Gumiyo, the automotive retail industry’s mobile marketing company, announced a new partnership with HomeNet, Inc., a provider of vehicle inventory management and marketing solutions, to provide auto dealers with a single-click mobile web marketing solution. Built on Gumiyo’s dynamic mobile marketing platform, the new service extends HomeNet’s Inventory Online (IOL) Marketing Suite to mobile phones, literally putting a dealership’s inventory and showroom directly into the hands of qualified and interested buyers. It enables dealers to connect immediately with in-market consumers anytime and anywhere, providing them with on-demand detailed inventory listings, vehicle photos and Carfax reports.
HomeNet’s popular Inventory Online (IOL) Marketing Suite currently serves more than 12,000 automotive dealership locations throughout the United States and Canada, processing over 2.5 million vehicles each day. The strategic partnership gives IOL users access to ‘IOL goText’, the new mobile marketing solution powered by Gumiyo’s mobile Web technology. IOL goText allows dealers to instantly distribute their vehicle inventory to the mobile Web with one click.
IOL goText automatically formats, optimizes and syncs a dealer’s on-lot inventory for the Mobile Web. Once optimized, the new solution provides tools to connect car buyers with the dealership using simple SMS text messages.
Similar to text message voting popularized by American Idol, consumers can access the dealer’s inventory via their mobile phone by keying a short Go Codeâ„¢ (a simple keyword unique for each dealership) into the body of a text message and then sending it to 48696. The codes are marketed through the dealer’s TV, print, radio and billboard campaigns, making traditional automotive advertising “clickableâ€, trackable and measurable.
The reply message that comes back to the user includes information on the dealership and a mobile Web link to a media rich version of the dealer’s showroom. Every vehicle listing viewed by the user on the mobile Web has a way for the buyer to send a text message to the dealership, initiate an email or live phone call, or notify the dealer that they would like to be contacted by phone or email.
Originally posted on April 8, 2008 @ 1:57 pm