October 2008 :Suggestions on how to face the changing economic climate in the Auto Business and Survive. In North Carolina:

Radical Changes in Marketing Strategy: For Our New Economy!

In the "fat" times all the folks in the "Know " said your cost for advertising should be $75.00 a unit.

I suggest dropping that to $65.00 per Unit and utilizing your budget more effectively. All inclusive, Internet, Print, if you still do that should be quite small unless you are in a local that gets great response from print. I find Print success is very geographically oriented. TV, well folks I would be watching return on that money very carefully. Just plain stop the mail out’s they seem to do a good job in filling the land fills and not much else.

First, have what people want to buy: I know that is easy to say and hard to find: Spread out find cars in other locals:

The "bulk" not all of inventory 15K and Under with concentration on the 10K and Under Category:

Concentrate on going the next step in your Internet Advertising: Chances are some of you are paying huge amounts to sites that market themselves not you. If you do not have a stand alone web-site "get one" . Now you have a way to go to the next step:

The reason is your "connected" web sites are expensive and do not link you back to where you need to be going.

Where is that You Ask: Take your Marketing Budget i.e.: Pay Per Click, what are you paying now? $500.00 to $1,000 a month how about lowering that amount and stop worrying about who comes up first! You just want to stay on the first page that is the goal. Having said that: Let me explain where the bulk of your leads should be coming from. LINKS and Social Marketing and Organic Searches. I will give you an example:

Four months ago I started RTPUsedCars.Com Just this past month I reached the 75% mark on referrals(links) that allows me to use my PPC budget now to invest in better positioning relevant to my geographical area.

In my next News and Views Letter I will go into Social Marketing:

And Marketing for your geographical area. Let’s face it that one Sale a year you make to the guy in NY is not cost effective:

How "money alone does not insure your search position" SEM-SEO

Note: The Views Expressed in this Newsletter are those of the Author: Unless noted as Quotes:

Bottom Line: Take "Big" Steps to keep you Bottom Line in the Black.