A quick note to provide additional information as it relates to the overall Volkswagen brand. The following insight is courtesy of Swapalease.com, which has been monitoring activity of Volkswagen lease drivers and shoppers considering the brand:

• Number of listings in the transfer marketplace have jumped 20% from Sept. to Oct. (# of people looking to escape their VW lease)
• Number of actual transfers are down -50% so far in Oct. compared with Sept. levels (fewer shoppers…

Everybody wants to maximize their results on repair orders just ask them. The tone of the conversation will change however, when you ask them how they will maximize their results on repair orders. I find it fascinating how…

What's the best way to generate more leads from your website? Contrary to popular opinion, the answer isn't to "get more website traffic." Although a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is key to driving appropriate traffic levels to your website, unless those visitors convert into leads, that's money down the drain.

Before you spend more on search engine…

Traveling is very important for all the people because they need to participate in various events and either it can be personal or any official purpose. That’s why most of the people are planning their travel in advance to avoid the last minute hurry. This is a good way because a well planning can make the journey as the best one and let the people to avoid their tension. Either…

This Week in Social Media with @seekristintweet – News for the Week of October 12

LinkedIn Groups Will Be Made Private

LinkedIn announced the latest updates to Groups including an improved Groups interface on desktop, and…

You asked for it and here it is. THE white paper that delivers the goods on how to leverage sales to this emerging market. You need to understand the differences between Millennial women and women of other generations, like:

• Millennial women travel over 25% further to purchase a car…

From Content Mapping to Content Marketing: Part III—Measuring Content Effectiveness

Now that content mapping has led to effective content marketing, it’s important for you to measure the effectiveness of your overall content. It’s simple to find statistics on how much of an impact content marketing has for a business, but giving an exact number or time frame to measure…

Viral content has been the subject of constant attention. Business, marketers, and the media are fascinated by videos and other types of content that spread like wildfire and generate attention (and business) for the creators.

And while viral content sounds great when thinking only about the success, you also need to understand the pitfalls. It's…

Swapalease.com, the nation’s largest car lease marketplace, reports lease credit approvals have crested above 80.0% approvals mark over the last three months, the first time approvals have shown this level of success in more than two years. So far in 2015, the lease credit approvals rate improved to 72.2% on the year.



The lease credit approvals also saw a noticeable jump from the same month a year ago, when just 64.5% of approvals were passed compared with the 80.0% this…

Why You Need To Be Charming

How does your personality increase sales? On this week's Think Tank Tuesday, learn the four steps to be personable (instead of creepy). Understand what being charming truly means, build connections that lead to sales, make more people know who you are, and learn what actions ruin your sales. …

Creating a Plan That Works

Content marketing helps your dealership turn consumers into customers. Content answers the questions shoppers ask, connects consumers to your dealership brand story and reveals the ways your dealership works to make one of the largest purchases a consumer makes easier to manage.  One of the first and most important things your dealership…

I sat down recently with one of our Digital Performance Managers, Kelly, to get an inside look an inside look at her daily life and best practices.

Kelly was asked what she feels as the most important aspects of her job, which she stated, “I think the most important part of my job is helping our clients. We play a role in generating leads for them. It's just…

According to Black Book® data, the average price of a used vehicle for model years 2010-2014 declined -1.5% during September, relatively unchanged from the -1.6% pace during August. Cars declined -2.3% while trucks declined just -1.0% during the month. Average pre-recession annual depreciation was continually recorded between -15% and -18%, and Black Book expects 2015 depreciation near -14.0%.



Compact Cars led all vehicle segments with the highest depreciation on the month at…

Loyalty programs surround us. We live in a world filled with keychains on which multiple little plastic mini loyalty cards dangle. There aren’t many places where we spend our money that don’t offer a rewards program or, at the very least, track our purchases via a quasi-rewards program that only allows us to purchase items at the “loyalty” price, versus the…

I've always heard the expression, "you don't miss something til you no longer have it... ", and I experienced that recently in a dealership I was training.



At the start of the day, management had told me that their weakest performer Steve (not his real name), needed to sell 14 cars this month or he would no longer have a job at the end of the month...



Now I was at the dealership on the 7th of the month and he had only sold 1 car so far... Not a great start. For a…

Based on recent J.D. Power Automotive research, this year, the automotive industry is going to retail over 14,070,000 vehicle units, which is the second best retail sales performance ever.

However, this rate of growth, though positive, is slowing. This year, retail growth will be 510K vehicle units over last year, versus over 710K units of growth last…

Knowing your target audience is essential to squeezing the absolute most out of your dealership’s marketing content. It’s often even more important than the product or service you provide. Your content can easily get lost if you aren’t targeting the correct audience, or …

Why Is Telling a Great Story Important?People remember stories. In fact, even before writing was a preferred mode of communication, stories were being told and passed down from generation to generation. And people remembered them because they were interesting, captivating, and they left pieces of themselves behind to be told again and again. Even with all the modern technology and communication tools of the moment, it’s still important to remember how to…

Hispanic Marketing is Powerful

You already know you need your brand advocates. In fact, in today’s market, their participation with your brand is absolutely necessary in order for others to recognize and engage with your products. Chances are, you have several strong brand advocates working on your behalf on your various social media sites, but how do you go about…

Albany, N.Y. – October 12th, 2015 – Auto/Mate Dealership Systems (http://www.automate.com) announced today that StoneEagle has completed integration with Auto/Mate's Dealership Management System (DMS). Auto dealership groups using Auto/Mate's DMS and StoneEagle's web-based applications will benefit from seamless and real-time data updates in both systems.

"Auto/Mate…