Heading into the New Year, even the speed of speed seems to be picking up speed.

Commercials compress. Attention spans shorten. Faster is better. Learn it quickly. Make the adjustment. Get to where you are going sooner.

Significant business strides will be made with Over The Top (OTT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and…

Have you heard that direct mail is dead? I think it's fair to say that mass mail is dead, but direct mail still has a place in your dealership's marketing strategy.

Quite simply, it's about reach. Most dealerships can reach about 50 percent of their customers via email alone. When they add social channels like Facebook and Instagram, that reach…

Today, too many dealerships rely on old attribution models, such as first-click or last-click. While current technological advancements provide a clearer picture of marketing with more up-to-date attribution models, dealers are failing to leverage the best technology to reach customers.

There is an obvious challenge. While selling cars over multiple channels…

It is widely known that Service is the lifeblood of all dealerships and, in many cases, keeps dealerships financially in the black. With the inundation of service requests by consumers, largely due to the increasing amounts of recalls that we’ve seen in the last few years, service departments are finding it more difficult than ever to accommodate all of the customers that…

Many consider Michael Jordan one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, basketball player who ever lived. He also made some thought-provoking statements. One I find really interesting and words from which we can all learn is this:

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to…

There is one common problem most companies run into when they start a content marketing strategy. Frequently, executives have unreal expectations and expect to go from zero to hero in a matter of days. They want an immediate return-on-investment – such as leads, engagement or website traffic. I am afraid that is simply not realistic. Hey, sometimes you can hit gold straight…

Somewhere in the North Pacific Ocean, there lives a whale that cannot communicate with other whales. You see, whales communicate via sub-sonic vocal sounds. Most whales communicate in the 15-25 hertz (Hz) range. Whales, for the…

When social media marketing burst on the scene nearly a decade ago, just about every dealership immediately piled onto the bandwagon. We didn't all know exactly what we were doing; we just knew we had to do it because everyone else was doing it.

At the time I was with AutoNation and we spent a lot of money and time trying to figure out how to market our dealer…

In the digital era, digital signage plays a bigger role than traditional promotion options. In fact, some studies have shown that it is even more influential than TV or the Internet.

Having in mind such a huge impact it may have on your car dealership customers, we have conducted a small research and drawn up a list of 5…

In auto dealerships when managers hear the question "How's your week going?" they know it's not always a personal question. Someone--usually the General Manager--wants to know whether they're on track to hit goals.

The most reliable source to find out how it's going is to drill down into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). We all know the usual; gross profit,…

A question I often get asked is, “When is the right time to cut a marketing source if it does not seem to be working?”

Almost every vendor and/or marketing source requires time to perform – whether that’s PPC, SEM, SEO, TV, radio, newspaper, email, lead providers or third-party listing sites – it’s all the same. Give any source a mere 30-day judgement call…

Some dealership personnel tend to do things that really boil down to just CYA stuff. A customer comes into the service drive and is made to wait while their vehicle is inspected for scratches, dents or dings, which can take a few minutes --- time a customer doesn’t have.

The most valuable currency on the planet is time. Everyone has too much to do with too little…

Consumers have gravitated to the Internet for – well – just about everything. So, when it comes to digital marketing, it’s more important than ever for marketers to know what’s working and what’s not. Everything from SEO, to content, to social media and display ads contributes to the lure which brings consumers into dealership showrooms.

Currently, the single…

When talking to dealers about measuring marketing results from their various vendors, I often hear them bemoaning the fact that they have to log into multiple dashboards, I refer to this as “ADD.” Perhaps not the ADD you’re thinking of – here it stands for “Another Damn Dashboard!” What dealer isn’t fed up with too many dashboards making it impossible to focus on the data?…