As we approach the New Year and close out 2009, it’s natural to reflect on the events of the past year, and it’s prudent to consider how things can be made better in the months ahead. Everybody’s marketing objectives are clear — driving business to the showroom floor — so are there some new tricks available for 2010?

I’d like to suggest two:

Business Intelligence

Having the right tools to help target your market is the purpose of research information provided by our sister company, Cross-Sell.  Cross-Sell reports help dealers work their market smarter by showing hot geographies where car purchases are made, dealer market share, and hot sources of lending in the market.  Check out this sample report.  Let the good people at Cross-Sell know you’re a Carloan.com dealer to qualify for a discount.  That’s not a sales pitch.  It’s a valuable tip.

Online Ease

Central to any dealer marketing plan nowadays is the dealership Web site. It’s a great way to help brand the dealership and communicate the value you offer but let’s face it, the top goal of any dealer web site is to convert your online visitors into customers in your showroom.

We hear from dealers all the time that a big holdup in getting people to stop in is that they don’t want to get their hopes up only to get crushed by a credit denial at the end. That’s one of the big reasons why we introduced Dealer-Branded Secure Application services in 2009.

The idea is simple.  If you give the customer a way to gain confidence in obtaining financing, in this case by a quick-and-easy online form, you increase the chance of seeing them show up in person. Plenty of dealerships offer contact forms. A full-fledged finance app is different. And better.

Don’t trust your finance app with anyone.  We’ve done this for years and can provide compliance, security, and the same data validation that we use on Carloan.com.  Best of all it fits in with your overall web design and gets results.

We wish you many happy returns in the New Year.