In my experience, one of the top frustrations dealers have when choosing the best solutions from multiple vendors is how to get them to work well together. The problem is, whether it’s a DMS; CRM; service lane tool; or any other significant technology available; not all work together in harmony. And that is what dealers want.

I’m not suggesting…

Did you know the customer data sitting in your DMS is the most valuable asset you own—even more valuable than your real estate and inventory combined? Yet I don’t know any dealers that have a budget or defined strategic objective to invest in, increase and maintain the value of this asset.

When you have comprehensive customer data, you know something…

As you know, email is a vital part of your marketing. But if your specially-crafted email campaigns don’t make it to your customers’ inboxes, your ROI will fall short. Following email deliverability best practices is more than making sure your customers receive your emails—it’s making sure that your emails aren’t marked as spam.

To keep your domain or IP…

Over the years, as customers have sought out the internet to research, shop and buy cars, a void has been created between customers and sales professionals -- removing a human element from much of the upfront process. Many dealers and sales professionals are now bridging that gap with the help of personal branding.

Somewhere along the way, CRM and other systems lost sight of the fact that customers are more than “leads”, “shoppers”, and “potential buyers”; they are human…

Recently Facebook announced that it will stop using data from third-party data aggregators to supplement its own data that it uses for ad targeting. What does this mean for car dealers?

Until this announcement, Facebook collected data from three sources which it used to accurately target its users with ads. These sources were:

• Facebook’s…

When a person wants to buy a vehicle, a dealership is the first place they think of. When a person needs to get their vehicle serviced, a dealership is not necessarily the first place they think of. For service, there’s plenty of choices and competition for dealers.

That’s why service marketing is more important than ever. Historically in dealerships, service…

If you work in a dealership, my bet is that you are either celebrating because you exceeded your goals, are breathing a sigh of relief that you met them, or are extremely nervous because you didn’t.

This time of year is generally crammed with reports, RDRs, OEM face downs and…

When it comes to increasing service revenue, there is no shortage of areas to consider – improving process efficiency, expanding facilities, hir…

| by David Metter

Could it be possible that the secret to selling cars in today’s multi-touch, exponentially data-driven society is exactly the same as it was prior to World War II? I know what you’re thinking. This is either a huge stretch or some sort of joke. However, recently…