eCarlist + iPhone4 = BFF's!

[Marc McGurren]

I am not too big of a raving fan on many things but I was extremely impressed with my visit to eCarlist's headquarter's in Dallas today. To give you a background I have been using eCarlist for my website and inventory solution for approximately for a year now.

I would have to give eCarlist a B+ so far for the work they have done for me up to this point. Their websites are the best looking sites out on the market IMO. My visitors time on site, click, bounce rate, & conversions have been pretty darn good to boot!

SEO for inventory is great due to their indexing structure and SEO on their sites is getting better and will be top notch with some changes we are making with them.

I added mobile sites with eCarlist a few months ago after I was getting close to 600+ visits from mobile phones to my site/mo. The mobile sites are slicker than snot. Super fast and very efficient.

I went by today to sit down talk more about how our dealership and eCarlist can partner together even greater and see where they are going as a company. Lyn, the CEO, has dubbed 2010 as the year of analytics. They want to be as transparent as possible with how their websites and such are working making it easier for me (their customer) to see that.

I had already seen quite a bit of their new "Health Reports" but what I was floored with was their new iPhone app that will be released very shortly. They were kind enough to throw it on my iPhone for me to tinker with.

I can honestly say I think this new app can and will help me as a dealer sell more cars. I can't really go into great details of what it all does, but being a tech junky that I am - I was impressed. I hate being elusive but I want to respect their wishes.

It is still in some beta testing, but just playing with it this afternoon I have some more ideas that this could make it even better. All that to say - I am very excited about this FREE tool that will be at dealers' disposal if they are an eCarlist client using their inventory software.

I wanted to throw up a screen shot - but I think they might shoot me at eCarlist!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Marc, thanks for sharing your experiences with eCarlist. Len and the crew over there are impressive. I've always liked their dual search feature. They obviously take the time to custom tailor each dealers website.

"2010 as the year of analytics" - This trend will carry over into 2011. Takes our industry about 3-4 years to catch on

Great numbers on your mobile site - what are you doing to achieve this?

 

[Marc McGurren]

Jeff - yeah, I have enjoyed getting to know the folks over there. My rep -Jason Miller is great. Always there to help me out. As far as analytics - the coolest features I have seen for analytics are dealer.com's backend tool. Granted dealer.com has had more time than eccarlist and some others - but I can say that by no means is stopping ecarlist's health report being any less relevant. It keeps getting better.

Now as far as mobile - to be honest Jeff - I haven't done a thing at all. Cobalt, clickmotive, and ecarlist all approached me about a year ago regarding mobile sites. Very cool IMO - but I had little mobile traffic. I do get about 20-25,000 uniques across my 9 sites a month with the majority finding our portal site for our group. As I watched my analytics over the past 12 months - mobile OS's kept getting more and more popular. Then when I finally reached 500 uniques alone on my Jerry Durant Auto Group | Authorized And Preowned Auto Dealer | Weatherford, Texas site - that's when I pulled the trigger for mobile sites.

Since then we are averaging probably 650+ visits a month via smartphones. I am working on getting a strategy in place for the customers that come in after hours and roam the lots. I have a couple ideas including making banners to be hung up "Visit us on your smartphone for all the latest incentives and specials". "Text 123546 to be directed to our mobile site for all the latest specials"

Something along those lines. I am in Texas therefore we are closed on Sundays. I don't live too far from the dealership and there are always people hanging out on the lot after hours and on our day off and I am just trying to figure out a way to be more relevant to our customers who are on the lot.

I also thought about having a unique identifier sticker on each vehicle that the customer could text in for more info. From there they receive a text with a link directing them to that vehicle. At that point it would show them that vehicle along with other vehicles in stock that are very similar to that. Almost a "information quote" in real time with what's in our inventory.

I know that would take some work on a vendors side - but that would be pretty slick don't you think?

So that was the long answer, but the short answer is that more and more customers are shopping from their smart phones and I saw that - and jumped to mobile sites. Now I just have to make that experience even better!

I am thinking about an app of some sort too. Push notifications for service reminders/specials, etc. Truly book your service appointment and not send in a service lead where someone will call you back to set you appt. Email a advisor/salesperson/mgr. Direct access to leaving a google/dealerrater review. Things like that....

Ahh....if I weren't just a car guy I would develop these on my own! Until then - gotta pay someone to to do it...lol.

 

[Marc McGurren]

Told ya....

eCarList wins Innovation Cup | eCarList Blog

Now it is eCarlist's TrueMarket app + iPhone4 + OWLE Bubo = VBFF!!!!