Do you want to watch live TV? If yes, then you should choose the option of a fireStick device to get started. With the help of this device, you can enjoy unlimited home entertainment, including TV channels from all around the world. In order to watch these TV channels, you don't need to pay a single penny. You just need to use the different streaming apps for your devices to…

After an unprecedented period of sales volume growth, the prediction for a flat Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) in the coming years has significant implications for dealerships. As competition for new vehicles heats up, front-end margins will continue to decline, forcing more dealers to focus on back end profitability.…

     I am amazed when making inquiries at the tonality of the person answering the phone. Although some are cheery and seem genuinely happy to assist you they are few and far between. These calls are being made to people in the "customer service" entities of the businesses I select to contact- particularly the automotive business.

     I contacted a particular dealership and one of the sales people answered the call. What I got was "Sales" in a tone of voice that it was an imposition…

Hey Everyone, Happy New Year!

Just Bolt-Ons - Just letting you know about a new Performance Auto Parts business catered to working with both consumers and auto dealers to provide them all the performance parts that they may want. Whether it's as simple as an exhaust setup, cold air intake, or a supercharger/turbo upgrade. 

We are…

By now, pretty much everyone has heard about the power of social media and the effect it can have on businesses that are leveraging it to enhance their bottom line. What may or may not be known—even by the businesses that are using social media to their advantage—are the actual numbers that are churning behind the scenes of specific social campaigns. So how can…

With any new product and marketplace there’s a learning curve and we’ve recently gained more knowledge about what it takes to manage the “art” of posting to eBay classifieds. We want to share the Top 5 Best Practices we’ve learned over the last few weeks with you:

1.)  New eBay accounts require some “Seasoning” similar to the historical…

You may remember the Jeff Gordon "test drive" ad from about a year ago, when Gordon, in disguise, …

Most of us grew up in the industry where PUVR (or Per Used Vehicle Retail) was the key metric we were looking for to determine how successful we were on each vehicle we sold. As we all know, things have definitely changed since the Internet has become the primary way our customers begin their search for a used car.

For the last two years, I have had the privilege of teaching and coaching our NCM dealer-clients’ managers at the NCM…

In almost every aspect of your dealership, you calculate ROI. Whether you’re looking at your ad spend, calculating labor costs or analyzing your digital marketing, the first, and last, thing you think about is ROI. How is my spending this money going to help me make more money? At times, we choose unwisely and discover that after the fact. Steps are then taken to rectify and…

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 was a time not too long ago when the live chat icon on websites was both a rarity and a novelty. Inquisitive site visitors would notice the live chat software prompts in the form of a button on their favorite Internet hotspots but would be too scared to click them for one reason or another. Those days are gone now and while thousands of upmarket and progressive…

Written by Wayne George

Today's blog post is by Wayne George, an NCM Executive Conference Moderator for several NCM 20 Groups. Prior to joining NCM, Wayne spent 29 years in the retail automotive world. He was also a charter member of the NCM General Managers Top Twenty Group for seven years.

Your service department charging retail rates to recondition your vehicles isn’t really why you aren’t as competitive as you could be. Let’s look at some facts.

Domestic and import…

Are going to be able to sustain the momentum you established in your used vehicle departments in 2012? Or perhaps your used vehicle department performance wasn’t so good, and you’re promising to do better in 2013?

At NCMi we just finished a record year in terms of the number of classes we taught and the amount of dealership personnel we were able to help educate to better understand the true workings of their…

Do you know the one thing you can do on your dealership's website to increase leads? In this week’s Think Tank Tuesday, I’m going to show you the importance of strong web panels and how they increases customer conversions on your website.

The questions “How do I drive more leads to my website?" and "How do I increase conversions?” are always asked. We’ve done the research so you can implement the strategy in your dealership. You can do it completely free and in house; create custom…

I was amazed to learn that, during the research phase, customers spend 17 to 19 hours, on the internet, before visiting a dealership.  Much of that involves vehicle comparisons but anyone is naive if they don't think that price is a chief consideration.  A recent Cobalt study stated that the average consumer visited eight dealership websites.  These customers tend to be at the bottom of the sales funnel.  At this point, they should have narrowed it down to a…

Site Retargeting with Facebook from Potratz on Vimeo.

Think Tank Tuesday- Are You Missing Sales With The Wrong Messaging? from Potratz on Vimeo.

Are you missing out on sales because your marketing message is focused only on price points?  If you're only focused on price, you are not connecting with customers who are…

The Automotive Industry has been posting and engaging on Facebook on the wrong days at the wrong time. According to Buddy Media, the automotive industry should be posting on Facebook on Sundays stating, “Engagement rates spike significantly for Posts made on Sunday, but the automotive industry is slow to capitalize on this trend, with less than 8% of all posts being made on this day.”

Don’t get discouraged dealers! I’m here to tell you how…

Do You Want More Leads From Your Website? from Potratz on Vimeo.

Do You Have An SEM Strategy For Service? from Potratz on Vimeo.

Search engine marketing is an excellent tool to increase awareness and profit for your service department. Why focus only on those looking to purchase a vehicle when you can also target…