The hottest thing in social media marketing right now is influencer marketing. Businesses continually leverage celebrities to gain exposure and attention. Think about all the dealerships that hire famous athletes, or a YouTube celebrity, to help draw a crowd to their dealership. Sure, it works. That’s why businesses do it. But do they always attract the right…

In the last seven years, new vehicle gross margins have declined from four percent to two percent. If that pace continues, profit margins will be wiped out by 2025. It appears that the front-end grosses dealers enjoyed 10 or 15 years ago are never coming back.

F&I profits have made up for some of these lost profits, but this trend is not…

Netflix is one of the most successful disruptors of the digital age. How did they do it? By developing a business model built on customer obsession and personalization at scale. So take note of their strategy: here are three takeaways from Netflix’s meteoric rise that you can use at your dealership.

Personalization is…

There’s a lot of buzz around subscriptions as a new ownership model, with various industry pundits forecasting major disruptions for dealers. I see things differently.

I believe there are several major barriers to subscription growth for non-dealers, and opportunities for dealers to thrive, should subscriptions break through as a significant ownership model.…

What if you could utilize technology to easily understand customers’ behavior and engage them in a more effective, more targeted conversation via digital channels? And what if that same technology seamlessly utilized integrated behavioral patterns and analytics to target ready-to-send campaigns you could access and execute from an easy-to-use platform?

Enter…

Automotive News recently carried a story about a lawsuit filed by Subaru of America against one of their franchisees. The lawsuit accuses a Southern California dealership of falsifying 224 CSI surveys in an effort to increase their CSI scores. This was after…

The model year hasn’t been standard across car makers for some time, but is staggered with one make and model getting to shine for one brief window at a time. Some 2013 models will be available for the summer, while others won’t be out until later in the year.

Redesigns seem to be a common theme among models carrying over for the 2013 model year, and…

Check it out folks...

Just hit the newswire folks… 9:00pm PST

TrueCar Launches National Compliance Campaign and Pro-Industry Product Changes

Sweeping changes include a more balanced advertising approach, revised billing model in some states, consumer membership program, and formation of a Dealer Advisory Council

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — TrueCar, Inc., which is devoted to bringing innovation to the car buying…

As we are in the midst of the 2012 model year, some all new models are now on the market along with several redesigns, one such new model being the Chevrolet Sonic. It seems this fresh new vehicle is trying to steal some thunder from the Ford Fiesta campaigning method by using social media and appealing to a younger audience.

“Aimed at 18 to…

How often have you heard a customer say, “I just don’t like the look of it” They are not sure what exactly turns them off from this vehicle despite all the amazing features it has that they want.  People’s taste change in automotive style with the ease of the wind blowing so it can be very difficult for a dealership sometimes to draw people in that may not like the “look” of the vehicle…