy works best! more… |
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Help People Find what they are Looking For
You can easily improve the chances of someone finding your property on the Web by posting it on a blog, such as ActiveRain, Blogger, Typepad or Wordpress. Use a vanity URL (similar to the concept of “single site properties”) for offline advertising – so potential consumers can easily find your listing online. Similar to my previous point, include as much relevant information on the flyer as possible so people don’t have to look elsewhere. more… |
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Do a Better Job of “Merchandising” your Listings or Product
Use high quality photos and when posting to Craigslist, subscribers can use the large photo format to display more large photos! Consider using Watermark Plus to add graphics, watermarks or call to actions directly on photographs. Show the product in action – if you have video, subscribers can include it in their flyer. Include links to reviews, awards or other third party links that promote your product. more… |
June 19, 2007
According to a recent data from the National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA) indicate that of the $7.8 billion spent on advertising by auto dealers in 2006, 11.5% was spend on online marketing and competition is on the rise! Although dealer sites received more visitors in 2006 then in 2005 (320 per month in ‘06 versus 228 per month in ‘05), conversion rates to sales dropped (from 26.4% in 2005 to 19.2% in 2006 for both unqualified and qualified leads). The most common customer gripes were slow dealer response rates and the poor quality of information
Improving conversion rates continues to be one of the most important topics facing auto dealers and online sellers alike. In the next couple of days, I will try and share some pointers on how you can improve your conversion rates using vFlyer!
April 15, 2007
While the number of Real Estate blogs continues to grow, auto dealers are simply not making it to the blogosphere. Inman Blog last week had an interesting post on the 1,000 Real Estate Blogs that Robert Melton of Pittsburgh Homes Daily was able to identify – and I am sure that list only continues to grow! Unlike their real estate counterparts, it seems that few auto dealers or dealerships engage in the ancient art of blogging!Â
In fact when I did a search on both Google and Technorati, i was hard pressed to find any actual (active) auto dealer bloggers! The chart below illustrates the problem clearly. Either people aren’t buying cars or auto dealers are simply too busy to blog!
| Keyword: REAL ESTATE |
Keyword: AUTO DEALER |
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The reason auto dealers should be concerned is that according to Jupiter Research, dealer web sites are one of the top three most visited online resources when it comes to researching a vehicle purchase. In a recent report, Jupiter states that most dealerships still don’t view the Internet as an integral part of their business. In an earlier report, Jupiter found that 2/3 of the dealers surveyed that were the most successful at converting Internet leads into sales viewed their site as a research tool for consumers as opposed to simply a place to list inventory - and what better way to interact and learn from prospective customers than through a blog?
I was able to track down the JW, blogger for the The Pennsylvania Independent Automobile Dealers Association, who told me this:
In the used car business, it seems that guys spend an awful lot of hours working instead of perusing the Internet. I had a blog running for about 18 months, and there simply weren’t enough people responding to make it seem worthwile. They say that you need about 2500 readers before discussions and the like take off. We only have 1600 members so it may just be a sometimes item.
Perhaps JW has a point, but auto dealers willing to make the investment may indeed have a payoff waiting for them. Those brave souls may want to get some advice from Real Estate Tomato’s Jim Cronin’s post “To Blog or Not to Blog†which does a excellent job of outlining the “The 4 C’s to business blogging success.â€Â Looking for more info? A little more comprehensive guide to maybe Northwestern University’s and Backbone’s Blogging Success Story. Unfortunately, few real estate agents or auto dealers will have time to actually read it!
April 5, 2007
We released a couple of new features in our latest release that make posting to Craigslist better and easier! First of all, we have introduced an Enhanced Craigslist template for business subscribers. We have had many requests from users asking for more (and larger) photos in Craigslist so we’ve added that feature in the new template.
We have also made other user interface enhancements on the posting page that make it easier and faster for you to use, including putting all the information you need on the same page. You can see a demonstration of the posting process in this flash Posting in Craigslist video tutorial by yours truly. You can also watch this and other vFlyer videos on YouTube.
January 12, 2007
Late last year we announced a new service called vFlyer FeedExpress aimed at meeting the needs of larger customers (particuarly large real estate firms and auto dealerships). We have had a great response to the service, including a lot of question, so I would like to take the time to answer a few of them and tell you more about the service.
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WHAT IS FEEDEXPRESS?
There are several ways to get data into vFlyer. You can use the easy-to-use forms to enter information on a single listing or the bulk upload feature to import multiple listings, but when you have a signficantly large number of listings, these options may not be sufficient. FeedExpress allows customers with hundreds or thousands of listings to simply provide a feed that we dynamically map to and use to generate and distribute flyers. |
WHO IS FEEDEXPRESS FOR?
This service is designed for large real estate companies and auto dealerships and provides a seamless feed-based mechanism for them to publish large volumes of listings into leading online marketplaces and classified ad search engines.
HOW MUCH DOES FEEDEXPRESS COST?
The price of the service varies depending on the complexity of the feed but generally speaking vFlyer supports both Cost-Per-Click (CPC) and Cost-Per-Listing (CPL) models for the service, in addition to a one-time setup fee. For more information, contact: sales@vflyer.com
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omuoto @ 1:34 pm 
