DealerRefresh

Obstacles, Observations and Opinions of an Automotive Internet Sales & Marketing Manager

by

Vast Launches CarStory Insights to Transform the Future of Auto Sales

Dealers Can Now Tap Predictive Analytics to Maximize Turn & Profits

AUSTIN, Texas—September 19, 2017— CarStory , the automotive AI platform from Vast , today unveiled CarStory Insights , the first product to predict when cars will sell and for how much. CarStory Insights builds on 12 years of data and analytics expertise. Combining this with AI and machine learning, CarStory Insights alerts dealers to issues on their lot before they cost them profits. For the first time, dealers can use the power of AI to sell cars at the right time, for the right price, maximizing inventory turn and profit.

CarStroy insightsC

 

“With CarStory Insights , dealers can stop guessing and start knowing,” said John Price, CEO of Vast. “It not only predicts which vehicles will cut into your profits, but also gives recommendations on what steps to take next. There is nothing else like it on the market today.”

An expansion of CarStory’s proven analytics and AI platform, Insights constantly analyzes a dealer’s lot to provide timely alerts, accurate sales predictions and smart pricing recommendations. Instead of scanning historical automotive data to make inferences on sales, Insights uses predictive analytics to see the trends that are coming. As a result, dealers are empowered to make more intelligent sales decisions, increasing their efficiency by eliminating the need to constantly monitor the market.

Dealers can pinpoint slow or fast turning vehicles in their inventory in seconds—allowing more time to take the steps that mitigate a loss. Features of CarStory Insights include:

Turn Drivers
Highlights the vehicle features that help cars sell in a local market and compares those to every vehicle on a dealer’s lot.

Smart Pricing
Provides pricing recommendations based on how each price will change the days to sell.

carstory insightsA

Market Rank
Provides a detailed comparison how each vehicle stacks up against the local competition.

Sales Alerts
Get notified via phone or email whenever Insights detects an issue in the market or on your lot.

Instant Share
Notifications can be easily shared with members of a dealer team.

CarStory Insights is available to select dealers today. If you would like to get on the waitlist, please visit carstory.ai .

About CarStory
Powered by the industry’s largest database of inventory and shopper insights, CarStory uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to help both consumers and dealers make confident decisions. With a network of over 7,000 dealers nationwide, and touching over 15 million consumers a month, CarStory is the leading automotive analytics platform in the industry. To learn more or sign up, visit: carstory.ai.

About Vast
 Vast is the leader in Automotive Vertical AI for automotive industry, applying domain knowledge, expertise and content to service customer-acquisition, vehicle sales and data analysis. Vast’s auto platform, CarStory, supports a number of products including CarStory Market Reports and CarStory.com. Founded in 2005, Vast is the premier provider of automotive big data solutions for the largest brands in automotive. Learn more at vast.com.

Media Contact
Treble
Ethan Parker
512-960-8222
[email protected]

by

The “Secrets” to Selling More Used Cars for More Gross

 

The “Secrets” to Selling More Used Cars for More Gross

Every great used car manager you or I have ever met already knows the “secrets” to selling more used cars for more gross profit. (I wrote “secrets” in quotes, because these aren’t really secrets – since everyone knows them – they’re more like axioms that everyone should heed, though not all do.)

Whether we’re talking about your used inventory today or 30 years ago, two very simple strategies are really the “secrets” that drive the turn rate and the bulk of your used car profits. These secrets are:

  • Buy right
  • Recondition faster

Don’t get me wrong, while I wrote these are “simple strategies,” there is nothing simple in their implementation. These take well-executed and refined processes, along with a skillset that separates great used car managers from the rest of us.

[Read more…]

by

Here’s Your Deal Cheat Sheet for Digital Dealer 23 in Vegas!

DEALS, DISCOUNTS, GIVEAWAYS FOR DEALERS at Digital Dealer 23 #DD23

It’s Vegas, baby! Digital Dealer 23 opens on Monday and dealers, once again, attend this conference to learn, share and bring home ideas they can implement to make their businesses profitable. Dealers who participate in conferences are determined to be successful despite SAAR and natural disasters. Good news is you have an army of vendors ready to help and support your sales efforts. Product innovation and commitment to service are the tools dealers need so check out the following deals, discounts, insights and promotional offers your DD23 exhibitors have for you. As they say in Vegas: Good Luck! Feeling really lucky? Click here.

MOBAUTO No clickbait promises of a fancy Apple Watch or an Amazon Echo for watching our presentation. We let our product do the talking. Exclusive mobile leads by text. Booth #532. 323-577-2886

COFFEE GROWLER/CARD HOLDERS/LANYARDS PLUS NEW PRODUCT RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT UpdatePromise – Automated status updates and mobile payments to improve consumer experiences and service lifecycles, UpdatePromise will announce new product release (TBD). Pick up a free growler & business card holder while at the booth. Booth #1023. 951-471-7235

PHANTOM 3 DRONE GIVEAWAY CarChat24 – Stop by the booth and talk to them about their 24/7 Live Concierge Chat and Facebook & Texting platforms. Booth #827. 800-510-7567 @CarChat24

IPAD GIVEAWAY Fastlane – Stop by the booth and drop in your business card for an iPad giveaway. While there, learn more about theirin-store and online checkout product for new, used, lease sales. Booth #424. [email protected]

MUST SEE PANEL DISCUSSION A DealerRefresh Panel – “Freshen Up” discussing attribution, eCommerce and managing vendors. Panelist info here. Monday, September 18th, 2:35 p.m. Keynote Hall. Sign up for RefreshFridays, a weekly 30-minute live video podcast here.

ENTER TO WIN OUR URBAN SURVIVAL KIT INCLUDING A HIGH SIERRA BACKPACK, DRONE, GO PRO, IPAD, AND A $100 AMAZON GIFT CARD! AutoLoop – Take CRM to the next level with XRM. Visit Booth #301 for details. 877-850-2010 [Read more…]

by

The Ultimate Guide to Video and Email

Ultimate Guide to Dealership Video and Email

Video is king, there’s no way around it.

It’s the Tesla of marketing, ruler of the seven kingdoms, the end-all-be-all of content. It sells better, conveys better, and it’s found better.

In strategizing any sort of video efforts for your brand these days, it would be difficult to escape sending personalized video to your customers and prospects. After all, personalized video has a 16x increase in click-to-opens and a 4.5x increase in total/unique click-throughs (Vidyard).

If you’ve attempted sending videos via email, you’ve probably run into an important question: What’s the best way to send videos? Email and video have an interesting relationship, and they don’t always get along. (Read DR Forum “Why Is Video So Difficult.)

Here are some obstacles you may run into… [Read more…]

by

Leads? Customers? What’s the Difference?

A guy walks into a bar and says, “Bartender….” — oops.. wait.. different story.

A guy walks into a dealership and says, “I’d like to see an SUV with 3rd-row seating.”

Who is this guy?  Is he a lead?  Is he a customer?

If you ask the Salesperson, he’s an “Up,” but again, that’s a different story.

What is he in your system?  Does it matter?

If you’ve ever attempted to produce Lead ROI reporting, generate Customer lists for targeted Campaigns, or just generally wondered what the heck was going-on with your data, then yes, it matters. It matters a lot.  But it’s really not that complicated — let’s make this easy. [Read more…]

Latest Hot Topic in Forums

Crusty Old Sales Leads

Stauning Refresher

First Name:
Steve
Company:
pladoogle, LLC
Location:
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Last month I wrote a post for DealerRefresh on how dealers that want to be successful in a flat-to-down market need to focus more on some of the “old school” stuff like processes, phones, measuring ROI, and (especially) those crusty old sales leads.

While most of the feedback has been aligned with my points, I have received a few notes about how “new school” metrics like “engagement” and “multi-touch attribution” are vastly more important to today’s dealer. Additionally, I had two contacts tell me that “millennials don’t submit sales leads.”

That last bit of info was shock to me and to the thousands of dealership salespeople and BDC agents who handled a sales lead from a millennial THIS WEEK.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject…

Click here to share you thoughts

…

To read the original post: https://www.dealerrefresh.com/market-time-little-old-school-automotive/

As a follow-up to that post, we’ll be discussing those crusty old sales leads on the upcoming episode of Refresh Fridays (September 15, 2017). To register for that or any Refresh Friday webcast follow this link: http://dlrfr.sh/refreshfridays

Latest Hot Topic in Forums

How Do You Handle Pricing Online?

Ryan Hartigan Noob

First Name:
Ryan

I’ve been really interested in this over the last few months…

Everybody in the industry knows that online pricing is misleading, to say the least…

That’s not the real price of the car. You’re going structure the deal however you want to structure the deal, and you know the customers going to focus on their monthly payments and you’re going to add all the warranties, carbon/tire tax, interest, dealer reserve, admin fee, whatever else you want to add.

So I always thought it was interesting – thinking about the best way to do this online.

No judgement here, either. I know some dealerships will find the lowest price of a vehicle online and then lower their inventory price by $2000 just so they can get the lead.

Sure it’s misleading, but it’s smart. Especially in an industry where most of the prices are false.

A lot of dealerships use a monthly payment strategy – and of course, we all know that’s never true either.

Some dealerships don’t put pricing, but that means that you’re non-competitive now, and you’re probably losing leads to the dealerships that put in the lower pricing.

What does your dealership do? How do you think about this?

Is it an issue in the space? How do we solve it?

Is there anything that I’m missing here and I’m viewing the whole thing wrong?

Let me know your thoughts!

Click here to comment in the forums

Latest Hot Topic in Forums

Is direct marketing at charities a good idea?

Koton Noob

First Name:
Jake

Hello Refreshers, I was wondering how well you guys have done with marketing at charity events. I was thinking of proposing to my boss that we put some money towards the St. Jude Walk against childhood cancer in our area, and get a couple demo cars out there and hand out business cards. Have you found this works at all for you in bringing in business?

Click here to join the discussion

by

The Autonomy Quatrains ….a Reality Check.

Nostradamus would be having a field day.

When pondering the impact of Autonomous Driving Vehicles, the predictions about the future of automotive (and the resulting impact to society) are, if anything, vast. In a world that requires constant content, everyone has an opinion and the ability to publish their opinions. So they do.

The Unbridled Technophiles:

  • Less than 4 million autonomous cars will replace 50% of all commuter traffic in the U.S.1 With roughly 250 million people in the U.S. living in urban communities, 3.75 million autonomous vehicles will handle 50% of peak commuter traffic in the country.
  • Overcrowding will officially come to an end.1 One thing that symbolizes overcrowding more than anything else is traffic. Once traffic flows smoothly, people will begin to regain control of their lives and our sense of feeling overcrowded will begin to disappear.
  • Driverless technologies will cause 1 in 4 jobs to disappear.1 Over the next 2-3 decades, driverless technologies will be either directly or indirectly responsible for the loss of 25% of all of today’s jobs.
  • We won’t need to teach our children how to drive. Today’s infants will wonder how or why we let people drive cars.

The Unbridled Technophobes: [Read more…]

by

What Sells More Cars; Being Found or Being Chosen?

There was a great post in the forum that got me thinking. The post was titled, “Google Review Success Tips.”

As I was rereading the original post, I began to suspect that the poster was at least as concerned with generating reviews to boost search engine ranking as generating reviews for the sake of the store’s reputation. I get that – I understand. Dealers have been told that their rank on search engines is going to mean the difference between success and failure in the digital age. They may have been told wrong.

I’d suggest that ranking high up on a simple Google search is important if you are selling small, inexpensive, unimportant items. It is much less important when you are selling big-ticket items that consumers spend some time researching. I could argue that we are only looking at this from our perspective; We want to be found. But is that what we need? I contend that what we really need is to be chosen.

Being ‘found’ is only very small piece of a much larger puzzle. The larger puzzle is getting ‘chosen.’ Google has laid out the questions most consumers need to have answered before they choose a dealer; [Read more…]