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SMA Alliance - Anyone heard of this marketing group?

Jun 20, 2009
103
8
First Name
Muller
I recently spoke to a gentleman, who one of our sales managers knows, that works for a company called SMA Alliance. They claim to be able to provide multiple times the amount of leads that we receive from autotrader, cars.com, etc...

I was skeptical to begin with, but they promised great results, so I decided to listen.

Everything seems way to good to be true - and their pricing is out of this world $7,000+ / mo.

You can find more info at http://smaalliance.com/.

My main question is - has anyone used this company for used car advertising, or even heard of them.

It seems very fishy - from the amateurish website, to the outrageous amount they are charging for their service. Furthermore, I can't find anything about them anywhere.

Any feedback is much appreciated.
 
Used car dealership here,

Never heard of the company. There's a lot of companies that promise to provide third party leads (that generally trump Autotrader and Cars) but the leads are usually passed on from dealer to dealer, some fake, some already bought, etc.

I wonder how they are going to help you guys out. $7k/mo?! Yowza.
 
I can't figure out what they are, who they are, or what they do. I think this is Manuel Luna's gig though. I recall Manuel making some hefty promises and boasts about some new company he launched a few months ago. This sounds like something from him by the way you're describing it.
 
Hey guys, I am somewhat affiliated with SMA since my uncle uses them for his car dealership in FL.

I've pm'd one of the admins if I'm allowed to have some sort of conference meeting (using microsoft net meeting) for all the skeptics out there. So I'll keep you guys updated once I get confirmation.

I got to agree that the price is indeed outrageous for those who never invested that kind of money before. As an internet marketer, that's quite low for the amount of leads you're generating. For those big timers who advertise through adwords or even facebook, their budget is anywhere from $1k to $5k DAILY. Yes, that's right. So in essence, spending $7k monthly through internet advertising is pretty much normal.

Now let me tell you how the program works.

First, look at this video:



To sum things up:

1. Your whole inventory is posted on craigslist. 80% of your leads will come from there. These leads will ONLY be sent to you and no one else.
2. Your number will be used to track your leads and everything can be accessed through callsource.com - you'll be able to hear and track how your employees are converting these leads.
3. You will be receiving 30+ leads per day as your whole inventory will posted on craigslist on a daily basis. (100+ ads daily using 15+ different templates)
4. Additional leads will come from other classified sites and as well as Cars For Sale, Used Cars For Sale, New Cars For Sale, Carsforsale.com! and Credit Union Dealers. (these two sites are owned by the company)

So let's take a look on how powerful craigslist has become over the past years.

Looking at quantcast, this site reaches to 51.4 MILLION USERS every month!

craigslist.org - Quantcast Audience Profile

Craigslist.org is currently ranking 9 (traffic rank in the US) on alexa.com

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/craigslist.org

Now what other websites gives you more traffic than craigslist and allows you to ADVERTISE your cars to at least 50 million users? NONE. Proof? Here you go:

Alexa - Top Sites in United States

As you can see, there is no website above craigslist.org that allows you to advertise your cars to an audience that reaches to 50 million users every month!!

Now, let's verify that Coggin Deland Honda (dealership discussed on the video) has 1000 results on craigslist.

1. Go to craigslist: orlando classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events.
2. Under the "for sale" section, click on "cars+trucks"
3. Search for the term, "coggin" (without quotation marks) and be sure to click on "entire post" (beside the search button. look at the picture below:)

proofgo.png


4. Click Search and Prepare to be amazed :)

So as you can see, there are 1000 results and about 50 or so ads posted today.


Even if you are posting in a small city, don't underestimate how much traffic it's getting. Here are a few reasons as to why people get so little leads on craigslist.

1. Not posting enough ads
2. Ads are not appealing and this forces users to shop elsewhere
3. No phone number is visible on the ad (very important)
4. No one is tracking which ads work and don't
5. The sales team converting the leads into sales are very WEAK.
4. Since it's very HARD to post on craigslist, business' get discouraged and move on.

Anyone can post on craigslist but only a few can post hundreds of ads daily and only a select few can post thousands of ads with ease.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask :)
 
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hondaman - do you work for SMA?

I am somewhat affiliated with them because my uncle uses their service and I strongly believe in this product. To be honest, it's totally a dealer's wet dream. I'm also an internet marketer and have never seen this kind of product/service before.

A CraigsList posting tool for only $7k a month? What a value! Where do I sign? [gag]

Ya think CL wants robots spamming its service? Nope.

This isn't a posting tool. We do all the work for you. You track all your leads through callsource.com

Since you're a mod, I can give you a login and walk you through what happens in the backend.

You'll also be able to track how well your sales team is converting the sales.

So basically, you provide the inventory and we take from there. You then get leads and it's up to your sales team to convert them. These are targetted leads. These people are interested in BUYING your car.

None of the leads are fake and I can show any mod or admin that these leads are legitimate.

Again, this isn't a posting tool. I know this kind of service is hard to believe since we're the only ones doing it. If you're doing fine using autotrader.com then you'll definitely do EXTREMELY well with us.

@JoePistell, were you able to verify that Coggin Deland Honda does in fact have 1000 results on craigslist?

P.S. Our website is currently under going renovation. We are split testing which theme is working well and what theme needs a bit of work. If you don't believe me, use google cache and you'll see that we changed our previous theme to the current one.

P.P.S. If you haven't seen the video in my other post, I strongly advice you watch it in FULL SCREEN. You'll be able to see every detail clearly.
 
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