EMG – www.emgmotorgroup.com

Autoworld – www.autoworld.co.uk

Skurrays – www.Skurrays.co.uk

Alex Lawrie Skoda – www.alexlawrieskoda.co.uk

GSV Service – www.gsv-service.com

Martins of Hawkhurst – www.martinsofhawkhurst.co.uk

Tiger Commerce – www.tigercommerce.co.uk

This summer we have are very pleased to announce the launch of five amazing new automotive websites. All sites boast a clean interface, making the user/browser experience much more intuitive. Our sites are specially designed to complement present trends, demonstrate usability, functionality and inspiration to inevitably gain trust with clients and up sell.
Not only do we deliver our sites on-time but we ensure we make our websites search engine friendly and competitive. Our design team have once again defined the epitome of form and function and we couldn’t be more pleased with the end results.

Turnbulls of York

Skurrays

Devonshire Motors

Lifestyle Europe

Rockingham Cars

The Auto Retail Network is UK’s premier networking organisation for senior executives and managers in the auto retail industry and they’ve invited us to run a new seminar/workshop on ‘Making networks work for you’. The topic is Online help/Call-backs/ Virtual Advisors as this is something we are particularly good at.

The seminar is looking to attract 30 attendees, taking in dealer group executives, dealer group marketers and car company marketers. There’s also going to be a high-profile guest speaker to conclude each session.
We feel very privileged to be considered for this workshop. Kevin Robins, our head of Client Services is speaking with headlines to include:

How useful are online help functions?
What about live virtual advisers? and Virtual advisers Best Practice…

Kevin Robins, Head of Client Services

Not only do we deliver our sites on-time but we ensure we make our websites search engine friendly and competitive. Our design team have once again defined the epitome of form and function and we couldn’t be more pleased with the end results.

Auto Owl (Caffyns new contract hire site)

Barnes Group

With a bold and effective site design, the new Thame Service Station website has an emphasis on being user-friendly. With a simple and easy-to-use navigation and vehicle search function, the Thame Service Station allows users to quickly and effortlessly find the car that suits them while the Live Chat function means that customer assistance is never more than a click away.

Making full use of the NetDirector platform to display used vehicle stock and their range of customer services and car hire, Thame Servics Station join the ever-growing ranks of automotive dealers seeing their online presence enhanced by our expert team.

Take a look at the Thame Service Station website today and check out the exciting range of NetDirector powered websites to see how we can take your company online for maximum success.

Established for over 100 years, family-owned dealer Tates have 6 dealerships representing Renault, Hyundai, Kia and Citroen across Sussex, Tates Cars have just launched their new website with GForces.

With a crisp, clear design that makes use of video integration to present their history and values, the new Tates site allows visitors a user-friendly view of the company’s products and services via an easy-to-use vehicle search and even offers a feedback forum.

Visit our clients section now and find out how our NetDirector Auto platform can take your digital dealership to the next level.

The new Charters Group website has a great range of features to improve the customer experience including video integration, Contact at Once (live chat) and a virtual showroom where visitors are able to view and compare models them and request brochures. There’s also a finance calculator (with Codeweavers integration) to allow up-to-the-minute financing quotes with stock updates ensuring an accurate display of used cars for visitors to choose from.

Multi-franchise group Caffyns have launched a dramatically redesigned homepage with us this month. While staying loyal to the company’s established branding, the new homepage provides a clear and user-friendly interface for visitors to explore all Caffyns’ services and used car stock while serving as a portal to their multiple franchise sites

Vision Vauxhall

Independent dealer Vision Vauxhall’s brand new website is designed to incorporate features such as Live Chat and save and compare vehicles, while allowing direct and easy access to information for customers.

Visit our clients section now for further examples of our award-winning Digital Dealerships and contact us today to see how can take your digital dealership to the next level.

As the media furore returns to a gentle simmer, interviews and articles about Britain’s second consecutive Formula One World Champion all share the sentiment that, as good a driver as he is, Jenson wouldn’t have achieved success without a strong team behind him.

Just as Mr. Button’s title-drought for his first eight years in the sport or Damon Hill’s lack of further titles after switching teams makes clear; a good driver isn’t the only element of a title win. Behind every podium placement there’s a group of tireless individuals making sure that the car and driver are backed up by a strong and flexible team and strategy. From team principles and aerodynamic experts to pit-stop tyre changes and fuelling decisions – it’s these elements that ensure a sure-fire victory doesn’t turn into an early retirement.

The same principle applies to automotive dealers looking to achieve success in a world that’s just as competitive as the F1 starting grid – the Internet.

A recent survey of vehicle buyers revealed that 88% used the internet for information as part of the vehicle buying process with the majority of customers making use of dealer websites over manufacturer sites (source: CAP Gemini).

So how can automotive dealers ensure their website is in a position to grab the attention of vehicle buyers online? And then how can they ensure their site can win leads?
Having a good looking website is one thing, but having a strong yet flexible strategy and team behind your website is vital. It means it can adapt to every change in the market and user behaviour.

Responsible for 181,117 new vehicle sales this so far this year, the Scrappage Scheme has been one of the biggest motivators in new vehicle sales yet. One of our clients, The Stoneacre Group, was well ahead of this trend with their marketing strategy. Some six months before Mandelson’s announcement, the company was running a dedicated blog on the scheme. With 36% of car buyers using information sites as part of their decision making process, Stoneacre were in an ideal situation to drive qualified leads to their site, itself built on a flexible platform already prepared to handle enquiries on the Scrappage Scheme the second the offer went live.

Both your web marketing strategies and platforms need to be able to adapt and evolve in line with the latest changes as they happen. Not only to “cash in” but to ensure you don’t get left behind by the competition.

Our clients at GForces benefit from the support of a team with strong and flexible software, management and marketing. Whenever there’s a change in the market, they’re able to act immediately with a strategy already in place.

In the race for online enquiries, automotive dealers need to ensure that their site is backed up by just such a web strategy. From the design and functionality of a website to dedicated support and marketing – it’s these elements that make the difference between a site without visits and a lead-generating Digital Dealership up for an EWard.

Check out GForces’ web marketing solutions can target your website effectively for the ultimate ROI and how our clients websites saw success in the Ewards and keep up-to-date with Tim Smith on twitter today.

The spacious, crisp clear design brings their range of cars to the forefront, to best represent the Group’s vehicle range – Citroen, Suzuki, Fiat, Honda and vans – and services.

Visitors to the Springfield site can now search for their ideal car via a powerful search function that allows searches by brand, model and price with the option to save and compare up to six vehicles, and receive alerts when the stock updates.

Check out the Springfield Group’s website and contact us today to see how our NetDirector range can bring your dealership online in style.

In a world where tweets, forums and facebooking have become part of daily conversation, advice famously passed on to Michael Corleone would serve businesses and automotive dealers well: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Word-of-mouth has taken on a different meaning and auto dealers need to be proactive in dealing with negative opinion. While a happy customer may recommend your company, an unsatisfied customer will fall over themselves in their hurry to share their displeasure and they’ll now do so via the largest soapbox available: the internet.

Before social media sites, information about a company was pretty much dictated by the company itself. Now there are thousands of sites offering users their own little Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner for a huge audience to read and participate in. From the latest pregnant celebrity, errors in last night’s episode of CSI to political quagmires, companies and services, it’s all up for debate.

Before brushing social media aside it’s worth noting that 67% of global internet users visit member communities (source: E-consultancy 2009) and 77% of active users read blogs. A recent survey on the impact of customer care reputation on purchasing decisions found that 40.1% of those surveyed turn to discussion forums and online rating systems to learn about companies customer care records.

Potential customers are only ever an adjective away from finding the online conversation on your business. This is something that companies ignore at their peril, just ask Dell about Jeff Jarvis. In 2005 Jarvis, an avid blogger, had a problem with his Dell computer and contacted customer support. His complaints went ignored and he turned to his blog. His “Dell Hell” struck a familiar chord with many Dell customers who generated hundreds of comments and a ripple-like effect of blogs and posts about Dell’s customer care.

By 2006, when Dell started to look at their online reputation, they found that 49% of online comments about them were negative.

For automotive dealers, online brand management is a vital part of the web marketing strategy. This means monitoring the online “buzz” and actively taking part in the conversation through the same portals your customers are using. This means dealers can not only prevent negative comments becoming widespread but can rectify complaints quickly and, in so doing, enhance online opinion.

Ensuring you make the most of your happy customers is just as important. One of our clients, a leading UK car supermarket, has a page on their site dedicated to testimonials from satisfied customers. In this way, not only do visitors to the site find the videos, but potential customers searching for opinions on the company come across glowing, positive feedback first.

In a market place where consumers are spoilt for choice, your reputation for customer care can make all the difference in attracting visitors. Stay in tune with the online conversation about your dealership, nip complaints in the bud, use the power of the web to spread the good word about your company and give customers more reasons to use your digital dealership over your competitors.

Charters Group is a family-owned Citroen and Peugeot dealership with a number of dealerships throughout the UK. With a wealth of expertise and a reputation for quality and customer service, Charters needed a website that reflected their offline standing and delivered an exciting look at their range of stock and services. With an exciting new look and colour schemes that tie in with Peugeot and Citroen’s own colours, the new Charters Group website delivers just that.

It features a great range of features to improve the customer experience including video integration, Contact at Once (live chat) and a virtual showroom where visitors are able to view models, compare them and request brochures. There’s also a finance calculator (with Codeweavers integration) to allow up-to-the-minute financing quotes with stock updates ensuring an accurate display of used cars for visitors to choose from.

Check out the Charters Group website today and contact us to see how our NetDirector Auto software can bring your automotive dealership online with a new Digital Dealership.

With a total of five categories, the Ewards recognise excellence and acheivements in automotive dealer websites, judged by a panel of experts. As Car Dealer points out – “a good website can be the difference between no sale and sale”. The Ewards were launched last year to celebrate the automotive websites that have got it right.

From nearly a thousand entries, a shortlist was whittled down and handed over to the judges. Those judges named GForces clients Essex Auto Group and The Car Shop as winners.

Essex Auto Group’s website was named as Franchised Dealer Website of the Year. Judges were impressed by the sites impact, search engine, use of live chat, the quality of information available and personality.

As Chris Green, sales director for motoring.co.uk and Eward judge said, “the website has something that I have been banging on about for ages; something I feel dealers should promote more: Themselves!”

Essex Auto Group are a multi-franchise dealer who have been trading for over 20 years. The group’s marketing director, Matt Brown, who designed the site with GForces said “we’ve got big plans to push the website next year with a host of new features and we’ll be concentrating on making it even better.”

The website for Car Supermarket of the Year, a highly competitive catergory, was won by fellow GForces client The Car Shop.

Judges were impressed by the site’s bold and bright colour scheme and functions. As Eward judge Compucars and UK Websites marketing cheif Rob Queen stated: “There were a number of innovative features that swung it for me, most notably the My Car Shop that allows personalisation of the site and video testimonials that leave the consumer reassured.”

The Car Shop currently sell quality used cars from four locations in the UK – Swindon, Northampton and Cardiff and their new car supermarket in Doncaster. The group’s marketing manager Cathie Kemp explained the evolution of their award-winning site: “It started out as a very pure site, but we’ve gradually added more functionality and in the last 18 months the website has gone from something that was rarely mentioned to our number one priority. We’re delighted with this Eward.”

Check out Car Dealer for more information and other Eward winners and check out our client pages for more examples of how our award-winning websites can help take your online presence to the next level and make the internet profitable for you.

With a simple, natural and highly purified design, the new website reflects the group’s values and tradition and brings a full online representation of their dealership. The website features an easy-to-use search function coupled with up-to-date stock information to ensure easy and effective browsing for customers.

Visit the new Harwoods website today to experience their exciting new site design and contact us today to see how GForces can make your online presence a success.

The prize reflects the website’s ability to help people find exactly what they are looking for with its well-designed and highly-functional features such as “Live Chat” and “Finance Options”.
The awards are based on the Auto Trader Website Usability Study which was carried out during July. It uses feedback from over 600 UK car buyers to generate the winners.

The study was carried out by eDigital Research and Auto Trader who judged the websites on aesthetics, functionality, website styling, ease of navigation and speed of loading.

Winning this prize is a great achievement for The Car Shop since it allows car buyers to find information they need to be able to go through with their purchase.

Check out more of our award-winning websites and contact us today to see how we can enhance your online presence for success.

SMC want the new and improved website to be relevant for all customer experiences, whether searching for a new or used car, booking a service online or looking for finance options using the site’s new online finance calculator. The website aims to be an information resource so that customers can find out all the details they need without having to leave the site. The first time they will have to visit the dealership will be to test drive their new car.

The new site is easier to use and navigation has been improved to allow users to browse the site effortlessly. The addition of top level navigation means that visitors to the site can switch between franchises with ease. Search facilities have been increased, and there are now three ways to look for a new or used car: Model, Budget and Green.

Searching for used cars on the site has been made easier through the addition of a Save and Compare feature, which allows users to compare up to four vehicles at any time to get the best deals. The South Eastern based dealership group have also added an innovative Live Chat feature to allow users to interact with an SMC employee instantly. This feature is ideal for those who don’t have access to a telephone.

The SMC Motor Group have also added Customer Feedback questionnaires onto the site for Sales, Service and Bodyshop customers with the incentive to win prizes, including Marks & Spencer vouchers.

SMC represent Ford, SEAT, Suzuki, Mitsubishi and MG Rover across the South of England. They have been established for over 25 years and are one of the largest privately owned dealership groups in the South East.

As well as specialising in new and used car sales they also operate a full aftersales service enabling you to maintain your vehicle.

Visit SMC’s brand new website and contact us today to see how GForces can build, manage and market your online presence for success.

SMC website

In a competitive market with thousands of automotive sites vying for attention, the key to turning visitors into customers is to make it easy for them to use your site, find what they want and, ultimately, contact you. When consumers are spoilt for choice, it’s this convenience that proves decisive. In a world driven by shorter attention spans the easier something is to use the better. No more ‘War and Peace’ instruction manuals – if it’s user friendly and convenient a product will prove a winner.

Take Apple’s iPod for example. Whenever there’s music in a portable sense on television or film it’s invariably accessed via the latest iPod. This isn’t solely due to a nice product-placement deal, it’s because this particular piece of technology is more popular than any other mp3 player and more of the audience are likely to recognise and associate with it.

In sales terms it’s a monster; even during the recession Apple reported a best-ever quarter. Why? Not because it’s the greatest-sounding mp3 player on the market, nor is it close to being the cheapest. Its success is due to its user-friendly design. From touch-screens to the ‘wonder wheel’ and clear, bright screens, everything about it screams “use me”.

Usability is proving a vital element online too. Websites designed with user-friendliness in mind prove more successful for both traffic and enquiries.

Cluttered websites with poor navigation are, thankfully, becoming thinner on the ground as they see significantly lower conversions. It’s comparable to high-street retail: in a packed, crowded shop with little space between the shelves, consumers feel hurried and hampered, far less likely to look around than in a bright and airy store where you have the space to move and browse at leisure.

For automotive dealers, ensuring websites are user-friendly is key in turning visitors into enquiries and, ultimately, sales. However, usability goes beyond simply refraining from information overload. Usability is the measure of your website’s potential to accomplish the goals of your visitor. Every aspect of the site, from navigation to content, needs to be geared towards this.

At GForces one of our clients, a large automotive dealer in Scotland, recently redressed their digital dealership with a strong focus on usability. Changes were made that ensured visitors could find what they were looking for easier and quicker across a clean and easy-to-navigate site with a call to action on every single page. Prior to the change, their online conversion rate averaged at just over 1%. The minute the first batch of improvements went live, the conversion rate shot up to well over 3%

The bottom line: Potential customers would rather head back to a search engine and find an easier-to-use site than troll through a dozen pages before finding what they’re looking for. Prioritise usability, and those visitors will promptly become customers.

From post-match interviews with crestfallen coaches to team-building seminars the length of the country, it’s hard to escape the wisdom that a team is only as good as its worst player, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and behind every great man there’s a great… chair.

How many television and print ads have you seen that advise you to “see in store for further details”? When you do head to the store you undoubtedly find an impressive front-of-store display or a member of staff wearing a shirt practically begging to tell you all about said offer. If you had to scour the entire store to find even a hint of information you’d leave and the campaign fails. Without the strength offered by in-store support, it’s too weak.

This principle applies to companies using the internet to generate interest in an offer too. If a company is using web advertising to draw attention to a special offer then that offer needs to be represented on-site or visitors won’t hang around long enough to become users, let alone make an enquiry.

For automotive dealers this means making sure that pages carry information that’s relevant for the traffic. If clicking on a Pay-Per-Click advert for the Scrappage Scheme instead leads to information about deals on a 5-Year Warranty then an internet user won’t hang around. While PPC advertising will drive traffic as part of a marketing strategy, its success in generating conversions is reliant on the website itself.

Increasingly, internet audiences judge companies based purely on their online presence. If a website isn’t functioning and appealing or if it doesn’t carry information a visitor is likely to need, opinion of the company’s offline standing is considered in the same light and chances of conversions are drastically reduced.

Dealers give careful consideration to the placement of vehicles and offers within their dealership and the same should apply to their online presence. Your dealership isn’t an impenetrable maze of cars and giant offer posters so your website shouldn’t be either. As able as web marketing is at delivering traffic to your site, your site needs to welcome that traffic and give it a reason to stay.

Our clients see success from their web strategies because they view their website as an extension to their dealerships. The internet is continually evolving and websites require constant attention in order to survive in what is an extremely competitive market place. Using GForces’ NetDirector Auto means that stock levels and information, offers and images can be easily and continually updated.

Having a really strong web marketing campaign driving traffic to your site is essential. However, without an equally strong, and flexible, website in place to support it, wondering why it’s not converting would be like selling all your best players and wondering why a fragmented club loses 6-1 to Leyton Orient.

Internet usage is on the rise. It’s undeniable. No longer is it only beloved by “pesky youngsters.” The rise of the ‘silver surfers’ has meant that the internet population share of the over-55s has grown to 19%. Given that there are now 43.7m people online in the UK (source: Internet World Stats 2009) that means that some 8.98 million over-55s use the internet.

Littlewoods, once the bastion of high-street shopping for clothes and home accessories, everyone had a copy of their catalogue propping up a table leg at home. Now they are planning to take 70% of their total revenue online by 2010.

Only a few years ago common consensus was that, while it was great for selling items like books and cds, people wouldn’t use the internet for buying products like clothes. Now clothing companies are taking millions online each year. In order to do this they ensure that their websites offer as close a representation of their actual shops as possible.

The same applies to car dealers. Selling cars online goes far and beyond auction sites. Whilst cars are not being bought and delivered through the internet (yet?), automotive websites offer as close an inspection of cars as possible without actually handling the car. With plenty of opportunities to generate qualified enquiries online, a Digital Dealership offers more potential for getting a customer into a car than print ads alone. In fact, an effective automotive website is proven to increase footfall far and above the level of drop-in customers.

At GForces we have a customer in North Scotland selling cars to buyers in the South of England. With more people willing to travel increasing distances to get a bargain on a car, reaching this audience is crucial. Again, this is where online marketing is pivotal for auto dealers. Adverts in the paper will help you shift a couple of cars locally, but to reach a bigger audience, dealers need the internet. Distance evaporates online. It’s more cost effective too.

One of the UK’s leading and fastest-growing car supermarkets invests in both online and offline marketing and, through lead-tracking software LeadBeast, has seen the difference in performance. Not only does online advertising generate more qualified leads than its offline equivalent, but the cost of those leads is significantly lower (e.g. £13.40 online to £52.51 offline in May 2009 ).

Offline advertising such as a quick ad in the corner sweet shop window is fine – if you want to sell just one or two cars a week. However, if you want to sell a lot of cars – and I don’t know an automotive dealer that doesn’t – then you need presence and marketing where the customers are: online. To ignore that audience and still hope to thrive is akin to expecting a band to fill Wembley Stadium on the back of a flyer on a lamppost in Tintagel.

Highly functional, the new site allows visitors to search the full range of new and used vehicles with ease across a great looking site. Visually bold and striking, the new Motorsales website serves as a portal to the company’s Vauxhall, Chevrolet and Citroen franchises and their Van Centre.

Check out the new Motorsales site today and view our clients pages to see the wide range of companies for whom G-Force have made the internet profitable. With a successful stable of web software available to power your web platform, take a look to see how we can help your online presence a succes.

Hampshire Collegiate School, nestled in the South East, is an co-educational independent boarding school for children aged from 2 years and 9 months up to 18 years. They joined the list of educational bodies making the internet work for them with NetDirector learning this month as did Lambeth Academy. Lambeth Academy is a completely new school that was established in response to concerns from local parents for a high quality secondary school. Accordingly they launched their own high-quality website with G-Forces this month designed in line with other members of the United Learning Trust.

Representing Ford and Mazda in Scotland, the new Peoples Group website hit the web this last week in dramatic style with many unique features including the ability to search for cars according to how many people it needs room for, economy, budget and colours you don’t like.

With Hyundai, Kia, Citroen, Peugeot, Suzuki, Fiat and Saab dealerships across the North West, Chaplehouse Motor Company also launched their new digital dealership with G-Forces this week. An established dealer in the Merseyside area for over 20 years, Chapelhouse’s new website means they can make the most of their online presence.

We’ve got many more exciting new sites nearing readiness to go live so be sure to check out our clients section for further details and to see how we can help your business make the internet profitable today.

]]> http://blog.gforces.co.uk/new-educational-and-automotive-sites-launch-with-g-forces/150/feed 2 http://blog.gforces.co.uk/john-clark-goes-live-with-g-forces/136 http://blog.gforces.co.uk/john-clark-goes-live-with-g-forces/136#comments Thu, 14 May 2009 13:25:34 +0000 GForces http://blog.gforces.co.uk/?p=136 This week we G-Forces were proud to launch the new multi-franchise website for the John Clark Motor Group. Bringing the company into the digital age in style, the new John Clark site is crisp, clean and easy to use and gives a detailed view of all the company’s vehicles and services.

With dealerships representing Audi, BMW, Land Rover, Mini, Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen throughout Scotland, their new site offers a portal into what is an ever-growing business. 

John Clark started business in Aberdeen over 30 years ago with a business dealing in used Lotus and Reliant Scimitar cars. Developing into a family business  in which John, his wife and two children are both actively involved in the senior management of, John Clark Motor Group has grown to become Scotland’s third largest motor group with 14 dealerships across the East coast of Scotland. 

The new website was designed to make choosing a new car easy and includes many new features to enhance the visitors’ experience. There’s a Green Guide to select cars according to fuel-efficiency and CO2 emissions and a Save and Compare feature to allow users to view details on selected cars side-by-side on one screen. 

With a fresh and striking look, the John Clark website was created to offer ease of navigation between the group’s franchise pages along with a detailed look at their services. With high levels of functionality and plenty of original elements www.john-clark.co.uk continues our dedication to delivering websites that offer our clients an advantage on their competition. 

Check out the new John Clark site today and, for further information on all our automotive clients and automotive web software, take a look at the clients section of our website.

G-Forces work with a number of leading Lotus dealers in the UK and G-Forces’ Tim Smith and Jamie Dixon enjoy a strong friendship and working relationship with Mr Haskey.

With it’s impressive lines and powerful engine, the 3.5 litre, V6 Lotus Evora will get you from 0-60mph in under 5 seconds and is sure to prove a popular choice with motorists looking for something different.

The Evora in question is one of Lotus’ new press cars, soon to be gracing the pages of many automotive magazines.  Tim Smith commented “Its styling is great and it is a whole different level in terms of sophistication for Lotus. It is a car you could drive to work in everyday without feeling you’ve just got out of a tumble dryer”.

G-Forces' Tim Smith (L), Jamie Dixon (R) and James Haskey of Lotus UK (Centre) with the new Evora

Check out the full video of the Lotus Evora visiting G-Forces on our Facebook page and take a look at the Lotus dealers in our clients section to see where you can get behind the wheel of the latest British sports car.

As stated in my previous column, marketing and advertising remains an important and key element of your business during a recession and one of the most effective ways of delivering your message to the widest possible target audience is through online advertising. 

The internet has grown exponentially since its commercial introduction in the early nineties and, as every new medium consumes its predecessor, so too has the amount of budget given over to online advertising from budgets. 

In the UK alone, spending on internet advertising reached £1,682.5 million in the first half of 2008, a massive increase of 21% year-over-year. This was in a pre-recessive market place and while marketing budgets overall are predicted to decline over the coming year, the percentage amount of budgets given over to online advertising is still predicted to grow.

Research from Netimperative gives a clear example of the import now placed on online advertising. While 31% of advertisers will decrease their television expenditure and 40% of businesses are lowering their newspaper ad spending, 73% of businesses will increase their online ad spending.

From a personal perspective, an increasing amount of our automotive clients have been reducing their offline marketing spends in favour of web marketing and advertising as it has greater results in terms of cost-efficiency.

But why? Well, put it this way: if video did, indeed, kill the radio star, then the internet took video, along with radio and television, and bought it to an even wider and audience then let them share it with their friends via social media sites. Not only that but the sheer size of the online audience is one that advertisers can no longer ignore and now serves as a reflection of the demographic make-up of the UK as a whole.

If the rumoured 85% of advertising pre-internet went unnoticed there’s potential for online advertising to prove equally ineffective given the size of the audience. In fact, a streamlined and targeted online advertising campaign can not only lower that percentage but, by aiming your message at an audience with a known interest in your product, can increase the chances of conversion.

Automotive dealers can now focus their online advertising and deliver it to their target audience be it through advertisements on motoring blogs, automotive forums or PPC advertising on specific search terms. In short: online advertising gets the message delivered to those who want to see it when they want to see it and are thus more likely to follow up on it. 

As companies streamline their budgets and search for more cost-effective and result-driven advertising campaigns, it’s no surprise that the spend on online advertising and web marketing is predicted to continue growing with a 17% growth expected for 2010. 

The automotive industry, according to Peter Mandelson, is “in the frontline of the economic downturn” having fallen “faster and further than any other sector since the summer.”

The media doesn’t help, playing up every market downturn and spewing continual negativity and uncertainty into the collective consciousness just to fill airtime. Uncertainty delays decisions and creates confusion around business.

However, research shows that businesses that are pro-active and continue to advertise and increase their market share reap the rewards when the market bounces back.

McGraw- Hill research, analysing 600 companies between 1980-85, found that after the ’81-’82 recession, companies that had kept advertising saw sales rise 256% over those who had not.

My own experience is backing this up with many of our customers reporting record sales months. G-Forces have many delighted Directors and Dealer Principles enthusing about the Christmas period and the start to 2009.

This is national, too: a well-known Scottish dealer recording their best Christmas ever, a Midlands-based car supermarket breaking all-time sales records and many of our South East clients amazed by how good business is.

So what differentiates them from their competitors and is responsible for such stellar performance in this economy? To my mind it’s their attitude and the way they run their companies. It’s no coincidence that G-Forces is employed by some of the most forward-thinking and progressive main dealers in the UK. It’s this attitude, combined with their belief in embracing every sales and marketing avenue available and delivering premium service levels to customers that continually drives innovation throughout their businesses.

Peter Vardy views his website as his fifth dealership. This philosophy has meant a commitment to building a quality service around the internet.

His internet team are very knowledgeable about the website, monitor everything and are proactive in improving their web presence. They treat their website as a critical part of their marketing armoury by complementing print and other offline marketing with their online activities. The internet means they can counteract a diminishing local market by reaching further afield.

Advertising Age recently stated that “recessions offer unprecedented opportunities to market in an environment of relatively less noise as others around you are cutting back”. Whilst risk is ever apparent in business and spending on marketing is the last thing most businesses want to do right now, if you aren’t moving forward, you’re sinking.

Markets expand and contract over time for many reasons; be they economic, political, social or technological. The Automotive industry is currently contracting yet everybody I talk to is looking past the recession to brighter times ahead. This demonstrates belief in the long-term viability of the automotive market from business owners.

Logic dictates that if you don’t believe you can make money out of it, you’ll exit the market and go and sell something else… like websites, iphones or wind turbines. Establish a commitment to the market then back it up. Generate sales, continue to improve your business and gain market share. This means performing the same basic business functions even though times are tougher. If you don’t someone else will.

At G-Forces we beleive that it’s becoming increasingly important for dealers to see their websites as an extension of their showroom. This belief is strongly held by our web marketing team including Marketing Director Tim Smith who will be championing the importance of marketing through the recession as part of a new panel of expersts with AM Online. 

AM Online, the website for the automotive industry has a new feature: assembling a panel of experts to answer all your automotive questions of which G-Forces’ Tim Smith is a part.

Tim Smith is on the panel to deal with all automotive industry questions relating to the internet. Given that we’ve created some award-winning web sites through our web software and services for automotive main dealers, Tim is the man to ask.

Ideal for automotive dealers looking for an online representation of their offline standing and showroom stock, NetDirector Auto creates a strong platform from which to build, then evolve in keeping with the rapidly changing environment of the internet. The new website offers a thorough and easy-to-follow explanation of how NetDirector Auto helps clients achieve top results.

To offer a complete solution to their clients’ needs, G-Forces combine their leading web-platform and build qualities with expert web management and web marketing services so that automotive dealers can create a potent online strategy to support their business goals.

Auto Dealers using web management from NetDirector Auto are able to continually evolve their website and online strategy inline with what sells vehicles and generates enquiries.

The new NetDirector Auto website offers explanations into which Web Management techniques are employed including implementing new web design concepts or multimedia, improved conversion and web contact tools.

Making use of website benchmarking, web intelligence, web design and development alongside multimedia services means that NetDirector Auto clients can access a full range of web management methods.

NetDirector Auto Testimonial

NetDirector Auto clients are also able to make use of the company’s expert web marketing strategies to ensure that their digital dealership is in front of the right audience.

G-Forces offer all NetDirector Auto clients numerous online marketing techniques including Search Engine Optimisation, Pay Per-Click, Behavioural Targeting and Social Media Optimisation to drive traffic to their web sites.

With such a wide scope of services, the NetDirector Auto digital dealership provides automotive dealers and specialist retailers a complete online solution. G-Forces also offers their LeadBeast software which allows clients to identify the marketing campaigns that are working and the ones that aren’t by consolidating all leads generated into one easy to use dashboard.

If offering clients the ability to monitor their success wasn’t enough, the NetDirector Auto website also offers testimonials from a long line of leading automotive dealers happy to attest to the success of their NetDirector Auto Digital Dealership.

NetDirector Auto joins G-Forces other services NetDirector CMS, NetDirector Leadbeast, NetDirector e-Trade Pro ensuring that G-Forces continue to offer the complete internet solution and make the web profitble for our customers.

Peter Isted, Managing Director of Lifestyle Europe took the time to speak to G-Forces about this success. One of his first points was that they already had a successful website so the move to G-Forces was done with a great deal of thought.

“I had to be extremely confident the new provider were going to back up what they said. Thankfully they did.

“Customers are doing there homework online before visiting the showroom. With that in mind we wanted to ensure we had a digital dealership so that the customer could sit in the comfort of their home and look at all our offerings, not only sales but also servicing, parts and rental.  When they make that decision to visit, its a Lifestyle decision, and not one to visit other dealers.

“We’ve gone from an Escort to a Ford GT40 with the new site.” Isted explains “we’ve even had Ford Motor Company and Renault UK congratulating us on the award and the site.”

When it comes to the importance of the web, Peter Isted states “70% plus of our customers are looking at the website before they actually come in to the showroom so we realise the potential of this and feel the future is very bright for Lifestyle.”

Due to the success of G-Forces web marketing and search engine optimisation services Lifestyle has made some big changes as Isted explains “Its meant we have been able to look at other areas of expenditure such as press and been able to reduce that significantly and invest that money in to our website.”

Peter Isted was also very clear about the importance of team work when it came to the success of the new website.  Carys Jukes, Lifestyle’s Marketing Manager contributed significantly to the success of the project and is testimony to the importance, focus and commitment they place on the internet to help drive their business.

G-Forces also claimed one of the two coveted Highly Commended spots with SMC Group, the second accolade for this website which had already beaten off 150 entries to receive a “Highly Commended” 2nd place at the Motor Trader awards in May.

G-Forces would like to thank Peter for his time.

Click here to visit Lifestyle Europe’s award winning site.

As one of the oldest dealers in the UK and one of the leading dealers representing Audi in the South of England, Caffyns Audi specialise in New and Used Audi A3, Audi A4, Audi A5, Audi A6, Audi A8, Audi Q7, Audi R8, Audi TT, Audi Allroad, Audi S, Audi RS and Audi Cabriolet cars.

Caffyns Audi have a fully approved Audi service and parts facility using trained technicians to provide competitive Audi servicing, MOTs, accessories and repairs at our Sussex Audi dealerships. Caffyns Audi also provide fixed price servicing for all Audi cars over 3 years old – We believe we are the cheapest and will beat any like-for-like quote from another Audi Centre.

This site is the vanguard of the role out of the entire Caffyns dealership web presence.

What Car? is the independent resource for millions of car buyers. An attention to detail second to none, coupled with the market leading reviews, news and automotive analysis means that over 80% of car buyers will consult What Car? to inform their buying decision.

The partnership allows our NetDirector Auto customers to display reviews on their new and used car stock pages that have been carried out by What Car?

Today’s consumer is highly informed, knowledgeable and has often already decided on what they want to purchase. The use of the internet means car buyers often know the fuel consumption figures, performance stats, vehicle rating and often target price before they even venture into a dealer.

For the main dealer, there are two ways to tackle this problem. Accept the consumer will access this information as part of the buying process, or ignore it. The partnership with What Car? allows car buyers to gain this information while searching through the current stock or new vehicle sections on your website. They get to see the specific cars available while learning about them as they continue to search.

The result? The car buyer feels you are providing impartial information, and you gain a greater degree of trust from your customers. You also keep them on your site for longer…and that means they are not going to your competitors.

If you have any questions about how integrating with What Car? can help your website then please get in touch on 0845 055 9040 or e-mail sales@gforces.co.uk or visit www.netdirectorauto.co.uk