January 2011 Blog Posts (78)

You are doing a great job!!

This morning I found myself reminding a very talented salesperson to stay away from negative discussions! Being a part of the morning coffee clutch will do just the opposite of what you intend. It has no benefit to you only others. The negativity will become a day long distraction from you goals and abilities! I was once told by an old timer in this business that back in the day that was how they made sure noone else was in the game, They would intentionally begin these conversations. …

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Added by Bobbie Herron on January 17, 2011 at 11:17am — 10 Comments

A Lesson From Groupon

Who are we putting in charge of our business?

As I watched this video of Groupon’s CEO Andrew Mason apologizing for a business in Japan that couldn’t handle the orders that Groupon generated for them over New Years I couldn’t stop thinking; Video Click Here

“Here is a vendor that set a marketing strategy in place for a business using price positioning…

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Added by Larry Bruce on January 17, 2011 at 8:58am — No Comments

Stay Classy Grant Cardone...Just Having Some Fun

Is it any wonder why our business has such a bad reputation? Look at the picture below and see what one of our industry's supposed "bests" feels is an appropriate way to motivate.

The Car Business is better than this Grant, thank you for continuing the stereotypes about our business...…

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Added by Micah birkholz on January 16, 2011 at 10:16pm — No Comments

Making Sense of The Barrage Of New Marketing Websites

Every week it seems that a new social media website or micro-blogging platform comes to market and your circle of friends invite you to join. I don't know about you but how does the average person evaluate the benefits of using these new digital marketing tools? Are you overwhelmed? Do you feel that you are dodging bullets?

In the past 60 days you may have been invited and… Continue

Added by Brian Pasch on January 16, 2011 at 1:52am — 1 Comment

Automotive News Microsites And Acton Toyota, Done Right and Done Wrong

Read an article yesterday in Automotive News about Microsites and Acton Toyota "1 Web site? Why stop there?" . I was absolutely thrilled to see that Post-Click-Marketing is finally getting some long overdue credit in the space and from Automotive News to boot.

However Acton hasn’t even scratched the surface with Microsites and Post-Click-Marketing and…

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Added by Larry Bruce on January 15, 2011 at 12:00pm — 2 Comments

The Basics of Automotive Live Chat: How to Master Quality Automotive Lead Generation Through Your Website

No matter your dealership location, franchise, size, or overall rating, you probably will agree that the success of any dealership is measured in the number of sales. In order to obtain sales, you depend on a combination of repeat business, referral business, and of course, automotive lead generation.

With repeat and referral business, there really is no secret to it – other than having a good amount of follow up, and capitalizing on the things that make you different…

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Added by Shereef on January 14, 2011 at 10:49pm — No Comments

Taxpayer investment in GM, Chrysler has 'starkly improved,

Taxpayer investment in GM, Chrysler has 'starkly improved,' U.S. says

By CHRISSIE THOMPSON

Free Press Business Writer

U.S. taxpayers’ investment in General Motors, Chrysler and their two primary financing companies has “starkly improved,” but the U.S. Treasury’s conflicting goals may have hurt taxpayers’ ability to recoup money, the Congressional Oversight Panel said today.

The U.S. government invested $81.3 billion… Continue

Added by DealerELITE on January 14, 2011 at 6:07pm — No Comments

Drive Conversions with Your Dealership's Facebook Business Page

You can increase leads and conversions through your dealership's Facebook business page. However, you need to take an approach different from hard-sell methods you may have used in the past with traditional advertising. Social media marketing is all about building relationships with your…

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Added by Paul Potratz on January 14, 2011 at 5:32pm — No Comments

Ford Motor Company took TOP HONORS

POLK OWNER LOYALTY:

Ford Motor Company took TOP HONORS Tuesday in the 15th annual Polk Automotive Loyalty Awards, demonstrating their ability to retain owners (better than their competitors) over repeated buying cycles. Ford won the following categories:

Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer – FIRST time since 1999!

Overall Loyalty to Ethnic Market Make –…

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Added by DealerELITE on January 14, 2011 at 5:12pm — No Comments

Reaching Out To Customers Thru Social Media - Part II

Some of you may have had a chance to check out my first blog entry "Reaching Out To Customers Thru Social Media - Part I", this is obviously a continuation of that posting. In each entry I plan on continuing an analysis of free online avenues to promote your dealership or auto-related business.…

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Added by Tanya C on January 14, 2011 at 4:08pm — No Comments

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