In this week's Episode of Make Money Mondays Special Edition, Kerri Wise, VP of Marketing at TrueCar talks about creating unique processes for each individual lead. You need to take time to pay attention to the customer and find ways to connect with them. Every customer expects customization, and it is your job to adapt to every lead to help you close more sales.
http://www.InternetSales20Group.com 856-546-2440
Internet Sales 20 Group VIP Party Music Video "I'm On A Boat" Parody - IS20G
The Music Video "I'm On A Boat" for the Internet Sales 20 Group 6 #Boston VIP Party on a Yacht Spirit of Boston) is OFF THE HOOK! Let us know what you think and please share with everyone! Thank you to all of the attendees of #IS20G 6 and the Dealer Synergy Video Production Team. Special Thank you to Subi Fernando Ghosh and JD Rucker! Subi was the brainchild behind this Music Video!! Great Job Team!!
It looks like everyone wants to be in the automotive lead generation business. Over the last year I have been writing about Google Cars; a program (in beta testing) to present new car inventory to consumers shopping for a car directly in Google search results. Dealers are charged by Google on a per lead basis.
Today, I learned that TRUECar has expanded its lead generation network with a partnership with Allstate. Industry blogger Jeff Collins shared the new Allstate lead-gen website on Facebook (shown below) and I was inspired to write about this development.
TRUECar already has a number of powerful business deals that generate high quality leads for car dealers. TRUECar partners include USAA, Consumer Reports, American Express, SunTrust Bank, and AAA. TRUECar has reinvented itself after a well publicized series of stumbles last year. It seems that they have perfected their business model to comply with state regulators. The dealers who have returned on their program have told me that they are finding success with their leads and are still making decent margins.
The addition of Allstate shows just how strong the TRUECar business model has become. It is attracting Fortune 500 companies that are looking to monetize their customer base and add value to their members. For Allstate, the benefits of this partnership go beyond a revenue sharing opportunity since they sell car insurance. If you can think of other companies that have a significant customer base, you can bet that TRUECar is pursuing that business.
The TRUECar juggernaut is once again accelerating. Scott Painter has done an amazing job of turning a PR nightmare into a flourishing business once again. Despite the turnaround, some dealers are still fearful that syndication models, like those operated by TRUECar, are bad for dealers because their own sales and DMS data can be used against them.
Many dealers are sharing their inventory to a number of the five Super Syndicators: Cars.com, Autotrader.com, KBB.com, Edmunds.com, and TRUECar. Dealers are also using smaller syndicators like EveryCarListed.com, CarGurus.com, and CarSoup.com. Some dealers are finding great success in pushing inventory to Craigslist or participating in a controlled marketplace offered by CarWoo! The choices don't stop there!
Recently serial entrepreneur Sean Wolfington brought to market http://www.Autoamigo.com in partnership with UniVision. The program claims to be the automotive industry’s first national U.S. bilingual car buying program for Hispanics. (See Press Release) Dealers wanting to reach the enormous Hispanic population now have another syndication partner to consider; Univision is the 1000 lb Gorilla in Hispanic media.
Successful dealers need to have a digital strategy that includes how they present their vehicles on their website as well as on their syndication partner website. It can not be a set it and forget it strategy! With so many choices now, dealers must take the time to calculate the ROI from each syndication partner. Dealers need to understand the specific value proposition from each syndication opportunity and be able to measure the impact on their sales.
Dealers who are reading this article must make it a priority to understand how to do an ROI calculation for their syndication partners.
Just how many more syndication contracts can a dealer afford to sign? Does there come a point where duplicate leads start to lessen the financial benefit of these services? Should dealers just sign up for every syndication opportunity?
From my conversations with dealers, the marketplace is becoming very crowded. Each of the Super Syndicators are claiming that their site produces the best ROI.
With all the syndication choices presented to dealers, is anyone concern about overlap and duplicate leads? TrueCar will credit dealers for a lead if they can show that the consumer recent came into their CRM system from another source. Other syndication services are not that friendly.For example, at this time the Google Cars program does not issue credit for leads they send dealers that also came into their CRM previously.
In addition to syndication, lead generation services from Dealix, AutoUsa, and AutoByTel are an important part of Internet sales each month. Mix syndication and third party lead generation together, and you can see how easy it can be for dealers to get overwhelmed.
There is no simple answer to which mix of syndication partners and third party lead sources creates the best ROI; it varies by market. Despite the challenges, dealers need to get the mix right.
Is the TRUECar announcement with Allstate groundbreaking? No. Will it enhance the program currently offered to dealers with more leads? Yes.
However with more websites popping up every month claiming to get cars at a better price and providing a "better" shopping experience, the dealer's physical inventory is becoming commoditized. Inventory in Google search results, inventory on partner websites, inventory for ethnic groups, and the list goes on.
This trend is a wakeup call for dealers to make sure that they have a differentiated brand in their local market. Dealers need to be the local automotive expert in town that consumers trust. Brands that are only about price or payments will be lost in the sea of inventory syndication. It speaks to having a dealership website that clearly communicates the values, ethics, and experience of the dealership. Think video!
It is clear that the lead generation marketplace is getting crowded, but when a consumer is connected with your dealership through a third-party, that first experience better be a great one. Not a good one.
This goes back to some very "old" but timely advice. Dealers need to make sure their phone processes are perfect. With so many choices being presented to consumers online, if you blow the phone call, you may be easily taken off the shopping list.
Brian Pasch-
Source -
Is It Time To Reevaluate Your Opinion About TrueCar?
I have seen many issues polarize dealers, and at times energize them during my 30 years in the car business. Very few issues have rallied so many people in the auto industry to cry out than the advent of TrueCar’s advertising campaign in the Fall of 2011. In fact, since the creation of the two automotive professional networks I am involved with, AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.com and DealerELITE.net, there has been no other issue that has attracted even a tenth of the visitors to these sites, or engagement in the form of comments and subsequent posts… From October 2011 through January 2012 the most popular subject matter on many online sites catering to people working in the car business was the thorough vilifying of TrueCar.
Meanwhile, the outcry from dealers reached a crescendo of volume that was enough to get many State Dealer Associations and a handful of state regulators to “investigate” TrueCar for potential violation of everything from brokering without a license, to operating out of compliance with advertising regulations.
Amazingly enough, despite all the name calling and personal bashing that executives at TrueCar received, not a single “cease and desist” letter was sent, or lawsuit was filed by TrueCar against those of us who pushed our criticism of TrueCar beyond the boundaries of civilized and professional discussion or debate. In hindsight, I am very surprised that TrueCar took such a beating without resorting to legal measures against some of the worst name callers and accusers, including yours truly!
After receiving several phone calls and speaking with Scott Painter in December 2011 I put off visiting TrueCar’s headquarters at their invitation until just a few weeks ago. My first encounter with TrueCar executives on a face to face basis was in March 2012, at the Automotive Leadership Roundtable in Miami, FL. Bernie Brenner from TrueCar’s board came over to my table and asked me if I would sit with the TrueCar team during the lunch session and discuss changes they were making to their business model. Curiosity piqued, I accepted. Looking back on that lunch, I gave the TrueCar executive team a fairly strong rebuttal… I was polite, but explained my objections to their business model as inserting an unnecessary dealer expense. Mike Timmons, Bernie Brenner and a couple other TrueCar executives were polite, rational in their explanations and determined to convince me that they had seen many of the problems with their pricing models and were making changes so that TrueCar would make sense for dealers as a means of acquiring incremental business at about half of what the NADA average cost of advertising is Per Vehicle Retailed (PVR). At the time I remained resolute in my stated opinion that TrueCar was a bad deal for car dealers. However, I will admit that maintaining that opinion in the light of new information, changes TrueCar was making and the logic around their affinity model was already starting to erode the certainty I had in my position on TrueCar… Not that I was admitting any of that at the time!
The next time I saw any TrueCar executives was at Digital Dealer 12 in Orlando last April… Bernie Brenner approached me and asked me to bring any dealers who were avid TrueCar haters to him so he could meet them and listen to their grievances. Seemed like an odd request, but he was sincere and the entire TrueCar team was looking for people with negative perceptions of their company so they could show them all the aspects of their business model that had been changed, so that with new information these dealers might reevaluate their perception of the benefits of doing business with TrueCar.
What I have since learned is that from the beginning of January through May of 2012, TrueCar experienced a large number of dealers cancelling their TrueCar agreements and dropping out of the TrueCar program. This, combined with various state legislative issues is what prompted TrueCar to make so many dramatic changes to the way they do business. They simply had to change in order to move forward. Something that more people in the car business ought to consider!
When I accepted TrueCar’s invitation to visit their headquarters in Santa Monica, CA the timing was perfect… I arrived the day before a “all hands on deck” meeting where every TrueCar employee who works out of the headquarters was traveling in to attend. During my visit and tour I was able to spend more than an hour of quality time in detailed conversation with Scott Painter. Mike Timmons arrived a couple hours after I did and took me on a tour to meet various team leaders and department heads in the two building that TrueCar operates out of. I met many people and watched a team of TrueCar employees working directly with dealers all over the country, helping them to put deals together and sell cars. The people I met were intelligent, well spoken and knew what their part of the TrueCar mission was, and how it tied into selling cars. What I found was hardly a bastion of evil, nor were there any indicators that they were trying to eliminate car dealers or harm anyone working in a dealership. Like many companies I have visited, such as Edmunds, Kelley Blue Book, Dealix, AutoUSA, Cobalt, Reynolds, ADP and others, what I found at TrueCar was over 250 people who are educated and intelligent going about their specific duties and focused on generating more car sales for their participating dealers.
So, what about all these so called “changes” that TrueCar has made since the end of 2011? Let’s take a look at ten of them, why TrueCar made the changes and their intended impact.
10 Key TrueCar Changes – January to April 2012
In late 2011, TrueCar started receiving significant feedback – much of it critical – from the automotive retailing industry including dealers, dealer associations, manufacturers and industry consultants. In the first half of 2012, TrueCar made substantial changes to address industry concerns. By no means is TrueCar finished with implementing changes and revisions, but they do feel they have taken the necessary actions to ensure TrueCar is acting as a key auto industry partner. Listed below are 10 key recent changes:
1. Changed Website Experience Nationwide and Billing Model in Certain States to Address Regulatory Compliance Concerns
What TrueCar Heard: Through trade publications, dealer association communications and social media sites, there was a lot of attention on whether TrueCar’s novel business model complied with the existing regulatory framework in certain states.
What TrueCar Did: Completely overhauled its website experience to address state-specific concerns related to advertising regulations. Among other changes, dealers no longer communicate price offers relative to invoice through the TrueCar website experience. Additionally, “bait and switch” concerns have been addressed through website features expressly clarifying that TrueCar users who use our website to explore the new car market are configuring “virtual vehicles” – not vehicles that are actually in inventory at our participating dealers. TrueCar has also implemented a subscription-based billing model in certain states. 30 of the 50 states continue with TrueCar’s pay for performance model, while 19 other states have variations designed to comply with that state’s laws. Lousiana remains a state not served by TrueCar.
2. Overhauled Display of Information on TrueCar Price Curves and Dealer Portal to Address Dealer Concerns
What TrueCar Heard: Though not our intent, TrueCar heard loud and clear from dealers that the TrueCar price curves and Dealer Portal did not provide the most contextualized, relevant, and informative display of information to assist consumers and dealers.
What TrueCar Did: TrueCar’s continued success depends on providing services that result in a better car buying experience for dealers and consumers. TrueCar changed the TrueCar price curves in January to provide more robust, comprehensive data that allows consumers to understand what constitutes a “fair” price in the current market. They also switched from providing “network-pricing” information in the Dealer Portal (which focused on the pricing of other TrueCar dealers) to providing “market-based” pricing information driven by recent transactions in the dealer’s local market area (not just transactions by TrueCar dealers).
3. Reduced DMS Data Received From Dealers
What We Heard: A small number of industry consultants used social media sites to spread misinformation that participating dealers’ sales matching data is used to create the TrueCar price curves and/or that TrueCar actively markets to customers found in the dealers’ DMS. To be clear, these are both myths.
What TrueCar Did: TrueCar only requires dealers to provide customer contact information (name, address, phone, email for buyer and co-buyer) and basic vehicle information (VIN, make/model/trim, year, new/used, stock number, sale date) in order to perform the sales matching, billing (in states with performance-based billing models), dealer scoring and analytics and reporting aspects of their business. TrueCar does not directly access dealer DMS systems and we never have. All data extraction and compilation is handled by respected third-party vendors, Digital Motorworks (DMi) and Netlink. All dealers also have the option to “push” their sales matching data via FTP to TrueCar’s third-party vendors; the data received by TrueCar is the same whether the dealer chooses automated or manual sales data reporting. To address concerns that TrueCar was receiving extraneous data from its third-party vendors, TrueCar worked with both Digital Motorworks and Netlink in February to remove all unused fields from the data feeds sent to TrueCar, reducing the fields to just those listed above.
4. Rolled Out More “Dealer-Friendly” Dealer Agreement, Including Indemnification
What TrueCar Heard: Some dealers told TrueCar that the dealer agreement needed to be more fair.
What TrueCar Did: In February, they rolled out a new dealer agreement, the key aspects of which include: (i) dealers can cancel at any time for any or no reason; (ii) more clarity and control on how dealers provide sales reporting data to TrueCar; (iii) confirmation that the dealers’ sales reporting data is NOT used to create TrueCar price curves; and (iv) confirmation that dealers’ sales reporting data is NOT used to send marketing-related communications to customers. In April, we added a limited indemnification provision to the new dealer agreement. The decision to indemnify dealers is another manifestation of TrueCar’s commitment to their dealer partners and underscores that they are fully invested in standing behind the valuable services that TrueCar provides.
5. Launched TrueCar National Dealer Council
What TrueCar Heard: Many dealers, dealer associations and manufacturers expressed concern that TrueCar was making major product, process and policy changes without incorporating feedback from dealers.
What TrueCar Did: In April, 2012 TrueCar launched a National Dealer Council with 20 Members representing 24 states, 35 unique makes and 281 franchises. The purpose of the Council is to ensure TrueCar is actively listening to dealers, and the Council is chaired by Gary Marcotte (former SVP Marketing & Strategy at AutoNation). The inaugural full-day Council meeting in April was excellent, with great feedback from the Council Members. Going forward, the Council will meet periodically with TrueCar senior executives to provide guidance on how TrueCar can improve the services it provides to dealers.
6. Initiated Dealer Associations Outreach
What TrueCar Learned: TrueCar had not historically communicated with state and large metro dealer associations and paid a price for not directly engaging this important constituency.
What TrueCar Did: In March, TrueCar hired Pat Watson, VP of Industry Relations, to directly communicate and work collaboratively with dealer associations on how to help our mutual partners – dealers. Pat is the former CEO of the South Carolina Automobile Dealers Association, where he worked for 38 years.
7. Started Participating In Key Industry Conferences
What TrueCar Learned: Prior to 2012, TrueCar did not have an active presence at key industry conferences, which was perceived by some as an indication that TrueCar did not care to engage directly with the industry.
What TrueCar Did: In 2012, TrueCar has sponsored and actively participated at key industry conferences, including Automotive Leadership Roundtable in March and Digital Dealer 12 in April, and the upcoming AutoCon 2012 in September. TrueCar will continue to have an active presence at future conferences, including Digital Dealer 13, Driving Sales, J.D. Power Automotive Internet Roundtable, various 20 Groups, trade associations and dealer group events.
8. Improved TrueCar’s Social Media Response and Presence
What TrueCar Learned: Social media can be a powerful medium for individuals in the automotive retail industry to share opinions and shape stories.
What TrueCar Did: Mike Timmons, EVP of TrueCar and an auto retailing veteran (VP Operations AutoNation; independent auto dealer; new car sales and management) has taken ownership of monitoring and responding as appropriate to social media related to TrueCar and industry-related issues. Additionally, Mike has directly reached out to key TrueCar detractors to understand and address their concerns, as well as to correct any misinformation, and he will continue to do so. In the future, TrueCar will be taking a more proactive approach to leverage social media to showcase our product and company changes.
9. Increased Communication With Manufacturers
Before: Previously, TrueCar’s communication with manufacturers was sporadic and reactionary, sometimes leading to significant misconceptions.
What TrueCar Did: In the past four months, Larry Dominique, EVP Data Solutions, with over 27 years of OEM experience (former VP Advanced and Product Planning and Strategy, Nissan, plus stints at GM and Chrysler), has met with key decision makers from 20 manufacturers to listen to their concerns and inform them as to what TrueCar is all about. Going forward, TrueCar will continue to directly engage with manufacturers to discuss ways that TrueCar can improve the services it provides to dealers.
10. Added More Dealer Support
What TrueCar Heard: Dealers have told us they want more face time and support from TrueCar dealer-facing personnel.
What TrueCar Did: In the first four months of 2012, they added 13 new employees to the TrueCar Dealer Development Team, including Ken Potter (VP Dealer Development; former VP & GM of Internet Brands / CarsDirect; former GM of two dealerships), Amir Rizkalla (Director Account Management; formerly of Fisker Automotive and Toyota), two Area Sales Managers and four Account Managers. TrueCar is currently looking to hire 9 additional dealer-facing employees in the next 60 days, including six more Area Sales Managers (Philadelphia, Charlotte, Atlanta, Seattle, Des Moines, and St. Louis) as well as two more Account Managers, to ensure that we continue to provide dealers with the support they want and need.
After traveling to TrueCar headquarters on a Monday in July and then visiting Southern California dealers, I returned home to Phoenix on Tuesday evening. Later that week I had an appointment with the owners and management team at Courtesy Chevrolet in Phoenix. This is the same Courtesy Chevrolet that I worked at from 2005 to 2007, and I have a close bond with the leadership team there… During my visit, which was to convince them to attend AutoCon 2012, I mentioned visiting TrueCar headquarters earlier in the week. The response I received from the owner and several managers was “we really like the TrueCar program, they have gotten a lot better about invoicing us and the business we get from them seems to be purely incremental… deals we would not otherwise have made.” These statements and the discussions I had with the team at Courtesy, as well as all the information I had witnessed firsthand during my meetings at TrueCar, and from the conversations I had with at least a dozen TrueCar employees lead me to a conclusion I feel very certain about. It would be foolish for any dealer to ignore the changes that TrueCar has made and not reevaluate whether to do business with TrueCar based on the new information available and the changes TrueCar has made to the way they do business.
Researched and written by Ralph Paglia
TrueCar, Yahoo end exclusive partnership
TrueCar Inc., an online car-shopping service, has ended after just six months its exclusive relationship with search engine Yahoo to send auto shoppers to auto dealerships.
Yahoo Autos plans to keep TrueCar and sign other sales-lead generators, Yahoo confirmed in a statement.
Under TrueCar's original deal with Yahoo, TrueCar agreed to pay Yahoo a huge sum -- $50 million per year for three years -- to be Yahoo's exclusive auto-shopping partner. Shoppers on Yahoo Autos were referred automatically to participating TrueCar dealerships.
Under the revised deal, TrueCar's payments to Yahoo will be triggered when TrueCar receives a minimum number of leads and a minimum number of high-quality leads from Yahoo Autos, according to a TrueCar source. Terms of those minimums were not disclosed.
In a statement, TrueCar said: "The new relationship has been forged as a result of a better understanding of both parties' capabilities and aligns economics and services around a vision of mutual success."
The original deal, signed late last year, said Yahoo would deliver 10 million auto shoppers to TrueCar each month. It's not clear if Yahoo delivered that total, and statements from both companies did not address the issue. The exclusive partnership began Jan. 1.
Under the new arrangement, TrueCar will appear as a button that can be clicked on Yahoo Autos. Yahoo says it is opening Yahoo Autos to "multiple dealers and third parties."
Today, though, TrueCar was still displayed prominently on Yahoo with the phrase "Y! Autos in partnership with TrueCar."
Calls to Yahoo for more information on how shoppers will navigate the revised site were not returned.
Under the revised deal signed June 29, Yahoo Autos can sign other lead generators immediately, a TrueCar source said.
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120705/RETAIL01/120709928#ixzz1zsCbUUL2
