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Communication Strategies for Bridging the Generation Gap

Communicating with customers is a constantly changing endeavor for car dealerships. Every few years, more generations are added to your potential car-buyer pool, and your team is tasked with coming up with ways to effectively communicate to a multi-generational market. Keeping up with the younger generations…

Last year, Twitter partnered with the data firm Datalogix to study Twitter’s influence on sales transactions in the car industry. Twitter provided Datalogix with all the data they had about brand, dealership and consumer Twitter accounts. Datalogix then paired actual vehicle purchases by cross-referencing the Twitter data with data from Polk.…

Social Update for the week of September 21st

Signal for Facebook and Instagram

News junkies, you’re in for a treat.  Facebook recently introduced Signal for Facebook and Instagram, a free and easy way to make Facebook a part of your news-gathering…

Glengarry Glen Gross

By: Alan Ram

Who remembers that scene in Glengarry Glen Ross where Jack Lemmon is pleading with Kevin Spacey for the “premium leads.” “I can’t work these weak, worn-out leads anymore! You can take all of them! Just give me ONE of the good leads and I’ll close them!”  In many cases, I imagine many dealers today as kind of a…

Fresno, CA (PRWEB) September 22, 2015

Credit Bureau Connection (CBC), the leader in credit reports and compliance solutions, today released the company’s latest innovation to the automotive industry, eQualify Online. This powerful process allows consumers to…

In an unprecedented move, AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson recently announced that AutoNation will no longer sell any vehicle with an open recall – new or used. According to Automotive News, this effectively grounds up to 10 percent of AutoNation’s…

Once you have decided which tow bar type to purchase, it is important to know how to install it. Typically, tow bars are bolted to the frame of the vehicle just beneath the bumper. But some lower weight options allow the tow bar to be bolted to the bumper as well. In either of the case, the tow bar must be of the appropriate length to fit on the front or back of the vehicle.



You…

I got in the car business in 1999. One of the ways we got people into the dealership. Was to put balloons on the antennas of the vehicles we had on our lot. Why balloons? It got peoples attention. They noticed us from a block away and across two lanes of traffic. It made them look over at us it piqued their curiosity. And they would pull in and look at our inventory.

The internet has changed the way people buy vehicles. Nowadays your website will get 10x more impressions a month then…

Few would debate the fact that there is a technician shortage for automotive dealerships in today's market and the problem is going to get worse in the future. There are many reasons for this shortage that will be reviewed in this article as well as the ways dealerships need to deal with this crisis. I believe that dealerships will be placed into two categories the have and…

As a dealership manager it can be difficult to get participation and buy-in from your team. During my many years as a general manager, I found that one of the simplest and most effective ways to get a team to work towards a common goal is through accountability. Accountability (when managed lightly) can create consistency, successful habits and pride in performance. I say…

Receta for a Relationship: 5 Special Ingredients to Help You Connect With Hispanic Consumers

As marketers, we are often guilty of planning, thinking, structuring—and then planning some more.  After all, it’s part of our jobs to analyze the consumer market and deliver targeted messaging in a way that will effectively resonate with a specific…

There's No Such Thing as Easy Money (But Here's How to Make Money)

Making money: it's easy when times are good. But what do you do when times are tough? I've helped many dealer principals pull out ahead when times look tough. This week on Think Tank Tuesday, here's the 6 principles to make money.…

Black Book’s latest white paper shows how lenders should be using collateral and residuals in the underwriting process. The paper, authored by Black Book’s Lender Solutions division, is titled “Vision 20/20: Using Residuals To Spot Portfolio Growth Opportunity” and can be downloaded for free by clicking here.



The paper illustrates the importance of how collateral and residuals can help lenders manage risk levels…

Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes. Click here to download the full report.

In analyzing this past week’s market activity, Black Book is noticing that depreciation is picking up across the board for both cars and trucks. Especially for trucks, the average depreciation last week changed -0.46%, the…

Reports deliver direct engagement on VDPs, reducing lead leakage from dealer websites

Austin, Texas – September 22, 2015 – CarStory, the industry’s largest provider of search and inventory data and analytics on used vehicles, today announced that Dealer Car Search is making Inline CarStory Market…

There was a time when luxurious cars were only driven by royal, wealthy people. Not anymore! Today, anyone can taste the luxury and feel super special during an event or party. Limousines are luxurious cars that have high appearance and woo people in various occasions such as wedding, prom nights, corporate parties, birthday celebrations and many more. These aristocratic vehicles are a reliable form of transportation when you and your guests want to reach the…

I am seeing a lot of social media activity from automotive professionals being concerned about what to expect from the Driving Sales Executive Summit in Las Vegas next month. This post is a little bit different coming from since usually when I write about conferences I write from experiences. I have been to most automotive industry conferences and…

Companies have been applying game-like elements to achieve business objectives for decades. Just look at the Solitaire application that Microsoft included in its release of Windows 3.0 to familiarize users with the innovative “click-and-drag” functions of the mouse. Because many businesses are uninformed about…