While researching, I came across Brian Pasch’s article on DrivingSales.com titled, “Is Your Advertising Strategy Based on Fear, Data, or Blind Faith?” In his article, Brian builds a good case around the thinking that TrueCar is more of a symptom or product of an addictive  tendency repeatedly displayed by auto dealerships. I agree with Pasch’s point.

What Brian is getting at is something I believe is true. I built my business around it blogging for car dealers. It’s how companies like HubSpot have achieved great success. It’s the reality that Internet marketing today gives essentially all businesses, including auto dealerships, the ability to establish their own marketing pipelines to drive sales and stop relying on outside sources for all of their business.

To be clear, the argument is not against using third-party lead generators and partners to drive sales, but to build your own sales machine so that you can keep your third-party partners selective and minimal, and ultimately avoid the dilemma of feeling forced to work with businesses such as TrueCar.

Build Your Own Inbound Marketing Machine

The idea here is to build your own inbound marketing system. Inbound marketing is a term coined by HubSpot that refers to the practice of using content and advertising to educate and inform your target audiences through free and easily accessible content persistently over time to establish and build trust and ultimately sales of your product.

This, as opposed to traditional marketing practices of splattering your name and logo everywhere with the hope and expectation of it magically turning into sales, is necessary today primarily due to the role of search engines and Internet marketing. You can still advertise your business using traditional media. The problem is the cost and the ROI of it if that is your primary or only approach. When you do the math it just doesn’t add up.

Google AdWords vs. Traditional Media

Refer to Brian’s example in his article where:

• The cost per visitor for their Adwords was: $1.50
• The cost per visitor from their Traditional Media was: $18.65

Technically, Google AdWords is not inbound marketing but it is search engine marketing.  If you look at Google’s ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth), one thing you will see from the research is that the primary stimulus points for auto shoppers IS NOT traditional media. It’s the Internet and search engines are the gateway to the Internet.

It is easy for Internet marketers to challenge why you would invest the majority of your advertising dollars into traditional media. We are bias. But traditional advertising sales reps will argue that if you want to reach the masses then you need to spend on traditional media.

I understand that dealers continue to spend on traditional media because it is what they are familiar and comfortable with. But as Pasch suggests, that is fear-based thinking and eventually it will be to your detriment if it isn’t already.

How Blogging Benefits Your Dealership Digital Strategy

I am not here to convince you that traditional media is not the best use of your advertising dollars. I am not here to tell you that TrueCar is bad for the auto business either. What I am here to share with you is why and how blogging is an important part of your marketing strategy, and how it can help dealers that feel forced into a corner about using TrueCar.

Blogging is about producing content for two primary purposes:

1. For SEO
2. For Relationships

In my early days of blogging for car dealers I would say that you are blogging for people (relationships) and for robots (SEO). Blogging still is about these two things and it’s important not only to understand this but to have a strategy for it.

A blog marketing strategy is tricky. There are numerous aspects to it.

• The strategic aspect
• The technical aspect
• The executive aspect
• The analytical aspect

All this is a lot to juggle for most auto dealerships, but not all of it needs to be managed by the dealership. Some of this process can be outsourced, and quite frankly some of it should be.

Download Free White Paper

Details can, should, and do not need to be outsourced by dealers that want to blog are outlined in my White Paper Blogging 101 for Car Dealers. In this white paper we explain the role that content marketing plays for auto dealers and we introduce 5 different types of content that auto dealerships can produce to promote their blog and website. We also dive in to why auto dealerships want to have a blog marketing strategy and which parts make sense to outsource.

The challenge dealerships face today is how to form a process around blogging that produces all this type of information in a way that is profitable for the dealership by being efficient and effective at selling cars and driving new business from current and non-existent customers. Blogging does not close deals and sell cars, but it certainly contributes to the process of driving the best traffic to your website and building trust and loyalty with potential and existing customers.

Download your free copy of our white paper by signing up for our site. If you are already a free member and have not received your copy then contact us at 1-877-873-0583.

You can see it in the data when you do your research. You hear it at conferences you attend. You see when you watch peoples’ presentations. You see it with those around you, and most likely you see it in your own behavior as it too is shifting towards mobile.

This natural evolution of how we access the Internet and communicate has been prophesied in sci-fi stories for decades. The “future” that we have always anticipated really is here and it is drastically affecting each of us in how we live, shop, share, and conduct business.

Evidence of this trend was revealed this Fall during conference season when Dataium co-founder Jason Ezell shared slide #20 of his presentation deck called “Betting on Your Future Business Using Predictive Analysis”. In this presentation you see that the trend towards mobile began around April 2011 and that it shows no sign of leveling off or declining. Logically, why would it?

There is also evidence of this in the data that was accumulated by Shopper Sciences while performing the now infamous Google ZMOT study. In their research, mobile use, while not yet a leading stimulus or communication source for auto shopping is clearly a growing trend that experts do not disagree is on track to be so by the end of 2012.

The significance of this information was supported at this year’s JD Power Automotive Internet Roundtable (#JDPAIRT) where Tier I organizations participated in numerous sessions and breakouts on the subject, and industry vendors are scrambling to respond to this quickly growing need.

The question for me isn’t whether mobile will be embraced by auto dealers, but how will it be embraced and will it be implemented effectively.

Early on, that is the past couple of years, the most effective way for dealers to utilize mobile marketing was by sending coupon and specials alerts via SMS. But now, people are being inundated with specials and savings on their mobile phone, so it is likely that the game will have to change.

Some companies, like AutoMotion TV for instance, are banking on people embracing the dealership experience by installing a mobile app for the dealership. I personally am skeptical that this use of technology will be accepted by people, but the mobile app provider has proven success with auto dealerships that you can read about on their site.

The philosophy behind AutoMotion TV’s dealer apps is to make them part of the shopping experience and to communicate with them via push messaging. Most mobile apps I have seen offered by automotive website providers fall short on the vehicle and inventory front, with limited or minimal ability to experience virtual vehicle tours or browse inventory with rich media. This is one are where AutoMotion TV stands out.

More importantly is AutoMotion TV’s push messaging, which is their ability to send messages to users via SMS that have their dealer apps installed. The question is, what is the right information to push? Is it coupons and special offers? Is it service reminders? Or maybe it’s more engaging content such as questions, surveys, polls, or even contests?

These are all important things to consider. There is no doubt you want to have a mobile strategy. In my opinion I would be less concerned with what and how you do it and more concerned with just doing it. From this you will find what works best for you, your team, and most importantly for your customers.

Dataium, a “data utility company,” is poised to revolutionize automotive CRM. Dataium’s cloud intelligence data and reporting tools can significantly enhance your lead generation and conversion numbers, in ways you always dreamed were possible.

Dataium gathers data about people, anonymously and individually, to help auto dealers better understand people’s behavior and interest level before and after they visit a dealership’s website.

Unworkable leads now become workable again.

Think of all the consumers who show interest in a certain vehicle and then walk away, not yet ready to buy. Now imagine being able to learn when each consumer is online looking at cars again sometime later, and what cars they are looking at, giving you the perfect timing and information needed to place that follow-up call.

This is just one small example of how Dataium can work for auto dealerships. As Dataium says on its website:

“With each click, search, and submission, consumers leave behind valuable and insightful data and statistics about their habits, interests, and future behaviors.”

This data is like a digital footprint, containing valuable information on online purchasing behavior and activity, consumer trends, buyer intent, and the effectiveness of promotions and web design.

In other words, you now have a new way to keep up with consumer interests and demands. With the result being:

• More of the right traffic to your website
• Fewer unworkable leads
• Better ability to predict a buyer’s intent
• Higher close rates

As consumers submit lead forms, their IP address is associated with a data record, including phone numbers, email addresses, etc., and cookies that help track online activity. Dataium connects thousands of websites including OEMs, dealers, social media platforms and automotive websites that collect user information to provide authorized businesses access to a rich stream of data that will transform the way market to car buyers.

Now the question is, how will YOUR DEALERSHIP use this information? How can auto dealers benefit from Dataium?

Key Takeaways

There were two key messages I heard across the handful of sessions and breakaways I attended. One was regarding the rapid acceptance of Mobile Computing and the other was the increasingly vital role of Social Media.

Social Media

Social media is not only a new frontier in marketing for automotive, but for all industries and for consumers too. While this might be obvious to some, to see the top tiers of the auto industry preach about social media in absolutes means that it is only a matter of time before this level of acceptance can be expected at the dealership level. Auto dealers are already embracing social media. It is an obvious choice.

The goal for car dealers is shifting from generating leads to something more broad, stickier, transparent, and mutually beneficial for everyone.

The nature of a lead is evolving into something more broad and generic, elusive in a way. I heard one presenter talk about how dealers want to expand their ideas about what a lead is and how much it is worth. There is now doubt that having people in your dealership looking at vehicles is ultimate measuring stick for the effectiveness of your marketing. Everything else is just TOMA.

Mobile Computing

A second key message was that all the new platform distribution mechanisms such as Droids, iPhones, iPads, etc., are bringing new challenges to auto dealers, but also new possibilities that were unheard of fewer than five years ago. This is something that has been developing over the past couple years, and which started accelerating earlier this year. In fact, one company, Dataium, showed data suggesting this acceleration beginning in April 2011.

Of all the companies out there, Dataium, co-founded by Jason Ezell, is the one that sticks out the most for me. What Dataium does is distinguished in its name.

Dataium gathers data about people, anonymously and individually, to help auto dealers better understand people’s behavior and interest level before and after they visit the dealership’s website.

What Dataium is able to know about you is unprecedented, and ethical. I plan to get more into this in future posts and I suspect you will begin hearing more and more about this company as they dig their heels into the auto biz. In fact, DealerRefresh did a post about Dataium after the 2011 Digital Dealer conference which is actually where I first got to see what Dataium is all about.

I have every bit of confidence in the dealer-vendor community to continue coming out with products that address the ever-changing, growing, and challenging needs of auto dealers when it comes to mobile computing and social media. For those that closely follow what I do you know that we have been hot on these trails now for several years, and you know that I am committed to remaining on those tails.

(Yes I dropped the “r” in trails.)

These were my key takeaways. I was not able to attend as many sessions and breakaways that I would have liked, but I am glad to have been there to attend the ones I could.

Why is this important?

It’s important because it shows the mentality of the car dealer industry.

How often do you hear from the dealer Principal or GM state that they don’t see the point in social media because they don’t see how it sells cars? Or how often does your supervisor approach you with questions like, “how are things going for us on Facebook? Are we selling any cars from it yet?”

Study after study suggests, and marketers using social media confirm, that the point of social media is not for selling or closing deals, but rather for numerous other purposes such as to:

• Drive traffic to your website
• Build your brand and reputation online
• Add value to the customer experience
• Establish and maintain relationships
• And more…

Fortunately this is becoming a moot point that I think many dealers are getting past, but for those that aren’t, this is a good story to consider.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should not expect results from your efforts using social media, just that matching it to the number of cars you sell as a result is not the right metric to go by. That’s what lead-to-show and show-to-close ratios do. But that is a whole other topic. I just wanted to draw attention to this important example you can refer to when put under the gun at your dealership for your efforts on the social web.

What are some things you can share from your experience with people at your dealership who are not embracing social media as a viable means for branding your dealership?

Up until the advent of the web, and specifically the advent of blogs and RSS, content was mostly produced in print for magazines and newspapers. It was also produced on the radio, television, and on the big screen (film), on vinyl, CD, etc. The best content was syndicated or distributed across the globe for others to consume. This of course necessitated a large audience, funding, and network and distribution channels.

Today is different. You can launch a blog in a matter of minutes, publish a post, and voila, your content can technically be viewed by just about anyone with access to the Web. Or you can record a video on your phone and upload it to YouTube, yada yada. However, because of this ease and access to publishing content, the stakes and the name of the game have changed. The world is now more full of more information which makes it that much harder to get your message across and appealing to others.

For decades, auto dealers did not have to think much about content because they could purchase advertising in any of the mediums they chose. Dealers were not expected to produce TV shows, radio shows, movies, or albums.

But today dealers are being pressured to produce quality original content. Why is this? Could it be that because when it comes to the Internet, display advertising has proven much less effective than content marketing? If so, could that be a sign that display advertising in traditional mass media has always been ineffective, or it could be a sign that the Internet user responds differently to advertising? I vote for the latter.

That said, what type of content should a dealership be producing today in lieu of or in addition to display advertising? Even more importantly, where should this content be published, and how often should you post to your blog?

In our White Paper Blogging 101 for Car Dealers, we introduce 5 different types of content that an auto dealership can be producing. They are spelled out below:

1. Product and Service Information
2. Employee information, e.g. bios, honors, awards, etc.
3. Customer Information, e.g. testimonials,
4. Dealership Events and Promotions
5. Community Events and Activities

These might seem obvious, but the challenge dealerships face today is how to form a process that produces all this type of information in a way that is profitable for the dealership by being efficient and effective at selling cars and driving new business from current and non-existent customers.

Download our free White Paper today for to learn why your dealership wants to be blogging and how you can create an effective content marketing strategy for your dealership. You will be introduced to some key concepts related to blogging, micro-blogging, and social media as it pertains to car dealers and you will also receive a free getting started guide to AutoConverse.com which is the automotive local marketing site we recently launched that offers dealers a free tool for syndicating content into the AC network in a way that promotes your dealership and your personal brand.

Blogging for car dealers is something I personally have been doing now for dealerships over the past four years. I have plenty to share on the subject and am happy to work with any dealer that has a genuine interest in utilizing our free tools to get a leg up on the competition. You can contact me directly via phone at 1-877-873-0583 or by contacting me through one of your preferred social media sites. I am Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and dealerElite. I look forward to hearing from you.

Photo courtesy of LayOutSparks.com

One question I hear more often than others is, “How often should I post to my blog?” But to answer this question there are so many other related factors to consider it will take you burrowing down a deep rabbit hole of other similar topics, such as:

1. Why would a car dealer want to blog?
2. What is blogging and how is it different from micro-blogging and social media?
3. What type of content should you have on your dealership blog?
4. And of course, how often should you be posting blogs?

To address these other important considerations, I started on an e-book white paper of sorts today. It introduces these as topics from a strategic marketing point of view and how each ties in with how often you want to be publishing content and information in general.

Chances are, your dealership is using at least one or more forms of blogging, micro-blogging, and/or social media tools. One can not answer the frequency question without first knowing which blogging platform is in question, and what the strategy is behind the content being put on it.

You can answer this qualitatively though…

As an example, you certainly do not want to put vehicle specials, or service specials, on your Facebook wall every day or multiple times a day. This is a sure way to make your Facebook marketing strategy ineffective. However, you do if possible want to be on Facebook every day, as often as possible that is good for your brand, keeping in mind your ROI.

For the sake of argument, let’s define things such as Facebook and Twitter as micro-blogging tools, otherwise known as Social Media. Also for the sake of argument, let’s define “blog” as the conventional dealership blog which runs on say WordPress or Blogger and is on its own sub domain or directory of the dealership website, e.g. blog.mydealershipsite.com or mydealershipsite.com/blog.

Strategically, the marketing objectives are similar. You want to increase exposure of your dealership and drive traffic to your dealership website. You also want to add value to the customer experience through time, and both blogs and social media are effective tools for doing so.

As for the actual frequency, that depends on the type of content being produced and to which platform. This is another important element to your  content marketing strategy. You MUST be producing quality original content that people will SHARE. If you are not doing this, then you can only really be micro-blogging. This is good for building credibility and managing your reputation, but without original content on your blog it will be difficult to drive consistent traffic to your blog and website, and it will be near impossible for people to share anything because you haven’t created anything.

Creating quality original content that people will share is a great and growing challenge today for auto dealers that want to be and compete in the game with auto shoppers. This is large in part why we created the site AutoConverse.com, to give auto shoppers a way to engage with their local dealers on equal playing turf, if you as a dealer chose to service customers this way. And I see no reason why you  should not want to. It will become more important as advertising and technology evolve. The information you want from them will become increasingly more valuable, because they will have ways to protecting it better.

I will do a series of posts that explores these topics in more depth and make it available as a free download. You can sign up now for your free copy by joining our mailing list to become a free member. We will be sending everyone a copy it that is already a free or premium member, and it will be included at the time of sign up for people moving forward.

In a stunning address to the Innovative Dealer Conference in Denver recently, Automotive SEO expert Brian Pasch called for auto dealers to get serious about training their management teams! Themselves too.

This something Pasch has been championing in the automotive marketing community. It’s a noble cause, but one I personally approach with caution.

Brian’s comments before several hundred dealers called for them to stop using “your budget” as an excuse for not getting yourself and your key managers up to speed in all areas of today’s car business. He said that you need a “strategy” not a “budget!”

Couldn’t agree more. We all know that dealers will spend thousands upon thousands of dollars in advertising on things that don’t work, but only because they are familiar with certain things. It is what they know.

On the contrary, dealers can be reluctant to spend even a fraction of that on new media, which has proven affect. Dealers can also be reluctant to invest into training and educating themselves in new media, which is what is at the root of this issue.

Brian’s company, as many of you already know, advises dealers on digital marketing implementation in the dealership setting. During his speech, he related how a dealer recently told him how he would avoid calls from Brian’s company and other digital marketing advisors; he simply would not take their calls. When asked why that is, the dealer said, “Because I don’t know what the hell you are talking about!”

Brian then suggested that this dealer is simply fooling himself into believing that educating himself and his managers is not necessary. Possibly he is just hoping that the new marketing landscape that is being defined by the Internet and its major players, (like Google), will either simply go away, or that in some way he and his team will learn everything they need to know by some mysterious type of osmosis.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Dealers have been selling cars the same way for nearly a hundred years. The past decade has seen more change than the all the previous years of marketing and advertising. You can not expect things to change so quickly.

Four years ago, I anticipated that blogging and social media would be more mainstream for car dealers in about 2-3 years. This has turned out to be the case and there is plenty of product out there for car dealers now, but the rate of change is so rapid that most of us don’t know which way is up or down any more, and a few short years is not enough time for a majority of people accustomed to doing business a certain way for so many years, to simply adapt as many of us would like to see.

Pasch is right. The “budget” excuse is a cop-out for those that want more than is realistically feasible and do not know how to monetize Internet marketing.

If you and your management team are not doing what is necessary to educate yourselves in a fast changing world; then you will be left behind. If you are not encouraging training and re-training for your key managers, they will quickly become ineffective. How will they be equipped to meet the challenges of a new and changing retail landscape?

Mandatory continuing education is a staple in many fields. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers and even nurses and school teachers must…get that – MUST… demonstrate that they are keeping up with the changes in their professions. They can lose their licenses and certifications if they do not.

While this is true, we must remember to keep an apples-to-apples comparison. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers must continue their training and education, but not to become marketing experts in their fields. Rather to become thought-leaders in their fields in the context of their work.

I do not believe that dealers should be reprimanded for not improving their skills in blogging and social media. They should however be held accountable for being ignorant to the importance of certain types of marketing such as blogging and social media. When the decision makers at car dealerships make bad decisions based on lack of understanding, it’s the dealership that suffers from it and their customers pay the price for it. In this light, ignorance is irresponsible.

While car dealers and their managers may not have a professional organization to force them to do so, investing in your own continuing education and that of your managers should be priority. Or…as Brian so vividly commented…”If you don’t, then you are perpetuating mediocrity!”

The dealer business unfortunately is steeped in mediocrity. Staff turnover is completely unacceptable. It’s a cancer. And it exists because of the issues that Pasch is emphasizing.

A few years ago, I believed this would change in the coming decade. It is changing for some, but we have a ways to go. In a lot of ways we are only getting started.

But this is nor ordinary job offer. Not only does the job come with a $65k salary, but also a new BMW every 6 months and a condo for one year. Plus, the job offer is packed with incentives for things like international travel to events, trips, and promotions.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can tell from visiting the website they designed to promote this job offer that Endras means business. The Ultimate Blogger website has been professionally designed and coupled with a Hollywood-level video to hopefully spark a viral effect for applications. The site even has a section with links to individual landing pages that were created dynamically by applicants.

With such a well-done campaign to promote this job offer, you have to wonder if they really need a blogger because by the looks of things, Endras has already figured out how to do this shit.

If you are looking for a big break and think you have what it takes and are willing to re-locate to Toronto, this could very well me the job of a lifetime like they tout.

Good luck to everyone competing. Click here to visit the Endras BMW Ultimate Blogger website.

A couple years ago, Carfolks.com was introduced to the industry with a vision to change this, but the response has been slow to pick up. With so much talk about online reputation management, it seems that automotive marketing professionals would want to be more front-and-center with customers and prospects. But this does not appear to be the case.

Facebook and Twitter Do Not Cut It

Facebook gives you the ability to have a dealership face in front of a lot of engaged people, and this is good for your dealership. Problem is that Facebook is not designed to help you sell cars. It is designed to generate revenue for Facebook through data-sharing advertising models. Facebook accomplishes this by giving you and people you know a space to share important information about your “likes”.

Your dealership can take advantage of this by advertising on Facebook using Pages and buying ads. Dealership personnel may be reluctant to co-mingle their personal Facebook experience and their professional experience, but with the right training you can overcome this in some instances. Plus there are alternatives.

In a conversation I had recently with a dealership worker, he was against the idea of being friends on Facebook with people buying cars from him, and I don’t blame him. He is not the only one who feels this way.

One of the consequences with this is that dealership personnel have little potential to develop their own brand equity with auto shoppers, which is of growing importance today. There is no lack of ability to establish brand equity among your peers for your professional persona with all the industry blogs, communities, and magazines, but this has little benefit to potential car buyers. The challenge then becomes how dealership personnel can manage their reputation with customers as a representative of their dealer.

A Different Way to Approach Your Reputation

If you are on board with the idea of establishing brand equity for yourself with auto shoppers, then I would like to invite you to check out the new community we are developing at AutoConverse.com which is large-in-part designed to be an automotive selling tool for Internet-savvy dealership personnel. Unlike much of the technology that is out there today that was either designed originally for automotive retail and is being modified to accommodate social media, or social media that dealers are Jerry-rigging for automotive retail use, AutoConverse.com has been designed from the ground up as an automotive networking tool.

The site is equipped with micro-blogging features that are found on Facebook and Twitter which permit you to promote your products and services, but with far less restriction and to a more welcome audience. It also now has inventory features that let you advertise vehicles in a way that brings leads directly to you as opposed to leaking out to your dealership website. The site utilizes location-based marketing but not via GPS, rather by users associating themselves with markets similar to how is done on Craiglist. The site also has CRM-like features that gives you the ability to communicate with customers and prospects via private messaging.

There is really a lot of neat stuff on this new WordPress-based platform and we are very excited to be introducing it to the industry. Our goal is to develop a community with like-minded automotive professionals that recognize the importance of online reputation management and have the technical know-how to harness these now-common micro-blogging technologies in a way that permits us to cultivate a transparent permission-based auto shopping experience for dealers and customers.

Take a moment now to register your free account and then contact us to schedule a web meeting so we can get you started marketing you and your dealership right away.

For Automotive Digital Marketing Professionals Too

If you are an automotive digital marketing professional then we welcome you as well to utilize the tools and resources this site provides to market your own dealership customers. The site is free to use for everyone and we have incredibly affordable premium merchant services that make it possible for you to tap into the more useful features of the site on behalf of your dealers. Our mission is to provide a space where everyone with like-minded interests and abilities are able to contribute to this growing community of auto shoppers and professionals. Won’t you join us?