This post is mainly a reference for me regarding the Thesis Theme, but if you do find it useful, please re-tweet or bookmark.

Instructions how to remove the “Get smart with the Thesis WordPress Theme from DIYthemes.” from your Thesis Theme install.

Add the following hook to the custom_functions.php file to remove the Thesis Attribution link:

remove_action('thesis_hook_footer', 'thesis_attribution');

That’s it! Simple enough.

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There is a new (at least new to me) company called Dimdim that offers a free web conference platform for up to 20 users.

I have previously been using GoToMeeting.com, but will be trying Dimdim moving forward. They also have Pro and Enterperise versions, but for the average small business, I can’t imagine you would often exceed the 20-user limit. From their website:

Dimdim Free. The world’s easiest web conference.
With Dimdim Free, people and organizations around the world can now meet freely. And since everyone will spend less time traveling and more time collaborating, this free product can actually help you make money. Take that, economy!

If you have any user-experience with Dimdim, please share your thoughts below.

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I opened up my GMAIL this morning and saw the following:

Hello GrandCentral User,

We are happy to announce that GrandCentral has been upgraded and is relaunching as Google Voice. While not yet open to the public, we wanted to give you, our GrandCentral users, the first opportunity to start using Google Voice.

In addition to the GrandCentral features you already know, we’ve added voicemail transcription, SMS support, conference calling, Goog411, enhanced spam protection and low-priced international calling. We have also integrated GrandCentral with your Google Account and your Google Contacts list.

To upgrade your account to Google Voice, just log in to your GrandCentral account and follow the directions at the top of your inbox. Upon upgrading, your GrandCentral number, PIN, and forwarding phones will be moved to Google Voice.

Note that since Google Voice uses the Google address book, your GrandCentral contacts will not be imported automatically. You can import your GrandCentral address book with these instructions. You will also need to recreate any individual/group settings and greetings.

After you upgrade, all your new voicemails will be accessible at Google Voice, while all prior messages will remain available at GrandCentral.

Thanks for being a great GrandCentral user and we hope you enjoy Google Voice!

Best,

Craig, Vincent, and the Google Voice team

Converting my account from GrandCentral to Google Voice was really easy, just follow the directions as indicated above. Here is a screenshot of the new layout:

If you do not currently have a GrandCentral number, you can request an invitation to Google Voice here.

Here is a great overview of Google Voice Features:

Google number – One number for all your calls and SMS
Call screening – Announce and screen callers
Listen in – Listen before taking a call
Block calls – Keep unwanted callers at bay
SMS – Send, receive, and store SMS
Place calls – Call US numbers for free
Taking calls – Answer on any of your phones
Phone routing – Phones ring based on who calls
Forwarding phones – Add phones and decide which ring

Google voicemail – Voicemail as easy as email, with transcripts
Voicemail transcripts – Read what your voicemail says
Listen to voicemail – Check online or from your phone
Notifications – Receive voicemails via email or SMS
Personalize greeting – Vary greetings by caller
Share voicemail – Forward or download voicemails

Voice features – More cool things you can do with Google Voice
Conference calling – Join people into a single call
Call record – Record calls and store them online
Call switch – Switch phones during a call
Mobile site – View your inbox from your mobile
GOOG-411 – Check directory assistance
Manage groups – Set preferences by group

If I really get around to using my Google Voice account, I will post a future update as to how I use it.

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• Testing ability to send a tweet from my wordpress blog using Twitter Tools. #
• from my blog… Search Results:

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  var google.. http://tinyurl.com/dx5s2h #

• From my blog… Search Results:

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  var google.. http://tinyurl.com/dx5s2h #

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1. Looking for Jeff Raab, Jeffrey Raab, Jeffrey M. Raab?

Michael Spadafore, Global Director, Consumer & Commercial Marketing for R.L. Polk & Company was the featured guest on Phil Zelinger’s “Automotive Advertising Experts” blogtalkradio show last Friday.

I previously spoke on Phil’s show explaining the features/benefits of the Premier Lead Exchange.  On Friday’s show, Mike gets into more detail about Polk Lead Scoring and R.L. Polk’s capabilities within the lead management space.  Specifically, Mike breaks down the ‘Black Box’ that takes in automotive lead data and outputs a lead score which is a highly predicitive indicator of that specific consumer’s likelihood to purchase a vehicle.

Purchase Polk Scored Leads from the Premier Lead Exchange – use the Polk Score to optimize the mix of leads you are buying.  Leads that score a “10″ close 5X higher than those that score a “1″.  This means that your dealership needs to work 5x harder to acheive the same results if you’re only buying “ones”.

Listen to the show.

Related posts:

1. PodCast – Automotive Advertising Using Detroit Trading Company
2. New Partnership Helps Dealers Capture Leads Most Likely to Result in Sales
3. Case Study: Unleash the Maximum Value of Each and Every Lead

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Another great overview of the Premier Lead Exchange in October 8th’s AutoRemarking:

Full article here.

By Jennifer Reed, Auto Group Editor
October 08, 2008

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — With showroom traffic dwindling for many dealers, compounded by the challenge of getting the customers who do show up approved for loans, sales are suffering across the board.

However, two companies recently joined together to help dealers bolster sales in such a difficult operating environment. The partnership between Detroit Trading Co. and R.L. Polk & Co. is now helping dealers capture strong buyer leads, which display the most chance of turning into sales.

Just how are they doing this? Via their new program called the Premier Lead Exchange.

So, the question becomes just how can this program help? Basically, since 2004, Detroit Trading Co. has partnered with hundreds of lead origination sources, pushing leads into its Detroit Trading Exchange. As of early August, the company is passing all leads on to Polk for scoring that will ultimately identify which leads have the most chance of resulting in sales.

Polk assigns each lead a score from one to 10, with 10 being the most desirable lead with highest chance for sales success. Dealers can then purchase the leads they prefer.

“Until now dealers and OEMs bought leads by the bushel with good and bad leads all mixed together,” Don Campbell, president of Detroit Trading Co., explained to Auto Remarketing.

“For the first time ever, dealers can now buy exactly what they want based on a prospect’s propensity to buy,” he continued. “Every lead traded through PLX is scored by R.L. Polk and Co. The scoring scale is one to 10, with 10s being five times more likely to buy than ones.”

To offer specific examples of the success rates for the program, the companies culled out 100,000 leads and accompanying scores, breaking down the success rate by how many of these leads led to deals within 45 days of submission.

Their findings include:

10: 37.6 percent closing rate
9: 34.4 percent
8: 30.2 percent
7: 26 percent
6: 22 percent
5: 19.3 percent
4: 15.6 percent
3: 12.3 percent
2: 10 percent
1: 7.5 percent

According to Detroit Trading Co., the closing percentages come in even higher after 90 days.

Pricing for the leads is based on the score and the range of scores a dealer buys, thus giving dealers more control.

Leads that match a buyer’s purchase criteria are passed along to TARGUSinfo for basic validation of name, address and phone number prior to being passed along.

Campbell more specifically explained, “For example, a lead scored a one costs $6, and a 10 costs $30. The higher scored leads produce the greatest return on investment because they sell cars. Thus, low scoring leads are expensive; high scoring leads are cheap. The higher scored leads are also the most cost-effective leads to work from a labor standpoint.”

Getting started with the program is relatively simple for dealers. All they need to do is open a trading account with Detroit Trading Co. with an initial deposit, according to Campbell.

“After that they buy only leads with the scores they want. The program may be terminated at any time, at which point the buyer would be refunded any money in his trading account,” Campbell pointed out. “In short, we make it easy for buyers to do business with us.”

Related posts:

1. Polk Lead Scoring – Automotive Advertising Experts BlogTalkRadio Show
2. PodCast – Automotive Advertising Using Detroit Trading Company
3. Distributing Leads in the Fast Lane

This past week, I was a guest on Phil Zelinger’s blogtalkradio show talking about the benefits of lead scoring and how dealers, OEMs, aggregators and lead generators can get involved with the Premier Lead Exchange.

This “open business meeting” offers an inside look into automotive advertising using cutting edge automotive advertising technology. Hosted by Philip Zelinger, President of AdAgencyOnline.Net, author of two books on the auto industry and a well known automotive advertising consultant. Today’s Subject: Third party leads sourced through a new market driven trading exchange hosted by the Detroit Trading Company supported by a lead scoring solution provided by R.L. Polk. Special Guest; Jeff Raab, Director, New Lead Exchange, DTX.

Related posts:

1. Polk Lead Scoring – Automotive Advertising Experts BlogTalkRadio Show
2. New Partnership Helps Dealers Capture Leads Most Likely to Result in Sales
3. Distributing Leads in the Fast Lane

Sean Fox from Reply! kicked off this segment:

Sean identified the following problems in the lead gen industry:

Absence of an efficient market; static pricing; quality is rarely communicated; limited control to maximize ROI

Reply!’s lead marketplace solutions focuses on the following:  establish an efficient marketplace, auction-based dynamic pricing, quality rating system, filters to maximize control of ROI.

Reply’s Lead Marketplace has a number of unique features/filters:

**The ability to select the age of a lead.  Leads do NOT have to be “real-time”

Ray Fenster – e-commerce director interacted with Sean to discuss how he uses Reply’s lead platform.

Ray manages his campaigns at a very micro-level.  He can expand/contract specific markets, he turns certain make/model campaigns on/off depending on inventory.

One really cool feature is that Ray (the dealership) can rate a lead – they can provide their own score.  How well did that lead perform for them.

Ray touched on how he goes about setting up his campaigns for his stores.  A store’s performance, internet abilities, and effectiveness, really drives his campaign generation.

One factor that’s really important to Ray is true transparency regarding lead source.  His specific example compared Black Book leads vs. dealer website leads.  The leads need to be treated differently.  Only true transparency allows his to know how to treat these leads.

Sean talked about giving more control to the dealer to manage the flow of leads – specifically lead volume based on dealer demand.  One interesting note – consumers know that they will get a better deal towards the end of the month, so maybe it makes more sense to purchase more volume towards the end of the month vs. the beginning.

Summary Takeaways:

One size does not fit all;

match lead flow with systems/personnel;

measure & optimize;

focus on ROI.

Great Session guys!

Related posts:

1. Polk Lead Scoring – Automotive Advertising Experts BlogTalkRadio Show
2. Distributing Leads in the Fast Lane
3. Blogging from the 2008 Online Lead Quality Summit

Distributing Leads in the Fast Lane. Speakers:  Mike Kissman (FordDirect.com), Nat Plane (Wambatech.com)

Mike started with some background info on FordDirect.  FD is 80% dealer owned.  5MM unique visitors/month, 200,000 leads/month.  First and foremost they are a lead generator – focus is at National, Regional and Local levels.  Are also a lead aggregator.  They cannot generate all the leads their dealers want – so they rely on affiliates to generate additional volumes – cast as broad a net as possible.  They scrub 15-20% of their leads.

Areas of focus:  Lead follow up, lead treatment, lead enhacement.

FD Technology requirements:  insight (on demand reporting), flexibility (integration with other systems), reliability

Nat Plane, WambaTech:

Company background:  alternative solution to expensive homegrown systems.  focus on lead aggregators, management and distribution.  Dozens of clients from mom & pop to OEMs.

Challenges WT helped FD solve:  need for on-demand reporting, flexible pricing schemas, integration with 3rd party systems, reliability.

WT has built an extensive suite of tools to allow FD to change their business rules in real-time (reject leads on the fly, manage affiliate lead sources, management pricing schemas, margin rules, etc.)

Another major area of support – 3rd party integration (new suppliers, CRM vendors, etc.)

Nat ended by focusing on the WambaTech Lead Server platform.

Related posts:

1. Case Study: Unleash the Maximum Value of Each and Every Lead
2. Blogging from the 2008 Online Lead Quality Summit
3. New Partnership Helps Dealers Capture Leads Most Likely to Result in Sales