Rallye BMW

This a how Rallye BMW, a successful Long Island dealership, has made Cobalt’s PowerSearch Complete central to its success in a highly competitive environment.

Rallye’s Market Background…

Selling BMWs on Long Island is a challenge. In a way, the entire island is your market, and so is Manhattan - even though city-dwellers sometimes buy where they live or drive to: northern New Jersey. At the same time, since there are eight BMW dealerships on Long Island, combined with the island’s long length and extensive parkway system, it means that the old real estate adage - location, location, location! - is really true, and the market reality faced by Rallye BMW, located in Westbury, near the island’s eastern end.

... Plus Some Special Circumstances

Westbury is Rallye BMW’s new home; it moved from Roslyn, 10 miles away, early in 2007. The move was based on the decision to build a new, state-of-the-art retail facility outfitted with a 4-level parking structure, in-store bistro, children’s playroom, Wi-Fi access, and 60+ service bays.

However, according to Manager of Business Development Shaun Weissman, the move was also a chance to expand Rallye’s market. “We chose the site because it was close to two major parkways and would allow us to maintain our customer base, while making strong inroads into a new area,” he explained.

PowerSearch Complete Proves Itself Not Just Once ...

PowerSearch Complete takes proactive website maintenance, including organic search engine optimization, and combines it with paid Internet search advertising. It’s designed to be the most cost-effective way to drive qualified traffic to a dealer website and convert visitors to leads.

At the time of the move, Rallye had been benefiting from PowerSearch Complete for a year. According to Weissman, unique website monthly visitors more than quadrupled in just a year – from 2,000 in January 2006, to nearly 9,000 in January 2007. “We have a very strong Business Development Center, staffed with some gifted sales coordinators,” he noted. “Given the dramatic increase in traffic and an excellent visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 7%, we’ve been able close a lot more sales, thanks to PowerSearch Complete.”

... But Twice

PowerSearch Complete’s value became even more apparent, right after the move. According to Weissman, “Physical relocation is just part of entering a new market. The hard part is making your presence known - not just announcing it with a TV ad, but making it real, on a day-to-day basis.”

PowerSearch Complete helped Rallye BMW solve this problem, just as it helped the dealership stake out its territory while in Roslyn. “In automotive retail, both paid and organic search are geographically very specific,” said Weissman. “If you want to buy a book, you don’t care if it’s 2,000 miles away, but if you want to buy a new BMW, you want a dealership in your area. We were already using PowerSearch Complete to be in touch with the right people in our Roslyn market. We realized that it would be essential in establishing ourselves in Westbury.”

Would PowerSearch Complete handle such a major and rapid change? The answer came quickly. “Accounting for the move on our website involved three main tasks,” says Weissman. One was updating the site so that the move was publicized and the entire market was addressed. The second, more technical task was to optimize the site so that it ranked high for search engine users in the new market. The third was to adjust our paid search campaigns so these same searches called up our Internet ads. “In every way, Ian Favre, our account advocate really came through,” Weissman told us. “Thanks to his knowledge and our close working relationship, it all happened smoothly, and we didn’t miss a step.”

Highlights

Shaun Weissman
Manager of Business Development
Rallye BMW
Westbury, New York (Long Island)

Franchise
- BMW   

Cobalt Products
- Cobalt Website
- PowerSearch Complete
- Dealix Leads

Results
- Visitors quadrupled, year-over-year (January 2006 to January 2007)
- Average monthly visitors tripled
- Paid search click-through rate is twice the industry average
- Paid search conversion rate (visitors to leads) surged to 7%