Dallas, Texas November 11, 2009 (reprint from official John Eagle press release)

The John Eagle Dealerships are pleased to introduce an all-new, fully integrated automotive shopping website at JohnEagle.com.

John Eagle, President and Chief Executive Officer of the John Eagle Dealerships said, “With more than 80% of car buyers starting their internet shopping experience online we wanted to make sure that our customers had real-time access to the latest and greatest information about each of our amazing products in real time.  We’re excited to bring more than 2,500 high quality vehicles into one website for customers to consider.”

The brand new website integrates virtual inventory from each of John Eagle’s 15 franchises and multiple locations to deliver quick-loading, visually appealing information that will help customers to make better purchase decisions.  The virtual showroom delivers a wide range of multimedia that includes, among other items, video displays for used inventory and 360 degree interior and exterior views for new inventory.

Rene’ Isip, Chief Operating Officer of John Eagle Dealerships and Dealer Principal of a Toyota and Honda dealership said, “Our goal is to be leaders in 21st Century Marketing and this website is focused on extending the positive experiences that our customers have at our dealerships into an online environment.  This website takes us to the next level by allowing customers to compare new and used vehicles from all of our makes and models and each of our locations.  At the end of the day it will help us reach more customers, secure more market share and sell more vehicles.”

The new website delivers access to credit applications and service appointments as well as details about store locations and contact phone numbers.  Customers will be able to take advantage of cutting-edge capabilities to quickly and intuitively submit leads and search inventory by body style, make, model, color, year, mpg and desired price range.

Len Critcher, President and CEO of eCarList, said, “The automotive marketing landscape is rapidly evolving.  John Eagle Dealerships are setting the benchmark for customer-centric online solutions.  We are honored to work with this group to provide our suite of integrated solutions and assist in growing their online presence.”
(more…)

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Carfax and eCarList have teamed up to help dealers more effectively market their online inventory.

Dealers using eCarList’s inventory management software can obtain Carfax information and make it available with their vehicles listed online. Used car shoppers get the information they need up front to make faster buying decisions.

“Our intent is to create a seamless user experience for online car shoppers,” said Len Critcher, eCarList’s CEO. “The Carfax brand is recognized throughout our industry and further reinforces the credibility of online data we provide. Forward-thinking dealers understand that the added value of the eCarList inventory management program helps generate sales and improve the online customer experience at the same time.”

Previous independent studies prove that cars sell faster and for more money when Carfax Reports are included with online listings. Subscribing dealers can purchase Carfax Reports directly from the eCarList platform. Online shoppers see vehicle history highlights like Carfax 1-Owner and reported accidents within the vehicle listing and get the full Carfax Report for free.

“Having Carfax Vehicle History Reports available through eCarList enhances the Park Place brand and helps us improve our customers’ experience,” said Frank Sobyak, director of Internet Business Development at Park Place Dealerships in Dallas, Texas. “Using these powerful tools we can easily identify the cars our customers want and reassure them that they’re getting only the highest-quality vehicles. Every vehicle we list on our site has a free Carfax Report to build customer confidence and support our fine reputation.”
(more…)

Do you consider yourself a progressive dealer?  Is it something innate, or learned?  I consider myself a pretty successful guy…or at least strive to be one, but I know people who still sit around watching COPS all day playing the lottery and eating Long John Silvers.  With major companies crumbling because of bureaucracy, stubbornness, fat-dumb-and-happy-syndrome…or all of the above , wouldn’t you assume that dealers more than ever would focus on bettering their processes to push themselves out in front for the new generation of car buyers?  You would assume.  As do I.

I want to talk about my favorite dealer to-date.  His name is Brian Hoskins…from Brian Hoskins Ford in Pennsylvania.  Why do I like Brian so much?  Aside from the fact he’s a super likable guy, Brian Hoskins is Brian Hoskins, yes the owner.  And he is INVOLVED.  Brian Hoskins cares about his store and shows concern about the future, and has genuine ambition to be the best regardless of how big or how small his store is.

Before Brian came to us, he had one of those OEM “Here, Use This”  Dealer Websites.  The site was convoluted, hard to navigate, outdated, mundane…and worst of all it had zero rankings on Google - even when you searched for “Brian Hoskins Ford”. (more…)

New Ownership at North Texas Nissan Makes Reputation Cleanup a Priority

New ownership and management take over North Texas Nissan with a new attitude in efforts to regain customers and improve community presence as a Dallas area Nissan Dealership

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) June 4, 2009 — As of February 2009, new ownership and management stepped in at North Texas Nissan to rebrand the dealership and take control over their image in the community as the leader in customer appreciation. According to customer loyalty maps in the region, it appears the previous management did not make customer loyalty a priority as it showed most customers did not return to buy a second vehicle, and rather bought from the competition. New ownership and management believes the store is due for an overhaul.

North Texas Nissan is now committed to making every customer feel like they are family,” claims Wesley Spence, Dealer Principle and General Manager. “Our primary task is to provide the most enjoyable buying experience possible so that we may retain our customers for life.”

Spence comes to North Texas Nissan after 5 years of service with another large dealer group in Texas, and brings with him a team of experienced staff to help clean up the store’s reputation. “We hope to be able to reach out to our customer base and community in an effort to reestablish the relationship that had been tarnished. We will do this by reaching out to the community through mail and community involvement,” says Spence. “North Texas Nissan, unlike other dealers, is a non-hassle dealership who caters to the customer’s needs. There are never hidden or unwanted ads on our vehicles that surprise the customer once they arrive at the dealership. We are also committed to maintaining an ongoing relationship after the sale to insure that our customers have a positive buying experience.”

Considering dismal news in automotive including Chrysler ’s and GM’s recent bankruptcy filings and possible further bailouts and closures, it seems there is a lot more pressure for dealerships to create a pro-consumer environment. Spence weighs in on the current economic conditions by saying, “Although we do realize that consumers are concerned with the current state of the economy, in most cases we are able to take advantage of the aggressive lending and rebate programs from the manufacturer to lower a customer’s current payment in a newer model car.”

Some of the initiatives Spence and his team have put into motion to compete with other Dallas Nissan Dealers to increase sales are 100% guaranteed loan approvals, a no-gimmick $6.99 oil change, free AutoCheck and trade appraisal, and a guaranteed “apples-to-apples” price-match from their competition. Future plans include a car wash and body shop for customers and local residents. “North Texas Nissan is no longer a dealership who only looks out for its best interest regardless of the cost to the customer…” explains Spence. “…rather we are a dealership who realizes the satisfaction of its customer will determine its future success.”

When asked about the future of North Texas Nissan, Spence says, “In 2009 we have two priorities….first we want to build a dealership that people will be proud to buy a car from, and second we want to be the best and biggest Nissan dealership in Texas. We realize that it will take a lot of work to accomplish these goals, but with hard honest work and the help of our community we will be able to accomplish these goals.”

About North Texas Nissan:
North Texas Nissan, based in Corinth, Texas is a franchise Nissan dealership selling new Nissans, used and certified pre-owned cars and trucks to the communities of Dallas, Fort Worth and the DFW Metroplex.

It will happen to any car dealership eventually.  Search your dealership’s name (or worse) your own name… and the search engine returns a high-ranking “complaint” result.  This happened to me this past weekend and after my lawyers were called and my blood fell from a boil – I wanted to really look at this “plague” that looms for all businesses no matter the industry and/or size.

The “complaint” is designed to resolve a dispute.  Customer complains, company reviews, and resolution options are decided.  Should the company decide to not resolve the dispute, the customer can then choose legal action to have the dispute heard in a court of law.  That is how proper business resolution has always played out.

However, the Internet has changed everything.  Complaint websites are booming and the potential damage to businesses couldn’t be greater.  These websites fail in one critical area – this type of complaint is not designed to elicit an amicable resolution, the purpose of a “complaint website” post is strictly to cause reputable harm to a business – that’s it!

From rippoffreport.com’s homepage:
“Unlike the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report does not hide reports of “satisfied” complaints. ALL complaints remain public and unedited in order to create a working history on the company or individual in question… Your Ripoff Report will be discovered by millions of consumers! Search engines will automatically discover most reports, meaning that within just a few days or weeks, your report may be found on search engines when consumers search, using key words relating to your Ripoff Report.”

So here’s the skinny…  anyone can post anything for free, remain anonymous, post disparaging remarks against any person or business – and search engines will promote these to the tops of the results?  What’s to keep your competitor from posting remarks?  Nothing!  (more…)

I’m not here to preach one way or another about dealership microsites because if used correctly they can be very effective.  I’d rather tell you a story and let you decide for yourself on how best to apply them to your dealership (if at all).

I had a dealer in New York call me about two weeks ago inquiring into our dealer websites and SEO.  The first words out of his mouth were, “can you build me a bunch of microsites”?  My regretful response, “why”, led him into a 5 minute seminar on microsites helping with SEO, creating additional SEO rankings and hundreds of back-links to his website.   He also shared his theory on how automotive shoppers “hate dealers”, and that by taking the dealer’s brand away from a microsite makes the customer feel more comfortable to fill out a lead form.

My experience with microsites started in 2004 when I started an online marketing agency providing SEM/SEO services to Retail Automotive.  We were one of the first (if not the first) companies to market Search to car dealers.  Our core product was in-fact a microsite….we called it an “SEO sub-site”.  The SEO sub-site was born out of necessity because our first client’s website provider refused us access to the backend of the website where we needed upload our SEO code and content.  The client wanted SEO and we offered SEO.  Their website provider did not.  So we developed a work-around…

(more…)

I think I’ve been here long enough to post a disgruntled little blog.  During my time here at ecarlist over the past 4-ish months, I’ve spoken to a lot of dealers.  Many of them are engaging in SEO and/or SEM and many are not.  Usually I wouldn’t bash on the dealers who are proactively invovled with Search, but it seems that there is a major disconnect in regards to their spending.

I conducted my own little experiement in which I surveyed dealers who were using some of the more well-known SEM management firms which will remain un-named…uhhhreachlocaluhhhnmm.   Now this study was put together by a huge team of one with an enormous panel of 10.  Here are the results….

10 out of 10 dealers who were spending money on SEM with their “SEM Agency”  had no knowledge of  how much money was going to Google, Yahoo and/or MSN and how much was going into the pocket of their agency who was charging a percentage of the dealer’s gross monthly spend (usually with minimum spending requirements).

Does that concern anyone?  Apparantly not.  Because these firms are sending their weekly home-made Excel spreadsheets that show the dealer is getting “clicks” and apparantly that’s all that matters to the dealer.  They send nothing from the Engines themselves who have great reporting systems that show the actual spend, average Cost Per Click and Click Through Rates.

I’ve heard from some dealers who actually took the time to analyze their SEM campaigns directly with Google that the percentages their Agencies were taking were sometimes as high as 40%.   That means for every $1.00 you spend on Google, it’s actually costing you $1.40…assuming you are getting information on how much you’re spending per-click.

So anyway, for the dealer that cares about what you are spending these days I recommend going with an SEM management firm that either charges you a flat rate (i.e. ecarlist) or a  reasonable percentage with complete transparency.  In fact, I would call your SEM firm today and ask them if you can get a cost breakdown from Google - which they have readily available.  If they aren’t interested in showing it to you, you may want to reconsider who you are spending money with.

What is SERM?  Sounds like a bad case of the flu, but it’s actually a serious and rapidly growing segment of Search Engine Marketing.  SERM stands for Search Engine Reputation Management, and any company who struggles with negative PR online should get to know it well.

North Texas Nissan runs a very successful operation and uses ecarlist for Inventory Management and recently a premium website with SEM and SEO.   

Let’s just say the old management didn’t focus heavily on customer service.   North Texas Nissan suffers from serious negative online public relations just like many other dealers and companies online who may or may not be aware of it.

A Google search for “North Texas Nissan” brings up first page results for RipoffReport.com and Complaints.com that were posted by consumers (or bashing competitors)  from years ago during the previous management.

Many brand name companies suffer this same fate - Pay Pal, Bosley Medical, and countless dealers are losing an unforeseen amount of business from negative postings that appear in the search results.  And the worst part is that it’s near impossible to get these negative postings removed since they are protected under the 1st Amendment.

SERM is the process of achieving additional rankings for certain keywords in efforts to push down any negative PR websites “below the fold” or to the 2nd or 3rd page of the search results - or at least out of the way of it interfering.

As ecarlist strives to bring our dealers cutting edge online technology,  we are proud to launch a SERM program for North Texas Nissan and will be posting the results soon.

As most of us say ‘good riddance’ to 2008, it seems everyone has a heightened sense of awareness going into 2009. In regards to strategy, Dealers are making more careful choices and wiser decisions.  Ambiguity has been replaced with accountability, trust is synonymous with proof, and vendors are being audited.  But above all, the dealers who will survive in 2009 and beyond will be those who fundamentally shift their beliefs about the Internet.

During the housing boom, money was flowing.  It seemed one out of two vehicles on the road had paper plates.  Meanwhile most dealers were still trying to figure out the Internet with many refusing to believe it was a lucrative means of reaching existing and potential customers because..well, they were selling cars.

Also remember, the tech bubble had burst shortly before the housing bubble began…so the theory of the Internet taking over our daily lives was in question.  But what emerged from the tech implosion was a leaner, more viable Internet.  The fat fell off and the Internet was exposed for its most essential offerings - email and search.  And with more data showing Internet usage increasing and car shoppers looking online to start their research, dealers started moving their Internet efforts higher on the priority list.  Yet although dealers were starting to embrace the Internet, they were still unwilling to relinquish their old habits.  According to NADA - in 2005 dealers on average spent $177,992 on newspapers, $72,821on radio, $58,631 on TV, $30,132 on direct mail, and $25,844 on the Internet.  As the old saying goes, “I know my advertising budget is working…I just don’t know which part”.

So now that 2008 has proven that over 90% of people planning to purchase a vehicle start their buying cycle online, what do you plan to do with that information, and are you thinking of reallocating your budgets according to proven user behavior?

(more…)

The days of only monitoring a competing dealer’s specials down the street are over. The dealership of today must buy and price its inventory with a deep understanding of its online competitors and the National marketplace.

With ecarlist Pricing Analytics you can simultaneously view and compare Black Book, *NADA, and *AuctionNet wholesale data with eBay, Auto Trader, and Cars.com retail data to confidently make trade appraisals and price your inventory.

INSIDE ECARLIST: Know Your Competition

• Compare inventory with similar vehicles online using ‘real-time’ VIN matching
• View completed vehicle sales on eBay Motors for up to 3 months
• See how your competitors are pricing their vehicles
• Sort competing vehicles by color, distance, trim, and more
• Set pricing alerts on competing vehicles
• View a time stamped history of listing prices for competing vehicles
• Know how long your competition has owned their vehicle

INSIDE ECARLIST: Leverage Market Data with Customers

Successful dealers control the flow of communication with customers throughout the sales and negotiation process. This is not possible if the dealer’s access to and knowledge of vehicle market data is inferior to that of his customer. In today’s rapidly shifting marketplace where information equals power, timely access to accurate market data has become the currency of successful Internet dealers.

ecarlist Pricing Analytics empowers dealers by making it possible to identify and evaluate competing vehicles on the fly while communicating with prospective customers.

When properly harnessed, market data can become a dealer’s strongest sales and negotiations tool, leveling the playing field and providing the means to overcome customer pricing objections and misinformation.