Archive for the ‘News’ Category

In my entire career, I don’t think I have ever seen that many lenders specifically focused on our target customer at one place and absolutely never have seen such a combined consensus of positive outlook on the immediate future of the subprime auto finance business.
–Tim Parker, CEO of DealerLink Inc.

After more than 40 years in the car business and in auto sales lead generation, I have been through multiple downturns in our industry. During the last quarter of 2010, I was able to estimate that the industry would begin to see a turn around during and presently, all indicators are certainly pointing in that direction.

A little over a month ago, I had the good fortune of having the opportunity to speak to a group of auto dealers from all over the country at a special finance conference in Indianapolis who were all there looking and hoping for signs that things were starting to turn around for our industry. Also present at this conference were almost all the lenders in the business who were also there to update auto dealers on the state of the industry. In my entire career, I don’t think I have ever seen that many lenders specifically focused on our industry’s target customer in one place and I absolutely never have seen such a combined consensus of positive outlook on the immediate future of the subprime auto finance business. Some highlights included all of the lenders removing the “looked to booked” penalties, revised underwriting guidelines and additionally an absolute total effort by the lenders to let auto dealers know that they had money available and were looking for ways to make deals.

I was asked by auto dealers to provide them with the top 3 strategies they could use to increase sales, lower advertising expenses and keep their cost of sales down.

The very first strategy at the top of the list was special finance leads (or subprime auto finance leads). Even though it’s been a very trying time for the last two and a half years, special finance leads still offer an incredible value for the money. A couple of things pointed out by the lenders at the conference that they were all seeing were: larger down payments, more money being financed and monthly payments increasing not only in dollar amount but in terms as well. It turns out those people with credit scores between 625 and 725 have taken about a 100 point drop in their bureau scores, putting them in unfamiliar territory when it comes to subprime auto finance. These same people still want to drive the nicer cars and are willing to come up with down payments and extend terms to get within budgets.

The second of the three strategies was auto sales leads, which can also fit within the special finance leads category except that because at DealerLink we generate the auto sales leads from over 500 consumer auto finance sites that are listed at the very top of the search engines, we are seeing a wide spectrum of credit scores, which is again a great value for the dealer.

Here are a couple of our most successful consumer auto finance websites:

• NationwideAutoLending.com – ranked #2 at Google for the term “auto loans”
• CapitalCarLoans.com – ranked #1 at Google for the term “car financing”
• AutoLoans.us – ranked #1 at Google for the term “bad credit car loan”
• DealerLink.us – ranked #1 at Google for the term “special finance leads”

Since they only asked me for the top 3 strategies that I would recommend, I had a hard time deciding whether to suggest automotive direct mail or automotive trigger leads. Ultimately, I chose to recommend automotive direct mail because more dealers have experience with auto dealer direct mail marketing albeit not always a good experience. I am unaware of any automotive direct mail marketing companies who are willing to guarantee an auto dealer even a 1% response rate, while DealerLink will guarantee a minimum of 2% on any of our direct mail programs. Additionally, with our one of a kind automotive credit card mailer, DealerLink will guarantee 100% of the dealer’s investment. In more direct terms, if an auto dealer chooses to participate in our automotive credit card mailer and spends $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 or more, we will guarantee enough sales to cover the dealer’s investment, period!

We are also having great success with bankruptcy mailers and other credit score-based direct mail programs that we offer.

There are an incredible number of dealers who have been waiting for good news and I’m proud to say this news has arrived. As an auto dealer, if you have been hesitant about getting back into the special finance leads business don’t miss this opportunity to do so! Pick up the phone today and call Tim Parker, President and CEO of DealerLink, at 704-544-9100 or toll-free at 800-890-8850 and I will help you personally. Try to call the other companies and see how many of the Presidents you can talk to!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

DealerLink has been serving auto dealers across the country for more than 11 years providing all types of lead services including special finance leads, guaranteed credit score leads, automotive direct mail and bankruptcy mailers. We are pleased to announce our newest service for new and used car dealers with our state of the art Automotive Call Center where we provide complete outsourced BDC services at a fraction of the cost of other programs. After interviewing hundreds of dealers across the nation, we found by an overwhelming majority that dealers number one complaint about various types of leads is whether or not they we being called properly. Many of the dealers interviewed expressed concerns over whether the calls were being made properly, efficiently or even being made at all.

DealerLink has responded to these concerns with our state of the art facility where the only types of appointments we make are for car dealers. Most dealers recognize the need for an automotive business development center but still concerned about the economy can’t justify the costs of employees, benefits, salary and training. Our automotive call center immediately addresses those concerns at low costs never before seen in the industry and the fact we have more than 11 years experience in special finance lead generation certainly gives us an edge no one else has when it comes to working with consumers.

We will provide appointment setting and follow up services for any auto sales leads from any source for our dealers. Since we originate from the car business, we have customized our call center services to provide the highest probability of getting that appointment. Here are are some of the services that definitely distinguish DealerLink BDC services from all the others. First, we are specialists at making this exact type of appointment, next we call record every conversation and our technology transcribes this information instantly into the email and fax appointment notices sent out to the GM as well as the salesperson assigned to this consumer. We have found that when we make the appointment in the name of your employee that it gives the consumer more of a commitment to showing up for that appointment. What truly makes our process unique is that since we call record everything, you appointments provide information that no other BDC service provider offers for instance the consumers tell us about their trade, down payment and monthly budget which will help your salespeople be much better prepared to assist the consumer when they arrive. If for any reason an appointment doesn’t show, you simply return the lead to us which goes directly to a call center supervisor who then continues to contact the consumer until they set another appointment or tells us to stop calling. There are some companies out there who try to bolster their services by saying they follow up for 90 days, clearly they don’t come from the car business as we all know if you don’t get on these customers and get on them quickly they are going to be off looking somewhere else and if they can be put in a car it’s going to happen quickly usually in the first few days after they apply so don’t get tricked into someone  trying to justify their high costs because they will call for 90 days. How many of your leads do you sell after 90 days?

We at DealerLink believe that our approach is going to dramatically improve your closing ratios and grosses while dramatically lowering your costs and expenses. We eliminate the guesswork and uncertainty regarding whether your leads are being properly called the way you know they should. We have a short video that will explain in more detail exactly how the program works and you can always reach us at 800-890-8850 for any questions.

Here’s the video: Automotive Business Development Call Center

Any auto dealer who has made it through the last 2 years has to look for ways of controlling advertising expenses and automotive direct mail marketing has proven to be very effective. Auto dealer direct mail marketing can come in many different forms: bankruptcy list mailers, direct mail postcards, credit scored mailers and many others. The smart car dealer utilizes the services of an automotive direct mail marketing specialist like DealerLink.

The most important thing an auto dealer can do is to create and maintain a continuous flow of customers to their dealership. DealerLink has proven to be the best among all automotive direct mail companies and can provide many different forms of direct mail advertising from bankruptcy mailers to pre-approved credit score mailers. 100% of our auto dealer direct mail campaign advertising is FCRA and FACTA compliant. We guarantee that every automotive direct mail campaign will include an offer of credit. We encounter dealers all the time that are unaware of the requirements and are exposing themselves to potentially huge liability because many automotive direct mail marketing companies are not in compliance when it comes to consumer credit related issues.

DealerLink will guarantee that 100% of our automotive direct mail marketing campaigns are absolutely in compliance and we do not do any auto dealer direct mail advertising that isn’t totally backed by a firm offer of credit. All of our direct mail marketing includes a feature that only DealerLink provides: a call center that takes the calls from the consumer responding to the direct mail which means we take the calls, we set the appointments and we do the follow up in the event they don’t show.

All of our direct mail list marketing, including bankruptcy mailers, is guaranteed to be DNC compliant as well. We provide multiple ways for the consumer to respond: toll free number and a vanity website where they can submit their information online. In all cases, they all end up speaking with our call center operators who are highly trained in setting appointments originating from direct mail marketing or bankruptcy mailing lists.

We recommend that any auto dealer direct mail advertising be done in conjunction with credit score based direct mail. It makes no sense to advertise to a consumer for whom you can’t provide financing. We even suggest that with our auto bankruptcy mailers that the dealer associates them with specific credit score ranges. Recently, we have seen our best direct mail campaign results using credit scores ranging from 550 to 720.

DealerLink will customize your direct mail marketing campaign to your specific criteria and guarantee that our direct mail list will absolutely help you sell more cars with higher profits. We offer the only truly complete automotive direct mail marketing advertising when you combine our exclusive mailing list and our call center. We guarantee that our direct mail list is Exclusive by Dealer and will not be sold to another dealer in your market. Give DealerLink a call today at 800-890-8850 for all your auto dealer direct mail or bankruptcy mailer needs.

DealerLink unveiled the new design of AutoLoans.us on November 15, 2009. As one of their flagship consumer auto financing sites, AutoLoans.us was redesigned to be more user-friendly and appealing to customers.

Consumers will be able to read auto finance news and articles on a daily basis. The new website will allow DealerLink to communicate news more quickly and effectively to customers.

View the new design