So, one of the questions I’m asked all the time is “Angus – if your specialty is vendor accountability, what vendors would you recommend”. Well, there are only 3 that I can recommend 100% of the time. But who are they?
Disclaimer: It’s important to note that I have no association with 2 of these vendors, but was a previous employee of one of them. I will say though that anyone who knows me knows that – just because I used to work there – you get no pass from me. I’m going to give a trade tool. I’m going to give you a service mailer. And I’m going to give you an SEO company.
Trade Tool: Trade Pending.
Trade Pending was a new trade tool that came on the scene and allowed users to see the actual value of their trade in the market they’re in, something that no other tool had at the time. It also allows dealerships to create their own used car buying strategy by altering the amount of money they put on trades per model line, or make, or countless other ways to customize. Between a great product, excellent data, and a fantastic implementation that increases click-through-rate, Trade Pending has worked on every website I’ve seen it on. I have no financial relationship with Trade Pending, and don’t receive any compensation from them, they’re just a vendor I can recommend.
Service Mailer: Car Care Checks
It sounds a little crazy to be recommending a mailer in 2023, I know. Car Care Checks is a service mailer that sends out a 12-check checkbook to your service customers from your database. They go in, they bucket your customers into 6 or 7 (depending on your DMS) different buckets, and then send them personalized offers. Where this product really shines is every check in the checkbook has a barcode that your service manager can scan, and put down to the dollar how much money the mailer has returned to you. It’s the only mailer I know of that you can get down to the penny what your actual return on investment is. I’ve used this at 17 stores, I’ve never not made my money back the first month. So, again, a product I have no financial involvement in but recommend to all of my dealers. And last but not least..
SEO Company: Wikimotive
Now, I am still retained as a consultant for Wikimotive. They bring me in with the understanding that I will give them a fair assessment of their SEO performance for their clients. They also ask me to come in and do training videos like this, for you. That being said, Wikimotive has simply the best SEO in automotive today. Their focus on human-written content, not ChatGPT, AI garbage, human-edited, American-made, long-form content is unmatched. There’s a lot of different awards that are given out in automotive, that you can buy; none of those matter. The only award that matters in SEO is #1 position in your search engine, and Wikimotive has won that again and again, for the clients that I see.
So, of the three that I can recommend: Trade Pending, Car Care Checks, and Wikimotive. Those are the only vendors I’ve seen work everywhere else. There are other vendors I may recommend, but they’re certainly situation-specific. They may be big-market, they may be small-market, they may be highline cars, etc. but of the vendors I’ve seen work everywhere, those are my three.
Good news! If you do have questions, you can contact me (angus.fox@thinkbetter.marketing) with any of your questions, for free. Send me an email, we can get a dialog going and I’ll help you however I can. Let’s make 2023 the year that we bring Vendor Accountability to automotive.
And don’t forget to connect with Wikimotive on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube to get more high-quality like this designed to help you think better and…SELL MORE CARS.