Wael Ghali is the president at the Coral Springs Auto Mall, located in South Florida. Ghali has more than 20 years in the automotive industry and, since taking his current role in May 2015, has increased sales at the Buick GMC store by 40 percent, brought the Kia store to No. 1 in South Florida, increased Nissan sales an average 17 percent per year and brought the Honda store from No. 34 to No. 17 in the nation. Prior to Coral Springs, Ghali was the GM at Lexus of Pemboke Pines, where he led the store from No. 34 to No. 2 in the nation for 2013 and 2014, increased fixed ops revenue by more than 50 percent, and increased sales an average 20 percent per year during his tenure.
Ghali’s Buick GMC store was the first store to launch and pilot a new program just approved by the General Motors IMR (inMarketRetail) Funds Match program for all Chevy and Buick/GMC dealers nationwide, and I wanted to know more about what his store is doing with it and how it is working for his dealership.
PA: Can you tell us about this program and why you decided to participate in it as the pilot dealer?
WG: Today’s buyer is an online buyer, and every dealership needs be found online with great content on their Website and in social media. This program provides more than 300 consumer-friendly information videos to use on our Buick/GMC Website and in our social media channels. The videos are specific to the store’s brand, are customized to our store and were easy to set up. GM reimburses 100 percent of the cost through the IMR funds program guidelines, which makes it a plus when we are allocating our ad budgets for the store each month.
PA: What are the results from this program since its launch in 2016? WG: We review the monthly reports and see that consumers who come to our Website watch the videos thousands of times each month. Just one video, “Benefits of Dealer Financing,” is being viewed almost 1,000 times in a month. We have different videos on each landing page within the Website, and we post them on social media as well. This video content makes our Website more robust, improves our Google ranking, converts more visitors to leads and ultimately gives consumers the information they want in an easy-to-digest, video-friendly format.
