Attention email composers, bloggers and content writers (just about all of us):

Google is full of surprises. This week, they went out and acquired the company Incentive Targeting. What will this mean for your search engine optimization efforts moving forward? Lets break it down a little and see if we can piece together part of their master plan.

There…

PEO on Entreprenuer.com 

 Last night ActivEngage had it’s annual Holiday Party at Ceviche. We had an open bar, hand passed appetizers, and a great DJ. By 7PM employees created a break dancing circle and one later told me that he ripped his pants doing a whirlwind move!

Why am I telling you this? Because Holiday Parties are good for company morale. At this party…

This is a great share directly from Richard Branson (owner of Virgin Companies- which is just about everything)  who I follow in my business network.  I good lesson for serving customers, building our business one customer at a time, listening to our customers for improvement ideas, and the power of social networking today.…

Every year at the NADA Convention, the exhibit hall is full of CRM and BDC companies displaying their wares. Dealers spend massive amounts of money in a frenzy to buy the “magic button” CRM or BDC solution for many reasons. Unfortunately most of those reasons aren’t valid. Putting great tools in the hands of below-average people with below-average processes and little-to-no accountability equals a waste of money.

Let’s look at some of the underlying reasons why dealers buy…

Facebook is pushing hard to extend their influence, and now they are beginning to drill down to a more granular level with their business support. They recently released a guide specifically for automotive dealerships. The only problem is that it isn’t exactly advertised everywhere, so many people may have missed it. It’s nothing…

Every few months, marketers around the blogosphere start the next batch of chants that search engine optimization is dying or dead. It's like clockwork; Google makes a change, their pages rank poorly, they declare that the party's over. I think I've written about the topic at least once a year since 2008.

The chants are starting…

Fellow Dealership Vendors - Would you like the best Live Chat Software for your own website for free? No Problem, just contact me, and I will get you started.

There is no obligation at all to do business with us, just wanting you to see and use what we have created.



This will be our top…

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…

There is not much discussion on automotive forums  regarding Dealer Management System (DMS) innovation. 

The automotive DMS market is dominated by two companies today: Reynolds and ADP.  

So I ask dealers on this forum:

"Has the dealer community not seen a…

It was the 2011 Driving Sales Executive Summit when I was asked by Joe Webb to participate in a debate about Twitter followers. I had around 100,000 followers at the time and he wanted me to argue for the side of quantity being more important than quality. This made perfect sense…

With over 75 million users, over 6000 photo uploads in the last minute, over 72,000 photos tagged with jump, and over 3 million photos geo-tagged this month. Flickr is quickly becoming an extremely important digital marketing tool because it allows your dealership to market your inventory and brand through a very visually attractive social medium. Flickr can…

Family fears Mac Haik shooting suspect could bond out

SPRING -- As a boy, Rob Kuentz looked up to his dad. He even dressed like him and dreamed of one day working at a car dealership.

“I have pictures of him everywhere he went,” said his mother, Sandy Kuentz. “He had to have that tie on because he was going to sell cars.”

By 30, Kuentz was a supervisor at a Mac Haik dealership. He married his high school sweetheart, Heather, and had…

If you weren’t able to make it out to the 13^th Digital Dealer Conference, you’re in luck! The Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition is going virtual December 5-11. In that time, you can check out the vendor programs and services as seen in the 13^th Digital Dealer Exhibit Hall, and also experience the top ten educational sessions on demand 24/7 anywhere with Internet access.

We at the re:member group will have a virtual exhibit there…

A Facebook username is essentially your domain name on Facebook. For instance, ours is Facebook.com/Wikimotive. Much like your actual website domain name, your Facebook username is best when it is just your brand name. Snagging this username (and the accompanying vanity URL) is an important part of your …

Over at Automotive Digital Marketing, there's been a long discussion started by Jim Zieglerabout Carfax and its place in the…

A few months back I attended Autocon 2012. There I learned a lot of new techniques and processes to help bring my dealership to the next level in automotive internet sales. But instead of running home and writing a review right away about the courses I attended and what they spoke about, I decided to wait about writing about what I heard and implement it…

Does Your Dealership Have a Good Incentive Based Marketing Program?

By

Jason Parman

Incentive based marketing can in large be defined as the use of motivational devices such as competitions, games, premiums, and special pricing to promote the sale of a particular…

There's a trend in the automotive industry that is alarming. We hear this scenario played out almost every day and it normally manifests itself into one of two stages:

• Stage 1: The Fresh Tech Hunter - When a dealership is tired of the limitations of their various vendors, they…