CARY, N.C. -

TrueCar has launched a series of half-day, educational Dealer Summits designed to provide insights and best practices on sales processes, digital marketing, conversion rates and profitability.

The first of these was Tuesday in Atlanta, with additional 2016 summits planned for Philadelphia and California — plus more to come in 2017. 

Auto Remarketing caught up with vice president of dealer marketing Kerri Wise on Monday as the TrueCar team was preparing for the kickoff event in Georgia.

'Extension' of Dealer Pledge 

Wise said that part of the Dealer Pledge that TrueCar launched in March dealt with how they provided service to the dealers and efforts to hire people to consult and train dealers.

These summits, she said in a phone interview, are an “extension of that pledge.”

The goal is to give dealers a way to boost their performance when it comes to digital marketing and sales tactics, she said. The sessions will delve into sales processes, digital marketing, conversions and profitability.

“And we’ll have something for everybody,” Wise said, “whether they’re an owner, a general manager, someone in Internet sales or the BDC. So, we’re really focused on creating a well-rounded set of training and a curriculum that has something for everybody in the store.”

As far as the agenda, they will begin with an address from TrueCar’s leadership and hold a “town hall” of sorts to get feedback. (Tuesday’s event in Atlanta featured True chief executive officer Chip Perry.)  

Delivering the keynote address at the session is Brian Pasch of PCG Companies, discussing “Optimizing Your Marketing Budget to Increase Website Traffic Quality and Conversion.”

Then there are two workshop options, including a session on maximizing TrueCar’s tools and a session led by Ed French, president of AUTOPROFIT Consulting.

The day ends with a panel discussion with Pasch, French, a TrueCar executive and a dealer.

Value of face-to-face connection

Some of the feedback that TrueCar has gathered suggests that dealers don’t just want to learn best practices; they want to be able to connect with both TrueCar and other dealers, Wise said.

 “In a time where things are constantly changing in terms of the market, in terms of the consumer, I think dealers value events like this. They’re free, but yet give them direction on how to think about the digital marketing landscape that’s always evolving and ever-changing.

“Dealers are eager for this type of information and we’re eager to continue to offer this information to better serve our dealer partners.”

‘Era of empowered consumer’

So, how exactly has the digital marketing landscape that Wise refers to changed?

“We’re in the era of the empowered consumer,” Wise said. “And I think the consumer is really what’s changing.

“They have a lot of information at their fingertips, in terms of pricing information and vehicle information,” she said. “They have technology that’s ever-evolving that allows them to have that information wherever they go, in terms of their smartphone.

“And they have high expectations in terms of the experience … so I think with those three elements, in terms of the consumer, it’s kind of forcing dealers to also adjust to meet the needs of that consumer.”

In fact, TrueCar recently conducted a study of its dealer partners that closed sales at the highest rates (relative to competitors).

The company found that these dealers were the ones who were strongest at “meeting needs of that empowered consumer and connecting the dots between what happens online and then what happens off-line, in the store — which is a much more difficult thing to do these days,” Wise said.

Preview of CPO Forum presentation

Wise will discuss this concept of the “evolving consumer” further during her presentation at the CPO Forum, part of the Used Car Week Conferences being held Nov. 14-18 at the Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa in Las Vegas.

Her session — titled “Key Tactics to Compete and Win in Today’s Transparent Marketplace” — will be held at 4 p.m. (PT) on Nov. 15.

“One of the advantages that we have at TrueCar is that we’re watching some of the patterns of consumers from shopping all the way through the sale,” she said.

“And so we learn a lot about not only how they shop, but how they’re changing. And so I’m going to be using some of that insight from consumers as well as our observations and studying of our top-performing dealers to understand how these top-performing dealers close at a high percent in a transparent way,” Wise said. “It’s easier said than done.

“We’ll be looking at these consumer insights, combined with these best practices from real dealers that are balancing transparency and balancing their bottom line, and sharing that with the audience in terms of what makes them successful,” she said.