Dear dealers,

Summer is... going...

We have a new free site, Craig's List Advanced seems to be getting a lot of attention, and a few other things.

I'm excited about the new site, and if anything, about the new focus groups. I really have high expectations for these groups as I think many dealers will get great benefits from the exposure and ideas.

We hope this helps!

Yago Paramo

New free site: MyCarBox.com

We have set a free feed to a new site: MyCarBox.com

This seems to be a pretty nice site filled wth info and a very nice display, we hope it helps bring more people to your inventory.

Craig's List Advanced update

For those of you using the CL Advanced system; when you click on "edit your dealership contact information" in the main edit site page a new option to enter 3 more account contacts are available.

These 3 contacts will appear as options for posting in the CL Advanced templates.

Why do I need 3 contact accounts?

• To avoid recognition by a customer that may delete your listings
• To post in multiple areas
• To track the effectiveness of different templates, prices, etc
• To track listings in different areas

Internet traffic: Where are we?

I remember when Autotrader.com started pedaling this area years ago and dealers were skeptical about the Internet. Autotrader.com found out that a way to uncover the efficiency of magazines and newspapers-already in decline-was to track the lead sources and have proof of what works and what doesn't. This method worked 6-8 years ago as customers were eager to call from a website's number and ask questions, they even emailed from time to time. It wasn't a coincidence that a couple of years later every single company was developing and offering a CRM tool. The lead craze was at its highest. I think that things have changed.

Do you remember those emails where people would tell you they have changed their email address and ask for you to save their new one? You don't see those anymore. Do you remember people changing their cell phone numbers? That doesn't happen anymore either. Email addresses and cell phones are so essential to our social and professional lives that we guard them, and this is why I think that things have changed.

I started to look into web advertising sites and you can almost spot an upward trend in traffic on every single one of them however the number of leads actually is dropping down. Why is that?

I believe that there are 3 reasons:

1. People are weary of contacting thru their cell phones and emails and give them away. Is so easy to reach customers once you have this info that they have learned thru experience not to give them.
2. Information is so much better, that customers can search and research until they find the car they want and they will not contact a dealer until then. Customers also find what they want and just go to the dealer to test drive it or buy it-less people are into question this/question that.
3. Buying cycle is longer than ever, so research takes a long time.

So what does this mean?

• Dealers don't realize that just because a site only produces 20 tracked calls it is producing a lot more than that. Hundreds of visitors may be looking at their cars and just going to the dealer/saving their URL/learning where they are/etc. With 86% of the customers going to the web during the buying cycle, 86% all traffic of all kinds can be traced back to the web so being there is important. What dealers need to start looking at is to web site's traffic. If a site has a lot of traffic-hence eyeballs-your job is now to make the cars (price, comments, etc) appealing to them.
• There is nothing you can do about giving away too much information. A good friend of mine still says that is better not to give it all so they call but the reality is that customers don't call, they just continue researching until they find what they want. Customers are as web savvy as it gets, so they will jump from site to site until they find it.
• I see dealers that sign for a web site and cancel in a month. The same way you can't open a new business and expect it to be full from day one-it takes time to build clientele-you can't sign up on a web site and expect full results the first month. There are people looking at your cars this first month that will come back for that car in 45 or 60 days to see of it still there now that they are ready to buy.

The reality is that:

• Dealers that have strong presence on the web are doing better than dealers that don't
• If you measure every web site by just the number of calls, very few of them actually would seem to work
• Most dealers currently in the magazines are not comparing real ROI on a monthly basis Vs. web

So, what to do?

I open dealer magazines every week and I see dealers spending $400 for one page with 10-12 cars and 1 photo. How many people can/will see that magazine? There is no search in the magazine, there is no way to really see much of the car. If magazines still work at all is because the used car manager actually takes the time to work and lower the prices on their old aged units. If they would do the same on the web, the web would work as well and even better!

Start to thing about the web as TV, radio, or even billboards. If the site has good traffic, you must be there.

New web site

We have a new web site www.loginpgi.com (still it has a few things to be finished up) that finally has all our products present under one roof.

We hope to make our new web site a resource for you to know everything that is available from us and what programs may fit your dealer.

There are a few offerings that most of you didn't probably know we had like:

SEO and V-SEM

DiamondCallTrack

Focus groups

We are trying to put toguether focus groups for local dealers where we can have 6 participants come to our office.

How many people?
6 people maximum. We have a meeting room with a computer that we will use.

What is the meeting about?
E-commerce 101. I will work on a newsletter (what program, how to get it done, add emails, etc), and Craig's List advanced. After those 2 topics we will have a brainstorming session about getting more sales from the web.

Who can come/What to bring?
Anyone that is a customer of PGI. We will try not to have same make dealers in the same meeting. We ask dealers to bring one idea that they can share with the rest.

When is the first meeting?
Tuesday August 5th at 9 am until 1 pm.

Sign up?
Email me here.

What can I get out of this?
I don't like "classroom meetings" where I tell you how much I know (and I don't actually sell cars). My goal is to show you what I'm good at: Understanding and using technology. After that, we can have some time to share ideas about any topic you may be interested and debate with other dealers. This is a great chance to meet and interact with other professionals from the biz.