What's Coming in 2019
In 2019 we will continue to look for new opportunities to grow the business as well as ways to become more efficient. Some of the new initiatives include:
MileOneJobs.com
The MileOne recruiting website, which has been managed by CareerBuilder for several years, will move to Dealer.com in June. This will allow us to have more creative control of the website, make more proactive optimizations internally in order to enhance performance, gain access to our network of new hires and interested parties, as well as collect data and test e-mail campaigns.
Website Landing Page Redesign
Over the next few months, the digital and creative teams will be working together to create new website landing page templates. The new landing pages are intended to improve the content on our sites and enhance the relevancy of our sites for consumers. All pages will mirror a core design aesthetic that aligns with the rest of the MileOne brand. This will ultimately allow for a more streamlined look and feel to the websites, but more importantly, drive more qualified leads.
The templates will also make the internal process for creating landing pages much simpler. When creating a job in Robohead, there will be a dropdown available to choose a designated template (I.e. “Event Template”) which will then populate fields based on what each template requires.
Templates will begin to roll out by division in April.
New Vehicle Photo Solutions
There are two new photography solutions that the digital team is looking to incorporate into our websites: 360 Vehicle Spins and CGI New Car Photos.
The 360 Vehicle Spins will allow users to see a 360 degree view of both the exterior and interior of vehicles resulting in a more interactive and engaging experience for the user. The spin functionality would go on a separate tab from pictures and be shot by store personnel. There are currently 2 companies being evaluated to provide us with the 360 Vehicle Spins solution: SpinCar and HomeNet. Once we decide on a vendor, the goal is to launch this technology in Q2.
GM now offers CGI New Car Photos for new Chevy vehicles through eVNUSA, an approved partner of the GM Dealer Digital program. CGI New Car Photos are high quality renderings that are exact matches of our inventory. Image sets include exterior and interior renderings of each vehicle and ultimately streamline the look and feel of our new car photos, increase time to market, plus eliminate the need for onsite new car photographers. While currently only available for Chevy, eVNUSA is in discussions with FCA, Ford, Lincoln, Honda, Hyundai, Subaru & Mazda.
Be sure to check out our Heritage Chevy site to see the final product.
Travel to Treatment with MileOne
MileOne, as part of our 2018 ACS fundraising, donated $26,000 for a supplemental transportation program through the American Cancer Society for patients to travel to treatment.
The ACS Road to Recovery program, now powered by MileOne Autogroup in Baltimore and Norfolk, provides rides for patients who have no other way of getting to treatment by having volunteers drive them. However, volunteers are not always available, and there was a need for a more reliable transportation system. Now, when a volunteer is not available, the ACS partner organizing the rides will contact an Uber driver, and the ride will be 100% funded by MileOne.
This is a prime example of how the fundraising we do at the store and corporate levels can make a direct impact on our communities. We will be promoting this transportation program through a social media campaign that will keep a tally of rides and miles we’ve provided.
Lunch and Learns
We will continue to have lunch and learn sessions every other month that are hosted by the directors of the marketing team. Below is the current schedule:
Jenna – May 21
Hoosh – July 23
Terra – September 17
Katrina – November 19
Mark – December 10