Ward’s Automotive Spring Training Conference

Ward’s wants to invite you to join them in Tampa, FL, March 15-17 for the second annual Ward’s Automotive Spring Training Conference.

Last year’s conference was a hit, and deemed by participants as one of the premier events of the year.

We know that with all of the uncertainty surrounding the automotive industry, this is a tough time to be thinking about a conference.

But we also know, dealers will be selling cars in the future.

And Ward’s wants to help you get — not only your fair share — but your unfair share of the market.

That means this is one conference you can’t afford to miss.

In addition to exciting keynote speakers, they have designed informative workshops with the newest marketing strategies for dealers and general managers.

Most of this information is stuff your agencies don’t even know yet.

Create the 21st century marketing department by showing you how to weave the power of the Web throughout all of your advertising efforts.

So make sure you’re in a position to hit a home run in 2009.

Visit us at www.wardsauto.com/springtraining to register.

See you in Tampa!

Date: Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
Time: 1 p.m. (Eastern)
Location: Your Computer
Cost: FREE – Register Here

Join us on March 10th for a Free Webinar

Join DealersEdge and Brian Pasch of Pasch Consulting Group for a FREE webinar March 10th.

Spend 90 minutes with Brian on March 10th and you will learn

• How simple changes in your SEO strategies can make a huge difference.
• How being clever with your Google Maps title can help you jump ahead of your competition.
• How to use Facebook as a productive marketing platform.
• How to use Social Tagging to turn your website into a viral marketing machine.
• How to buy ads on Facebook that will drive local results.
• How social network alternatives can help you create a “controllable” social network for your dealership.
• How to use Craigslist, Google Base and VAST as dealership selling tools and how to automate your inventory into these sites with GBFeeder.com.
• Why Blogging works for auto dealers and tips on how to start your own blog.
• How to use news releases to drive traffic to your website and as an SEO strategy.
• The checklist for creating a viral marketing action plan for your dealership.

Registration Info:
This Webinar is a Free service brought to you by DealersEdge and The Pasch Consulting Group.  Your only cost will be for the phone call to connect to the audio portion of the program.  Presentation slides will be presented via the Internet, using the GoToWebinar platform.

Registration is Limited -  Connections to this event are limited to 300.  That might sound like a lot, but our most recent free Webinar far exceeded that number and tested the limits of the GoToWebinar phone circuits.  So please, if you plan to attend, register as early as possible.

Space is Limited – So Register Now

Date: Friday, January 9th, 2008
Time: 12pm to 1 p.m. (Eastern)
Location: Your Computer
Cost: FREE – Register Here

In responding to the current economic slowdown, you can either give up or get down to business. Choose to jumpstart your 2009 sales with timely tips from the experts at Cars.com who will share their top internet sales techniques to help you weather tough times and position yourself to thrive in the recovery. We’ll examine the critical components of your online advertising and internet sales processes that help you connect with in-market shoppers and work with them to win the sale.

In this session, we’ll discuss the:

• Stock your store with the in-demand vehicles that car buyers want in today’s market.
• Merchandise your listings and promote your store to stand apart from your competitors.
• Communicate with in-market shoppers to build credibility and establish rapport.
• Stick with buyers until they buy.
• Leverage internet advertising, including specials, to keep your inventory moving.

Increase Your Dealerships Traffic Without Increasing Your Advertising Spend

AIADA and CarFax Presents is hosting a FREE Webinar:

Date and time: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 12:00 pm Eastern Standard Time

Panelist(s) Info: Jay Luna

Process Improvement Manager, CARFAX

Duration: 30 minutes

Description: This FREE 30 minute webinar will examine the best practices that leading dealers are using to get more return on their advertising investment. Jay Luna, Process Improvement Manager with CARFAX, will be bringing real life tips that you can introduce into your already successful process to get more from your advertising and used car operations.

• What is your vehicle history process?
• Are you ensuring that your online listings have the information your customers want?
• Learn some great new ways that you can increase your exposure without increasing your advertising spend

UPDATE: Listen to the recorded webinare – Increase Your Traffic Without Increasing Your Advertising Spend

How does Cars.com really stack up against the competition after 10 years of business?

What makes Cars.com different?

How are dealers measuring the effectiveness of their advertising sources? (Is it still emotional, or are they allowing the numbers to speak?)

Does lead scoring have a place in the showroom, or is it a better fit for the larger entities?

Will consumer comments and reputation management for dealers move the needle AND will Cars.com jump into this arena?

When and will online video advertising find a home in the dealer universe?

Is it time that your dealer employs an in-house SEO expert/manager?

These were just SOME of the questions we discussed at this year’s Cars.com Online Automotive Leadership Summit.

I wasn’t sure how to format this post. Do I keep the topic and conversation all about Cars.com, or do I write about the actual discussions that took place? The truth is, talking about Cars.com would make up for a short post since there was little discussion about them and more about the car business.

Why would Cars.com spend the time and money to hear a bunch of Dealer Internet Consultants talk about the car business?

Because they’re crazy or crazy smart? Having 11 well-known Dealer Internet Consultants in one room for 2 days brings to the surface a lot of great information.

So who was there?

David Kain from Kain Automotive, Cory Mosley from Mosley Automotive, Thomas O’Connor from Precision Training, Todd Smith from activEngage, Jennifer Suzuki from eDealer Solutions, Paul Webb from Street Smart Training, Michael Tyman from Professional Success, Les Abrams from NADA, John Shumaker from The Cure Consulting Services, Bill Philips from Automotive Internet Management, Shaun Raines from Dealer Advisor AND myself; representing DealerRefresh and the Internet Manager for MileOne.

The day started out with Mitch Golub, president of Cars.com, briefing us on where Cars.com has been and where they are going. He talked about the principles and the driving culture behind Cars.com.

• Principle 1: The consumer is KING

• Principle 2: Advertisers are our Partners

Nothing seems more important to Mitch than having great people working with him, having a dedication to fun and enjoying what you do at your job. It doesn’t take but a few moments of meeting and hearing Mitch speak to know that he is a leader, a leader of his tribe. I sincerely mean that.

Alright, enough of the sappy shit. What did we get to see from Cars.com? What tricks are they pulling out of their hat in the near future?

• A New Home Page

• Mobile Websites product for dealers

• The allowance of dealer ratings by the consumer

• New Chat program for dealers to engage with consumers

Some Stats:

• Cars.com has grown 55% since 2006
• Leads to dealers are up 44%
• Average leads to dealers are up 14%
• Saturdays are the busiest day for Cars.com’s mobile website
• Did you know: Cars.com has an average of 20,000 dealers while their closest competition estimates at being at an average of 21,000?

Something that I have always found interesting about Cars.com is the fact that they realize their actual Cars.com website cannot be everything to everyone. They have completely immersed themselves into the social side by owning and managing sites like pickuptrucks.com, motherproof.com and several other online car enthusiasts’ forums. Getting to understand the consumer through these mediums, I think, gives Cars.com a nice advantage.

Enough about Cars.com, the exciting part of this trip was the fact that you had 11 well-known dealer consultants (not including myself) in one room with open discussions on several topics. Twelve pavement pounders that are in and out of dealers getting to work the front line while helping dealers become better with their Internet marketing efforts and sales processes.

One discussion that hit home with most was how dealers are measuring (or need to measure) the effectiveness of their ad sources. It’s still amazing how so many dealers are not tracking, not measuring or even keeping records and statistics on what is working. They continue to make a judgment call to cancel an advertising source based on “gut instinct” (could these be some of the same dealers that are closing their doors next few months).

What dealers should be tracking to determine the effectiveness of their ad source:

1. Closing Ratio
2. Cost Per Sale
3. ROI

Yes, there are others but they all eventually play into these 3 measurements.

Of course, online merchandising 101 is always a discussion. The same stuff that most readers of DealerRefresh have heard and have talked about a million times over; how do you properly merchandise your inventory online? Many times we take what we do on a daily basis for granted (especially when you’re in a major metropolitan area where you have more dealers dialed in than not) but the truth is, most dealers are still severely missing the mark on properly merchandising their inventory online.

If you merchandise your inventory like every vehicle is the only one of its kind, you’ll produce more leads. But how good are these leads? Is this customer ready to buy, and what are the chances that he/she will buy this vehicle? The topic of Lead Scoring seems to surface everywhere I go now. The opinions I find are split right down the middle. You’re either on board with it or against it. I think if you’re against it, it’s because you don’t understand it and you’re not looking at the large picture. I made the statement, “Chances are no one will be saying the words ‘lead scoring’ with-in the next 2 years.” The new term used will be “microtargeting” but of course will encompass lead scoring.

Dealer Videos and more Video

Where is video going and will it change the online landscape for car dealers? We already see Google giving video greater relevancy in the search results, but great video content is where the problem lays for dealers. How can dealers afford and obtain the resources for quality engaging online video? Yes, you have the sales people walking around a used car talking about the feature benefits but what comes after that? And will amateur footage always be cool? The truth is, many dealers are still not aware of this medium or are struggling with it. I don’t think we spent enough time on this subject. That might had been the same time Cory went on some tangent about something on something else. LOL. Sorry, Cory.

Dealer Rating websites and consumer ratings – another hot topic!

Consumers have been rating hotels and restaurants online for years now. Trip Advisor anyone? But all of a sudden we are seeing more and more consumers jumping online and sharing their experiences they are having at your dealer.

Will Cars.com step into this arena? The discussions were leading to an answer of YES. We were all a little taken back by this, knowing that this would not be an easy task and could cause a few dealers to bail out. I think it’s a HUGE move and one that could ultimately benefit Cars.com in a profound way IF handled correctly. I suggested starting with an Opt In for dealers that wanted to participate. Back to Principle 1: The consumer is KING.

Another question that was raised by Dan Perry (SEO manager for Cars.com): Is it time that your dealer employs an in-house SEO expert/manager? I don’t want to get too deep into this because Dan has since written an article for DealerRefresh to discuss this.

I’ll leave you with a few stats that most of us are or should be aware of:

• In 2008 $749M was spent in search alone in the automotive sector.
• By 2012 search spend is projected to be at $1.9B.
• Search is estimated to account for 56% of auto online ad spending by 2012.
• 23% of dealers are planning to adopt paid search in the next 12 months.
• 14% of dealers plan to adopt banner ads.
• 35% of dealers plan to adopt online video ads.

There were many other topics that we discussed but these are a few that stuck out and wanted write about. Plus this post/review is getting way too long.

Cars.com took great care of me during my stay in Chicago. The Hotel was top notch, the dinner at here and here were fantastic (the conversations at the dinner were even better). As usual, the hospitality from the whole Cars.com crew was the best. I don’t know where they find such nice people.

A HUGE THANKS for everyone at Cars.com for putting on this small and interment workshop. A special thanks to Ralph Ebersole for inviting me to be a part of this event.