Compared to a couple of years ago, the number of dealers who have some sort of mobile strategy is exponentially higher. As an industry, we're starting to really understand just how important mobile is, but there needs to be more action and less discussion, in my humble opinion.

Here's an article I wrote on…

Let's call it what it is. This is a post about active digital marketing versus passive digital marketing. It's one that covers two of the types of marketing disciplines that are near and dear to my heart, but more importantly it lays the groundwork for an understanding of the various marketing styles and how we should classify them.

First and foremost, let's…

There has been a question that has popped up over the years ever since the rise of the internet as a valid marketing venue for car dealers. Should dealerships and vendors teach automotive industry people about marketing or should they teach marketing professionals about the car business?

I've seen both concepts work and I've seen them both fail. The answer…

I was talking to an internet manager yesterday about their marketing when I brought up Hook Logic. His challenge was that he only gets credit for leads, so while he definitely wanted to help the dealership with our SEO and social media products, he wasn't crazy about the concept of increasing more showroom visitors that did not fill out lead forms or call…

Every year around this time, dealerships find themselves making decisions about how to move forward with their marketing. The NADA Convention is often a starting point for the decision-making process; whether you go or not, the post-NADA whirlwind is a great time to grab the latest and greatest from the various vendors around the industry.

It's not just for…

One of the most amazing parts of my job is spending time reading, watching, and testing the practices of others. It's conceivable that the true secret to my success over the years has less to do with creativity and more to do with listening and deciphering. You have to listen to the channels like Google and Facebook. You have to listen to your customers. You have to…

Let’s keep this one short and sweet. If you run a business, you fall into one of four categories:

1. Those who are using social media and seeing mixed or minimal results
2. Those who have used social media in the past and stopped because they saw mixed or minimal results
3. Those who have never really bought into social media
4. Those who…

There was a cry that was heard amongst many in the search engine optimization world on April 24th, 2012, as if thousands of SEOs suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. It was the day that Google Penguin broke link-building...

...or at least that's…

If there’s one thing that gets under my skin the most about local businesses on social media, it’s that they rarely take advantage of one of the most important types of posts: local facts. It’s a low-hanging fruit that is completely missed by most.

It starts with having a local following and fan base, of course,…

When I was asked last year to develop a social media marketing service, the first question they asked was whether I already had software in mind or if it needed to be built. I told them that the software had already been developed and it was free. This didn’t go over well at first; they’d always used premium social media…

There’s a saying in online marketing that has been around for a while. “Content is king.”

The truth is this – before the last year, it really wasn’t. Content has always been important, but it wasn’t until recent updates in Google and…

For those with a business that has an active blog, you may say that this seems light. It is. It seems that there’s a huge gap between those who are adding content to their site and those who don’t so we’re going with a strong minimum. If you’re adding two pieces of content per month, you have the ability to make a difference.…

One of the biggest problems faced when businesses try to use social media as a marketing tool is that there are simply too many social media sites. A day doesn’t go by when I’m not asked about this new site or that old site and whether or not they can be used is marketing. Most can. However, most simply do not have the reach to make them worthwhile. For the…

“Journalist” according to Wikipedia: “A journalist collects, writes and distributes news and other information. A…

In 2013, there will continue to be a growing number of people who have their smartphones and tablets handy while watching television. People are multitasking more often now than ever before while enjoying their television time. They are Tweeting, posting to Facebook, and visiting websites all from the comfort of their living…

Over the past couple of months, I've been working on a standard operating procedure for a comprehensive social media marketing service. It has been a while since I had to develop an overarching strategy rather than one that was individualized for a business or…

Next to computers, tablets, and smartphones, our cars are often the most technologically-challenging item that we deal with on a daily basis. Every model year brings out new gadgets and gizmos that are designed to enhance, adapt, and often-times engage with other technologies that we carry with…

For the past several years, content has been a component of search engine and social media marketing that fell far below the tricks and techniques that helped achieve business goals. It was possible to be successful with limited or low-quality content. In…