CARMEL, Ind. — Roger Laurendeau, president of Internet marketing firm The Web Guys, launched Car-Specials.com, a new, third-party retail site. Laurendeau says he plans to add dealer clients by offering exclusive territories to independent agents.
The dealer-only site, styled after sites such as AutoTrader.com and Cars.com, launched in November with a seven-dealer pilot program. Laurendeau plans to expand the program to 100 dealers in the next few months by arming agents with a 60-day free trial they can offer to a pre-approved list of their dealers.
“The agent’s role will be to get the word of our existence and our value proposition out to dealers,” Laurendeau told P&A Magazine. “After the 60-day trial, we’ll pay a 10% monthly residual to the agent for as long as that dealer remains a customer. We will also help agents sell regional dealership groups by traveling and pitching with them.”
Laurendeau said Car-Specials.com’s team of specialists will manage established accounts and provide periodic status updates, freeing agents to continue signing new dealers. The cost to the dealer will be $699 per month, minus a 25% discount for dealers who pay for a year of services in advance.
Laurendeau said the pricing was set low enough for dealers to add Car-Specials.com to their lead-generation toolkit without replacing other sites — at least, not in the short term. “Initially, it has to be an ‘as-well-as’ strategy, not ‘instead-of,’” he said. “But I know the numbers of leads dealers are getting from other sites. We can generate the same number of leads or more in 18–24 months once we get the right agents representing us.”
The Car-Specials.com team will be on hand at Agent Summit 2013, scheduled for March 4–6 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
