Phil Sura writes: "Every weekend in the car business is opening weekend so dealers and Automotive marketers can probably teach Hollywood a lot. As for the film, it is extraordinary, with powerful performances, exceptional cinematography and great musical score. Well done all around. Congrats to the film makers (Mark Burnett & Roma Downey) and Tier 10 Marketing for a world class film and marketing campaign."www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A521568#.UxRL6skT5MU.myspace

Richard Holland writes: "The low-price gargantuan that is Wal-Mart is one of those independents that you are competing with for, at the very least, revenue from oil changes. Oil changes are an important piece of your service revenue as most dealerships will offer multi-point inspections with them. This can then lead to other services a consumer may not be aware they need. Wal-Mart is not equipped, staffed or trained to handle most major services that an inspection could reveal. In fact, it appears, it’s even having problems getting oil changes done properly."

A recent article in The Consumerist, shared the story of a woman who brought her vehicle into Wal-Mart for an oil change. She was called 15 minutes later and informed that a tech had driven her car through the bay door and into a guardrail. She was left without a vehicle and faces a prolonged fight with Wal-Mart. Luckily for her, the media stepped in and a local dealership then offered her a loaner care and is assisting her in finding a new vehicle.

ADM is a wonderful and vibrant collection of automotive professionals on both sides of the dealer/vendor aisle and we have always worked to keep this website at the top of the education and networking worlds for the industry.Going forward, I will be working hand-in-hand with our fearless leader, Mr. Paglia, to take the community's Facebook presence to the next level.We'll be posting the best content on and off of ADM that is designed to further the education factor, improve the networking potential, and highlight the members of the community that make this site and the industry in general better every day by their sheer presence. No automated feeds. No robotic interaction. We're going to be the social butterflies of the automotive industry.Every week, we'll be adding a Featured #AutoMarketing Professional of the Week as well as a Featured ADM Dealer Professional to the Facebook page to highlight exceptional contributions to this community and the automotive industry in general.Check out the page, like it, tal

I believe that many of us willingly and avidly share highly specialized knowledge because of the benefits we each receive from the mentoring process. By sharing our knowledge, we each become better practitioners and we reinforce what we have seen work, making it less likely that we will somehow fail to execute on a consistent basis. In this post i am placing several images that show many of the benefits from being a mentor... Are you a mentor? If you have assisted a fellow Kain Automotive Idea Exchange or ADM Professional Community members with information, comments, responses or documents, then you certainly are a mentor of some sort, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the volume of your contributions... All too often when people think of the benefits of mentoring, they only look at what the "mentee" receives. In my opinion, when any of us get better at being a mentor, the benefits we receive from seeking to serve those people we agree to mentor far outweigh the investments we make in time and effort

I truly like everything I keep hearing about LotLinx, but find it little disingenuous to see the LotLinx team presenting data that verifies the superior conversion rates around deep-linking Google Adwords Campaigns versus targeting a dealer's home page. Google has been promoting and validating the use of deep links for over ten years. The people at various Search Engine Advertising (SEA) service providers have been touting the use of deep links for years to car dealers... I can hear the refrain now "what's old is new again", but when what is old is presented as being something new, or some sort of breakthrough in digital marketing strategy, then it is simply being deceptive, or ignorant to the fact that the use of deep links has been advocated by many sources including Google and in blog posts here on ADM as far back as 5 years ago.Now... I do not want to take anything away from the value of using deep links, but do want to say that if your dealership's SEA service provider has not been using deep links for a

Color may not seem that important at a first glance, but it really is. For example, Performable was able to increase its click through rate by 21% by just changing its call-to-action button color from green to red. And when I changed my call-to-action button from blue to yellow on my homepage, I increased my conversion rate by 38%.Don’t take colors for granted. Once you figure out the messaging you are trying to convey, based on the infographic data above, consider running a few A/B tests in order to maximize your conversion rate.So, what do you think about colors? Do they affect your decision-making process? How Colors Affect Conversion Rate [Infographic] www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/how-colors-affect-conversion-rate

“We congratulate CarChat24 on winning a ‘Top Rated’ Chat Product Award and for being recognized by its dealer customers for high levels of excellence and customer satisfaction,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder Jared Hamilton. “In our fifth year of presenting these awards, we feel especially proud that DrivingSales Vendor Ratings continues to help dealers make smart and informed decisions through thousands of peer reviews that lead them to service providers such as CarChat24.  We congratulate CarChat24 on being recognized for top notch performance by the people to whom their services count the most: the dealer community.”The DrivingSales Dealer Satisfaction Awards measure dealer satisfaction with vendor products and services, and are based on cumulative ratings tallied and verified over the calendar year (January – December) at DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings.  DrivingSales.com Vendor Ratings is the industry’s only neutral, comprehensive vendor rating forum featuring real-time peer reviews and honest competi

This is a highly detailed and illustrated step-by-step guide to the best social media marketing tactics for car dealers and other businesses based on the data that portrays the results from thousands of social media campaigns executed using the Buffer tool set... www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A516059#.UuGp8uzcMaM.myspace

Consumers rallied around the company congratulating them on standing up for their employees and their emphasis on family. They shared their support within that comment, on the company’s Facebook page, tweeted about it and the company’s phones began ringing off the hook with new business. www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A514503#.UtEDcQa4cuk.myspace

When we include other answers such as "customer wanted price before coming in," "need to talk to husband/wife," "not offering enough money for trade-in," it’s evident that affordability and pricing are key to the decision-making process. So how can we deal with affordability objections?It starts with understanding the customer’s process. Thanks to increased transparency on the Internet, and to the numerous e-commerce sites out there, today's consumer is used to being in control of the purchasing process. If we want to buy something, we use the Internet to conduct research, read product or service reviews, do some comparative price shopping and then finally, click a button. Purchase complete.When it comes to buying a vehicle, the consumer attempts to follow this same path. For the most part, they can. There are sites that provide information in abundance, reviews of both vehicles and local dealers, and pricing guidance. When it comes to detailed affordability options, like finance or lease payments, those site

Pinterest has made a large step forward by acquiring the search-focused company VisualGraph. What does this mean for Pinterest marketing moving forward? Let’s take a look.Essentially, VisualGraph’s technology will make Pinterest users better able to search through the ever increasing mass of pins on the site. VisualGraph is a small company, with owners Kevin Jing and David Liu being the only employees, but their tech is powerful. Pinterest says the acquisition “will help us build technology to better understand what people are Pinning. By doing so, we hope to make it easier for people to find the things they love.”The reason Pinterest wanted VisualGraph specifically is that their technology is able to recognize an astounding number of objects in pictures. With this tech implemented, Pinterest users will be able to type a term like “blue sweater” and find nearly every blue sweater available on Pinterest, even if their is no associated meta info detailing the image as such. The graph can also filter pornography

Despite all of the software and uses of technology to assist in proper sourcing, you have to rely on your people to do their job and get you the right information. In the end, it will help you better manage your marketing dollars which, as a result, will help increase sales by making your marketing more effective. Salespeople are afraid to ask customers because they fear the dreaded “half-deal.” Their biggest fear is that they’ll have worked with a customer for hours and be right on the cusp of making a sale.  But then the customer says they submitted a lead on the Internet, or spoke to someone on the phone. They’d rather not ask and, if this were the case, they’d prefer that someone else discover it.  www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A514243#.UtD6k7duDvY.myspace

So if your BDC or sales staff isn't at their desks, are they responding to live chat requests from home? And even if they are, do you honestly think it is their HIGHEST priority as the storms swirl outside and the kids are dancing on the furniture?What about your customers? Do you just think they're watching football playoffs or The Bachelor? No, if they have power, they are likely online. How many do you think are looking for an all-wheel-drive or 4x4 vehicle while they are stranded in their homes right now?Of course massive cold weather events and hurricanes don't strike year-round, but they do happen, and are one of many reasons a hosted live chat service should be part of your dealership website marketing strategy. www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A514240#.UtD2rXgL-9w.myspace

The new website platform is a natural extension of Haystak’s core strengths and services that will further increase the value of our digital marketing services and enable efficiencies for our dealers by fully integrating websites with all their digital marketing initiatives,” explained Duncan Scarry, General Manager and Founder of Haystak Digital Marketing.Developed from the ground up with the latest, most innovative technology, the Haystak platform will offer dealers:“Responsive” technology that automatically detects how shoppers access a dealership website — from a phone, tablet or desktop computer. Shoppers will access the dealership’s website in a format specific to their particular device, which increases the ease of website navigation for the user.  Although industry experts recommend this practice, most websites currently have only a single format that attempts to accommodate all devices.Dynamic website content that is easy to design, edit and update. Dealers can choose website designs from an extensiv

Ken Leib connects automotive dealers with the solutions to their digital and online marketing problems and get results by growing their profitsWhen asked what he is PASSIONATE about, Ken replied:"I am passionate about the opportunities for growing their dealership brands through social-mobile marketing and correcting the marketing opportunities that are so often missed or ignored with these media." www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profile/KenLeib#.UtCre5Glnrw.myspace

Must-Do #1: Use Data to Drive MerchandisingYou’re looking at your website analytics all the time. But are you looking at the right metrics? In today’s world of big data, we have the ability to dig deeper than homepage bounce rate or page views. You probably know that engagement with your VINs is one of the most important KPIs. But there are others that predict sales too. In 2014, make the resolution to focus on the right metrics.According to our research, combinations of metrics – VIN views, web form leads, H&D lookups, inventory searches and time on VIN are the most predictive of sales. Focusing on shopper patterns, rather than one KPI – will help you make effective marketing and merchandising decisions.Which cars have been on the lot the longest? Is there a vehicle that has seen a lot of views, but few serious inquiries?These metrics provide insight into the cars that need more of your attention. Maybe the photos don’t do the car justice…or perhaps the price is just too high? Understanding which vehicles...