All Blog Posts (12,645)

Added by Richard Emmons on January 14, 2011 at 1:00pm — 1 Comment

You Can Do This, and Start Today!

There is no longer any doubt about the need for a digital presence. If you want to improve your market share here are a few things a dealer can do today.

Require each department head to write a blog once a month. (This should include the GM or Dealer.)

Require each employee that interacts with the public to maintain a page on some social media platform.

Make sure the Dealership maintains a Facebook page and a twitter page. (updates are important.)

Each…

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Added by Craig Darling on January 14, 2011 at 11:33am — No Comments

Increase Open Rates for Your Automotive Email Marketing Campaigns

The shotgun approach to automotive email marketing is the best way for your dealership’s message to end up being marked as spam. Working with our dealers we have found that targeting email messages to customer based on their specific vehicle models tend to have higher open rates than those blanketed approaches do. Below are three ways your…

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Added by Paul Potratz on January 13, 2011 at 11:43am — No Comments

BDC - Daily Phone Training

Old Blog I wrote from when I was Internet Director at Teddy Nissan...I still Preach This!!!

http://www.dealeretraining.com

http://dealeretraining.tumblr.com/

As I am back to working in a car dealership again in my career I have…

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Added by Stan Sher on January 13, 2011 at 1:17am — No Comments

Reaching Out To Customers Thru Social Media - Part I

There are those who may be too busy, don't believe in the use of 'social media' or think it's going away, but just as it is with any business, the automotive industry can only benefit from its use. Social Media can be defined as "media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques"1. There are many…

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Added by Tanya C on January 12, 2011 at 5:06pm — 2 Comments

Banner and Display Ads do not need a click-through-rate to be getting noticed

Okay, okay I am guilty as well pinning down the autotrader or cars.com rep in regards to “what is my click-through-ratio?” (CTR) or “I don’t know if these banners really do anything for me”, every time they wanted to make an up-sell for ”better exposure” of the brand. There was just too much doubt and not knowing in me to easily pass on these spins – until today (well, may be).

The… Continue

Added by V.J. on January 12, 2011 at 4:49pm — No Comments

When is Enough...Enough?

When is enough...enough? If you are in Fixed Operations, this question is surprisingly easy to answer.

NEVER!

There is never enough Gross Profit. In fact, when was the last time you and the Dealer Principal sat down in the office and he or she took out the latest financial, looked it over and then said to you "Go ahead and close the service drive and take the rest of the month off. We have enough Gross Profit!"

There is never enough Service Absorption. We live in an… Continue

Added by Leonard Buchholz on January 12, 2011 at 4:30pm — No Comments

Automotive Coaching & Consulting

Join our group. Collaborate, Learn, and Improve.

Added by Robert Chambers on January 11, 2011 at 9:26pm — No Comments

10 factors why consumers following you on Facebook

We all know Facebook is right now for dealerships around the nation the #1 choice when trying to engage with customers off-site, next to the biweekly or monthly ownership email marketing “blast” (my God do I hate this term “blast”) and/or dealer newsletter provided by IMN, Outsell, 3Birds Marketing or… Continue

Added by V.J. on January 11, 2011 at 5:23pm — 1 Comment

New Year Goals, Step One!

I posted that one of my goals was to help 12 dealers increase their marketshare and decrease their marketing expences. I am happy to say that one dealer so far is well on their way towards market share improvement.

We developed an agressive campaign. One that includes facebook, twitter, first page on Google and other search engines. There are key-word ads as well as intuitive placement on hundreds of popular web sites. We will also send the information on this dealer out through…

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Added by Craig Darling on January 11, 2011 at 3:13pm — No Comments

The Importance of Service Area on Your Google Places Listing

Many of the Google Places listing that I check for car dealers are NOT setup properly for their business. This impacts the number of times a dealership's Business Listing will appear in search results. For some dealers in metro areas, their Google Places listing will show over 15,000 a month. With this in mind, anything that could increase the visibility of your local business listing should be embraced.

Every Google Places listing DEFAULTS to a 20 mile service radius around the… Continue

Added by Brian Pasch on January 10, 2011 at 9:30pm — No Comments

Buick's Social Media Scavenger Hunt

Want to see an example of an automaker getting on board with social media marketing? Buick is striving to appeal to the social media generation with its latest promotion, Quest for the Keys, integrating location-based social sites like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Places as well as Twitter and a custom Facebook application. This promotion involves a scavenger hunt in major cities around the US in which people use social sites to find clues to win money or even a new Buick. They can also…

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Added by Paul Potratz on January 10, 2011 at 4:00pm — No Comments

How your dealership can profit from the 2011 Consumer Trends - Part 3

This is part 3 of the “Consumer Trends for 2011” series and will conclude the findings of trendwatch.com – so far we heard and learned about

Social-Media-Buzzer-showing-consumer-trends-for-2011

Social-Media-Buzzer-showing-consumer-trends-for-2011

Consumers will look for more realness and human touches
Consumers will be more prone to try new products and services
Targeted pricing and offers for your potential customers
Consumers will look out for gaining Online Status Symbols
Consumers will convert into “Twin-sumers” and…

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Added by V.J. on January 10, 2011 at 4:00pm — No Comments

How your dealership can profit from the 2011 Consumer Trends - Part 2

The first part of “Consumer Trends for 2011” – a research performed by trendwatching.com, showed three trends so far on how consumer behavior will change and how we, the dealerships can prepare ourselves successfully for the upcoming year.

We covered so far topics on “… Continue

Added by V.J. on January 10, 2011 at 9:00am — No Comments

How your dealership can profit from the 2011 Consumer Trends - Part 1

According to research of http://trendwatching.com the year 2011 will have changes in consumer behavior which screams for a change in business behavior and attitude as well. No more Business as Usual please, when you want to keep the edge.

Here are the first three points trendwatching.com is pointing out of the eleven findings

1. Consumers will look for more realness and… Continue

Added by V.J. on January 9, 2011 at 11:00am — No Comments

The Chicken and The Egg

The Challenge: The automotive industry is recovering from the most massive business contraction in its history. While the playing field has been cleared and offers competitive opportunities, the reality is that dealers face many challenges to growing their business and competing effectively in this new marketplace.

Traffic is down
Sales are down
Ad dollars are misdirected and ineffective
Inbound sales calls are poorly…

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Added by Shannon Page on January 8, 2011 at 11:40pm — No Comments

Why Is Conversion More Important Than Lot Traffic?

“The only thing you’ll will need is crowd control”

That was the tag line I used when I first started “Outside The Box Marketing” in 1997, that business was a direct mail marketing company for event sales, you know these sales we’ve all done them:…

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Added by Larry Bruce on January 8, 2011 at 10:55am — 1 Comment

Marketing your Dealership's Service Center

How much of your dealership’s advertising budget goes into promoting your Service Department? Often times it seems that Car Dealers put so much time into getting the Front End ready for Lights, Camera and Action that the Back End gets neglected. Promoting your Service and Parts Center as well as the Body Shop is a healthy way to keep Car Buyers coming into your Service Bay even after their warranty is up.

Consider the age of the average vehicle on the road in your market. All of…

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Added by Paul Potratz on January 7, 2011 at 10:28am — No Comments

Babies born today will never know about.....

Video tape: The tape-less camera we use today offers much higher quality than anything that could have been imagined 10 years ago.…

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Added by Joseph Little on January 6, 2011 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Becoming a Motivational Leader

Create a big vision

To become a motivational leader, you start with motivating yourself. You motivate yourself with a big vision, and as you move progressively toward its realization, you motivate others to work with you to fulfill that vision. You have to have that carrot in front of the horse!

Set high standards

You exhibit absolute honesty and integrity with everyone in everything you do. You are the kind of person others admire and respect and want to be like. You set a… Continue

Added by Paul Hardy on January 6, 2011 at 12:18pm — 5 Comments