Now that the dust from NADA San Francisco has settled, it’s onto the spring automotive digital gauntlet – starting with Digital Dealer 26 in Orlando. While DealerFire has always had a nice booth presence at the show, we’re especially excited to announce that we’ll also be sponsoring a featured speaking presentation!
What Can You Expect From Digital Dealer 26?
There are over 50 different automotive/digital-specific trade shows throughout the year. That type of variety is great, but it doesn’t allow for much content focus, especially for digital marketing. At Digital Dealer 26, the sessions promise to promote digital marketing and advertising at the dealership, with a special focus on mobile optimization.
DealerFire will be contributing to the show content by promoting a session on Wednesday, April 10th. Cavan Robinson, Director of Product Marketing, and Kris Nielsen, eCommerce Manager at Aristocrat Motors, will be co-presenting for a session entitled “Facebook Live! How Dealerships Are Using Facebook to Reach Customers and Drive Bottom Line Results”. You can read more about the session and concepts explored by visiting the Digital Dealer 26 Education Page.
DealerSocket is Stacked
DealerFire is not the only DealerSocket product that is showing out for Digital Dealer, CRM, Inventory, and DMS are all coming to the show, stacked with new enhancements and features that are must-see.
To kick off the party, fresh off two AWA awards for sales and service, DealerSocket CRM will be giving demos of brand-new MMS functionality found in SocketTalk. Now, dealers can send images and videos directly from the CRM using the SocketTalk interface.
Speaking of AWA awards, DealerFire brought the heat to NADA by winning their ninth straight award for outstanding website platform, as well as the first-ever digital retail award for Precise Price. You can catch a demo of their latest release, a best-in-class website building tool, Engine6, at the show.
It’s also been a big quarter for DealerSocket’s Inventory and DMS products, releasing improvements to their enterprise management system, as well as numerous reporting enhancements.
CRM is Taking the Industry by Storm
At Digital Dealer, DealerSocket CRM plans to unveil a number of new innovations, but the focus has primarily been placed on three specific features that give dealers enhanced tools. Many of these requests have come directly from our customer’s own feedback. To give you a quick breakdown:
- Credit Workflow: Our award-winning CRM received a major workflow improvement with the addition of a fully integrated credit module powered by CBC. Designed to reduce transaction times, eliminate duplicate data entry, and tee up more profitable “F&I turns,” the update allows dealers to prequalify customers via a soft or hard credit pull, perform the required compliance check, and submit deals to finance sources through RouteOne’s accredit application platform. More importantly, the new upgrade creates a secure flow of credit information and data across a dealer’s website, CRM, lending portal of choice, and even to the customer through the CRM’s SocketTalk add-on tool.
- SocketTalk: Our texting and internal messaging solution can now send and receive images and videos via text message. From showing off a vehicle to a potential customer to sharing an update with your own sales team, this new upgrade is designed to deliver more engaging communications. And each text is recorded into your CRM, actively syncing with work notes, opportunities, reporting, and notifications. SocketTalk also offers opt-in and opt-out choices, giving you control of your marketing efforts while keeping you compliant with federal regulations.
- RevenueRadar: For 2019, DealerSocket has teamed its award-winning equity-mining solution with integrated marketing services, including professional print services for direct mail campaigns and the option to add a strategic performance manager for process development and training. Best of all, these services fully integrate with our CRM.
DealerFire Has All the Momentum
Five years ago, DealerFire had ZERO OEM certifications. It was a different world back then, with most dealers being forced into mandated programs that didn’t make much sense. Fast forward to 2019, and the product line boasts 16 total website, digital advertising, and digital retail certifications.
- OEM Connections: DealerSocket’s revolutionary Engine 6 website platform is now in the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Digital Certified Program. The platform boasts industry-leading load speeds and the first truly in-line editing system that connects dealers to 75-plus inventory- and incentives-integrated modules they can use to create stunning, multidevice-optimized websites that perform.
- Facebook Marketplace: DealerSocket is now integrated with Facebook Marketplace, with DealerSocket becoming one of a few select software companies to offer dealers the ability to expose their inventory to an online marketplace millions of Americans use every day to shop for cars (U.S. only).
- Inventory Advertising: Dealers using DealerSocket’s inventory management tool will also have access to DealerFire’s new inventory advertising capabilities, which allow for layered incentive data. For dealers looking to dip their toes in the digital waters, DealerFire announced that dealership operators no longer need a DealerFire website to take advantage of its digital retailing solution.
Inventory is a Sleeping Giant
One of the biggest feature releases at NADA was Inventory’s new enterprise management feature. With thousands of customers, it’s something that needs to be laser-focused. The product team has been hard at work, bringing you the latest enhancements.
- Managing the Enterprise: DealerSocket has completely transformed its inventory management tool into enterprise platform, complete with a new responsive design and smarter navigation features. The restructured solution also offers expanded reporting capabilities that allow dealer group operators to manage inventory by region, performance, OEM brand, highline stores, and much more. This new reporting structure will facilitate additional innovations slate for release last this year.
- Bulk Pricing: Also new for 2019 is bulk pricing, which fits under the group’s enterprise management approach and allows dealers and dealer group customers to identify new and used vehicles across their operations by age, as well as a host of other attributes, and adjust pricing by dollar amount or percentage. This enhancement is especially useful for dealers hoping one last shot at retailing aging inventory before sending them to auction.
- Single Page Appraisal: DealerSocket has also made it easier for dealers to appraise vehicles, allowing them to perform a value analysis and get purchase recommendations based on retail market and historical dealership data from a single, configurable screen.
- New Stocking Algorithms: The big news for 2019 is DealerSocket has reinvented its “Ideal Inventory Model” — the philosophy on which its inventory tool was built — to address today’s margin-compressed environment. The new model uses advanced data algorithms to recommend a vehicle stocking mix that will increase a dealer’s profit per vehicle profile. Also revamped are the two drivers of DealerSocket’s inventory management profit model: TrueScore Pricing and its associated pricing band. Both offer dealers a more accurate view of their core inventory.
Starting the Year Off Strong
If you got a chance to preview some of the new automotive technology at NADA, then you’ll be primed to onboard at Digital Dealer. Summer 2019 is looking to be a great period of customer interest in automotive, whether it’s related to sales or service & parts. Technology acquired at Digital Retail will enable dealerships to hit the market running and meet sales goals.
To see the latest and greatest DealerSocket offerings at Digital Dealer in Orlando, you can schedule a demo for booth 529.
