January 2011 Blog Posts (78)

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

OUTLANDER, LANCER, OUTLANDER SPORT FUEL MITSUBISHI GAINS IN DECEMBER

OUTLANDER, LANCER, OUTLANDER SPORT FUEL MITSUBISHI GAINS IN DECEMBER

CYPRESS, Calif. (January 4, 2011) – Mitsubishi Motors North America (MMNA) today reported December sales of 4,874 units, an increase of almost 12 percent compared to December 2009. Mitsubishi sales for the year (Calendar Year 2010) were up more than 4 percent.

“We were delighted to see increases in almost every aspect of our retail business in December,”… Continue

Added by DealerELITE on January 5, 2011 at 3:36pm — No Comments

AdAgencyOnline.Net Reviewed VehSmart Inventory Management System For Automotive Advertising Agencies On Blog Talk radio

AdAgencyOnline.Net, a nationally recognized automotive advertising resource / networking portal, will be reviewing a new cutting edge technology vendor -- VehSmart -- on the portal's blog talk radio station WAAOL, All Automotive Advertising News All The Time. VehSmart is introducing a fully integrated asset management and…

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Added by Philip Zelinger on January 5, 2011 at 3:34pm — No Comments

21 Social Media Predictions and Trends for 2011

Facebook will go public and make the current $50 billion dollar valuation look…

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Added by Joseph Little on January 5, 2011 at 2:15pm — 1 Comment

Seminar "3 Rules For Increasing Service Absorption" Jan 5th

Still not too late to sign up. Send an email to freetraining@dealerprotraining.com for phone access and workbook.

Make 2011 the Year of Results!

Added by Leonard Buchholz on January 5, 2011 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Top 6 Dealership Social Media Predictions for 2011

As I sit down to write this post, I’m reminded of a situation where I once had to break the news to the owner of a dealership that he needed $1 million cash infusion to keep his… Continue

Added by Kathi Kruse on January 4, 2011 at 2:00pm — No Comments

An Addendum to John Skelton’s post on December 29, 2010“ I have a question, that stems from my reading a reply to a dE post Monday”

John I have tried to post these comments to your original post. It keeps popping up that the post has exceeded 40,000 characters and will not accept the post. According to Word this post has 3,596 characters. I believe the 40,000 limit is for the whole post.…

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Added by Douglas R Manley on January 4, 2011 at 8:45am — 2 Comments