The New Face of Technology!

A famous man once said “He who stops adverstising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time”.

It just doesn’t make sense, but everyday dealers are struggling to stay alive and unfortunately when they decide to make cuts, the advertising budget seems to make it to the top of the list everytime.

Little to they know that the most successful dealerships actually increase their advertising budget during hard times to attract the customers that still have the cash to buy. This combined with careful inventory management allows these dealerships to actually grow while others flounder and eventually go under. How do they do it?

Let’s start off with the later - Inventory Management:

• Don’t buy cars for the sake of having inventory- buying the car “right” is crucial to moving the vehicle quickly
• Buy cars that stand out from the crowd – fully loaded, Nav, Sport and so on
• Cars that don’t sell in the first 10 days should be flipped for cars that meet current market conditions (gas crunch, convertible top time, 4wd winter) to offer a better chance at producing a sale.
• Implement a system that allows you to track trends in the market to get ahead of the competition
• Showcase before you buy – list consigned vehicles from other dealerships to test your local market

Next - Advertising:

• Website implementation/ promotion is the first step to attracting your target audience
• Push to online listing services both free and paid – Ebay, Autotrader, Cars.com, Vehix and so on
• The success of overseas listings has grown exponenially as more and more foreigners are taking advantage of the weak dollar and are eager to snatch up bargains
• Dress up your ads to stand out from the rest of the competition – Etcha Word is a simple to use  drag and drop tool that allows anyone to create eye catching ads using already existing images.
• The use of templates is a must for anyone who is thinking about advertising on Ebay or Craigslist. Luckly AutoXloo makes it easy to create your own template in a matter of seconds.

As you can see we’ve only touched on some of the basics you as a dealer should consider when putting together your next advertising campaign, but one thing is certain technology is here to stay and those who don’t get on board will be left behind.

 Look for more indepth articles on how to get the most out of advertising online in the next few days.

Are Auto Print Classifieds Dead?

The simple answer is YES!

Car shoppers, over the past two years have been turning to the internet more and more to help them with their car buying decisions. The information about specs, options, price comparisons, accident reports can be found on the internet with a click of the mouse – how can print classifieds compare with that kind of functionality and convenience and unfortunately the simple answer is - they can’t.

The internet allows the seller to add more descriptive text, images and in some cases video to their advertisements all for in most cases less than their print competition. What happens if you want to change the price of the car in a print ad or there was a typo – how long is that ad going to run before it can be modified? With internet advertisements you can make changes from anywhere in the world at anytime instantly!

If you are a dealer and you are not advertising on the internet you are missing the boat. If you want to test the waters there are many automotive classified websites like Vehix.com that will allow you to post 1 image, descriptive text and even allow you to add a link back to your website (you do have a website right?) all for FREE.

Let’s face it print classifieds have no place in today’s fast past online world where price point, content and time to market are the leading factors in building sales numbers. Now more than ever dealers need to focus their advertising dollars on not only online classifieds, but a complete Dealer Management System to ensure their inventory is being pushed to multiple online listing sites automatically and their ads stand out from the rest of the competition. Only AutoXloo offers such a system!

If you would like more information regarding AutoXloo Dealer Management Systems and how they can help your dealership grow please call 727-475-4455 (office) and a representive will respond to you shortly.