Arnold Tijerina, Author at Storytailer

BREAKING NEWS: Autotrader Acquires HomeNet Automotive

December 1, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

I have just been informed through a very reliable source that Autotrader has officially acquired HomeNet Automotive.

(EDIT: Below is copy from this morning’s official press-release.)

ATLANTA and WEST CHESTER, Pa., Dec. 1, 2010 — AutoTrader.com, the Internet’s ultimate automotive marketplace and consumer information website, has agreed to purchase HomeNet Automotive, a leading provider of online inventory management and merchandising solutions.

The purchase is expected to close by the end of the year.

The addition of HomeNet to the AutoTrader.com family of companies and brands provides AutoTrader.com with a best-in-class inventory management solution for the thousands of auto dealers who use AutoTrader.com to present their inventory of new, used and certified pre-owned (CPO) vehicles to online vehicle shoppers.

Founded in 1996, HomeNet’s proprietary “Get. Edit. Deliver” technology has helped thousands of automotive dealers nationwide generate a high volume of leads and increase online vehicle sales. HomeNet’s signature solution, the Inventory Online (IOL) vehicle marketing suite, is an industry-leading vehicle inventory management and marketing system.

AutoTrader.com’s purchase of HomeNet will bring a variety of benefits to dealers who post vehicles for sale on AutoTrader.com and to car shoppers who use AutoTrader.com to research and compare vehicles, find dealer specials, review inventory of cars for sale and select dealerships to visit.

For dealers, incorporating HomeNet’s proprietary inventory management system into AutoTrader.com’s dealer tools will allow for easier and faster inventory management and merchandising online. Dealers will be able to upload their listings faster, make updates and adjustments to their listings more easily and overall enjoy more flexibility and control in presenting their inventory for sale on AutoTrader.com.

Consumers shopping for vehicles on AutoTrader.com will have access to better vehicle information, enhanced listings that include more photos and dealer comments, advanced search capabilities and more frequent updates and information about the cars they are shopping for and researching.

The agreement to purchase HomeNet is the third in a series of acquisitions AutoTrader.com has announced in recent months. In September, AutoTrader.com announced the purchase of vAuto, the automotive retail industry’s leading provider of advanced software tools for used vehicle management, pricing and inventory optimization. Then, in October, AutoTrader.com announced its planned acquisition of Kelley Blue Book (www.kbb.com), one of the most recognized and influential brands in the automotive industry.

“We are always looking for opportunities to grow our company, organically or through acquisitions, in ways that will make AutoTrader.com even more valuable to the auto manufacturers and dealers who advertise on our site and to the 15-million-plus consumers who shop for vehicles on our site every month,” said AutoTrader.com President and CEO Chip Perry. “We were fortunate to be in a position to purchase vAuto and to agree to purchase Kelley Blue Book and HomeNet when these companies came available and we are excited about the value our combined companies can bring to the very competitive automotive shopping and marketing industries.”

AutoTrader.com plans to operate HomeNet as an independent subsidiary.

Bob Landers, a 10-year AutoTrader.com veteran sales executive who was formerly vice president for AutoTrader.com’s Southeast division, has been appointed general manager and vice president of HomeNet. He will be the top executive at the company, replacing founder and former president and CEO Jesse Biter. Landers will work directly with other leaders at HomeNet and be responsible for day-to-day operations and long-term growth at HomeNet.

About HomeNet Automotive, LLC: HomeNet Automotive helps the automobile industry save time and sell more vehicles. It is the leading provider of inventory merchandising, management, and marketing solutions, led by its flagship product, Inventory Online (IOL) Internet Marketing Suite. IOL is a web-based vehicle marketing solution that helps tens of thousands of automotive dealers to engage buyers online and bring them into the showroom by streamlining the process of converting raw vehicle data into consumer-friendly and emotional online ads. For more information, please email sales@homenetauto.com, visit http://www.homenetauto.com, or call (877) 738-3313

About AutoTrader.com

Atlanta-based AutoTrader.com, created in 1997, is the Internet’s ultimate automotive marketplace and consumer information website. AutoTrader.com aggregates in a single location millions of new cars, used cars and certified pre-owned cars from thousands of auto dealers and private sellers and is a leading online resource for auto dealers, individuals and manufacturers to advertise and market their vehicles to in-market shoppers. The company also provides a robust suite of software tools for dealers and manufacturers to help them manage and market their vehicle inventory and display advertising on the Internet. AutoTrader.com continues to grow key business metrics, including revenue, profitability and site traffic. Today, AutoTrader.com attracts more than 15 million unique monthly visitors who utilize the site to review descriptions, photos and videos of vehicles for sale; research and compare vehicles; review pricing and specials; and read auto-related content like buying and selling tips and editorial coverage of major auto shows and automotive trends. AutoTrader.com operates two other auto marketing brands, AutoTraderClassics.com and AutoTraderLatino.com. AutoTrader.com also owns used vehicle management software company vAuto. AutoTrader.com is a majority-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. Providence Equity Partners is a 25 percent owner of the company and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is also an investor. For more information, please visit www.autotrader.com.

SOURCE AutoTrader.com

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Creating Revenue through the new Groupon Stores

December 1, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

Last night, the popular consumer shopping website Groupon announced the implementation of Groupon Stores.

For those unfamiliar with Groupon, here is the skinny: Groupon offers customers discounts on products and services in which Groupon has negotiated with the business for discounts based on an agreed upon number of people accepting the offer. They offer 1 deal per day, per city and then market this deal to the members in that market. They currently have over 33 million subscribers.

Groupon collects a 50% commission on sales from the business for each offer BUT, since they only offered one deal per day, the exposure was fantastic since everybody saw it. It didn’t get “lost in the crowd”. It was still a VERY steep cost but the advantage businesses have found from utilizing Groupon in their marketing efforts is from attracting NEW customers and focusing on customer retention.

With the launch of Groupon Stores, businesses can set up their own Groupon distribution presence and offer (and control) their own discounts. There is still a commission but it has been drastically reduced to only 10% of sales.

Groupon is promoting several features of it’s new stores:

“Setup a permanent (and free!) e-commerce presence on Groupon for promoting their business.
Create their own offers to run deals whenever they want.
Submit deals to be promoted to Groupon subscribers through email and the Deal Feed.
Get customers to follow their Groupon Store, and stay in touch by sending messages through the daily email and deal feed.”

This could be leveraged well in your service department by running oil change specials, tire deals, etc. It would give your dealership the exposure through Groupon via the free business-specific page they’ll provide.

This new page will probably offer your dealership some SEO value as well but my advice would be to not set up a page if you don’t plan to offer any discounts. Too many dealerships have “Specials” pages on their own website that don’t have any specials on them. Don’t compound that huge mistake by participating in more “deal” websites in which you don’t have any deals.

The biggest benefit to utilizing Groupon’s Store is that they will market it to their members in your area through both e-mail and via the other announced new feature – the Deal Feed, which is sort of like a Facebook wall for consumers to see the deals offered in their area as well as deals offered from businesses they “follow”. This does come at a cost (10% of sales from the offered deal) but the marketing power to attract new customers is huge.

With the rumor-mill steadily increasing that Google is going to buy Groupon, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Groupon deals integrated into Google Place Pages. This would increase the perceived value of Google Place Pages to consumers in that it would centralize a single page in which consumers can get business information, see business reviews and see what deals the merchant is currently offering.

The new feature rolls out today in a few markets but will be available shortly to everyone.

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Facebook Now Offering More Detailed Analytics for Page Owners

November 24, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

Facebook announced yesterday that it will now be providing deeper analytics to all Facebook Page administrators.

These analytics have existed but were only available to Facebook Pages with over 10,000 friends. While not “groundbreaking” or anything, what the new analytics will provide is a snapshot of your content’s activity on a PER POST basis. Previously the only information available was an overview of all post activity (rather than each piece of content).

The new analytics will show you how many “impressions” your content has received as well as a percentage of impressions to feedback.

Impressions, in this case, does NOT mean how many unique people SAW your post/content. What it means in the Facebook world is how many times Facebook chose to “serve” your content into users’ News Feed. (See image)

How is this helpful? This information will allow you to “fine-tune”, if you will, your content posts to maximize “potential” views (ie. maximize how many times your content is shown in users’ News Feed).

Keep in mind that Facebook controls what people see, you don’t.

Find your content with the most impressions and try to find a consistency within your highest impression counts. It may be that, based on what your particular fans are doing, those “types” of content are considered more valuable to them than others so Facebook delivers them more.

The feedback percentage will also effect how often your content is served to your fans. The higher the percentage of people that interact with you (via a piece of content), the more likely that content will be served up.

This is just another great tool available for you to use that will help optimize your Facebook marketing efforts.

(The new analytics information can be seen only by administrators and it’s on the Facebook Page below each post just as pictured in the image above.)

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Podcast Episode Beta: Intro to Facebook Pages

November 20, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

Hi everyone. Despite the rumors, I have not fallen off the edge of the
Earth. I have taken a position and have been working secretly making the
universe …. uh, well, I’ve been working. All will be revealed soon.
My blog, on the other hand, has been my red-headed step-child and I’ve
neglected him.

This podcast is the first podcast I’ve ever made.
It’s an introduction to Facebook Pages and includes some great tips that will
be new to novices and some veterans.

It is numbered “beta” because it
was also a test of quality, functionality and efficiency of many things –
software, hosting, microphone, etc.

It was unscripted and fairly
free-flowing so I hope you enjoy it and gain some insight into Facebook
Fan Pages. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Was it too long? too short?
Was the sound quality good?
Was it informative?
Was it easy to access and listen to?

Thanks in advance and enjoy!

Click the “Play” button.

Played: 20 | Download | Duration: 00:12:01

Google Unveils “Hotspot” – its own Location-Based Service

November 15, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

Well, we may have just found out why Google reviews and place pages have been acting crazy for the last few months (reviews disappearing and re-appearing, etc.)

Mashable announced that Google unwrapped it’s own new location-based service named “Hotspot” tonight.

“With Hotspot, users will be encouraged to rate and review businesses directly from their Google-linked profile. Users’ ratings and reviews are tracked with a counter at the top of each profile, and likes and dislikes are remembered and used in Google’s recommendation engine.”

I have yet to play with it but from the description – easy to use, simplistic, easy to write reviews – it seems like something non-techy people might get into or, at the very least, utilize when researching businesses – need a place to eat? – while on the go.

Whether the “average” person leaves a bunch of reviews is moot, in my opinion. Reviews will be left in the same manner that they have been on Google. The only difference will be that there will be one more venue with which to leave a review.

The fact that Google is still the dominant way in which most consumers start a business search leans heavily in their favor. Even with Facebook Places’ shadow ever present, in this arena – reviews- Google definitely has the edge.

This development also should encourage business owners to shift reviews back towards Google Place pages, especially if “likes”, “dislikes” and number of reviews left are weighted factors in Google search results as seems to be indicated by this article.

This story is definitely still developing so it’s way too early to foresee any definitive ramifications from this. I can definitely tell you that you should stay tuned, I will be.

Oh, and if anyone has an Android phone, supposedly this is accessible immediately. If you want to check it out and comment back, that would be appreciated!

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Google Announces ‘Instant Previews’ Search Feature

November 9, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

I blogged about this here on DrivingSales on Oct 6th, and according to this article from ABC News, Google is now rolling out the “Instant Previews” search feature over the next couple of days.

This is the quote from this article that stands out and reinforces my views on this game-changing Google feature that I blogged about:

“The “Instant Previews” feature announced Tuesday is meant to help people bypass websites that are either irrelevant or simply too visually cluttered for their tastes. It works for Google Web searches, as well as searches for news, video and local businesses.”

All I can say is that you better know what people are seeing in the preview of your website very quickly after this feature goes live. Now, instead of bouncing from your website, they’ll just never have to go there.

I’m still unsure how flash-based websites will translate into a “preview”. It “could” be that it just shows as black IF it is a live preview (versus an image).

SEO on Google has just added a new dimension to your search results. Now not only do you have to worry about WHERE you show up in search results but also HOW your website appears in the Instant Preview.

I’m sure you don’t want people “bypass(ing)” your website.

I, personally, think this is a HUGE game-changer. Websites that have relevant, “preview-able” content are going to get more traffic.

What are your thoughts?

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Facebook Page Demographics

November 9, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

Have you ever wondered who the fans of your Facebook page are?

If you subscribe to Hootsuite, they’ve just released a feature that gives you a pretty comprehensive report about your Facebook fan page. They call it “Facebook Insights” and any Hootsuite user that has admin access to their Facebook page can add it to their Hootsuite account and it will show them the following:

New fans to your Page
Demographics including: region, age, gender
Amount of Page comments
Number of “likes”
New discussions
Number of new wall posts

You’ll also see historical comparisons to see which way your pages are trending. And, like other stats in HootSuite, you can create a printable report to share with your colleagues, clients and executives.

This is definitely valuable information and more comprehensive than the Facebook analytics offered within Facebook itself.

Here’s a screenshot of a report:

There is more to the report including Interaction data and Daily Page Activity (which are readily available through Facebook’s reports so that’s nothing new) but the demographic data is strong.

I blogged about News Feed Optimization awhile ago. Since page and content interaction is incredibly important in determining whether or not your fans see your posts, this information is invaluable.

In the example above, since we know that 66% of the fans are male, there would be a couple of strategies you may want to employ. First, since the goal is more interaction, you may want to concentrate on male-oriented content. The second would be to work on increasing your female base of fans.

You should know your product’s demographics so why wouldn’t you want to encourage and/or grow your Facebook page demographics to match your products demographics?

This information will also allow you to identify which content is actually generating activity which would then allow you to utilize similar content in the future.

If posting pictures of modded cars gets you a lot of responses, you’d want to post more of those. If you have a predominately female fan base and you see that the recipe you posted for cookies got a lot of attention and interaction, you post more lifestyle-type posts.

Of course, this information requires you to be a Hootsuite user to obtain (for now at least).

In what ways do you think this information could be used to better leverage your social media marketing efforts on Facebook?

Originally published on DrivingSales.com

Driving Sales Executive Summit Live Twitter Feed

October 19, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

Digital Dealer’s Hidden Learning Opportunity

October 9, 2010 By Arnold Tijerina

As we get ready to attend the 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas, I wanted to talk about a hidden learning opportunity.

Over the past weeks, I’ve seen plenty of blog posts and articles from people with advice on how to get ready for and efficiently attend the conference. All of these articles offered great advice such mapping out your sessions and bringing proper supplies. I agree with all of them.

One thing I haven’t heard, however, is one of the most beneficial things I used to take advantage of at the conferences and that is the ability to check out all the new technology and services available within our industry that could help me sell more cars.

I was an internet director working for large automotive groups for a long time. I was constantly bombarded – as I’m sure you are – by calls from vendors. Some days it seemed like I appeared on every vendors “to-do” list and, at times, I just stopped taking their calls. We’re all busy and we’re all focused on selling cars. Nobody wants to be “sold” something when you’d rather be doing the selling.

One of the most attractive things for me, at the conference, was the opportunity to visit with all the vendors in the exhibit hall if only to check out what solutions and technology are available. Whether you are in the market for a new solution or not, the knowledge of what’s out there is invaluable because the one thing in our business that is constant is change.

When your dealer principal, GM, GSM or whomever comes to you with a problem and asks you to fix it, would you rather know what solutions exist and be able to make some suggestions RIGHT THEN, or have to start hunting from scratch. I guarantee you it will waste more of your time hunting for a new vendor for whatever your needs are if you don’t already know what’s out there.

This also gives you the opportunity to ask other DEALERS about their vendors. Every vendor is going to tell you that their product rocks, that they are the best at it, and that they will help you sell a ton more cars than you already are (if you use it properly, of course). So how do you weed out the good companies from the GREAT companies? How do you find the “diamonds in the rough”, so to speak?

Look, we all know that post-conference sales pitches, phone calls, and e-mails only INCREASE – as they should. You can’t blame the vendors. Say you sold Fords and you went to an auto show. At that auto show everyone was educated on the benefits of driving a Ford Explorer. Everyone left with some level of knowledge that maybe I should be driving a Ford Explorer. Now, say the conference decided to give you a list of all of those people who were interested in a Ford Explorer. Would you call them? If you are any type of salesperson you would.

Just like you get irritated when you call someone that you got an internet lead on because they’re irritated that you called them, so do the vendors. If you took the time to educate yourself about the technology products and services that are available WHILE YOU”RE AT THE CONFERENCE, you would be able to tell the vendors when they call you post-conference that you took the opportunity to check out their service already.

I’m not saying you have to spend your time watching everybody’s demo. Just set aside a block of time to make a quick trip around the exhibit hall to check out what new services and technology products are being offered by companies – both new and old.

I guarantee you’ll discover something that you didn’t know existed.

You have all the notable vendors within our industry in the same place at the same time. Use that to your advantage. Learning what is available to help you sell more cars is just as important as learning new techniques and processes to do that via the seminars. The vendors are an intrinsic part of what makes the Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition POSSIBLE. They’re at the conference because they want the opportunity to meet you and talk to you.

Be the go-to-guy (or gal) at your dealership with the solutions and you’ll make yourself that much more invaluable.

…and pick up some free swag and enter their contests for prizes while you’re at it. We all like free stuff and they like to give it out.

Here is the list of vendors that helped make the 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition possible.

Exhibitor List

I hope to meet everyone at the show.