Honda Mall of Georgia in Buford is celebrated for being one of the elite and highly esteemed recipients of the Honda President’s Award, the most prestigious and coveted honor that Honda bestows on its dealerships. The award recognizes superior achievement in customer satisfaction, new-car-unit sales volume and business management, and as few as 15 percent of Honda dealerships earn the President’s Award each year reflecting a total commitment to customers. It’s the biggest honor that a Honda dealership can receive. Honda Mall of Georgia received the award because the dealership delivers superior customer service in sales and parts; much of this success can be attributed to Internet Director Mikhail Melomed.

Melomed’s unparalleled success stems from Internet marketing initiatives that are mindfully crafted with a ‘no fear, can do’ bravado, leading to a consistent closing ratio of over 20 percent, coupled with a lead follow-up process that is fast and consistent. “I can provide you with many examples of when my team successfully delivered on two- to six-month-old leads just because our follow-up was in place.” To drive online traffic and leads Melomed employs a robust and proactive Internet marketing approach that includes: search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), mobile marketing, pay-per-click advertising, online chat sessions, e-coupons, and sales videos. He also works to make all his IT managers search marketing experts. Read on to discover how Melomed’s approach to Internet marketing has led to superior leads and sales and very satisfied customers.

Please tell me about your background - how long have you been with your dealership?
I have been working at Honda Mall of Georgia since 2003. I emigrated to the U.S. from the Ukraine with my wife, two teenage children and mother-in-law, in April 1991.  I was hired by Atlanta Toyota as a sales associate in May 1992. After my first week of training, my GM, John Smith, had doubts that I could be successful because my English was poor. But he did really want to give me a shot, so he gave me a week to prove that I could produce results.

After that conversation, I told my wife that I was unsure of whether or not I should be heading back to the dealership because they didn’t think I could make a successful go of it. She was very understanding and supportive, but also firmly believed that I could do it. The next day, I braved the storm and went back to the dealership with a positive, ‘can do’ attitude. It was a Memorial Day weekend and John announced that he would be giving a $500 bonus for the top salesperson over the weekend.

I sold six vehicles that weekend, earned the top sales position and received the bonus! John eventually called me into his office and I thought for sure I was going to be fired, but instead he told me that I had earned my stay at the dealership. I spent nine years working at that particular store. I still grin a little and chuckle when I think about that meeting. It was an amazing day for me and I still feel very proud of myself.

When did you make the move to Internet sales, and how long have you been Internet director at your dealership?
I became fully entrenched in the Internet department about 10 years ago. In 1998, I became the Internet sales manager (ISM) at Atlanta Toyota. That position was the result of two months of debate because the Internet was still a new medium and most dealerships didn’t know if our business would translate to the virtual world. But my GM at the time thought it was time to develop the Internet department, and so began an extensive search for people to fill it.

I asked him to give me a go at the position since I had extensive experience working with computers and a thorough understanding of and keen desire for online communication. I started the job as a one-man-show and sold over 50 cars during the first six months. Eventually, I asked my GM to let me expand the department and with his consent, I recruited six Internet sales consultants and our sales grew to about 100 units per month. After this accomplishment, I started to receive offers from other dealerships and accepted one from a dealer group where I ran e-commerce for not just one, but six dealerships.

How many people work in your department?
I currently have seven dedicated Internet salespeople in my department, including myself.

What percentage of your dealership's overall sales is generated from the Internet?
Approximately 41 percent of our sales stems from our Internet marketing efforts.

What tools or lead generators have really worked on your site to pull in leads?
The best lead generators for our web site are No Nonsense Internet Pricing coupon provided by AutoBizUSA.com, Black Book supplied by Intellichoice.com and LiveChat offered by LivePerson.com.

The No Nonsense Internet Pricing coupon feature appears on the bottom left corner of our web site homepage. It automatically moves from the bottom of the page, all the way to the top so it’s front and center for a customer to click on. It also follows a visitor wherever they navigate on the web site so they are always viewing the same coupon. It can’t be blocked so it is working all the time. It’s a highly efficient tool that produces great results for our site. The coupon only costs our dealership $249 a month, yet produces approximately 200 leads per month.
BlackBook online is also an impressive lead generator. Everybody has a vehicle they’d like to trade in. Once a customer tries to appraise a trade-in online, they’ll click on their car of their interest, and from there the dealership is primed for generating amazing leads. This is a tool I’ve come to thoroughly appreciate.

My third all-time favorite lead generator is LiveChat because we can immediately respond to customer questions. Additionally, customer shopping behavior can be assayed via analysis of keywords used and time spent on particular pages of the web site – all in real-time. The combination features allow our dealership to control the flow of traffic to our web site.

What interactive media resources do you utilize? And, please tell me what services they provide and why you decided to go with them.
I am using RealviewTV.com streaming video player, which helps our customers to learn more about our dealership. I also use the interactive media templates called izmoMail created by izmocars.com, which allows us to provide customers with an interactive presentation about our products and services via e-mail. Lastly, our dealership is involved in mobile marketing campaigns utilizing mobile search technology and interactive text messaging to reach our customers.

Realview TV.com specializes in developing top quality streaming interactive video for our dealership that’s produced specifically to appeal to our web audience. The live feeds stream through custom interactive players, thereby increasing our viewing traffic and helping to convert leads into actual sales. The best analogy I can give would be to say that it’s much like an “image maker,” if you will. The video player provides a button that’s strategically placed in the middle of our dealer’s web site allowing our customers to immediately click and view a special video plan, which again isn’t commercial, just “image making” about the dealership. The video demonstrates our process and procedures, plus highlights how we operate in each department. You can view the entire video or watch it in segments.

Let’s say you decide to look at the service department. You can click on the button available to you and it will play the service department’s activities for the day. Or, you may click on the button available to you for the parts, finance or sales departments. The segments are very short – about 28-35 seconds per spot from start to finish. The quality is pristine and it truly holds the audience’s attention. You want to peak your audience’s interest so that they want to stay on your web site longer. The video presentation isn’t selling anything, and there is no pressure placed on the customer to buy; however, it does entice them to stay on your site longer. And that’s what you want to accomplish. If customers like what they see and want more, they can choose to navigate the rest of the site. It proves to be an invaluable tool and should definitely be considered as part and parcel of a dealership’s Internet marketing efforts.

I think the best interactive tool on the market, which we use because it helps us efficiently communicate with Internet customers, is izmoMail. The izmoMail program immediately responds to our web site’s leads with creative and visually rich e-mails. With izmoMail, we can reach out to our customers with eye-catching promotions highlighting the best of our inventory, including a “Call to Action” with quotes and information that will heighten their interest and drive them to our Internet department.

Their interactive media templates are also one-of-a-kind. Customers are able to navigate through them as they wish, and the tool itself includes many awesome features. For instance, a customer is able to zoom in on a particular make and model and review it from the inside out. They can view all the vehicle’s features and change them to their liking. It’s a complete tool for customers to not only receive information, but also to find the information that you want without having to speak to anyone.

We’ve also started to utilize mobile phone interactive web sites. In my opinion, this technology is the next big step for the automotive marketplace and for other dealers. The technology enables us to provide customers with a ‘keyword’ to text message. So for example, I can provide a potential customer with a ‘keyword’. That customer can then use their mobile phone and text that keyword to our dealership whenever they want more information on a particular vehicle. In response to their text, they receive vehicle information from our web site that we send directly to their mobile phone. I can provide customers with vehicle data, directions to the store, a Carfax report, and much more.

Today it seems that at least 90 percent of the people have a mobile phone, and they’re much more likely to always leave home with their phone than with their computer. To be in immediate and direct contact with customers, you have to communicate via mobile phone. E-mail campaigns are still in good standing because many people can check e-mail on their phones, but they’re not as good as they used to be, nor are they as effective as mobile marketing. A lot of e-mails are immediately directed to spam folders and nobody really wants to read long e-mails. Text messaging is the way to go. It only requires 160 characters and, although it’s not aggressive, it’s very informative and you can advertise your dealership much more effectively.

I also highly recommend the interactive web site tools provided by TK Carsites. The company is well known for providing customized interactive web sites specifically designed to be customer-friendly and help dealers improve their leads conversion.

Do you help design/update your dealership site? For example, update inventory, create specials, add photos, etc.
I prefer to employ someone with a professional service to update my inventory online. It’s less expensive and produces superior quality. I’ve learned that you can’t do everything yourself, so I outsource these efforts to DiamondLot.com. I do, however, update our dealership’s specials and deploy the lead generators onto our site.

How do you use e-mail campaigns to generate leads?
I distribute e-mail campaigns twice per month to generate leads; however, I employ a much softer approach by including an e-newsletter within that distribution. Our dealership creates a monthly e-newsletter utilizing iMakeNews.com’s (IMN) format. I used to be very heavy handed with e-mail campaigns, but now we’ve decided to execute a more informative style vs. pushing a strong ‘call to action’ on our customers. If you push on your customers too much, they’ll only become aggravated and then you risk completely alienating them. Once the e-newsletter has been distributed, we follow-up with a second e-mail two weeks later promoting our current special of the month.

Since you use mobile marketing quite extensively, please share an example of a successful text messaging campaign that generated a good number of leads.
A very successful campaign we did was around the Super Bowl. We encouraged people to participate in our promotion via text messaging and announced that the winner would receive a $200 discount on the purchase of a new vehicle just for participating. Now I’m trying to do campaigns like this every week.

We’ve found that once you create a database of people who text message on a regular basis, you can utilize this method of communication in two ways. First, send them information about a promotion you are offering at your dealership. For instance, many people say they’re interested in the Honda Accord. If they sign up for our special, we’ll notify them of any specials regarding the Honda Accord taking place that month.

Second, we create a campaign from that promotion like, “On Saturday, we’re offering an extra $400 off the 2008 Honda Accord LX!” It’s only a two-line message, no more than 160 characters that automatically goes out to the mobile phone numbers in our database. All the recipients have to do is to click ‘yes’ and they receive a coupon immediately on their phone. They then can come to the dealership with that particular coupon and receive the discount. It’s an effective tool that’s proven to be highly lucrative and fun for our dealership. We have employed mobile marketing for quite some time and attained great success; we are now looking to expand our efforts with a new as-yet-to-be-chosen vendor.

If you could keep one tool from your current interactive arsenal to generate leads, what would it be?
Right now, I am going to keep using the coupon that I mention earlier -- the No Nonsense Internet Pricing coupon by AutoBizUSA.com. My reason being is that it’s a cost-efficient and highly effective tool.

Please take me through the process from when an Internet lead is received, to how it is eventually closed (via a sale or a long-term prospect).
Our Internet department acts as a virtual showroom. All leads point toward iMagicLabs’ dashboard. First, we respond, if possible, by phone in order to verify their request and to build a rapport. If our customer requests to be contacted via e-mail only, then we respond via e-mail. Our goal is to receive feedback from our customer as soon as humanly possible. Then we classify the incoming leads by priorities and assign them to the appropriate on-duty Information Technology (IT) sales associate.  The Internet sales- person continues to communicate with the customer with the ultimate goal being to schedule an in-person meeting. The Internet manager oversees all interactions between the customer and the salesperson, taking virtual TO (‘turn over’ from one salesperson to another) if necessary in order to make all appointments. When the customer arrives at our store, the IT sales associate handles the entire sales process, from test drive to closing and delivery.

How important is follow-up in closing Internet leads?
Quality, fast follow-up is the most important feature in Internet sales. We know that most customers start researching online for their vehicle of choice within 30-90 days of making an actual purchase. Hence, follow-up is extremely important. I believe it’s the primary reason why my team is so successful and performing so well; it’s due to our self-discipline on follow-up. Plus, being extremely persistent plays a key factor in our success.
In our business we never know exactly what will affect the customer’s decision. It could be price. It could be the way you provide your service. It could be a myriad of reasons. This is when thorough follow-up is essential; it can help you establish or discover a means to close.

I believe persistent and diligent follow-up is 100 percent vital to our success in selling vehicles. It’s the only way that we can sell cars on the Internet; there are no fresh sells. Very rarely do we come across a situation where a customer has contacted us and proclaimed, “I want to buy a car right now,” and have that particular vehicle sold in 20 minutes. Follow-up requires hard work. Each customer has the opportunity to shop 20 to 30 dealerships, and we have no idea who or what we’re facing. At this point, our goal is to try our best to stay in touch with the customer until we learn more about the situation, and again, find a means for closing the deal.

There are a lot of new tools in the space getting attention – blogs, social networks, SEO and SEM – do you use any of them? If so, how have they worked? If not, do you have plans to?
I’m a huge proponent of SEO and SEM. This is a must in today’s Internet marketing arena. I believe all IT sales managers should become search marketing experts. I run all of our dealership’s SEM and pay-per-click initiatives myself utilizing Google, Yahoo!, MSN and other search engine sites. I’ve executed many successful audio campaigns via GoogleAdWords. Our SEO marketing campaigns have been implemented by AutoOneMedia.com for almost two years, and we’ve had the best SEO success with them.

Melomed’s no fear approach to Internet marketing, combined with a superior lead follow-up process, has helped him to shape a powerful and proactive Internet sales department that generates impressive results. Melomed’s curiosity about and understanding of what’s going on in the online community has brought greater business opportunities, as well as Internet traffic and leads, for the Honda Mall of Georgia and made him an instrumental and vital search marketing expert in the auto industry.
 
mmelomed@DigitalDealer-magazine.com