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Uncle Joe's Make Over Diary

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#211
My take-aways:


  • Your Service Drive has never been more important for lead gen than RIGHT NOW.
  • Your Service business has never seen had this much demand
  • Service Promotion has never been easier because EVERYONE uses their mobile phone for service
  • Get your digital mobile attack plan in HIGH GEAR!
    • Service shoppers are all about a "loss leader", speed and convince.
      • They want a coupon and a promise to make this as fast and easy as possible.
    • Get creative with your service "Call To Actions" every where on the 'net (coupons, 24 hour discounts to those that fill out a form)
    • Get your service PPC dialed in and juiced!
    • Get your twitter scanner on extra duty patrol <--call out to Eric M! ;-)
    • Get your road signage humming about service specials (consider hiring some spinning sign guys)
  • Campaign to past svc customers, you know the condition of the car!! (look at the RO, you know what was fixed and not fixed).


Fixed Ops is where the growth is and you can go to the bank with this one.
This "strong service" pattern sets up for as far as the eye can see. We'll see a hiccup in this pattern somewhere about 2020 when the supply of used cars will shrink from the 2008 financial crash.
 
#212
Jeff Kershner said:
Can we break that out into regions across the United States?
Click to expand...


Yes, if you click the link in there, google has the ability to drill into GEOs.

That being said, when I look into the GEOs, I find the info very random-ish. I haven't taken the time to test it deeper. But, it does remind me of Uncle Joe Rule #44:

"The narrower your lead analysis gets, the wider your error rate will be. Beware making critical decisions keying on narrow data"​

http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f46/used-car-leads-3160-3.html#post28377

I am not saying that this is "critical decision making", I am saying that the more granular you get the more error-prone the data can be.
 
#213
JoePistell said:
Crystal Balling with Uncle Joe.


Google Trends*, Search Volume for phrases related to Vehicle Sales, from 2004 to date
View attachment 1624
Clear down trend ending in the 08-09 financial crisis. Interesting how we're under a giant rebound in sales, yet no rebound in search volume.
Google Trends
Click to expand...


I'll leave you with one last thought...

If you are frustrated with your invisible ROI from your AutoTrader.com spend, consider the chart above and compare it to Vehicle Shoppers that use the term "autotrader" (see below)

AutoTrader .jpg

Clearly 2 diverging charts.

According to Google trends, Vehicle shopping is down, yet, AutoTrader* is up. IMO, Autotrader* is taking significantly more share of the total automobile shopping audience.


Why? How?
Not sure. My instincts are telling me a combo of events that I'll list in order of impact:

  1. More Eyeballs: A big Change in Google's Ranking Algo
    1. Google CEO, 2008: "Brands needed to clean up Internet 'cesspool'")
  2. Used car demand popped by a used car valuation free fall 08-09
    1. See Manheim Consulting's Used Car Index* chart below
  3. AutoTrader moves into the New Car market.
    1. The branding begins: 'Trader moves into new car market (april 2008)
  4. Change in AutoTrader Ad Spend?
    1. Unknown.

*Manheim Consulting's Used Car Index
ManheimUsedVehicleValueIndex-LineGraphMAR13.jpg
Manheim - Consulting



*in all likelyhood cars.com too

p.s. there is growing evidence that the data from Google trends is real. I am seeing studies where google trends data is being successfully used to anticipate trends in stock markets.
 
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#217
#218
craigh said:
Are you looking for video or just the slides?
He mentioned (jokingly?) that he would make some of the slides available. I tried to find them a week or two after the conference and came up dry.
Click to expand...

I'll take what ever is out there. All I have is:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GoogleAuto/posts

Avinash-+Gift+to+Competitors.png
 
#220
JoePistell said:
The best damn simple to use organizer eva! https://trello.com/tour

Y'all owe me a good tip for this one!
Click to expand...
YES! I have been using Trello for a couple weeks now with some other FIRST Robotics* mentors working on a project, and it is fantastic. Desktop, iPhone, iPad, notifications when a task you're on is updated...I don't know how I did this for ten seasons without it! You won't be disappointed.

Car-dealer thoughts:

-Track reconditioning in lists! One stock number per card, and you can attach photos from your phone. Work gets done, archive the card. Create an organization, and you can easily add salesmen and vendors so everyone can get to and add to information. Selling point for salesmen: if they were waiting on a car to get a dent out before calling a customer, they can get a push notification or an email saying the card has been archived.
-I suppose you could get a very rudimentary CRM going here, if you were so low-volume that CRM pricing didn't make sense. (I didn't say it was a GOOD system, just that you could make it work in a pinch.)

*I know I plug this in half of my posts, but it is a fantastic organization for getting students excited about science and engineering. There's probably a team near you that could use your help, and not even strictly financial help--some could use technical mentors, some could benefit from a place to demo their robot. Look it up!
 
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