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Unread 25th Jan 2012, 03:01 PM   #101
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Re: New way to sell SMS, any thoughts?
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I will have some updates hopefully this weekend! I have not had a lot of sales time because I have been training a new person to handle all of the managed accounts for me, but there is still some good points to cover.
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Unread 26th Jan 2012, 11:12 AM   #102
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Just awesome stuff. It seems interesting to spend almost half an hour and get results in dollars. Great!
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Unread 1st Feb 2012, 04:56 PM   #103
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Hello, Just wanted to give an update on how things are going but I don't have numbers from all the dealerships as of yet. I have lost two dealerships but I have signed up 6 new. I do have the numbers for my friends lot and thought I would share those with you all. They have been very consistent throughout,

125 cars (we added about 50 keywords because they had a big pickup in sales the last two months)
84 opt-ins (within 10 of what they have been doing)
61 leads (within 10 of what they have been doing)
11 sales (4 sale increase but they had an almost 25 sold car increase over the last two months so the increase kind of falls in line)

As soon as I have collected the other lots numbers, I will post them.
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Unread 1st Feb 2012, 11:11 PM   #104
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Great post, but what is to stop them paying your for a "lead" that was already on the lot during normal hours. What if they happen to text then? It's almost like bidding on your brand name in PPC; lots of overlap and cannibalism.

This of course is "good" for you but bad for them as they are paying for a lead that wasn't truly generated after hours, but I guess still falls within your area?

Last edited on 1st Feb 2012 at 11:14 PM. Reason: added text
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Unread 2nd Feb 2012, 03:02 AM   #105
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Loving this post. Some awesome ideas here. I have a friend who owns a car dealership and another friend who is a Sales Manager at another. This idea should resonate with them.
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Unread 2nd Feb 2012, 11:44 AM   #106
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Originally Posted by Matthew Anton View Post

Great post, but what is to stop them paying your for a "lead" that was already on the lot during normal hours. What if they happen to text then? It's almost like bidding on your brand name in PPC; lots of overlap and cannibalism.

This of course is "good" for you but bad for them as they are paying for a lead that wasn't truly generated after hours, but I guess still falls within your area?
Each lead does carry a time stamp with it and there is about a third of them that come through during business hours. Three of the lots that I work with have refused to pay me on one, two and five leads because they had already spoken to the lead prior to receiving the lead from me. I was ok with this because of the eight leads, six of them opted in during business hours and the whole purpose of my offering to them was to generate new leads. This is exactly how I approached them with it, and it really did me a lot more good by approaching it this way. The three lots that had this issue are now supposed to send me an email any time they receive a lead that they already have. I haven't received any as of yet. The other ten lots it hasn't even come up and a few of them have been doing it for three months now. Great question and I hope this helps.
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Unread 2nd Feb 2012, 12:40 PM   #107
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You should get a bonus and sales team gets antes up a penalty for every customer opting in during business hours.

For what reasons did some dealerships drop off the service? It would be good to know the objections in order to tweak or deal with them going forward.
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Unread 2nd Feb 2012, 03:09 PM   #108
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This is a great post..I'm actually starting the same thing in my area!!
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Unread 2nd Feb 2012, 06:57 PM   #109
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Originally Posted by NewParadigm View Post

For what reasons did some dealerships drop off the service? It would be good to know the objections in order to tweak or deal with them going forward.
Of the five that I have lost since starting, one is going out of business, and one is now under new management and the new manager was not interested in renewing. One lot thought that it was too time consuming to email me with new car info every time he sold a car and to move the signage to a new car. The other two claimed that they were not getting any sales out of the leads they were generating, however, Mike's Deluxe Auto & Care (yeah I'm callin them out) is now using a pay per text service to do the exact same thing I was doing for them.
The main objections have really been when presenting to the manager of the lot! A big majority of them believe that what I am selling them is the same thing they get with their online ads or print ads, but doing the research will allow you to combat this. I have yet to find any of them that offer apples to apples. example carsdotcom.
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Unread 7th Feb 2012, 06:45 PM   #110
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Auto Dealers in the US are paying $23-$28 to the likes of Autotraderdotcom and Carsdotcom for whats known as warm leads. I'm new here, but I have been selling Car Dealers Text for info SMS for a couple of years now. My experience is has been as follows:

1) At new car dealerships deal with the sales manager ONLY. He generally has bonuses riding on overall car sales quota $$$$$.

2) I generally only tag the used car inventory. I'm priced at $12 per keyword per month, with a minimum buy of 40 keywords.

3) I charge $149 Set-Up fee (one time)

4) I don't care how many leads he may get per keyword so long as he gets some.

5) I have leads sent directly to his Sales guys phones and and email of the lead sent to the Sales Manager. He knows then that for example: 40 keywords generated 500 leads. The 500 leads were split between say 10 sales guys, so each would on average 50 leads a month.

6) Make sure the GM walks you over to the Internet/Marketing guy and you lay down the rules of making the program work. I supply them with a template to drop the vehicle info into. This allows me to copy and paste into my platform so it is not time consuming on my end. It is up to the dealership to email me the new car info to upload. I have also the ability to paste the top 25 auto's in a template file to be given to the sales rep from the local newspaper when he runs his daily/weekly ads. If a car gets sold before it hits print deadlines they simply put a sold sigh across the car in the print.

Hope this adds to the forum.
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Unread 7th Feb 2012, 08:16 PM   #111
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Originally Posted by SherylS View Post

I've been thinking about the issue about not being to track how many of the leads convert. I use to work in a car dealership and was the F&I manager, which at our dealership was the last person to see the buyer to have them sign all the loan documents etc. I believe he/she will be the key to tracking your converted leads.

Every business needs to keep in contact with their clients, case and point, my husband purchased a Jeep two years ago, and we get a monthly email and a quarterly postcard with coupons for oil changes, tire rotations etc.

Here's my idea - when the buyer is finishing up his paperwork, the F&I manager can have the buyer TEXT in MYNEWCAR or JEEP or CHARGER (etc). Now the dealership is developing a database of ACTUAL customers and not just leads. This is an opportunity for you to upsell them into a SMS monthly package too. The dealership can save money on the postage, and send coupons out via text, I know my husband and I both delete or unsubscribe almost every email that we get. The one catch I see, is if the buyer doesn't do the final text... now the dealer will need to sweeten the pot for them to opt-in. Have the dealership offer the buyer his first oil change free or a tire rotation, that is a quick and inexpensive service, but important to a new car buyer. Perhaps the buyer must opt-in in front of the F&I manager, and then he can give him a gift certificate for the free oil change. Now the dealership is only out the expense of the oil change if the buyer redeems the gift certificate. Last year 27% of all gift cards went unused.

Now you can track and compare the opt-in numbers from the "actual sales opt-ins" against the "lead opt-ins". (Catch?- if they use a different cell number for the second opt-in- which most would not do unless they were using a spouses or got a new number.)

Thoughts?
Every New car dealer has a service shop. One of the biggest things they want in more traffic on the service end. The reason they can't compete is not price but you usually have to schedule repairs or services with them and jiffy lube down the street while not cheaper is more convenient. When I set the up with their text for info campaigns I also set up a Text for rewards campaign within the showroom and service counter and waiting area. Usually it's a win "Free Oil changes for a year" contest. As people have service done and are paying , they are asked by the service tech or manager it they have entered. If yes they are told that they will receive 2-3 texts a month with oil change discounts, free check engine diagnostics, A/C charge in late spring or winterization packages in late fall. It's another keyword but for a txt 4 reward program I can usually charge $99 a month for it. As with any business with text marketing the more interwoven you make it the less likely they will be to cancel.
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Unread 15th Feb 2012, 06:58 PM   #112
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Hello, I finally have all the updates from the lots and wanted to share. Everything has stayed pretty consistent since the onset. I've added some new ones that either have not been a full month yet and lost a couple so I will leave those out. Just a note one lot decided that they were not going to pay me for the leads and I turned the service off, about ten days later I got a call from the "new" sales manager asking why the messaging was not working. I got her to pay for the previous months leads as well as a deposit for future leads and reactivated them.

Lot size Opt-ins Leads
(in cars)
55 48 18
60 40 35
60 58 41
75 55 34
100 91 64
100 84 64
110 76 51
125 90 72
150 88 69
220 102 78
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Unread 15th Feb 2012, 08:13 PM   #113
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Originally Posted by EatDrinkTextJay View Post

Awesome!! This is so great, there are so many lessons here!

What a perfect example of how we often think we're selling a service (SMS, Mobile Sites, etc), when in fact what we're selling is results! And in this case, the business taught the "lesson" by just assuming that you would want to be paid on results.

We teach a similar model to this, using QR codes (along with printed call-to-action) in car windows targeting exactly the off-hours lot visitors. I would suggest taking the extra step to get the opt-ins, so you the dealer can market similar cars, price reductions and new specials to the visitors.

Are you getting any resistance to the lot visitor being called by a salesperson when they weren't expecting that? Just curious. If so, you could add a Request-for-Call to the text auto-response (or a button on mobile website), to trigger a text notification to salesperson that someone WANTS to be called about this car. Now that's a hot lead!

Congrats again on a great SMS campaign, please keep us up to date with more results.

That's incredible! Congrats on your success. But like someone else already mentioned here, if you are going to get paid on a per lead basis, it should be for every lead that you generate, not just on how many of those leads wind up purchasing a vehicle.

Those 62 leads are leads that dealership would not have had othewise, without your services. It's not your fault that only 6 of those leads purchased a vehicle. Your only job is to get them the leads, it's then up to the dealership/salesmen to close them.

Don't get me wrong $1,200 is nice paycheck, but what if next month you are able to collect let's say 50 leads, but none of them purchase a vehicle. Does that mean you aren't going to get paid anything for all of that work, just because none of them bought a car?

Personally, I would be charging anywhere from $20-$40 per lead period. Just my 2 cents. But again, congrats, looks like you're really onto something there!

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Unread 16th Feb 2012, 09:56 AM   #114
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Originally Posted by anpharmd09 View Post

That's incredible! Congrats on your success. But like someone else already mentioned here, if you are going to get paid on a per lead basis, it should be for every lead that you generate, not just on how many of those leads wind up purchasing a vehicle.

Those 62 leads are leads that dealership would not have had othewise, without your services. It's not your fault that only 6 of those leads purchased a vehicle. Your only job is to get them the leads, it's then up to the dealership/salesmen to close them.

Don't get me wrong $1,200 is nice paycheck, but what if next month you are able to collect let's say 50 leads, but none of them purchase a vehicle. Does that mean you aren't going to get paid anything for all of that work, just because none of them bought a car?

Personally, I would be charging anywhere from $20-$40 per lead period. Just my 2 cents. But again, congrats, looks like you're really onto something there!
I am selling the leads as low as $10 a lead and as much as $25 per depending on the lot. The only two lots that pay me per sell is my friends lot! An interesting note however, my friends lot consistently pays me between $1200 and $1800 on the sales and the most I have been paid on any of the per lead deals was just over $1300. I still believe that if I could find a way to track the sales it would be an easier sell as well as more profitable but I have given up at this time in trying to find that way to track them accurately. Thanks for the input!
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Unread 21st Feb 2012, 12:39 PM   #115
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This is great information. Thank you for this thread.
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Unread 22nd Feb 2012, 12:06 PM   #116
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BKH,

Great idea! Could you post a picture of one of your cards in the car window? (maybe you blur out your shortcode)

Also, can you post a text example of the reply message with the info a subscriber might get?

Thanks.
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Unread 22nd Feb 2012, 04:29 PM   #117
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Hol* Cr@p!! wow, that is like the most awesome story I think I've seen in a long time. I spent some time today trying to sell sms and this just seems like it might make it even easier.

Thanks so much for sharing this. I am also glad you gave us the prices your friend decided on for you lol, since that gives us a starting point too. I never ever would have thought of something like this. Fantastic!!

Kim
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Unread 17th Mar 2012, 01:59 PM   #118
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Hello:

I would like to thank BHK for all that he has contributed to this thread... as well as namely: EatDrinkTextJay - JToneyUK - SherylS - HypeText - Thomas73 - Cazgillo and anpharmd09 - for their contributions.

Having 30-years of serious marketing experience under my belt... I am very appreciate of the substantive information, reporting and sharing on this thread.

I am preparing to enter the SMS Text Marketing industry the first of this week... and am studying diligently in preparation.

In appreciation, I would like to contribute my notes (see: PDF attach) to WF members that might benefit.

This thread demonstrates the value and the best of what Warrior Forum can be. Thank you.

I hope this proves helpful.

Alan
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File Type: pdf New way to sell SMS.pdf (209.3 KB, 89 views)
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Unread 17th Mar 2012, 07:20 PM   #119
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Re: New way to sell SMS, any thoughts?
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Originally Posted by abrandt View Post

Hello:

I would like to thank BHK for all that he has contributed to this thread... as well as namely: EatDrinkTextJay - JToneyUK - SherylS - HypeText - Thomas73 - Cazgillo and anpharmd09 - for their contributions.

Having 30-years of serious marketing experience under my belt... I am very appreciate of the substantive information, reporting and sharing on this thread.

I am preparing to enter the SMS Text Marketing industry the first of this week... and am studying diligently in preparation.

In appreciation, I would like to contribute my notes (see: PDF attach) to WF members that might benefit.

This thread demonstrates the value and the best of what Warrior Forum can be. Thank you.

I hope this proves helpful.

Alan
Thank You Alan for putting together a great set of notes on such a great thread. It's Warriors like you and every Warrior in this thread that make each of successful.

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Unread 17th Mar 2012, 08:56 PM   #120
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Such a good thread here.

Everybody is so willing to put their heads together and help each other out.

In today's world, too many people are only interested in themselves and don't care to share ideas with others.

Thanks to all of you here who know that by giving you will receive in return.

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Unread 11th Jun 2012, 01:49 PM   #121
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I would like to resurrect this thread and ask if anyone has had much success with this lately?

I ask because I have started going to auto dealers in the last week with a very professional program offering all this, and the feedback has been lukewarm at best. They don't think they need it and say since they are open all 7 days and late hours, they feel their salespeople can follow up with everyone on the lot, and most do little to no used car print advertising.

Has anyone else run into these objections?
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Unread 13th Sep 2012, 06:55 PM   #122
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I know its been a while, but any more results to this? It was a very interesting read.
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Unread 13th Sep 2012, 08:04 PM   #123
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Originally Posted by BKH View Post

Thank you! I think I may have found a way around tracking a converted sale but I'm doing some testing on it with my friend now to make sure it works...I'll fill you in as I know more.
b
Can you let us know what you have worked out here? I like the idea of charging per lead, and I think its a easier sell than any other ways, but car dealers are not known for there honesty.

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Unread 19th Sep 2012, 10:34 AM   #124
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Good stuff in this thread... Thanks a lot!
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Unread 19th Sep 2012, 11:10 AM   #125
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I have been at this for about 7 wks now. I use Lime, they have a veh listing tool and a built in ad. I ordered blank window stickers and print the and drop them off every 2 weeks. I started too low but am now charging $299 setp fee and $299 or $399 mo. I only do the used cars as the price and equipment is already on the new cars. Things are going great!

Jay Traylor
Houston, TX
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Unread 19th Sep 2012, 11:11 AM   #126
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Originally Posted by AmyKay View Post

Just spent about 30 minutes with them on the phone. They have great stuff and help for working with car dealerships. I'm impressed!!
who are you referring to?

Jay Traylor
Houston, TX
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Unread 21st Sep 2012, 01:06 AM   #127
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This is a fantastic thread with great info. I also would like to hear some updated info and success stories.
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Unread 26th Sep 2012, 08:30 AM   #128
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Anybody got anything new to report on SMS at car dealerships?
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