I found this very interesting discussion about Dealership branding at BrandingStrategyInsider.com. Auto dealers are compared to the Titanic and the iceberg is the internet or selling to women, I'm not quite sure which. Read for yourself here.
We've been conducting an Industry Survey here at Dealerfire. We asked dealers a series of questions regarding the internet vendors, services and other pertinent details. We would like to share some of our results with you.
If you would like to add your input to the Dealerfire Industry survey, click here. We will post more as we continue to process the data.
I've had this one bookmarked for awhile and decided to bring it out today, it is posted on Automotivedigest.com.The highlights were sourced from Automotive News and The Auto Channel with additional input from Nielson Global AdView and Google. Some of the more interest points are copied below.
"..
| 2. Google research shows consumers spending significantly less time on vehicle buying decisions |
| 3. 2 months or less now spent on decision, compared w/ 6 months in past |
| 4. Dealership visits during shopping process cut from 6 to 1 or 2 |
|
5. About 40% of respondents interviewed in CarsOnline survey said
expected dealers to answer request for quote via email in 4 hours or
less ..." |
One or two visits and a 4 hour turnaround, you're either quick or you're behind on your quota for the month. Adrian Joseph, head of Automotive Practice at Google's London office, make a pretty straight pronouncement regarding manufacturers and the big dealership.
"Consumers have moved on in the way they research and buy cars and auto-related products. But I don't think the manufacturers and the big dealer groups have fully understood the size of this shift and/or reacted to it in a way which drives true brand engagement in the digital world."
What to you think? Are dealers and manufacturers in tune with buyers in 2007 or are they still selling like it's 1999. Read the rest of the points at Automotivedigest.com.
The Detroit Free Press has an article that spells out the costs associated with the Big Three's claim of to many dealerships. CNW Marketing Research puts the costs at "about $436 per vehicle, or $3.9 billion...", read the full story here.
The Wall Street Journal published a story today on the Big Three's desire to reduce the number of dealerships in operation. According to the story, shrinking market share has led to an over abundance of showrooms for GM, Ford and Chrysler. Read the full story here at the WSJ online.
I returned to Google Labs Search Trends to run another auto dealer related set of terms. The terms were "used car" and "pre owned", I tried different versions of preowned with the same results. The idea to compare these two terms came from the Search Engine Marketing performance of these two terms. The results of the comparison on Google Trends show a disconnect between what dealers are selling and what consumers are searching for on the internet. This reflects the same kind of perform ace we see for impressions on these two terms in SEM. Consumers are still buying, no doubt, but what kind of boost to sales and customer satisfaction could be gained by getting everyone on the same page? Perhaps an ad campaign geared toward consumer education is in order.
But first they are taking a detour through Mexico. The Autochannel posted a story that Chinese Zhongxing will assemble pickups and SUV's in Tijuana, Mexico with the intent of exporting them to the U.S. Read the story here at theautochannel.com. According to a story posted June 9th by the LA Times, the company setup to handle the importing will be headed by Steve Saleen. The company is ZX Automobile Co. of North America Inc. and Mr. Saleen is its new CEO. You know Steve from the Saleen 7 and Saleen Mustang but now is setting his sites on delivering you low cost Chinese import autos. The prices quoted by the LA Times put the price at "less than $14,000", no word yet on incentives or warranty. You can read the LA Times story here.
Google Labs has a very nifty little tools called Trends. It's a search engine that you can type various words or phrases into and then see it's search volume over the last three years. It gives you the option to narrow by country, sub-regions and year. You can type several terms separated by a comma see them compared over time. For the U.S. it will break high volume terms down by state with some cities listed. I typed in various auto makers names to see how they compare, no you cannot get results for individual dealers. I compared Toyota and GM, Toyota and Chrysler etc... and tried some comparisons by make. I tried some Impala, Camry and Impala,Camry, Taurus; you get the idea. The results were not to surprising, Toyota out performed all others, except for Ford. Ford did well in both make and model comparisons, I used the Taurus. This could be some good ammo to use on the manufacturers, what those search volume levels represent is the "lake" you have to fish in at the dealership level. Higher search volume levels represent a higher level of online users looking for the make/model you sell, lower levels represent a much shallower pool to pull from. You can run some of your own comparisons here.
Sometimes it seems like there are few auto manufacturer's that GM isn't part owner. It is curious though that at GMinsidernews.com the in-text ads by Vibrant Media advertise Hyundai's and Mitsubishi's. This is the forum after all where poster's use profile signatures like, "There is no word in Japanese for pickup truck" and "Proud Member of: The never bought a foreign car made in America club"....
We know this information is a little old, the issue of Motortrend containing the article came a week ago, but we can't help ourselves. Flying in the face of green, GM will build a 600hp Caddy CTS-V in 2009. Given the trend to smaller cars and I4/Hybrid engines, this announcement reminds me of a line from "Mad Max".
"She's the last of the big block V8's!"
