Is your Website Mobile Optimized yet?

Nowadays a staggering  9 out of 10 New Zealanders have access to the internet, with the  time we spend online doubling since 2005. And 59% of New Zealanders using the internet are over 35 – its a myth that it is just gen Y surfing the net!

 More and more people are searching the internet and shopping online, particularly on their smartphones.  In 2013, 50% of online traffic will come from mobile devices – smartphones like the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows mobile, Palm Pre). The use of these devices is sky-rocketing with 60% of Kiwis are expected to have a smartphone by the end of this year. Soon enough, all mobile phones will be smartphones.  More people than ever will use their smartphones rather than computers for surfing the internet and shopping. The ‘second screen’ is commonplace in many Kiwi households – people are looking at their smartphones and iPads whilst watching telly, or eating tea.

It is essential to keep up with the technology that your customers are using. Look at a normal website on a smartphone  – the majority look woeful. Most of them look teeny tiny and really hard to navigate - you need to pinch the screen to enlarge everything, and the pages take ages to load! A recently survey showed that 40% of users have turned to a competitor’s site after a bad experience trying to search an un-optimized website on a smartphone.

If you have website, optimizing it for mobile use is imperative.  People who are shopping on their mobiles have different needs and expectations than those who are shopping online on their lap top or PC.  They need easier to read pages, and for pages to appear quickly. They are searching for specific items, the information accessed on their on mobile needs to be easily searched and accessed. They are looking for specific makes and models, information on the makes and models that dealership has for sale, as well as dealer contact details. If your dealership does not have a mobile website, you are missing out on potential leads and sales.

As well as when people are at work or out of their office or homes, dealer mobile website use increases at weekends, when people are out and about doing the rounds of yards on a weekend. These shoppers are far along the car buying process, they will have a make, model, year and budget in mind.  The easier it is to access information about your stock on a smartphone, the more likely you will get leads and walk-ins. People’s attention spans these days are short! If someone is searching for a specific vehicle on a website that isn't mobilized  it is harder to see and access and the consumer is likely to just give up and move on to another dealer’s website that is mobile and easily accessible.

Functionality that your Mobile Website needs

1.       Good search options

The more search criteria on mobile websites, the better, i.e. Body style, make & model, price, mileage, transmission cc-rating etc.

      

2.       Vehicle Features and Description

Easy access to your vehicle’s features and your description and information about the vehicle is vital.

  

3.       How to find you

Address details, contact details and a map are key for mobile websites, so your buyers can easily find you!

4.       Easy dealer contact

The ability to find your phone number or contact you by email is important. Another valuable feature is automatic dialing  when a person can click on the salesperson’s number and have the phone ring it automatically making your dealership easily accessible.

We began to build mobile websites for our clients last year, and we have found a huge increase in leads and enquiries coming directly from dealer’s mobile websites

Mobilising your website will make it easier for customers to search your stock, find your yard and make contact.  

   

If you have a dealer website – you should have that website made ‘mobile’. People also generally prefer mobile websites to Apps, as mobile websites are easier to find – if someone clicks on your website URL on a mobile phone and you are mobile optimized, the mobile site will load automatically. 

The good news is that it is not too difficult to optimize your website for mobile.  Many local businesses provide mobile website builds, so ensure you don’t get left behind.

The View From The Cheap Seats

When you live and breathe the internet and emerging trends each day it is easy to forget that from the outside it can seem ever-changing and confusing.  Sitting in the back row of the recent Autotalk Digital Dealer conference in Auckland and listening to the presenters and feedback from the floor, you can see why sometimes messages can appear to be a bit mixed.  However, when looking at the essence and trends presented, they were all very similar and relativity easy to understand.  Let me step through a couple as I saw them.

The internet and online selling is becoming more and more competitive and as a dealer you need to take two clear basic steps to ensure that you remain successful.

 

Step one is your overall web presence and for most of us this is centred on a company website.  As we all know a website alone means little without customers viewing its content.  To drive the public towards your website there are a number of options; two options which were discussed during the Digital Dealer were:

·         Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - This allows any search engine like Google to view and understand the content of your website. The better search engines understand your website the more chance you have of being found by customers searching for content, or in most cases, vehicles or company details. Don’t be scared to ask your current website host about SEO and how they have optimised your site. The answer should not sound complicated.

·         Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – This is generally “paid-for” promotion of your website through the use of Google Adwords where your website is listed as an advertisement above or beside the organic/nonpaid search results. To not waste money on SEM you really need to seek expert advice or do a lot of research. The tools available are very good but can take a while to get your head around.

 

Step two is leveraging a market place like Trade Me to drive customers towards your website and ultimately in the door.  Just like the broader internet, Trade Me is highly competitive but there are a number of simple tools and features that can be used to guarantee a strong presence.  To achieve a similar result as SEM gives you on the web, products like Super Features guarantee top of search presence at a fixed priced with a large format.  As per any sales cycle, from this point you need to start closing the options down for the customer. This was presented by AutoPlay in that moving the customer back to your own more controlled website with the offer of additional information or video is advantageous.  By making this a simple link you remain far more in control of the customers experience.

 

Neither of the two steps above can be run in isolation and how you balance your spend across both is a tactical decision for your business and one it would be difficult for me to be seen as unbiased on.  In essence it comes down to calculating the best value for money and if you are an AutoBase customer ask your Account Manager for a full breakdown of your listings statistics to understand what traffic your spend is driving. Your website provider should also be able to similar information.

Choosing a Domain Name for your Website

1. What is a Domain Name?

A domain name acts as a unique address for your website E.g. www.acmecars.co.nz. No two domain names can be the same. Once you've registered your domain name it's yours for as long as you keep paying the yearly renewal fee (usually around $60 per year). Th­e only way it can be taken off you is if you've managed to register a trademark name like www.nike.com.

2. What's the best name to get?

For example, if you’re selling a BMW Compact, you could use words in your Comments box like ‘small, sporty, safe hatchback’. ­This will mean that if someone searches for a ‘safe hatchback’, your listing will have a chance of showing up even though they haven’t specifically requested a BMW.

Using your Business Name (e.g. www.BobsCars.co.nz)

For your average business it's usually best to stick with your business name. Especially if you're going to be advertising your website mainly through offline advertising like building or vehicle signage, business cards, print adverts. ­This will help reinforce your businesses brand and if your customer remembers your business name then they can easily find your website.

Using a Generic Industry Name (e.g. www.usedcars.co.nz)

Another common option is to choose a well known word that explains what the business does. While this can be short and simple, don't be fooled into thinking that people will remember it just because it's obvious, like www.builder.com. Generic names are often forgotten faster because the customer doesn't make a conscious effort to try to remember it.

One benefit of a generic name is that it may help you get placed higher in the search results. For example, the words 'used cars' are pretty much the most common words typed into search engines by people looking to buy a used car. If you have the name www.usedcars.co.nz, you've got a head start at being 1st in the search results.

Note: Th­ere are many more things you need to do to be found by people using Search Engines, but a good domain name definitely helps.

Avoid using Abbreviations

If your business name is too long, avoid using abbreviations. For example if your business is called 'Bob's Quality Plumbing Services', resist the temptation to use www.bqps.co.nz. Just because it's short, doesn't mean people will remember it. You'd be better off using something like www.BobsQualityPlumbing.co.nz, it's not too long, and it uses most of your name.

Avoid Hyphens and Underscores

If your business name (or the name you want) is already taken, avoid using hyphens. For example, if your business is 'Quality Plumbing' and www.qualityplumbing.co.nz is taken, don't get www.quality-plumbing.co.nz.  Nine times out of ten, people will forget to type the hyphen and you'll lose that customer to whoever owns the domain name www.qualityplumbing.co.nz.

One benefit of using a hyphen is if you're trying to do everything possible to get your website found in Search Engines. If you wanted to have the words 'Used Cars' in your domain name, the Search Engines will recognize them better with a hyphen, (E.g. www.used-cars.co.nz) and show your site higher up the list of results. If you're going to do this, always make sure you have the non-hyphenated version too.

3. What Dot?

Should you get .co.nz or .com. All domain names end in dot-something. Most countries have a specific ending, for example New Zealand is .co.nz, and Australia is .com.au. While the .com ending is essentially related to America, it's widely accepted as an international ending that can be used in any country. Basically, if your customers are local or national, go with .co.nz, because it shows that your business is also local (or at least operates locally). If your customers are global, then go with the .com ending as it has a bit more respect in the international marketplace.

Avoid the second-choice endings

For your average business it's always best to get the main domain ending for your country. For example, in New Zealand .co.nz is the main ending used. This is what people will naturally type in if they are trying to remember your domain name. Also available are endings like .net.nz, .org.nz and many others, but if you use these you will lose visitors to the business who owns the .co.nz version.

What are SEOs?

SEO is an acronym for "Search Engine Optimisation" or "Search Engine Optimiser". SEOs are a way to drive more online traffic to your website, therefore optimizing your website. 

SEOs provide useful services for website owners, including:

*  The ability to review your site content or structure

*  Management of online business development campaign

*  Keyword research

*  Expertise in specific markets and geographical areas

Meta tags are codes that are inserted into your web page headers and provide information to search engines. Meta tags provide information such as:

*  Who created the page?

*  How often it is updated?

*  What the page is about?

*  Which keywords represent the page's content.

You can make a meta tag for the Title, Description and Keywords that Google will pick up when people search the Internet. It is a bit like the way you use keywords in your Trade Me Motors listings for Internet browsers (such as Google) to pick up in search results. Meta tags are a great way to control to some degree how your website is being picked up by Search Engines. 

 

Most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywords. So what is a keyword, exactly? It is like keywords that you would put in, E. g. a Trade me listing, to draw traffic and browsers to that listing. i.e: "Leather seats", "sale", "used", "manual", "AA accredited", "alarm", "CD player" etc.  A keyword can simply be any word on a webpage. For example, If you page is a list of benefits of buying from your dealership, you need to think to yourself, “what 10 or 15 words or phrases is this page MOST about?” Just because your page mentions trade-ins in the text doesn’t mean that the page is about trade-ins. If you want to attract buyers by promoting the fact that you offer warranties, create a page about warranties.

If you have a website hosted by AutoBase and your website is configured with the SEO you can manipulate the Title and Meta Tags as required on a per page basis. Contact us HERE to find out more. 
We'll leave the last word to the 'SEO Rapper':

For more information, check out this article from Google here.

The internet is dead, long live the internet!

What are the current internet trends and how are they impacting my business?

 

Understanding the internet and its changing direction is relatively easy. The biggest barrier is the time required to search and read through the mountains of articles, papers and comments. While the internet is huge, within itself it is mainly dominated in the west by a few key and very large players. When on the net you think you are master of your own destination, but behind the scenes the likes of Google and Facebook have a lot to say about what you see and how you find it. In a micro way, Trade Me operates the same way with the presentation of listings based on featuring, listing order and user profile. This being said, the easiest way to spot trends is to follow the major players and their moves.

Presence is a much overused word when discussing the internet, however the reason why is due to the fact that it is very important and the key step to being found. Without a well thought-out strategy on gaining a high profile presence, any online expenditure is wasted. A balance needs to be found between finding the right mass of prospects within a marketplace and then standing out from your competition.  This is where we face the first trend within the internet which is driven by two factors:

1.       Companies marketing on the internet understanding the value of guaranteed product  placement within the first page of a users search

2.       Search engine providers being able to value the first page real estate higher than subsequent results 


Users are under the impression that when they ‘search’ they are searching the entire web, when the reality is that they are searching an indexed database of the search engine provider they have chosen. From this point the results are displayed based on the highest paid bid to the search engine provider and the quality of clicks.  If you Google “Auckland Bars” for example, you will see what I mean. All those bars that have paid Google for advertising are displayed first and down the right hand side.  Next are the bars that have registered with Google Places and last, but not least are the non-paid-for listings which are termed “organic”.  This trend is growing throughout the web and online market places and to be on the first page you need to pay more, however the positive side of this is that it guarantees you high quality presence.

 

Community is nothing new as a concept and as humans we love to feel that we belong.  In a setting that we belong to, we feel trusted, share advice and are comfortable in promoting our products and services.  Understanding Facebook for most of us is an easy task as it just takes what we know in the real world and moves it into the online world where time and distance become far less challenging. Trend two is the collection and use of this personal data and behaviour for targeted sales. We see this emerging in a number of ways from the rapid growth of one day deal sites through to the business offerings from Facebook and Google+.  For years companies large and small have invested heavily into customer databases and Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM) and nowadays, done correctly you can create your own community of customers encouraging interaction and information sharing. Now this can be implemented with very little or no direct cost. We spend a lot of our time with customers helping them to understand this concept and the opportunities it provides.


Trend three is easy if you learned to type at school. I sit here typing with my two figures as my time at school was Tech Drawing and Wood Work while the girls learned to type.  Our Gen Y friends want more and more of any transaction completed online; in practice this means that any online interaction counts and the rules of first impressions are just as important online as face to face. The visit to the dealership is being pushed further down the sales cycle and our research shows that prospects may have been researching their purchase for up to 6 months before approaching the dealer directly.  That first email or online enquiry really counts and may lose the prospect if not handled correctly. Another fact to consider is that just fewer than 49% of the prospects who visit your dealership could have traveled over an hour to get there after online research and interaction. Not only has online research grown, Gen Y are also quick to jump online to rate and comment on their purchased experiences; have a look at dealer rater.com for the shape of things to come.  Remember that this is nothing new for most industries like restaurants where sites like MenuMania have been well established for a long time.


Mobile internet access is growing at a rate faster than the adoption of any other technology or service in history, with Apple raining supreme with the iPhone. Microsoft, and Google with the purchase of Motorola want to become major players within this growing trend.  Ubiquitous and mobile access to the internet allowing users to spend more time online brings new value to all the current internet offerings and spends. If you do not have a smart phone you need one as they are easy to use and allow instant and quick access to your Gen Y customers and it has to be said that this is a winning trend for us all!

*AutoBase provide Mobile websites for AutoBase dealer websites. Email us here for more information. 

How is your Digital Footprint?

With around 2,000 automotive dealers in New Zealand, standing out in the crowd is key - the more ‘arrows’ pointing to your brand and your stock, the better. Auto marketers and dealers are increasingly realising the value of getting their stock and brand online and are utilising several ways to increase their online presence - their ‘digital footprint’.

Online Advertising

The sheer amount of information available on vehicles that can be found online, coupled with the speed and ease of searching for them has made online advertising hugely popular with Kiwi dealers and consumers. People are buying out of town and turning to the internet more and more when buying vehicles. 80% of people now use the internet and 88% of them are on broadband, making it fast and easy for people to search through multiple vehicle listings from home, or work¹. Because of this online advertising has rapidly become the foundation to automotive dealers’ marketing plans. New Zealand’s online advertising spend for 2009 was $213 Million - a 10% growth since 2008². With a huge range of search criteria for vehicles and fast page download times, Trade Me Motors now attracts in excess of 2million UBs (Unique Browsers) a month³ with almost 900 dealers and >35,000 dealer stock listings running as classifieds (>50,000 listings overall), giving Kiwi dealers’ listings massive online exposure. 

All AutoBase customers get their listings displayed on both Trade Me Motors and www.autobase.co.nz at one monthly rate. So to maximize your online presence in line with your budget and resources, put your stock where the most people are looking. It makes sense to choose a provider who gets the most traffic – Trade Me runs auctions and classifieds and they put a great deal of money and effort into optimizing their search results in Google, so you don’t have to! We suggest following this plan. Put 60% of your marketing spend into online classifieds, 30% into promoting those listings so they stand out, and 10% managing leads and your staff to make sure those leads are being followed up.

Company Websites 
Many NZ dealers are getting their own websites, which makes it easy for viewers to find stock, contact details and information on specials or warranties at the click of a button, as well as giving their brand more online exposure. But having a great website is pointless if no one visits it or it’s confusing to navigate. The more arrows you have pointing to your website, the better – put your URL (website address) on business cards, signage and all marketing collateral. There are many people who dabble in ‘website design’, but design and ease of usability are key, so ensure that you trust your web design to a professional that understands your industry.  Web design solutions specifically for dealers must include a database that displays your stock, and is easily managed and updated from your VMS or web browser. 

 

AutoBase designs websites for automotive dealers. If you have a well-designed and professional website, it will pay for itself in no time. Your website needs to reach as many people as possible - it is open for business 24 hours, giving your customers what they want. Many people build websites these days – but not all of them are user-friendly, well made or professional looking. There is nothing worse than going to a website and spending ages trying to find what you want. Most viewers spend less than 10 seconds looking, and if they can’t find want they want they will click off to another website.  AutoBase websites are easy to navigate and all your information is found simply and fast.  AutoBase only build automotive websites that are professional, functional websites for the automotive industry at highly competitive, transparent  rates. We also display and power your stock, at no extra charge. Our designer works with you to make sure we give you what you want – a professional, high-quality, user-friendly website. We can also add video if you like. To  find out more please email us here.

Quantifiable reporting

The beauty of these online marketing tools is that you can capture usable information. Facebook and Twitter now have applications enabling businesses to track and obtain quantifiable reports. Applications can identify user locations and habits such as:

·         Who is walking through your doors?

·         How often are they visiting your premises?

·         How many people are visiting your website?

·         How many people have viewed your individual stock listings?

·         What Tweet posts are the most popular?

Some classified websites also have a large variety of reporting available, including reports on how many people have viewed each stock item, what stock items get the most views and how many enquiries you receive. Yes, websites such as Facebook and Twitter are free, but it’s implicit that you have a well thought out, targeted marketing plan with relevant and correct information going out onto the internet. Consult with your Marketing Manager or an online marketing adviser for guidance and strategy. Make the most of all of your online options and the wide variety of tracking and reporting available to you. Harness and manage the power of the internet by getting your arrows on target, and you will reap the benefits.

Pimp that listing!

Our dealers often ask us, ”How do I make the most of my online advertising?” The key is to have a simple plan and work your online provider as hard as you can. Henry Ford said about his Model T “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants. So long as it is black.” Luckily, that’s no longer the case. Online classified websites contain thousands of vehicle listings of every price, model, make and type. So how do you get buyers to locate and look at your vehicles?

An online classified provider like Trade Me Motors gets almost two million Unique Browsers a month (that’s individuals, who have visited the site one or more times in a month, who are counted once). You want to funnel as many of these potential buyers as you can toward your vehicles, so start by placing as many ‘arrows’ as possible pointing to your vehicles. The more vehicle and brand information you have displayed, the more likely a buyer’s search enquiry will pick up on your vehicles. One way to do this is to utilise the ‘comments area’ to the max (i.e. the area where you enter free flow text to describe the vehicle). On most automotive classified sites vehicles can be searched for by categories such as region, body style, make, model, price and year, enabling buyers to filter down to exactly what they want. So be specific and include as many descriptive keywords within your vehicle descriptions as you can such as colour, CD player, AA Appraised, turbo or remote locking to further refine a browser’s search.

Also think about how you would approach a customer and sell that vehicle if you were on your yard. Parlay that same approach and information into your online listings - tell the story. What is special about this vehicle? What condition is it in? What would you say if someone was inspecting this vehicle on your yard? This might sound obvious, but you would be amazed how many scant, lack luster listings we see.

One of our dealers rang me recently concerned that he wasn’t getting many enquiries on his vehicles. When I had a look at his listings the answer was clear – the descriptions listed were very brief with no features, and nowhere near enough information in the description. Most of the comments contained just one word – “petrol”! There was only one poor image on some vehicles and some had none at all. The pictures were taken on a cloudy day and on a funny angle that either cut the back off the vehicle or a corner. We had a chat and the dealer went back and updated all of his listings, adding more information, features and photos plus benefits of buying from his dealership. Within a week he had seen a good increase in his enquiries and vehicle views. We continued to monitor his vehicle views so that he could see which vehicles were getting less views, and figure out the reason why. In most cases, the reason was a lack of information or poor photos. The solution was basic, but it was the difference between working the vehicles and not.

To further attract and drive buyers to your vehicles, use any upgrade features that your online provider offers - feature your listings so that they appear at the top of searches, add a hyperlink to your website, showcase your vehicles in an online showroom or store. If you have a company website, promote it. Putting your website on your business cards and signage is great, but having a hyperlink to it online when someone is already sitting at their computer is far better and there is much more chance of them clicking into your website. Having a website but not advertising it properly is like having an advertisement for your yard on the 100th storey of a building – yes it’s out there, but who’s looking at it?

Also, think beyond just your product. Having your vehicles online is one thing but having your brand online is another. Sell your proposition as well as the product - what does your dealership offer that the next may not? Include information about special services, warranties, finance, deliveries etc. Work your listing space to its absolute capacity to sell not only your vehicle but your brand and proposition.

Finally, work to a plan - but make sure you understand it and you can follow it through. What is your budget? Where will you get the most bang for your buck? Identify your target audience. Where can you reach them and how? Online advertising has rapidly become the foundation to automotive dealers’ marketing plans. New Zealand’s online advertising spend for 2009 was $213 Million - a 10% growth since 2008. So seek out business partners who will put your brand and products in front of a large, relevant audience. In my next article we’ll drill down into how to create and work a simple, targeted sales plan. In the meantime if you are using an online classified website, work that site to your benefit to promote your vehicles and your brand and you should start to see results.

See this article also for 5 free and easy Tips on improving your listings. 

Internet to Inventory

We know that one of the key issues facing dealers at the moment is how to best manage their internet presence – in terms of resources, budget and time. Following we have compiled some of the most common questions we receive from dealers, and our views on them.

How do I maximize my online presence in line with my budget and resources?

Put your stock where the most people are looking. It makes sense to choose a provider who gets the most traffic – Trade Me runs auctions and classifieds and they put a great deal of money and effort into optimizing their search results in Google, so you don’t have to! We suggest following this plan. Put 60% of your marketing spend into online classifieds, 30% into promoting those listings so they stand out, and 10% managing leads and your staff to make sure those leads are being followed up.

How do I encourage people to look at and buy from my online listings? 

Once your inventory is online, use any upgrade features that your provider offers as ‘arrows’ to drive viewers to your listings. Feature your listings so they are highlighted and pushed to the top of searches. If you have a website add a hyperlink to your listings. This will drive traffic into your website. Showcase your vehicles all together with your company branding, logo and promotional text. The more arrows pointing to your stock = more views = more enquiries.

How do I create a point of difference within my online advertising and differentiate my dealership from others who advertise in the same place?

Once you get your stock online, you need to drive traffic to it.

• Make sure your main photo for each listing is fantastic, showing the vehicle at its best.
• Make sure there is as much information as possible about your stock and dealership. Tell a story about each vehicle. Include as many descriptive keywords, features and unique selling
  points as you can 
• Promote your dealership’s services – what extra services do you offer? Focusing on service attracts.
  more leads.
• Entice viewers by running a campaign or special deal. Do you have any specials coming up for the Christmas period? Are you running any competitions? Are you giving anything away with purchase? People love a bargain, so promote any services, competitions or deals in all your listings as well as your website.

How do I bridge the gap between online and offline sales? 

Develop a solid marketing and sales plan:

• Work the 60/30/10 plan and use your classifieds website and all it provides to its capacity.
• Put the same effort into selling your car online as you do into selling your car offline on your yard.
• Ensure your staff following up on all enquiries and provide easy directions to your dealership.
• Provide a rapid connection with the customer.

How do I promote my website and get more traffic to it? 

You can pay for Search Engine Optimisation to drive more traffic to your site, but why not utilise a classified website already available and working successfully? Promote your website by adding the address to all of your business cards, email signatures, signage, stationery and brochures. Even better, get a hyperlink to your website from all of your online listings. When someone is already sitting at their computer there is much more chance of them clicking into your website rather than trying to remember the address. The more arrows that point viewers to your website, the better.

How do I get better qualified leads and drive a higher conversion rate from those leads? 

To give online viewers the confidence to make an enquiry, ensure that you have quality listings with good photos and lots of information about your business and services. This is essential. Make sure that you have a tight follow up process for your staff to help bridge the gap between conversions and sales. It is vital that your staff are following up on all internet enquiries quickly and effectively. Speed is extremely important to consumers. Invest in a smartphone so you can reply to emails immediately. No matter how odd every enquiry should be followed up. We know that enquiries that are answered promptly are significantly more likely to convert to sales.

What are the tools required to convert internet leads to sales? 

• Reply to email leads immediately 
• and appropriately (get a smartphone). Give prospects confidence that you know what you are talking about, and be happy with the customer service they are receiving. Ensure that your replies include:
• Knowledge – Answers are thorough and informative to create creditability with the customer
• Proposition – What is your point of difference? Are you running any deals? Do you offer any special finance packages? Do you have similar vehicles?
• Offer – Have a call to action. Offer other vehicles within their budget, a test drive, or a chat over a coffee or beer (if it’s Friday of course!) to discuss your vehicles and proposition further.

Other than using online classifieds, what should I be doing regarding advertising, such as a banner ad on Trade Me? 

Look at the plan – put your money into the place that will get you the most sales. Most large sites have banner advertising starting at around $10,000 per week, which is often shared with other advertisers. Go back to the 60/30/10 plan and distribute your budget accordingly - where you are getting the most exposure and the most bang for your buck?

Try this - pull out a piece of paper and draft up a 60/30/10 plan using the budget you spent last month. Try some of these suggestions, utilize others strengths, follow up every enquiry and make sure you take great photos and use the maximum allowance. Every little bit helps to make a difference once you have these things in place. And once you do, work on fine tuning them and enhancing them. As Dale Carnegie said: “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.”