As the head of a national network of independent affiliated automotive advertising agencies I was challenged by my agency partners when I asked their permission to announce the death of dealer focused automotive advertising agencies.  After all, they are still writing our checks -- or are they?

I assure you that I am not trying to be cute or even self serving by my decision to shift the mantle from our auto dealer clients to the customers that they/we serve.  I am simply recognizing that the hyper speed that customers now travel on the Internet Super Highway to get the information that they need to make a buying or servicing decision is too fast with too many local exits that allow online customers to avoid an auto dealers self serving message -- real or imagined -- to suggest that auto dealers can compete in this consumer driven media and market.  More importantly, even our auto dealer clients have accepted that it is -- and always was -- the customer who was actually writing all of our checks and they now demand the respect that their dollars should earn them.

Social networking powered by new technologies and applications that allow consumers to share their automobile buying and service experiences with like minded consumers and online friends have minimized the control that automotive advertising agencies have to deliver their auto dealer clients retail marketing messages to a qualified targeted audience in our real and/or virtual worlds that have become so directly connected.  Fortunately, forward thinking automotive advertising agencies have learned to join online shoppers rather than fight them and their auto dealer clients are better off than before the WWW empowered their customers to take control of their own shopping and buying process.

Notice that the word "process" still is part of the puzzle and human nature has indeed remained alive and well on the Internet Super Highway. People have always sought the path of least resistance to achieve their desired goals.  The Internet and the technologies developed to enhance the customer experience for those who use it to purchase or service a new or pre-owned vehicle is simply today's answer to yesterday's demand by consumers seeking their best deal with the least inconvenience to them -- and the dealer never did enter into the equation!

Conversion tools are still a valuable method for auto dealers to crash through the glass wall of their online showrooms, however they must share in the same priority of relevancy and transparency to the customer that their websites must have to avoid customers simply driving around them to get the answers to their buying or servicing questions from more easily accessible sources.  Gathering customer information must be secondary to giving it.  Conversion applications and customer interaction platforms -- or what used to be known as lead forms and chat programs -- that accomodate that priority have a better chance of earning a slot on the customer's real world shopping list and/or tomorrow's online transactions that are only a speed bump away as customers gain confidence in their online purchasing power and new vendor solutions stand ready to smooth out the road!

The original question to price or not to price on the internet evolved into how much to post and has since transformed into competitive price comparisons powered by inventory management/marketing platforms that now power the auto dealers buying and selling processes -- or they should!  The market is a conversation that exists before, during and after the buying or servicing decision and auto dealers that think that they can control the price discussion -- or bypass it with a strong branding message -- are eliminating an ever growing market that determines the best price first --- and then they find the nicest and easiest place to purchase the vehicle for it!

Tagging a dealer's message to a customer to customer conversations on social networks is a much less expensive media/method than any direct business to customer message system than any dealer focused automotive advertising agency can deliver.  Of course the rules of the road must be followed by auto dealers using social media and the message must be delivered from the inside out vs. from the outside in to avoid being labeled a wolf in sheep's clothing delivering a self serving sales message.  As a result, consumer focused automotive advertising agencies that care more about their new owners -- the customer -- than they do/did about their old bosses -- the auto dealers -- are alive and well and old school hard sell automotive advertising agencies are -- as this post first clamed -- DEAD! 

Of course conventional media such as radio, TV, print and direct mail coupled with online tools like a well constructed transparent and relevant website with leveraged S.E.O. and S.E.M. investments tied to banner ads and other online digital media still have a role during the transition --  but it is being reduced as I write.  Also, data based marketing still is a tool that can be used by automotive advertising agencies for direct marketing, however, new resources to collect data -- meaning new customers -- on social networks is also part of the consumer side of the automotive advertising formula.

I could go on with other new opportunties presented by today's consumer driven market for automotive advertising agencies and the auto dealers that they serve but now it is your turn so I can listen and learn from you and yours.

After all, what are friends -- and DealerElite.Net -- for!