NADA UNIVERSITY’S ‘ONLINE PRESENCE’ TRACK FEATURES WORKSHOPS FROM GOOGLE, AUTOTRADER.COM, KAINAUTOMOTIVE.COM, DEALIX AND OTHERS

This is part one in a series of stories on NADA convention workshops in San Francisco.

MCLEAN, Va. (Dec. 6, 2010) -- For auto dealers selling new cars and trucks, digital marketing can be more cost effective and generate higher-quality sales leads than traditional marketing, says David Kain, president of KainAutomotive.com, an Internet sales training and marketing firm in Lexington, Ky.

“The Internet provides car shoppers with total transparency and as a result it influences them to select dealerships that can easily work under the scrutiny of a knowledgeable consumer,” Kain says. “Dealerships that embrace this reality do exceptionally well with Internet shoppers.”

To help dealers create a digital marketing strategy and spend their budgets effectively, Kain and Anna Zornosa, general manager of Dealix, a division of ADP/Cobalt in Redwood City, Calif., are presenting “Perfecting the Online Lead Mix” at the 2011 NADA Convention & Expo in San Francisco from Feb. 5 to 7. It's one of nine “Online Presence” workshops offered by NADA University at the convention.

“Many dealers have not yet adjusted their advertising mix to reflect the realities of today's online usage [by car shoppers],” Zornosa says.

According to data collected by Morgan Stanley in 2009, the U.S. population spends 28 percent of its time online, versus other media. Yet marketers only spend 18 percent of their dollars online.

“We have found that the metric of 'cost per vehicle sold' is the one most commonly used by dealerships to measure their advertising cost effectiveness. And this metric works very much in favor of digital marketing compared to traditional marketing,” Kain says.

Kain says that most of his dealership clients save $200 to $300 per vehicle sold digitally compared to traditional advertising costs, which significantly helps to improve a dealership's bottom line.

“The more [dealers] can sell digitally, the lower their overall marketing costs,” Kain says.
Zornosa says it's important to note that since digital media is measurable and can be customized, dealers can also choose precise spending levels per vehicle when advertising online.

“If a dealership wants to maximize its market share, they will set their online budget to a slightly higher cost per vehicle sold, such as $350 to $400,” Zornosa says. “Conversely, if profit is the only target, dealers can design narrower target areas to reach that objective.”

Here's a list of the other eight “Online Presence” workshops:

• “Blogs, Microsites and SEO” - Brian Pasch (Pasch Consulting)
• “Fixed Operations Retention in the Digital World” - Kevin Root (DriverSide.com) and Mike DeCecco (Dealer.com)
• “Increase Traffic and Engagement through Video” - Sean Bradley (Dealer Synergy, Inc.)
• “Influencing Car Shoppers Beyond the Click” - Howard Polirer (AutoTrader.com)
• “Insights into Consumer Behavior” - Michelle Morris (Google)
• “Social Media 101” and “Social Media 201” - Jared Hamilton (DrivingSales.com)
• “Web Analytics: Improve Your Conversion Rate” - Todd Smith (ActivEngage, Inc.)