I thought it might be a nice gesture to share what I think are three major mistakes made by dealers when buying direct mail.  

1st.  Buying for the budget.  Many dealerships buy just because they have budget left to spend.  This on it's own is not the problem.  The problem lies in the fact that normally when this is the case they will just buy any piece that has a current theme on it and expect it to win.  An example would be, right now November is coming up and dealers who…

Paul Potratz, founder and COO of Potratz Advertising, headquartered in Schenectady, NY, will be speaking Thursday, Oct. 11 at the Chrysler SEBC/SWBC S&P Business Conference in Orlando, FL.

Paul’s topic, “The 10 Step Process of Doubling Your R.O.’s with…

As the convergence of search and social continues to become a reality, it's important for dealers to understand that they need content on their websites that can be shared. People will not share inventory on Facebook. They won't tweet specials out to their followers. They won't click the Google +1 buttons on your…

Awhile back I wrote a blog on the rumors of a Facebook, “want” button and this rumor turned out to be true! While this new feature is still in beta testing and it’s not really a want button but a product page to collect all your favorite products that are then added to your timeline, I still think that this is the beginning of something pretty amazing.…

If you’re a local or regional business looking to advertise on the cheap, you probably use social media. Most everyone is on Facebook, but does your company have a Twitter? If not, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful and reliable social media…

There are plenty of tools out there that help people post the same piece of content across multiple networks. Sendible, Hootsuite, Buffer - all make posting easy and convenient. While they can be great time savers and allow heavy social media users the ability to scale properly and plan accordingly, they also create problems and do not always maximize exposure.

Facebook will "batch" images posted from the same tool when more than one is posted through it in a 24 hour period. This is a…

According to this recently published study by J.D. Power, 59% of auto shoppers with smartphones access dealership websites from the dealership. But why would a car shopper go to your website when they’re already in your store? Consumers today are more wary than ever of car sharks – and now they…

There's something to be learned from this Forbes article with the average dealership spending $2,610,000 on payroll in 2011.

Driver Connect Mobile App to be presented onstage during DrivingSales Executive Summit

DAYTONA BEACH, FL and SALT LAKE CITY, UT – October 9, 2012 – DMEautomotive’s Driver Connect, Mobile App has been named a finalist for the DrivingSales Innovation Cup Award for the Most Innovative Dealership Solution of…

Although recently we have decided to focus our social media marketing efforts away from Google+ they do still have some valuable things to offer. Google+ Local, which used to be Places, is a very valuable resource for any business. The idea is that you…

There has been a lot more talk over the last several months about mobile. It has transitioned from a "check box" item where dealers ask their vendors the simple yes or no question, "Do you have mobile sites in your package?" Today, the questions are more along the lines of, "What makes your mobile websites better than my…

Are you executing your processes???

When it comes to Marketing using Facebook, are you focusing on quality or quantity? It’s easy to fall into a rut when you’re posting daily, but it’s important that the quality of your posts doesn’t drop off. I’m sure you already know that…

I am a vocal advocate for leveraging Google Analytics to guide a dealership's online marketing strategy.  Despite my pleas, a small percentage of dealer operators have a consistent process for analyzing Google Analytics data every month to spot trends or to prioritize marketing investments.

So I thought that I would write a few articles that utilize Google Analytics data charts to show hungry automotive marketing professionals and dealer operators how to leverage this great…

I just read this post by Dave Logan

Published on MoneyWatch/ October 4, 2012

(I haven't read anything lately that made me look at how I lead and manage, more than this article.  Hope someone else finds it helpful).

The mindset of great…

5 Popular Aftermarket Accessories and How to Sell Them

If you are in a dealership that has an accessories profit center you already understand the revenue potential. The fact is consumers are constantly looking for ways to personalize everything from their electronic devices like…

This new guidance was posted on August 31, 2012 by the IRS, in collaboration with the Department of Treasury, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidance explains how employers can use a moving average to determine the status of full time employees, and answers questions employers might have about handling automatic enrollment of new…

I’m not really sure when the first time was that I heard somebody curse or that I even knew that it was a curse word at the time. I assume the first time I probably cursed myself was sometime in my teens, all the knuckleheads I hung around with did so of course I didn’t want to be odd man out… thats when it all began.

Nobody cussed on TV and none of the movies I was allowed to go see had any cussing in them, can’t recall hearing either one…