According to comScore, Inc., 63.2 million people accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, and 22.4 million (35%) did so daily, more than double the size of the audience last year. 
In a statement earlier this year, Mark Donovan, senior vice president, mobile, comScore, said “[The] use of mobile Internet has evolved from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people's lives. This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information."  
According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), nearly 15% of all U.S. households were wireless-only in 2007. In addition, wireless-only adults made up 13.7% of the population. The NCHS is still calculating data for 2008, but, wireless-only households were up to 17.5% of the total in the first half of the year, and adults using only mobiles crept up to 16.1% during the same time period.
 
How Mobile Works 
Wh...

(This post is based on an article I wrote for Dealer Marketing Magazine's March 2009 issue.)
In working with thousands of dealers, delivering tens of thousands of leads, and studying 1,000 calls to dealers from used car prospects, we came up with some key findings that will help dealers optimize their success with phone leads.
Our research found that nearly half - 43% - of the callers from our study actually purchased a vehicle within two weeks of making the phone call. And according to Cobalt’s 2007 Dealer e-Business Performance Study, most shoppers want to know two simple things: “Is the car still available?” and “How much is it?” Dealers who have a good follow-up process, including answering their prospect’s basic questions, will have good odds of selling the car, and doing so quickly.
 Three Key Things to Do to Optimize Your Phone Leads
1.      Ask for the appointment. In the calls we reviewed, 72% of the deale...

The following is from an article Paul Nagy - Cobalt's VP of Core Products - wrote for Dealer Marketing Magazine's April 2009 issue.
As dealers continue to transition from traditional advertising to internet-based media, they need dynamic content to increase time spent on their website and help persuade prospective consumers to contact the dealership. 
The new trends in Video and rich media content placement have proven to increase visitor-to-purchase rates in the online retailing industry.  Many retailers have reported that when they add rich media to their site, increased conversion follows.  Online video advertising viewership is on the rise. It is expected that online video advertising viewers will increase from 129.5 million in 2008 to more than 164 million in 2011, according to eMarketer.
A new study from The Kelsey Group, 59% of auto dealers say they plan to use Internet video on their own websites during the next 12 months, up from the current 33 percent using ...

The following is based on an article I wrote for the March 2009 issue of Fixed Ops Magazine.

The Fixed Operations staff has many challenges not very different than today’s floor salesperson.  They have the same goals of building their business “funnel” to create a continuous revenue stream. They also face the challenge of maintaining relationships with previous and current customers to ensure repeat business and referral business.

Here we discuss three key ways for your Fixed Ops organization to survive and thrive in a tough economy: 

Optimize your website
You must be optimizing your website to drive traffic to both sales and service within your dealership. All marketing and sales efforts should be directing traffic to your website, including offline ads, online coupons, etc. Promote your site and tools like your website’s “Schedule a Service Appointment” through your display, e-mail and search marketing.  

If you h...