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.

Greystripe apparently surveyed over 850 people on it’s network between November last year and this February, on the topics of buying cars and mobile phones. According the release they issued today:

• 25% of iPhone and Android users plans to buy a car within 12 months
• 78% of thesse say they will use their mobile device for both searching and purchasing their car
• 15.6% intend to buy a new car, with another 10.4% looking at the used market

Dane Holewinski, director of marketing at Greystripe says “touch device users are a tech savvy consumer segment with plenty of income… Auto brands are aware of the attractiveness of this audience and have been one of the most aggressive industries when it comes to rich media mobile advertising that harnesses the power of touch.”

There have been a lot of links over the past few years between car makers and mobile apps. Greystripe claims that auto brands alone have increased their spending by 113% in Q1 2011 over the same period in 2010. Hyundai for example includes the Equus owner’s manual pre-loaded on an iPad when you purchase the automobile new.

While auto shoppers performing a purchase transaction with their local dealers via smartphones is not on the horizon, accommodating communications between dealers and buyers via smartphone devices and tablets is becoming increasingly important. Mobile phone apps are one way to accommodate this communication, and so too are mobile-friendly websites, and text messaging.

What Should Dealers Do?

From a marketing perspective, dealers must be considering the mobile experience in just about everything they do in advertising, be it by including text opts-in in radio and TV ads, or QR codes in printed ads display ads, or even more simple and conventional touch points such as mobile-friendly emails.

When you send out an email today, you must consider the fact that people receiving it are expected to click links in it, and so you want to make sure you know what the mobile experience will be like for them.

For instance, if your email includes a link to a page on your website, but your website is set to auto-detect mobile browsers, which often includes tablet browsers, then you want to make sure that the destination page on the mobile site is consistent with the destination page on your website. Of course of your website is not set to auto-detect a mobile platform like this then you want to make sure your website as a whole is mobile-friendly. Otherwise, the mobile experience for your customers, which is growing rapidly, is likely to cause issues.

This is but one example of how the marketing has changed and will continue to change in the coming age for auto dealers. As one who is responsible for marketing at your dealership, take the necessary measures now to identify where and how you can improve the mobile experience for your customers.

In this final demonstration in the series that began in January 2010, Guest Presenter Brian Collins will be showing us:

• Why mobile sites are important today
• How to create a mobile website within the CMP Mobile system
• How to generate a URL for your mobile site
• How to shorten the URL to insert into text message campaign
• How to insert URL in text message campaign

By the end we will have created a mobile website on the fly that you will be able to view on your mobile phone. Webinar attendees will have an opportunity to test the mobile system live by opting in to receive this link to the mobile web page from their phone so if you can not text while on a call with your mobile phone then you will want to call in using a different phone so you can participate in the live demo. For questions about this please contact us.

SPECIAL: Text AUTOBURST to 41513 from your mobile and show up for this web cast and receive a free mobile website for your business for 30 days.

To register for this free event use the button below. If you are already registered with the AC Mobile series then you would have already received an email notification from GoToWebinar about it and there is no need to re-register.

Likewise if you have an interest in subjects like this and can not make this particular webinar, you can view our schedule of events or sign up to receive email and text alerts for all upcoming web casts. We do record our web casts and make them available for viewing on our Viddler channel and on our new website www.AutoBurstWebTV.com.

For questions or assistance with AC Webinars contact Ryan Gerardi. Thank You.

The topic for this private webinar is on the new mobile component we have been building in to the AC Insider program. Specifically we will be looking at:

• The new email auto response with mobile opt-in information and link to mobile site
• The new mobile site options
• Pricing for the new mobile component
• Upgrade options to full mobile version
• How we are incorporating the new mobile component into AC List Builder

You can see there is much to cover and will likely require more than an hour to run through, thus another reason it is not open to the public because it is too much information for one sessions.

Some of you may have received an email communication from GoToWebinar about the AC Spotlight Series going on tomorrow. That communication was a mistake and has been corrected. The next AC Spotlight session is set for May 6.

We have updated the training schedule on our website so please check there for the most accurate information.

To join the AC Mobile Webinar Series you may click here or the button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within this series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar within that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.