Paul Potratz's Blog (437)

Facebook Enters Groupon’s Arena with Deals Program

Today, Facebook is launching a deals program similar to those on sites like Groupon and Living Social, testing offers in five major cities across the U.S. These deals will include major discounts and exclusive offers for tickets, passes, and more. People can then share it by “liking” to potentially get greater discounts if friends buy into an offer. Although this program is still in a test stage, once released in all areas it will have great potential for…

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Added by Paul Potratz on April 26, 2011 at 1:33pm — No Comments

Does Your Dealership Have a Social Media Policy?

Many dealers are hesitant to let their salespeople use Facebook because they expect employees to waste too much time chatting with their friends, playing Farmville, etc. This concern is understandable when you want your salespeople to be on the floor selling, following up to leads over email and phone, and making the most of their time. But you can’t ignore the fact that the majority of your potential leads are using Facebook and it is a legitimate tool for…

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Added by Paul Potratz on April 21, 2011 at 1:20pm — No Comments

New Age Automotive Marketing

Technology is advancing at the speed of light, so much so that the most life-changing innovations of the 21st century have been from this segment. Its effect has been felt on every aspect of society, but perhaps one area where the impact of this technology can be really be seen and felt is in automotive marketing.



Digital… Continue

Added by Paul Potratz on April 18, 2011 at 11:38am — No Comments

Important Things to Remember When Marketing Your Dealership on Facebook

Simply having a business page on Facebook is no longer enough to run a successful automotive marketing campaign on Facebook. With a number of companies and brands joining the bandwagon, Facebook has become a saturated market and unless you understand how the market behaves, you might be get lost amid all the noise.



Similarly, filling up your fans’ walls with advertorial posts will be useless unless you’re…

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Added by Paul Potratz on April 11, 2011 at 3:59pm — No Comments

Take Advantage of the New Facebook for iPhone Check-in Feature at Your Dealership

Although the iPhone app was intended to let users stay connected with their Facebook friends while on the go, auto dealers can also take advantage of this technology to make their automotive mobile marketing campaigns more interactive and more in-tune with the social media. With the release of Facebook for iPhone’s newest version (version 3.4), one added feature is particularly useful for business owners: the ability to check-in at actual events.

 

Checking-In to…

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Added by Paul Potratz on April 6, 2011 at 12:58pm — No Comments

The Benefits of SMS Marketing for Your Auto Dealership

Among the many methods of digital automotive advertising, mobile phones are emerging as one of the most effective devices to promote your dealership. But not all mobile phones are created equal. While SMS marketing capitalizes on text messages to propel its campaigns, another platform for mobile marketing is gaining popularity. I’m talking about smartphones.



IDC’s 49.2% market growth prediction for 2011… Continue

Added by Paul Potratz on April 4, 2011 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Increase Your Leads With Online Classifieds

Print classified ads are one of the main tools auto dealers use to advertise their vehicles and service but as more and more people are turning to the internet for information, online classifieds are significantly and steadily outperforming newspapers and periodicals in providing ad spaces and lead generation.

Craigslist alone, as an established leader among local online classifieds, boasts over 20 billion page views each month, besting online retail giant Amazon and multimedia empire…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 31, 2011 at 3:21pm — No Comments

Using the Fundamentals of Twitter to Engage Current and Potential Customers

Five years ago Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, sent out the first tweet launching a new form of communication that became a revolution in 140 characters or less. This year, Twitter posted a blog reporting that it only takes about one week for users to send 1 billion tweets and last February an average of 460,000 accounts were opened per day. In the automotive industry, we should all ask ourselves, are we utilizing the fundamentals of Twitter to best engage current and potential buyers on…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 30, 2011 at 3:57pm — 1 Comment

Using Facebook Questions to Market Your Dealership

Facebook has recently launched a new application that could change the way you interact with current and potential customers. Facebook Questions, which operates similarly to Quora, Aardvark, LinkedIn Answers and other Q&A sites on the internet, can be a valuable tool for dealerships looking to find out more about their target market. With Facebook Questions you are able to ask a question then either set up specific poll answers for people to vote on, keep the question open-ended allowing… Continue

Added by Paul Potratz on March 29, 2011 at 2:37pm — No Comments

Automotive Advertising with Video SEO

 



What items stand out the most to you in search results? Often pictures and especially video will initially draw your attention more than plain text results. Videos posted to sites like YouTube show up especially well in search listings. Auto dealerships need to take advantage of this free exposure by creating videos of walkarounds, customer testimonials, test…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 23, 2011 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Has Your Dealership's Website Been 'StumpledUpon'?

StumbleUpon, Reddit and Delicious are popular websites that can drive traffic to your website without costing you money or an enormous amount of time. These types of sites were developed to help people discover new and interesting things, and guess what? Your site or blog could be one of the new and interesting things they discover.

 

In order to truly make StumbleUpon, Reddit or Delicious beneficial to your dealership, you first have to build up a strong…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 21, 2011 at 2:58pm — No Comments

Enhance Your Dealership's Facebook Page with Custom Tabs

In today's Potratz online workshop, Dan talked about ways to enhance the look and features of your auto dealership's Facebook business page. One way to give a page a true "custom" feel is to add custom tabs with branded images, content, etc. In our experience with automotive advertising on social media, we find that the more customized the page, the more people like…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 17, 2011 at 2:25pm — No Comments

Is your Dealership an Industry Expert?

Q&A websites like Quora, Aardvark and LinkedIn Answers are gaining popularity in the social media spear, and people are looking for answers. Answers about cars, about servicing cars, about car parts and about where to buy cars. So the question is- as an auto dealership- are you an expert in the car industry?



People buy from people. Q&A sites can enhance your dealership’s reputation by establishing your credibility on automotive topics. By  contributing to these sites you can… Continue

Added by Paul Potratz on March 16, 2011 at 4:51pm — No Comments

Don't forget the "Social" in Social Media

Do you have a social media strategy for your dealership? Maybe you’ve met with your marketing department or your management team to discuss how you should go about posting to Facebook or Twitter. The discussions and the opinions can be endless- who should post, how often, what to post and what time of day and on and on and on.

 

Unfortunately, during all this planning and strategizing we often forget the key to…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 15, 2011 at 5:51pm — No Comments

Location-Based Marketing for Auto Dealerships

As smartphones grow in popularity, advertisers are turning to location-based marketing applications like Foursquare to engage consumers. At Potratz, we have implemented location-based campaigns on social sites for multiple clients to encourage users to check in on their phones. Here are a couple examples:

Steve White VW Audi offers $15 off parts/service when people check in

The Bill Rapp Superstore offers a $10 NYS Inspection and car wash for every…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 14, 2011 at 5:04pm — No Comments

YouTube Marketing Tips for Auto Dealers

As of February 2011, YouTube has 490 million unique visitors per month worldwide. The average YouTube user visits the site 14 times per month, spending an average of 25 minutes on the site each time. And these numbers are only for the YouTube website itself and don’t include all those embedded YouTube videos that are all over the place, in blogs, viewed on smartphones, etc.



We know that YouTube can be an important medium to increase SEO, to share content and to receive feedback…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 11, 2011 at 3:02pm — No Comments

Google Boost: Simplified Pay-Per-Click for Busy Auto Dealers



Ideally, an auto dealership should be running a pay-per-click campaign through Google AdWords, but what if you just don't have the staff or the time to manage an AdWords campaign? Google now offers a simplified option called Google Boost through Google Places in which you can basically "set it and forget it." Unfortunately, this platform is only available in certain markets but…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 10, 2011 at 5:35pm — No Comments

Writing Effective Content for Your Dealership's Website

Ever get that sinking feeling that your auto dealership's website looks just like every other dealership's site? You're not alone--just look at every other dealership using some generic provider for their site. A website refresh is going to take a substantial amount of time and development, but if you can edit the text content, there are some things you can do now to help your website rank higher in search and keep your visitors on the pages.

Here are four simple tips for writing…

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Added by Paul Potratz on March 8, 2011 at 10:30am — No Comments

Embracing the Social Media Evolution

Running a successful social media campaign in the automotive industry, or any industry for that matter, involves keeping an eye on the website updates and improvements. With that said, Facebook has recently released its update on the comments plugin which can offer you some exciting features for your dealership's business page. 



These features include threaded comments, moderation controls, and being able to sync comments to your Facebook page. The ability to synchronize your comments… Continue

Added by Paul Potratz on March 3, 2011 at 10:30am — No Comments

Focus on the Goal in Your Dealership's SEM



What’s your ultimate goal in running a search engine marketing campaign for your car dealership? To get more clicks on your ads? To lower your cost per click and get the most for your money? To get more conversions when people fill out forms to get a quote? All of these things work step by step closer to your ultimate goal: to sell more cars. That’s what it comes down to.



An…

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Added by Paul Potratz on February 28, 2011 at 5:00pm — No Comments

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