Uncle Joe's Make Over Diary

[JoePistell]

Relevance and the Comment Generator…
Over the years, many web vendors have built Comment Generators(CG) in an attempt to sells cars. Most all have fallen short of their expectations. They completely miss the simple yet elusive door way into making text relevant to the shopper.

To make a CG ring the bell, you’ve got to know where the shopper's head is at. Auto shopper relevance is found via the vehicle segment (i.e. mini-van, pickup truck, sports car, SUV, etc...) Compare the needs and wants of a mini-van shopper to a sports car shopper. Mini-van shopper wants to know about # of seats and air bags and rear back up cameras, the sport car buyer could care less about airbags, they want to know about the engine and tranny and how they'll look driving it.

All vehicles belong to a segment, then, within the segments there are sub segments that are simple to isolate. The features and needs of a Kia SUV buyer are different than of the Cadillac SUV buyer.

If you DIY your vehicle comments, use the vehicles segment (aka the vehicle class) to drive your writing.

[Mitch Gallant]

Be honest mitch, most of your traffic is during WORK hours. When did this launch AND did you notice any change in the metrics?

Bounce Rate
Time On Site
Pages per user

Joe, sorry I didn't catch this sooner. When we launched it our lead volume went up about 25%. Our chat lead volumes are struggling so I'm embarrassed to say I haven't looked at the before and after, just said "Hooray, more leads!".

Let me look into that, I'm going to have to get some dates from our activengage rep first but I'll definitely let you know. I feel like it hasn't been much of a change but after talking with some "smarter then me" folks they suggested splitting the traffic so that we analyze traffic W/O any search traffic w/ the dealer name in it... thinking that they're already looking for us and may but up with the annoyances. I'll give you both before and afters.

[JoePistell]

Mitch,

Here's my take:
60%+ of your shopping traffic comes during WORK. If your chat TALKS out loud, then EVERYONE in the office knows your shopper is NOT WORKING.

That being said, those that know you (ala white pages search) have been to your site, know the loud voice is coming and have turned down their speakers.

[JoePistell]

15 months ago, I saw the BBB scores popping up in Search Results. I saw a trend and wrote this DR article The Better Business Bureau is Coming After Your Dealership

Wow, I NEVER knew the BBB was a SCAM. The evidence is over whelming. I am back here because the BBB is ranking higher and higher bbb.org 4,628,949.0 UVs for February 2012 | Compete

WHERE ARE YOU GOOGLE!
Kill this commission driven beast! It's your responsibility to strip them from your SERPs!



The BBB is an old school business model that is fueled by commissioned reps. It's gotta vanish!

[JoePistell]

Wholesale Update.

The wholesale Used / S&P 500 correlation is alive & well
NADA Used Car Guide: Wholesale Prices Increased By 3.2% | Dealer Communications

See 3/27/2012 Chart of the S&P 500 (Last bar on the right)


Reference:
Manheim’s Used Vehicle Index | Velocity | DalePollak.com
Facebook IPO

[Stefan]

How about a Buy Now Option:

Buy_Now.jpg

[JoePistell]

Stefan,

Thats a GREAT way to have a rep walk a customer thru taking a deposit.

Them eCarList guys are always leading the pack ;-)

[JoePistell]

Moore & Scarry does our production, Todd piles 'em high and watches 'em fly!

(video starts at the 55 sec mark)

[JoePistell]

Do You Know Your Dealerships BBB Score?

Here it comes: The Better Business Bureau is Coming After Your Dealership

Ck your SERPs. The BBB.org link is now above the fold for 10 stores I track.

Are you ready?
Remember, you heard it on DealerRefresh first!