JD Power Emphasises Mobile Computing and Social Media

Last week I attended my first JD Power Automotive Internet Roundtable courtesy of my new employer – HookLogic. I liked what I saw, and some of the messaging coming out of #JDPAIRT is consistent with where I tend to see things headed.

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.