EasyAutoSales Blog

This Dealer Walk Around Video Has Over 1,000,000 Views!

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:59:57 +0000

Does your dealership do videos? This dealership did a 9 minute walk around video for a 2012 Chevy Camaro RS. While the vehicle is impressive and the video was very well done, how successful do you think it was at helping them sell the car?

Has your dealership had success with videos? Do you offer coupons or special deals in your videos so that users who watch it till the end would stand to benefit from it? Tell us your stories.

Harley-Davidson Rocks

blog-guest — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:30:48 +0000

There is no more recognizable brand than that of Harley-Davidson, and that brand evokes strong feelings among owners and non-owners alike. From their quiet beginning in a wooden shed in 1903 to the world-renowned reputation they have today, Harley-Davidson creates a culture that spreads even beyond the people that own their motorcycles. www.Motorcycleinsurance.com is proud to be a part of the Harley-Davidson culture.

Bikers and Outlaws

When many people think of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the first thing that comes to mind is outlaw biker gangs in most cases. Outlaw biker clubs are not necessarily outlaws, but are actually a group of riders who have ideals set in freedom, nonconformity and loyalty. The clubs often center on riders of Harleys and choppers, and although some of the clubs engage in criminal activity, the majority does not. In fact, outlaw biker clubs are often prominent at charity events, including toy and food drives, and many are well respected for their contribution to local charities.

HOGs

The nickname “hog” derived from several sources. In the 1920’s, Ray Weishaar and a group of friends labeled “The Hog Boys” began winning motorcycle races on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. During the victory lap, the boys began putting their mascot, a life hog, on the Harley. The name stuck and in 1983, Harley-Davidson created a loyalty group, calling it the Harley Owners Group, or HOG. In 2006, Harley-Davidson officially changed its New York Stock Exchange ticker from HDI to HOG.

Harley Owners Group

The Harley Owners Group (HOG), formed in 1983 by the company in an effort to promote brand loyalty, promotes Harley ownership as more than just bike ownership, but as a lifestyle. Members of HOG spend, on average, 30% more than other Harley owners do on merchandise and Harley sponsored events, such as specialty rides and conventions. HOG is the largest factory-sponsored motorcycle club in the world, exceeding 500,000 members by the year 2000.

Harley-Davidson merchandise accounts for approximately 5% of the company’s total revenue, and many of those who purchase Harley logo items do not own a Harley-Davidson. Yet, the logo is so widely recognized and respected, it would be difficult to find anyone in the United States who did not recognize the Harley emblem. Owning a Harley is more than just owning a motorcycle, it truly does create a lifestyle for the owner.

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Interior Pictures – Why Your Dealership NEEDS Them!

Wei Yang — Mon, 23 May 2011 14:16:37 +0000

The time has finally come. My family is about to welcome our first new addition! It’s an exciting time for an about-to-be parent and as I’m sure many of you can relate – trying to get the house ready, rethinking your vehicle and learning about everything you will need to know for the next few years can be a very hectic time.

For the purpose of this blog, I will focus on my personal car shopping experience. When I first moved to the south a few years ago, I KNEW the vehicle I wanted to cruise around in was a Jeep Wrangler. Even though Atlanta is not quite Florida, I knew the weather would be hot and a Jeep would be great to get around in for our more-often-than-not sunny days. As many of you know, Wranglers can come in a number of styles. Some aggressive and others tame. I ended up finding the “perfect” Jeep at a nearby dealership cause it had the perfect mix of exterior styling and interior colors – a fact that I wouldn’t have known had the dealership not post both exterior and interior pictures for the listing.

Fast forward six years – I am now rethinking my vehicle. As much as I adore the Jeep, my wife is not too keen on it being a mode of transportation for the newborn. So out goes the Jeep and in comes a potential SUV/crossover. Lucky for us, with high gas prices and the popularity of SUV’s over the last few years, we have a great number of options to choose from. As the saying goes, “every used car is unique” and as I’m trying to wade through this sea of vehicles for sale, I am noticing that many dealers are not doing their inventory justice by holding out critical information that I need.

A number of dealerships I’ve browsed on this used cars website only posts the exterior shots of the vehicle. While I a get a good 360 degree view with 8 to 12 pictures, what I am also VERY interested in, is the condition and the look of the interior. As many of you know, SUV’s come in a number of trims and they are all configurable. It’s easy for a new car buyer to add features outside of their standard trim packages to make their vehicle stand out. As a result, dealers in the used car market not posting shots of the interior almost eliminates their entire lot for me. Not only am I interested in the condition after the original use, I am also interested in seeing if the vehicle has all the options I want. I do try and check the dealer’s descriptions of the options but surprisingly, most dealers are not posting all options or options specific to the used vehicle that are being listed.

For example, one thing I am looking for this time around is seating for seven or eight in the SUV. Some like the Kia Sorento comes with both a 5-seater option as well as a third row, 7-seater option. Most dealers do not specify this in the written descriptions so it’s up to me, the consumer, to tread carefully and spot out the differences in the pictures – if the pictures are available.

As a buyer, my recommendation for you dealers – especially used car dealers, is to post pictures of both exterior and interior of the vehicle. In fact, the more the merrier. If your current inventory management system only allows 8 or 12 pictures, consider spitting that allotment with some interior pictures. You may also want to consider the life-stage of the buyer. (i.e. interior shots for SUV’s and minivans, exterior shots for sports cars, engine shots for classics.) Also, it goes without saying that you should be upfront and more descriptive in the written description. I almost passed on my Jeep cause I wanted A/C and neither the pictures or the vehicle description said there was A/C – even though every other feature appeared to be listed for the vehicle.

In this age of information, the more detailed you are and the more information you can provide up front, the better we would feel about working with you to purchase a vehicle. After all, time is money for all of us. We don’t necessarily want to drive around testing vehicles that are missing key features we care about and I’m sure you guys don’t want to waste your time talking to walk-ins that are not prospective buyers at all. Dealers, please do all of us a favor and make sure your team is covering all of your basis and showing love to both the exterior and interior of the vehicles.

Thank you.

Japanese Car Prices Likely To Increase, US Production Thrown Off in Post-Disaster Climate

Wei Yang — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 04:43:46 +0000

As I’m sure many of you have heard, Japan recently suffered a 9.0 earthquake. It’s the second worst earthquake in Japan’s history in the last 300 years and one of the top five largest earthquakes ever recorded. While devastating consequences from the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan are stabilizing, automakers are still struggling to get back to speed. What does this mean? American consumers will most likely see prices increase on Japanese import vehicles in the near future. While Nissan and Mitsubishi expect to have at least some of their factories back in operation this week, industry officials warn about uncertain conditions. As basic factors like communications and transportation are still uncertain, plans could change rapidly for OEMs in days and weeks ahead. Most auto plants continue to remain idle a week and half after the disaster partly because of Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex crisis and its nationwide electric power shortage.

Some things to note:

Shortage of Japanese made automotive parts and “transplant” assembly line disruptions further destabilize US market conditions
Toyota and Subaru, have curbed production at North American transplant assembly lines
GM’s assembly plant in Shreveport, La., is down for the week due to shortage of Japanese-made parts
GM also halting production at Tonawanda Engine Plant, near Buffalo, NY, and laying off 59 of 623 workers
Nissan has between 4 and 6 weeks of imported parts for its North American plants
Honda could face trouble as it gets ready to launch all-new 2012 Civic if supply line isn’t reopened by sometime in May

On a site note, if you are able to donate to the various causes that are helping the Japanese people recover, please do. This has been a tragedy of epic proportions and based on the tsunami that happened in Asia in 2004 and the earthquake that hit Haiti, we know the recovery efforts will take years. Every little bit counts.

source: MSNBC, Automotive Digest

Consumers Demand Car Prices

Wei Yang — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:45:39 +0000

It’s no secret the automotive marketplace is a fragmented market with many car dealers competing for buyers’ attention. Over the years, car dealers have used a number of brilliant, odd and shady practices to try and win the attention of the classified browser. While there’s no doubt that many of these tactics do work, the ones that don’t usually wastes the consumers’ time and leave them frustrated. Is it no surprise that one of the most frequent online hooks that dealerships often use to lure consumers in the door is mis-information?

The most common piece of information that gets omitted or falsely broadcasted is the vehicle sales price. Dealers competing in a geo-based search will omit a number of necessary charges in their base internet price to stay competitive while others simply omit the price completely. The hope is the buyer will fall in love with a particular vehicle so much that they will have no choice but to make an inquiry. In turn, the sales person gets them on the phone, convinces them to come in the door for a test drive and hopefully closes the sale.

But let’s face it… unless you are selling a custom modded Jeep or a heavily souped up sports car, chances are the models competing in any given local market is based on mileage and condition. Expecting a consumer to fall in love with a used car when no price is given is absurd, especially given the economy and the number of comparable vehicles with FAIR prices in any given area. While many dealers are more than happy to provide a base price, their data gets muddled amongst dealers that don’t.

That’s why as of February 2011, EasyAutoSales will no longer allow users to search vehicles that do not provide pricing information. If a vehicle is submitted with $0 as the price, we will not include it in our searchable index. We feel this change will save our users time and it will give them a better set of vehicle results to do comparison shopping.

For dealers with partial or complete inventory removed from our website as a result of this policy change, the steps to getting your vehicles back in search is very easy – simply provide your actual vehicle sales price and we will be added back in the index.

We are currently looking at a number of ways to clean up the data to help make the car shopping experience better and more enjoyable for car buyers. If you have additional feedback for us, please contact us and let us know what you would like to see.

Car Classifieds Infrastructure Upgrade

Wei Yang — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:38:44 +0000

I can’t believe we are already a month into 2011! It seems like the holidays were just over a few days ago and already we are a month into the new year. First off, we wanted to thank our users and our partners for a great 2010. It has been really exciting to see our service used in the extent that it has been and to get all of your feedback for improvements throughout 2010. Vehicle purchases (and sales) are big decisions in most households and we are truly humbled that you would choose us to help you sell your vehicles and to find new ones.

The EasyAutoSales team has been working hard to improve our services for 2011 and we are happy to announce that phase one of our systems upgrade is now complete. We have spent the first month of this year expanding our infrastructure to allow for faster indexing and to “future proof” our system. Even with over 2 million vehicle listings, EasyAutoSales is proud to provide you with instant/fast search results. With our latest upgrade, new cars and trucks will be searchable almost immediately from the time you add them into the system. We know vehicle choices are important and in addition to increasing our speed, we look forward to expanding relationships to even more data partners so that we can provide you more choices in your vehicle search.

As always, we look forward to your feedback and helping you sell or find your dream car. We promise 2011 will be packed with exciting upgrades and we look forward to sharing them with you in the months to come.

Get Trusted Advice on EasyAutoSales.com

Wei Yang — Sun, 09 May 2010 19:23:46 +0000

Everyone knows the internet is a giant gold mine of information but when it comes to opinions you trust, personal recommendations from people you know is still the best bet. But how does one involve their friends, family or acquaintances when it comes to a large purchase such as a car? Traditionally it has not been easy to ask for help and not knowing who in your network has experience with what vehicles is certainly a deterrent for reaching out blindly.

Among some of the questions you may have when asking for advice:

How do you find out who has the personal experience with a particular model of car?
How do you weigh the different (possibly strong) opinions?
Could one bad experience with a lemon from someone in your network turn you away from one brand completely?
How can you get people in your different networks to come together and start a conversation that will give you a balanced view when it’s all said and done?

EasyAutoSales is proud to announce a deeper level integration with Facebook that will help you start conversations with your network about the vehicles you are interested in buying. We have already seen great levels of engagement from our friends that are taking their comparison shopping online through this feature.

You can now find a section to get peer advice on Facebook on each of our vehicle detail pages. Through one click of a button, you can now share a link to vehicles you are interested in buying and throw some questions at your friends about the vehicle that will show up on their Facebook news feed. Alternatively, your friends can also vote for their favorite vehicles on EasyAutoSales.com with one click using Facebook’s new Like button.

By passively inviting your friends to offer their expertise or personal experience with a particular vehicle, the ones with something relevant to say will usually chime in with their personal stories or why they picked an alternative vehicle after going through similar shopping processes.

We have seen some pretty extensive and helpful conversations started from simply asking for help on Facebook through our new feature. If nothing else, we hope the different opinions from your network will help steer you in the right direction and ultimately help you make a purchase that you will be happy with for years to come.

If you are currently in the market for a new vehicle or know someone who is, invite them to check out this new feature on EasyAutoSales. We’ve seen high levels of engagement on a few different Facebook networks and your personal network may just shock you with their automotive knowledge – mine did.

Surviving Twitter – the First 100 Days

Wei Yang — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:07:55 +0000

If you spend any time on the web, you probably recognize the words Twitter and tweeting. With millions of users on this service, it is now the second most popular social media medium after Facebook. While many businesses have tried to jump in and broadcast specials, many have failed to garner attention which results in them failing to see the value of the service. So how does one succeed in getting value out of Twitter?

If you are completely new to Twitter, I would recommend following some people that are of interest to you (personally) and see what kind of content they put out that would cause you to respond/engage back. Chances are what interests you will interest the people you’d like to do business with. You can start by following Twitter accounts of popular blogs, news organizations or even personal friends – either way, paying attention to the pulse of the crowd and learning to fit in is key on this medium.

I firmly believe that if you have friends in real life, then you already know how to be social and work the social media magic. Unfortunately we all need to pay bills and pitch our jobs every now and then but within social media this can only be done in moderation. Just like we’d all avoid the crazy aunt who is over enthusiastic about their latest MLM home business at the family gathering, you need to make sure you talk about other stuff in addition to business on social media.

Like Facebook, LinkedIn or Ning, the value you get out of Twitter is not in the content you put out but rather, it’s the people within your network that you @ message and engage with. (Note: I didn’t say it’s the number of followers you have.) If all you do is push content into an empty room, you would burn out really fast. If however, you are following interesting accounts that also provide value to you, Twitter will keep your attention for much MUCH longer.

As for what you should be posting to build relationships, I really like the ICEE rule of Twitter posting which was suggested by Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh, who said make sure your posts are interesting, connecting (you to others), educational or entertaining. You will know you are doing a good job when you start getting real followers back and/or are showing up on other peoples’ #FollowFriday recommendations or Twitter lists. But in the very least, I would recommend all dealers and all Twitterers to start talking to people and treat each engagement as an one-on-one interaction instead of just broadcasting messages to a crowd and hope someone out in Twitterverse will bite.

Who knew social media actually required you to be social? Try it, it just might surprise you!

iPad Creates Marketing Spam

Wei Yang — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:59:56 +0000

Hold on to your marketing dollars dealers cause the next few months are going to be a bumpy ride! With Apple’s release of the iPad a week ago, we are already seeing a number of early adopters jump in to grab this device without really understanding its full purpose. (Note: I myself picked up an iPad on Friday, but I can’t say I love it for anything in particular just yet.)

It should come as no surprise that marketers will now try and incorporate the word “iPad” into their vocabulary of marketing buzz words now that the device is officially out. Like all new shiny objects that has built up demand and hype, businesses are running all sorts of promotions, special offers and scams centering around the new object so they can get their own brand thrown into the hype machine. But before you throw your money into whatever new packages that are being offered by your vendors, make sure you do your homework and do some fact checking first. 5 minutes of your time could save thousands in your wallet!

Note: The following is just an observation I’ve made while casually strolling through my Twitter feed on a Sunday afternoon. While I’m sure @automotiveseo is a great person and I have no personal experience with their services, this particular action seemed like it warranted being called out. If you are reading this, you are more than welcome to leave a comment below but I honestly hope the following doesn’t become a trend.

Brian Pasch announced Saturday at 1am that their classifieds website CarDealerSale.com is now officially optimize for the iPad. Now, the internet user in me knows that the iPad is really just a standard sized screen that also happens to be a touchscreen so why this news is worthy of a press release is beyond me. It’s also funny cause as far as I know there are only two ways you can optimize a website for the iPad.

Change Adobe Flash to HTML5 video if your website uses it.
Remove onMouseOver cause mouse hovers do not exist on the iPad.

But I was curious so I read more…

The Automotive Advertising Network’s national car sales portal is located at www.cardealersale.com and lists all cars that are available for sale from member dealers. The website is designed for the optimal consumer experience for Internet shoppers. The site has also been optimized for the new Apple iPad.

When the CarDealerSale.com website is accessed by iPad users, the car detail pages utilize the full screen capabilities of the iPad. The AAN is the first optimized website for car dealer inventory advertising by eliminating distracting advertising banners on car detail pages and utilizing the iPad’s full screen capabilities. Since car listing pages are free from ads, the details fit perfectly on the iPad’s attractive display.

So apparently according to their hype machine, no ads = iPad optimized.

But a quick check on my iPad revealed the same, normal website with ads. WTH?!

Okay, so maybe their techs failed to optimize the site before the press release went out at Saturday/Sunday. But honestly, the oddest thing about this is the timing of the press release, not the sleeping techs. Who reads press releases on a Saturday night? Well, maybe Twitter – the amazing micro-blogging platform can help solve this problem.

Yep. It seems like Twitter was used successfully to spam this announcement throughout the night. Digg too! Social media FTW! (For those of you not in the social media circle, FTW = for the win!)

But let’s go back to the website… did you notice that on the upper right hand corner of iPad enhanced site there’s a HUGE TWITTER button that demanded you to follow their Twitter account? When you take up 1/10th of the screen and place the button above the ad and above the fold, Twitter must be an important and integral marketing strategy for this particular service, right?

Uh… nope! It appears this account is another example of a barely used, non-engaging Twitter account that only has 36 followers (possibly bots) and 23 link-tastic tweets. In social media, we call this EPIC FAIL!

In all seriousness, the iPad is really REALLY new and it’s probably too early for dealers to take fully advantage of this new platform. If anyone that tells you otherwise they are selling you snake oil. The fact is, while the blogosphere is going gaga over the iPad, there are less than half a million units floating out there in the wild and I would venture most of the people who are using it are still just playing with it.

Your best bet would be to continue spending marketing dollars in other channels and wait and see what develops from the iPad platform. The iPad is only 8 days old and it’s still a baby. The iPhone OS 4 that was just announced last Thursday with multitasking and geo-location is certainly not yet mature. For now, the iPad is a blank canvas and until the developers create more services/tools that can actually present an engaging and enhanced experience on the go – it probably is not worth your time to dig into it. Spend your time on Twitter or Facebook if you haven’t fully utilized it yet. There are reasons why many brands drive you to their Facebook page on TV commercials instead of their traditional website.

Will the iPad be a hit for dealers? I guess time will tell… but if you have thoughts on this now, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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Do Dealerships Really Need a Website?

Wei Yang — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:53:17 +0000

I have been doing a lot of listening recently and last night, I got the opportunity to check out Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association‘s meeting on Social Media. The panel consisted of social media executives from Coca-Cola, Turner Media and top executives from various interactive agencies including BLiNQ, Ubercool and Foresee Results.

What I got out of this panel was similar to what I learned at SXSWi, and that is the traditional (push messaging) web is dying and we are now moving into an era of Social Engagement Marketing. If that is the direction we’re moving towards, it begs the question: Do dealers still need their own website? Sure, companies that sell website packages would like you to think so, but could you get better results if you spend less time creating and more time engaging?

Let’s look at the stats:

Social Media

69% of online shoppers use social networking sites. 81% of those people are on Facebook. #2 is YouTube at 31%

56% of the users have friended of fanned a retailer on social networks. These users are 18% more likely to buy offline.

49% of customers who interact with a retailer on social media are doing so to learn about offers/promos and new products.

It’s no secret that many of us spend a TON of time doing social notworking while we’re on the web. In fact, many of us probably only surf a handful of sites for our recreational use and we spend a majority of our internet time on those few sites. Wouldn’t it make sense to “fish where the fish are?”

My Thoughts

While it is important to own your brand, it’s no secret that websites are hard to build and expensive to maintain. Whether you hire externally or have an internal team managing its contents, the work that you’re doing to upkeep your virtual mansion is taking time away from engaging with your customers. On the flip side setting up a Twitter account, creating a Facebook fan page or creating a number of Facebook events only take a few minutes of your time – the rest can be spent actually engaging your current and future customers.

Although there are certainly websites that look good, most dealer websites are gimmicky and for the most part hard to navigate. Step into your customers’ shoes for a minute. If you are desperately searching for the best deal online, would you rather go to one or two primary sources that have similar navigation and aggregated millions of vehicles to conduct your search or would you rather go to 100 different smaller sites with various navigation and levels of technology to do your shopping? If you value your time, I think the choice is obvious.

If you think of Twitter and Facebook as the next shiny object, then you are definitely doing it wrong. I still do not understand why a number of dealers are now redesigning their websites pimping their Facebook and Twitter accounts when little to no activities are present in those areas. When Twitter first started, I imagined a world where I can send a dealer a quick tweet to schedule a test drive or do a quick price check/negotation before I come in. What I expected was an almost instant response – similar to texting my friends on the phone. To date, I have yet to hear of a dealer who has excelled in using Twitter to that level. Unfortunately, most of you are still just shouting into an empty room and not really engaging your peers.

We are moving into the social engagement web. This means you now need to be where your users are. Since car shopping is such a seasonal thing that occurs only a few times in a person’s life, it really is much easier if you step into their world vs. spending tons of money to make them come to you. Just like traditional networking, this method still works!

Based on the social media stats above, users want to engage you for your promos and your new offerings in addition to liking you. Instead of creating empty “Specials” pages and outdated “About Us” pages filled with goofy pictures, why not just give your peers useful information they are seeking in their life stream along with sueful tidbits about your dealership? The Twitter and Facebook mini feed is now the most accepted and common method of ingesting new information on the web. Instead of spending millions driving TV, billboard and other commercials that push your brand, you can simply remind your followers with little pieces of news that will keep you on their minds – for FREE!

What are your thoughts on this? What do you think social media is missing that is preventing you from making the leap?

Related posts:

New Website, New Stats!

EasyAutoSales.com Launches New Website to Help Auto Dealers Find Qualified Leads

Your Dealership and Social Media