You may have seen some comments from me on the message boards, but for anyone interested in who I am (Nick Hummer) and why I wrote this (short answer: because Jeff asked).

I’m currently the Director of Advertising Solutions at Cars.com, working on my 9th year in the company. Assuming Jeff invites me back, you can expect to hear from me on a regular basis about what we’re seeing in terms of car shopping activity on Cars.com, how dealers can get more value out of their investments in our products, and the number one thing Jeff asked me to cover: ways you can help make Cars.com better.

This week, Cars.com is launching the new-car features we’ve been hinting at for a few months now. If you’re asking yourself why that is, I can provide all sorts of answers, ranging from the rebounding of new vehicle sales to growing new-car shopping activity online and addressing the opportunity that presents us as a third-party automotive shopping site, particularly given the opportunity to take advantage of high shopper perception of Cars.com as a new-car site (we also desperately need a distraction from D-Rose’s injury here in Chicago).

Far more important is this: consumers who are considering purchasing a new vehicle want different tools than those available for used-car shopping. Yes, a car is a car is a car, but dealers know better than anyone that people shopping for a new vehicle have different needs and in many cases demonstrate different shopping behavior than people shopping pre-owned.

The great news for dealers is that one of the biggest needs is guidance in choosing not just the right vehicle, but also the right dealer. Put simply, used-car shoppers want a car that meets their ideal model-year/price/mileage/vehicle history criteria (making the list of where they can buy it fairly short). We’ve found that new-car shoppers also want a car offered at a competitive price, but they’re much more likely to want to buy it from a dealer they can trust to take care of them throughout the life of the vehicle – and beyond, if things go well.

Notice I said competitive price, not lowest. According to an awesome DriverSide/Kelton research study from April 2011, 91% of new-car shoppers want to read your service reviews prior to purchasing a vehicle, representing one of many insights challenging the notion that price is the only thing that matters.

Today, the majority of our franchise dealer customers have been transitioned over to BaseDrive, our new package designed to help them tell consumers why they should choose their store over their competitors’. I don’t want to get too deep into “selling” here – that’s not why Jeff asked me to be a contributor on DealerRefresh, but I would urge franchise dealers to get to know the new features, as there are some areas where input from the dealer can impact their performance (I get into some tips below).

Your sales rep will walk you through the new features, and you can also access more information here. The overall idea is that offering dealers the ability to better market their brand on our site makes for more educated consumers and, ultimately, more qualified traffic to your store – everyone wins. To this end, we’ll be rolling out a brand new Market Intelligence Report next month, providing market-specific insight into the new car space based on Cars.com traffic data.

Now, onto the things you can do to impact the performance of your new ad package, as well as some tips for better online brand differentiation overall:

1. Reviews – Come on, you knew this had to be on here. With reviews, the only one metric I really stress is volume across the sites your shoppers frequent. With the changes we rolled out this week, your Dealer Reviews play a much more prominent role in differentiating your store with our audience, but I recommend building volume on all the reviews sites in your market that get traffic from people shopping for a car.

More is always better, but our research indicates you want at least 8 on each site. After volume, focus on conversion. There’s been some discussion in our industry about page views as an important metric, and my response to that is that reviews exist to build confidence and drive more business to the retailers whose previous customers have good things to say – tracking conversion is simply a better gauge of how reviews impact your bottom line.

2. Fill out your Dealer Profile Page – and while you’re at it, claim and fill out all the places your dealership information is listed online, from Yelp and Google Places to yellowpages.com. Most of you probably have Yelp and Google covered, but doing a quick check at getlisted.org can tip you off to the more obscure directory sites. When you input your hours of operation, don’t forget service – consumers want to know that taking their car in for service down the line will be convenient for them. On your Cars.com profile page specifically, you can add a tagline and a short description of your dealership, and consider adding a video highlighting the reasons to shop at your store.

3. Let us hear about it – the good and the bad. We’ve spent the last 18 months talking to dozens of dealers: running prototypes in pilot markets, conducting focus groups and seeking out as much advice as we can get. We’ve got a lot more to come, both for consumers and dealers, and the more feedback we hear from you, the better our site and our opportunities for dealers to get in front of online new-car shoppers will be. Let us know what works, and maybe more importantly, what doesn’t work. Heck, let me know directly (nhummer@cars.com) or talk to Dave Gilmartin, our Director of New Car Strategy (dgilmartin@cars.com).

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Whoever said content doesn’t sell products was seriously disturbed.

Starting now, content marketing has eclipsed traditional sales copy ten to one, and it’s time to get your head in the game if you want your piece of the new revenue pie.

Fact: Modern man rejects push marketing.

Fact: Modern man is so saturated with offers; it’s going to take more than 10% off to inspire sales.

Fact: Modern man has elevated shopping research to an art form.

Welcome to the new marketing game. Education is the new offer. Fans are the new leads. Blog posts are the new ads. 30 tips is the new 30% off. Transparency is the new bait-and-switch. The best expertise is the new lowest price. Review stars are the new dollar signs.

And bombarding your prospect with features and functionality at the first point of contact is like trying to get to third base on a first date: it’s really inappropriate.

Engagement Metrics are for Amateurs

If you are still considering fans, followers and blog comments to be “conversions” it’s time to up your game. Engagement is not an end-goal metric. It’s the tip of the iceberg, the opportunity, the hand in the air.

Similarly, a new Twitter follower is not a return on investment. It’s a lead. And a blog comment is not bottom of the funnel activity. It’s beginning of the funnel activity.

So how are you going to parlay all your awesome engagement efforts into leads and sales? By creating great magnetic content that’s going to push prospects further down the sales funnel.

How do you do this? Easy. Feed their vice.

People who subscribe to blogs, follow Twitter streams, and Facebook pages have revealed one key fact about themselves: they are shameless information junkies. So feed their addiction. If someone read and commented on a blog post, send them a series of videos on that topic, your latest whitepaper, or invite them to a webinar. Don’t leave it at that, however! Content marketing is content PLUS marketing, so don’t forget the second half of the equation. A good rule of thumb is, after a lead has partaken of 3-5 pieces of content on a particular service or product, try to engage them with a next-step marketing offer: a free 30 minute phone consultation, a free trial, or a free gift with purchase. From there you can go about your normal sales process.

And commenting is the new not commenting, so tell me about your own crazy, sexy content marketing efforts below!

If you could improve the performance of each of your email campaigns by 10% – what would that mean to your sales and service revenue in a year’s time?

When your customer receives your email or newsletter, their decision to open it is based on two things: who it is from and what the subject line says.

For this post, let’s look at seven easy things you can do to improve your subject lines so more of your emails get opened.

1. Use Personalization

I have to admit that I thought this trick was outdated by now, but a recent Sherpa case study showed that not only did adding personalization to the subject line increase open rates by 5.13% more than regular emails but the personalization in the subject line also contributed to a 17.36% increase in the click through rate. Why would subject line personalization increase the click through rate? Their explanation is that the subject line got subscribers more interested in the email and more willing to click. Read the full case study here.

2. Watch the News

Cable news shows are great at ending each news segment with a teaser to keep you sticking around through the commercials for the next segment. The teasers are usually short, intriguing and interesting – exactly the format you want for a good subject line.

Read Full Posting >

When I first joined the auto industry, I was shocked to learn that some dealers had yet to solidify their web presence with a full-featured web site. After all, the Internet is the most utilized research tool in the vehicle purchase process and the easiest way to garner attention toward your vehicles from those who are in the market. Fast forward a few years and we’re now at a point where the vast majority of dealers use a third party website provider to manage their web presence. It was a slowly adopted change that was necessary for the advancement of the industry, but now that all dealers have their own website, what’s the next step?

What will it take to adopt the latest trends and break free from the pack of like- minded web properties?

One Sided Experience

As it stands, the function of the “dealer website” that we’ve all come to know so well is highly one sided. The experience of the vehicle shopper is similar to that of a classified site whereby the content is dominated by specials, promotions, and inventory that the dealer thinks the user will appreciate. We’re guilty of this as well. We tag vehicles as specials that we believe will attract attention in the hopes of generating quality leads, but do users really care what the dealer thinks is important?

Read Full Posting >

My heart breaks when I hear that some dealers in today’s market still oppose sending out pricing to Internet shoppers.

Thankfully, these dealers are going the way of the dodo bird as the business model known as “just get’em in” is a nail in the coffin to marketing efforts.

However, once a dealership has overcome the hurdle of giving out prices, there is still a good amount of red tape that goes along with actually getting the pricing. This internal transfer of information, from software/tool to delivering party, is still a roadblock to fast Internet replies. The Internet shopper goes online, finds a vehicle of interest, and requests a quote. What they expect is transparency and we, as dealers, have opted to give it to them.

Unfortunately, there are a few hoops to jump through in many stores to get the requested pricing. Here are a few different scenarios of how pricing is obtained by the “lead handler”.