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Mar 11, 2011

And the more I think about it, if Chrysler has zero room for an error like this, have they checked Eminem's twitter's??? Something tells me he might have an F-bomb in there as well and isn't he considered the face of their new campaign???

Mar 11, 2011

The agency immediately fired the person that made the mistake, but Chrysler still fired the agency. Scary - what if this happened at your dealership when someone that managed your account was fired and decided to pay retribution???

Mar 10, 2011

In yet another show of why brand management is so important and content is key, Chrysler has fired its agency, New Media Strategies, due to an errant tweet sent yesterday. The tweet, meant to be sent from the strategists personal account but mistakenly sent from the @ChryslerAutos handle, read "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to fucking drive.”

Chrysler immediately jumped into action and sacked the agency, issuing this statement on their blog today, "So why were we so sensitive? That commercial featuring the Chrysler 200, Eminem and the City of Detroit wasn’t just an act of salesmanship. This company is committed to promoting Detroit and its hard-working people. The reaction to that commercial, the catchphrase 'imported from Detroit,' and the overall positive messages it sent has been volcanic."

Good for Chrysler for jumping into action after narrowly avoiding a serious brand mistake.

Lesson of the day? Ensure the people around you and working for you believe strongly in your brand and what it represents. Everybody needs to take up the call when it comes to your messaging and identity.

How many people at your dealer have access to tweet on behalf of your dealerships twitter account?

Mar 11, 2011

Congrats Steve, long time coming. Keep up the great work.

bpulseadmin · Mar 10, 2011

Fairhope, AL, March 9, 2011 — ScreenCrafters, a top provider of First Party Leads for automotive dealers and many other industries, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awarded the veteran, boutique technology firm a patent for their highly successful lead generation and delivery system. The system, sometimes called SiteEncore™ or Last Man Standing, often doubles or even triples the number of sales leads clients generate from their own websites.

The USPTO patent, number 7,904,335 titled “Web Site Lead Generator,” covers virtually all uses of undefeatable pop-ups and pop-unders to generate sales leads or gather consumer information from client websites. ScreenCrafters has been providing this technology to automotive dealers since 2006 and currently drives First Party Leads for nearly 2,000 websites.

Unlike traditional pop-ups, the ScreenCrafters Web Site Lead Generators are designed to create sellable leads where most pop-ups just deliver advertising that has little or nothing to do with the host website. Additionally, ScreenCrafters Web Site Lead Generators are virtually never blocked by traditional pop-up blockers; this often makes them the most effective lead providing vendor for their clients.

“We have used ScreenCrafters lead generation system on our websites for over five years.” Stated Mark Burshears, Technology Director for the O’Brien Auto Group. “ScreenCrafters regularly generates about 40% of all email leads from our website and we consistently close 18% of those leads. Our results have been outstanding.”

In addition to offering their product directly to car dealers and other website owners, ScreenCrafters also licenses their technology to a number of companies to use in creating their own lead-generating systems. Currently, ScreenCrafters is evaluating further licensing opportunities for their newly patented technology, including helping large classified advertising websites drive additional leads, as well as powering daily deal offers that deliver incremental revenue for a number of verticals.

“As you can imagine, since the official announcement that the ScreenCrafters patent would be awarded back in December, many companies have inquired about both exclusive and non-exclusive licensing opportunities of this technology.” Disclosed Steve Stauning, founder of pladoogle, LLC, the company managing the licensing relationships for ScreenCrafters. “It’s great to see ScreenCrafters go from this sort of obscure company built from the ground up by Steve and Cindy Crim to become one of the
hottest topics in digital marketing circles.”

About ScreenCrafters:
CandSNet, Inc. dba ScreenCrafters, based in Fairhope, AL, was founded in 1998 by Steve and Cindy Crim and is the leading provider of first party leads to the automotive industry and the developer of the newly patented Web Site Lead Generator technology used by numerous verticals to enhance their digital marketing efforts. Contact Information: [email protected].

About pladoogle:
pladoogle, LLC, based in Coeur d’Alene, ID, was founded in 2009 by Steve Stauning with the goal of leveraging underutilized ecommerce technology solutions from boutique firms, including the lead-generating technologies perfected by ScreenCrafters. pladoogle is the exclusive licensor of ScreenCrafters patented technology to enterprise users and resellers.

bpulseadmin · Mar 10, 2011

Hybrids gain share among online consumer auto shopping online as SUVs decline

Nashville, TN —03/09/2011— Was $3.40 the magic gas price for Hybrids? Though gas prices have been increasing steadily over the past 6 months, hybrids until recently, have not benefited as consumers continued to shop for less fuel efficient cars, SUVs, and trucks. However, once the national average for gasoline broke $3.40 per gallon, the trends began to reverse.

"Typically gas prices have not impacted auto shopping behavior, however recent increases have begun to change online auto shopping behavior," stated Jason Ezell, President of Dataium. He added, "Consumers have generally only responded to long sustained periods of gas price increases, and then reverted back to prior behavior once they got use to the higher prices. That said, recent rapid increases combined with news of unrest in the Middle East has clearly turned the tide."

During the month of February, hybrid inventory searches as a share of all auto searches demonstrated a trend line that was nearly identical to trends in gas prices. Interest in hybrids increased 10% as gas prices increased by 5%. Still, inventory searches for hybrids represent only 1.5% of all inventory searches by prospective auto buyers. Historically, once gas prices reverse course, the American consumers' search behavior changes course just as quickly. It remains to be seen whether such a reverse in trend will occur after this gas price spike subsides as well, or will the continued political instability in the Middle East motivate consumers to hedge their bets.

For more information and analysis, Dataium has posted its inventory search and gas price metrics at www.gaspriceaffect.com.

About Dataium, LLC
Dataium is the largest aggregator of Internet automotive shopping activity. The company collects, analyzes, and indexes billions of online automotive shopping events. Dataium supports patented data collection and reporting technology; VisiCogn® Collection Utility, VisiCogn® Knowledge Center, VisiCogn® INSITE, and is also known for its ASI™ index. For more information, visit www.dataium.com, email: [email protected], or call 877-896-DATA (3282).

# # #

Nov 14, 2011

I'm thinking about purchasing a smart car simply for the "green aspect." However, I'm not sure that it is entirely safe. Is there anyone who owns a smart car that can give me some insight?

Joe Hobbs · Aug 4, 2011

Sorry Jeff,
Cars.com is not Google. I get hundreds if not thousands more leads from Google. I pay Cars.com thousands more than Google. These reviews are in cars.com interset not the dealers. The third party & invetory sites are losing the internet battle. Our dealer & OEM sites are controling the market at least for our dealerships.

Joe Hobbs · Jul 29, 2011

After asking not to have our dealerships on Cars.com review site, Cars.com have told that they cannot, all dealers are on it like it or not. No dealerships asked to sign up, so they signed up everyone. I was told that “THERE” customers are wanting the reviews. We are there customers, the car buyers are our customers. They do not see that... so I we not be a customer of cars.com!

Jun 9, 2011

I think this is an excellent idea. If you can't stand the heat......

dboismier · Mar 9, 2011

I see some pitfalls for Cars.com in making this move. First it means dealers have one more review site to manage, especially if Google picks it up.

However I think the biggest danger (speaking from our experience) is that unless you proactively maange this process you end up with mediocre reviews at best. In the end Cars.com could be a site that only has mediocre or bad dealers, which would not be good for their brand.

@Brian · Mar 8, 2011

@Brian Sounds like a great idea.

Brian Pasch · Mar 8, 2011

Laurie

Thank you for reminding everyone to use ALL channels of communication for personal branding or business marketing. I'm excited by the power of our current media and communication channels and the Sheen story is the super-amplification of what can be achieved.

If car dealers should just step outside of the norm and engage in a true, multi-pronged digital marketing and branding strategy, the results would be equally as impressive, just at a smaller scale.

Rob, you are a master of video marketing and you dominate your market, so the question is what other channels should you dominate? Let's brainstorm on that in Orlando!

Mar 8, 2011

Correction, "Social Media" is redundant not an oxymoron.

Mar 8, 2011

We now live in a world where you can be thrown off of a top rated network television show, get lambasted by mainstream media, crucified by Dr Phil and invited over by Dr Drew and still manage to gain an audience. "Social Media" is an oxymoron, this is simply Media 2.0. #media2.0 My condolences go out to all those who now own websites and consulting companies based on the term "Social Media" #planbetter

Mar 8, 2011

I don't know if I'd consider Charlie Sheen "saved" ...

This certainly is a great example of gaining natural followers using unique and interesting content; even if it is a front row seat to the crazy show.

Mar 8, 2011

Love him or hate him, no one can deny the tour d'force known at the moment as Charlie Sheen. Though he has brashly "beeped" his way through numerous media interviews and lost his job on Two and a Half Men, he has become an overnight sensation on Twitter. Now, you too can drink #tigersblood, live with #goddesses and #earnyourself as you read Sheen's thoughtful posts online. But he isn't just tweeting phrases, he's adding video through Ustream in a webcast known as Sheen's Korner (100 million views in two nights time), adding pictures through tweetpics and even advertising for an intern that can down tiger blood with the best of them.

Here's the truly amazing thing about the entire circus, Sheen has skyrocketed to 2 million followers on Twitter in a week's time. That's two million people clamoring for his "wisdom." While I don't advocate for living like Charlie Sheen, I do advocate for marketing like him. Some things to note:

He doesn't just tweet, he uses every tool at his disposal, video, pictures and more.
He's using controversy to his advantage and redirecting the discussion based on his own ideas, not the media.
Even though he's lost a prime time show, his popularity is brighter than ever based on his social media prowess.
Sheen has definitely created a brand around himself and is using it with lightening force.
He truly does drink tiger blood.

My guess is Sheen will come out unscathed and more in demand than ever. #U'vebeenwarned.

Sep 22, 2012

I appreciate the compliment (question) Mr. Customer, but I don't believe price alone will be enough to earn your business on this car. You'll be glad to know however we've got a $1,000 trade-in bonus on that specific unit to off-set the premium we have on it because of the rare low miles it has, clean Carfax, one owner, excellent maintenance records, flawless interior, and showroom like condition! It's one of a kind, like you sir, so can you come here now to see it, and take it for a test drive, or would later today work best for you?

May 4, 2011

Jerry, thank you for posting these. I'm a new car sales consultant, and though I've been in sales for over 25 years this industry stands alone. From North Pole, Alaska "Hi"

Mar 17, 2011

Jerry how would you handle the same question when it comes via email?

Mar 17, 2011

Jerry great article the one thing I had issue on was with your call to the Chicago dealer. Telling the customer the car is "available" when you don't have it on the lot can come across as "shady." What if the customer likes you and your price and wants to come in or drops by to see the car then what? The rapport you have built with the customer over the phone is shot.
What do you suggest is the appropriate conversation to have when the customer does come in asking to look at the car?

Mar 8, 2011

Great article Jerry - thanks for putting this into "print."

Mar 7, 2011

Awesome, as usual!

Mar 7, 2011

Great "Tip of the Iceberg" post Jerry! This subject needs to be brought up weekly (not weakly) in meetings (daily too in some stores). The opportunity a price shopping call presents is a good one. Handling it takes practice, practice and good oversight by a manager. Too many times I have heard (I review the calls in my stores) the change in a customer when someone attempts to skirt the price question. Immediately you have disqualified yourself when you cannot talk about pricing. Would you agree that new car pricing is handled differently than used car? New car calls are more about options, incentives or color. Used car calls are more about availability or verifying it is still on the lot. (were you looking specifically for "that Camry" or one like it?) If you are in a store that does not price POV's on the internet you are going to get a ton of calls (and emails) that are simply about one thing and thats the price. Those are the most difficult too me. By not listing price on the web you have set yourself up for a one question call. (thats a different subject all together)
Good Stuff Jerry, many thanks.

Mar 7, 2011

I agree 200% with everything that you wrote in this article. Asking the right questions and giving the customer the experience they are looking for. You will always win.

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