PRLog (Press Release) - Apr 30, 2012 -  VinSolutions, an industry-leading developer of automotive Internet-based Customer Relations Management (CRM) and Internet Lead Management (ILM) software, is excited to announce its company-wide charity initiative, “VinGives”, allowing employees the opportunity to contribute to their favorite non-profit organization.  Through VinGives, employees at VinSolutions may apply to receive monetary support and recognition for their participation in community service.  Each month, an executive committee will review applications received through their website and make unanimous decisions, track progress and trends, make notifications and evolve the program accordingly.      "Philanthropy has not only become our corporate responsibility, as one of the fastest growing and successful companies in the nation, but an important part of making a positive impact in the lives of our most...

    Toyota Marin’s Numbers Tell an Impressive Story: Toyota Marin is among the top dealers nationwide in Internet new and used car sales, with 1,710 Internet sales units in 2010 and close to that number for 2011. The dealership ranks 10th in the region for new car sales. That’s up from 41st in the region when the Price-Simms Group acquired the store in 2004. Toyota Marin is 145% sales efficient – selling almost 1.5 Toyotas to every Toyota registered in its primary market area, as defined by Toyota. Toyota Marin’s fixed operations are up 21% year over year. 2011 was Toyota Marin’s fourth consecutive year winning Toyota’s President’s Award. An open mind, an aggressive sales strategy, and ongoing critical evaluation of the performance of its digital technology vendors are keeping Toyota Marin among the top dealerships nationwide in Internet sales. And, the dealership has just completed remodel...

  Most dealership fan pages on Facebook are a lot like really bad first dates, they won’t stop talking about themselves.  The words “I” and “we” tend to be the most used words when dealerships post to Facebook.  Check your last 10 posts or your last 10 tweets. Are they all about you? Are they all about your vehicles, services or whatever you are pushing?  How many are about your dealership versus those that are about engaging your fans? The truth is that your customers don’t really care about those things. They care about themselves. In 1964, Marshall McLuhan famously said, “ The Medium is the Message”. He was referring to how the advent of different media itself has had profound impacts on culture, business and society at large.  Back in McLuhan’s time, marketing messaging was more difficult.   Buying media was expensive and kind of a big deal. You had to make the most of it.&nb...

Practice the Art and Science of Marketing Orchestration This is the second part of our series regarding how to make various marketing communication channels operate in a coordinated fashion to forge a seamless ‘one-sight-one-sound’ campaign. Think about dealership assets—your customers Opportunities exist every day of the week for you to make a vehicle sale or make a vehicle safer for people, whether to your current customers, or your competition’s. There are ways of  gaining market share in times like these and the strongest way to protect your bottom line is to secure your customer base first through regular communications and providing helpful shopping information and convenient access to making service appointments. The old sales adage holds true: The hardest thing you’ll do is to sell a person the first time. Properly nurtured, customer relationships continue and lifetime value blossoms. In ...

  Orchestration is a fine science that builds the art of a symphonic performance. It’s the composer’s understanding of blending or contrasting the various voices of the instruments of the orchestra that bring the written notes on a sheet of music to our ears. Often what we hear moves our emotions and evokes strong feelings, memories and sometimes passion. Marketing Orchestration, in similar fashion, can evoke profound consumer response through the combination of the inherent strengths of a number of marketing media moving in simultaneous harmony and timing. This has the effect of producing profound profits for the marketer who knows how to orchestrate these multiple consumer touch-points into a meaningful experience for each individual communicated with. This effect is even better when that’s a profitable experience for both parties. The futurist and writer Alvin Toffler wrote over two decades ago in his book, Powe...

VinSolutions, a leading provider of automotive dealership software, is growing its Sales Team and needs a Territory Manager for the Western region of the United States. This is a great opportunity to put your sales and communication skills to work. Daily, you will be prospecting for new business and helping close sales with dealerships. Previous sales experience to automotive dealerships is highly desired or experience in the automotive industry is a plus. As the Western Territory Manager for VinSolutions, you will report to the western regional director and the Vice President of Sales. Your territory would be California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, Alaska and Hawaii. For more information and to set up an interview, please email don.favero@vinsolutions.com ...

  We have a saying at VinSolutions “Bad data in, bad data out”, meaning even with all of the technology we have today, if your customer information is incomplete it is not worth keeping. One of the biggest challenges we have in setting up new accounts in Implementation is getting good data from another CRM/ILM. Every CRM/ILM has their own formats of exporting data and let’s face it; they are reluctant to give you the data you need, since you are leaving them for a competitor. Here are some tips on how to ensure you getting the most out of your data before exporting. First, when you know you are getting ready to switch CRM/ILM companies, spend some time going through your unsold customer data; don’t assume the data is perfect. Look for customers that are missing pertinent information like phone numbers, email addresses, home address, etc, it is great to have a bunch of customer names, but what good is it if you cannot contact the customer? Consider usi...

  Want to gain instant credibility with your customer?  Email them your car’s window sticker.   Why does this grant credibility?  If the window sticker comes in an email rather than as a conversation on the lot, the customer is going to feel like it is legit.  If it is in their email box then the numbers can’t be changed.  For example, say that you have a customer named Jim on the phone.  Jim isn’t ready to come down to the lot yet.  So to entice Jim, you offer to email him pictures of the car he is interested in, incentives, the window sticker and even desk spread payments or an example of what his payments are going to be.  This gains instant credibility with Jim and he is more likely to trust you as a salesperson.   In order to be able to do this, your window stickers should be integrated with the rest of your system, meaning that you should be able to generate them out of your inventory.  If you ar...

  If you are still using server-based software at your automotive dealership, then you are way behind.  Right now the growing trend in software is web-based software.  There are many advantages to web-based software.  It is easier, safer and more accessible than traditional server-based software.   To begin with, you don’t have to install any CDs, download any software or worry about upgrades.  There is no need for an IT person because you don’t have to worry about technical difficulties.  All of that is handled by the software provider.  All you need to focus on is your work!   Also, web-based software is more secure than traditional software for several reasons.  First of all, with traditional software employees often have to save things to their laptops, USB drives or portable hard drives.  These items may get stolen.  With web-based software everything can be saved on the secured website, preventing...

I know that trying to buy one of your own cars sounds like a huge waste of time, but you just might learn something about your dealership and its buying process.  You may find that you have some ridiculous policies that only make the process slow and tedious.  Or, maybe you find out that it asks you for your driver's license information three separate times - wasting the customer's time and, in the long run, pushing the customer away from your dealership. There are many things to be learned from this simple task.  To go even further on this, try submitting an Internet lead to yourself.  Again, you may learn that you're directing calls to the wrong receptionist.  All these things will only discourage your customers from coming back to your store.  The customer expects you to spoon feed them - so the first sign of something going wrong, they tend to freak out. The best thing is to just make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possibl...

  Last Wednesday a marketing employee from New Media Strategies, Chrysler’s former marketing company, mistook the Chrysler Twitter account for his personal account and posted on the Chrysler Twitter page, ““I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to drive.” Between “to” and “drive” was an unfortunate word. The impact was felt immediately when followers began to retweet the post. Chrysler quickly responded by posting “Our apologies-our account was compromised earlier today. We are taking steps to resolve it.” The automotive giant also followed up their quick Twitter response with the firing of the employee and the nonrenewal of their contract with the social media agency responsible. Chrysler will work with the agency, New Media Strategies, in the transitional period until they name a new agency.    If you’ve been keeping up with...