All too often, a company gets intrigued with content marketing and decides to give it a try. But then, after just a couple of blogs, executives decide that there just isn’t any tangible return on their investment, or that it’s not measurable, and so lessen their content output, or abandon the initiative altogether.

In most cases this is due to poor planning…

The glaring mistakes of a well-intentioned sales team.

I was excited about buying a nice new car, but like many of your clients, I was dreading the process. As a service advisor trainer who specializes in teaching the differences between selling to women vs. men, I’m in car dealerships all the time. However, since I have…

This Week in Social Media

News for the Week of August 29

Facebook Image Recognition Software Open to Everyone

With the goal of someday applying it to live video, Facebook is open sourcing its image recognition software. …

Whether you like it or not, email marketing will always come in handy as long as you’re checking your email. 

This week on Think Tank Tuesday, Paul will give you 3 tips that will help you improve your email marketing exponentially.  By taking these marketing tips and putting them into action, your open rates and click through rates may increase! Watch people engage more with your business and brand by utilizing this week’s Think Tank Tuesday in…

Loyalty programs are nothing new to retail. In the beginning, most consisted of simple punch cards or other basic means of tracking customer transactions. As technology improved, many programs became digitized with key tags, cards and other ways for retailers to keep track of these transactions, aside from purely manual means.

Then came big data, enabling…

Your blog is a great avenue that you can use for effectively marketing your products and services. This is an advantage at your disposal and your competitors are already using it. What are you waiting for? Here are 5 tips you can use to increase your blog’s effectiveness in marketing your products.

•          Use Social Media Sites–…

In the past, customers were willing to bring their vehicle into a service department and wait patiently. However, with the rise of convenience and the promise of speed in the form of express independent chains such as Jiffy Lube, regular service customers began forsaking the dealership and started defecting to these chains. Manufacturers took notice and started initiatives…

LinkedIn is making moves to be one of the largest social media platforms for professionals. The shift is growing toward more members who are looking for freelance work and members who are growing into entrepreneurship.

LinkedIn has capitalized on this with Profinder. But how does this relate to you as a business or a job seeker? Watch this week's Hard Facts with Samantha for more information on how this will help you find the right career…

Social media marketing is growing every day as a result of increasing consumer activity across social platforms.  Currently, 90% of young adults aged 18 to 29 use social media—which explains why social affects nearly…

According to J.D. Power's 2016 CSI study, the key areas that dealers need to pay specific attention to are...

• Wait Time: Consumers are willing to wait 1-2 hours for service. Unfortunately, the majority of customer visits are well past 1-2 hours. I also have to believe that customer defection wouldn't be at 70% if customers didn't have to wait and be inconvenienced.
• Service with a Smile: Service satisfaction improves considerably when…

Smartphones are responsible—in a BIG way—for how the automotive market is changing. Not only are consumers more mobile, they’re also empowered to access more information than ever before while on the go.  They have the power of Google in their pockets, and they aren’t afraid to use it.  Everything from vehicle comparisons to consumer reviews to feedback about specific…

Our economic future is not going to be smooth sailing. In order to successfully navigate, the captains of the vessels are going to have to make the proper adjustments in order to weather the storm. The following is some information that supports my predictions and hopefully provides you with a map to help you steer you way clear of…

A recession is coming, learn how dealerships will survive the bad economy.

I don’t like talking gloom and doom when it comes to dealing with a bad economy. On a personal level, I work very hard to be upbeat, to see the positives, and to stay focused on what is good. That said, as a person running a business, I have to research business indicators to help…

Welcome to this week's edition of Black Book Market Insights, with in-depth analysis of used car and truck valuation trends and insights straight from the auction lanes. Click here to download the full report.

This week’s Black Book Market Insights report shines a spotlight on luxury cars, particularly two-year-old models. Cars in this class are showing significantly weaker retention compared with…

Today’s socially connected consumers have changed the tide in the automotive industry, from top to bottom. However, the dealership must also change, in the way that they collect data and use social media. Every day there is an increase to the number of consumers using social data and social media. Facebook has 1.7 Billion users, and Twitter and Instagram have almost half a Billion users. Customers are also using…

This Week in Social Media

News for the Week of August 22

Promoted Video Pins on Pinterest

Pinterest recently rolled out…

A dealership's CRM is at the heart of its entire sales operation. Choosing the right CRM for your dealership is exceedingly important in its success. However, when the purchase of the new CRM has been completed, there are still a few key items that need to be covered before the dealership can get up and running. Acknowledging that this process takes time and energy, from all members of the dealerships sales…

Auto dealerships face a unique challenge when it comes to growing customer engagement. In general, the modern customer is inundated with advertising and people have become adept at tuning out messages. However, your brand has an opportunity to rise to this challenge and can use great rewards programs as a cornerstone of customer engagement. Here’s how:

Deemphasize sales

Although it may seem…

If you want to see everything from what your friends are having for lunch to what is going on in their relationships to up-and-coming trends, look no further than Facebook. In 2015, online sales reached a staggering $334 billion, and they are expected to climb…

You can’t Bing like you Google.  What we mean is: Bing is rolling out some new features that may optimize your strategy differently than Google does. From URL’s to shared tracking templates to custom parameters, Bing is making sure everyone can easily update their account in order to improve their campaigns.

Watch this week’s Hard Facts with Samantha to learn how to upgrade your Bing account.…