In my short time being active in the automotive marketing community, my passion has always been focused on dealer education.

I have been blessed traveling around the country meeting dealers at conferences and 20 Groups. From my travels it is clear that dealers and managers are hungry for education and winning strategies.

However, that hunger is not always reflected in dealer budgets and commitments to education for all dealership employees.

A recent PCG Digital Marketing survey indicated that over 35% of car dealers had no line item for employee education in their budgets.

The lack of commitment to education can be seen by the lack of participation for cutting edge automotive conferences. A case in point, one of the most popular automotive conferences is the Digital Dealer Conference. According to their conference website discussing their Fall 2010 Vegas venue:

“We hosted more than 850 dealers and managers at our fall Conference in Las Vegas, coming from 48 states, Brazil, Canada and the Netherlands. … and more than 1,800 total Conference attendees.”

The Education Opportunity

There are approximately 18,000 new car franchise dealers in the United States and many more independent used car dealers. Yet, less than 10% of dealers and likely less than 5% of key employees are sent for cutting edge conferences like Digital Dealer.

Our recent 2011 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Napa attracted 90 dealership employees, workshop leaders, and vendor sponsors combined. We are just scratching the surface. Yet I am encouraged by the responses from conference attendees; they want more!

Dealer principals are not the only ones that should be attending educational conferences and let me add 20 Groups. Most dealers will forget over 50% of what they learned and most will have difficulty translating digital marketing, social media, or mobile technology best practices to their internal team who stayed home at the dealership.

As you know, handing your ISM copies of a PowerPoint presentation does not have the same effect as if they were participating in a live workshop.

Send Decision Makers To Conferences

Dealership employees that run all profit centers should be engaged with their peers, inspired by industry educators, and educated by best practice leaders. If you consider service, parts, F&I, used cars, and new car managers a case could be made that every dealership should be sending multiple employees out for peer education each year.

Yet, the industry numbers indicate a very different commitment to education. The vendors, educators, and leaders of the automotive industry must do more to encourage dealer commitments to education.

Throughout the year, our industry needs more educational opportunities that are geographically dispersed to reduce travel costs. As the automotive industry relies more on digital marketing, social media, mobile devices, and new communication channels, education will be a prerequisite for success.

We need the structures in place for dealers, general managers, and front line employees to gain confidence in mastering the new paradigms in automotive marketing and operations.

Innovators Try To Meet Demand

Innovators like Jared Hamilton have announced the DrivingSalesUniversity.com. PCG Digital Marketing has announced the Automotive Internship Program. Industry veterans like Jim Ziegler have successful programs like the Internet Battle Plan.

We need more of these high quality educational opportunities. 90% of the dealership employees that should be involved are not getting the opportunity to engage.

With less than 10% of the employees that need education participating, I see this as an “abundance” opportunity. One could also make a point that since 10% only participate in off-site education, it’s a dog-eat-dog fight for those decision makers and education dollars.

I will prefer to believe in the abundance philosophy; there is so much opportunity for individuals and companies that want to serve car dealers. The market needs more people dedicated to educating dealers with passion and integrity. I am a passionate educator.

I encourage more to step forward to help car dealers master the skills needed for success in today’s changing marketplace.

Mark Your Calendars For Education

I hope to see many of you at the 2011 Innovative Dealer Summit in Colorado on March 30, 2011 hosted by Tim Jackson and CADA.

I invite you to attend the 2011 Digital Marketing Boot Camp, April 16-18th in Orlando.

When the Boot Camp ends, make sure you attend the 10^th Digital Dealer Conference, which starts on April 19th, just down the street in Orlando.

And don’t forget Jim Zieglar’s Internet Battle Plan on May 18-20^th Kansas City.

Make a commitment to education and your investment will be well rewarded!

In my short time being active in the automotive marketing community, my passion has always been focused on dealer education.

I have been blessed traveling around the country meeting dealers at conferences and 20 Groups. From my travels it is clear that dealers and managers are hungry for education and winning strategies.

However, that hunger is not always reflected in dealer budgets and commitments to education for all dealership employees.

A recent PCG Digital Marketing survey indicated that over 35% of car dealers had no line item for employee education in their budgets.

The lack of commitment to education can be seen by the lack of participation for cutting edge automotive conferences. A case in point, one of the most popular automotive conferences is the Digital Dealer Conference. According to their conference website discussing their Fall 2010 Vegas venue:

“We hosted more than 850 dealers and managers at our fall Conference in Las Vegas, coming from 48 states, Brazil, Canada and the Netherlands. … and more than 1,800 total Conference attendees.”

The Education Opportunity

There are approximately 18,000 new car franchise dealers in the United States and many more independent used car dealers. Yet, less than 10% of dealers and likely less than 5% of key employees are sent for cutting edge conferences like Digital Dealer.

Our recent 2011 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Napa attracted 90 dealership employees, workshop leaders, and vendor sponsors combined. We are just scratching the surface. Yet I am encouraged by the responses from conference attendees; they want more!

Dealer principals are not the only ones that should be attending educational conferences and let me add 20 Groups. Most dealers will forget over 50% of what they learned and most will have difficulty translating digital marketing, social media, or mobile technology best practices to their internal team who stayed home at the dealership.

As you know, handing your ISM copies of a PowerPoint presentation does not have the same effect as if they were participating in a live workshop.

Send Decision Makers To Conferences

Dealership employees that run all profit centers should be engaged with their peers, inspired by industry educators, and educated by best practice leaders. If you consider service, parts, F&I, used cars, and new car managers a case could be made that every dealership should be sending multiple employees out for peer education each year.

Yet, the industry numbers indicate a very different commitment to education. The vendors, educators, and leaders of the automotive industry must do more to encourage dealer commitments to education.

Throughout the year, our industry needs more educational opportunities that are geographically dispersed to reduce travel costs. As the automotive industry relies more on digital marketing, social media, mobile devices, and new communication channels, education will be a prerequisite for success.

We need the structures in place for dealers, general managers, and front line employees to gain confidence in mastering the new paradigms in automotive marketing and operations.

Innovators Try To Meet Demand

Innovators like Jared Hamilton have announced the DrivingSalesUniversity.com. PCG Digital Marketing has announced the Automotive Internship Program. Industry veterans like Jim Ziegler have successful programs like the Internet Battle Plan.

We need more of these high quality educational opportunities. 90% of the dealership employees that should be involved are not getting the opportunity to engage.

With less than 10% of the employees that need education participating, I see this as an “abundance” opportunity. One could also make a point that since 10% only participate in off-site education, it’s a dog-eat-dog fight for those decision makers and education dollars.

I will prefer to believe in the abundance philosophy; there is so much opportunity for individuals and companies that want to serve car dealers. The market needs more people dedicated to educating dealers with passion and integrity. I am a passionate educator.

I encourage more to step forward to help car dealers master the skills needed for success in today’s changing marketplace.

Mark Your Calendars For Education

I hope to see many of you at the 2011 Innovative Dealer Summit in Colorado on March 30, 2011 hosted by Tim Jackson and CADA.

I invite you to attend the 2011 Digital Marketing Boot Camp, April 16-18th in Orlando.

When the Boot Camp ends, make sure you attend the 10^th Digital Dealer Conference, which starts on April 19th, just down the street in Orlando.

And don’t forget Jim Zieglar’s Internet Battle Plan on May 18-20^th Kansas City.

Make a commitment to education and your investment will be well rewarded!

The largest Wiki website for the automotive industry is located at http://www.CarDealerWiki.org and its amazing to see what innovative dealers are doing to leverage this platform.

First, CarDealerWiki is free to create, update, and add pages about your dealership. You can create pages for sales, service, parts, new cars, used cars, and the possibilities are endless.

With all this power, and SEO value that this platform provides, it's odd that so few dealers have leveraged the website. Content publishing must be a part of a comprehensive automotive advertising strategy.

Free platforms like CarDealerWiki.org, press release websites, blogs, bookmarking sites, and social media tools can all be part of a low cost, high ROI strategy.

Capital Ford in Regina

There are many examples of dealers who have leveraged CarDealerWiki to increase the "paths" by which consumers can find their dealership. One of the best examples of Capital Ford Lincoln in Regina Canada.

They have created a number of great pages to market their dealership and best off all their investment in content publishing is paying off. You can visit their main Wiki page at: http://www.cardealerwiki.org/Capital_Ford_Lincoln

Their main dealership page, demonstrates the power of the customizes automotive Wiki platform. Their main Wiki page contains YouTube customer testimonial videos, their blog feed, customer reviews, and live inventory from their daily inventory feed.

One of the biggest advantages of CarDealerWiki.org is that is can accept RSS feeds. That means you can feed in live reviews from DealerRater.com and PrestoReviews.com.

Members of the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) can use this feature to create sustainable links to their dealership Vehicle Detail Pages because each night the cars that are displayed are updated by what is in stock. This feature creates free "mini-sites" that help increase the visibility of the cars you have for sale.

Basically, members can create their own automotive classified pages, without limit. Capital Ford Lincoln's ability to make pages for each model year that they sell is also paying off. As you can see from the screen capture below, a year, make and model search for the city clearly shows the power of CarDealerWiki for Automotive SEO.

Anytime you use a free platform for content publishing, you need to check if the links that are being created are being respected by the search engines. That is because some platforms place "no follow" tags on all outbound links.

CarDealerWiki.org offers strong Automotive SEO value and "follow" links. Yahoo provides a link checking tool, and you can see that some of the pages that the dealership created are showing as trusted link sources to their main website.

CarDealerWiki in Competitive Markets

In competitive US markets like the Boston suburbs, innovative dealers like Marlboro Nissan use create CarDealerWiki pages to add additional paths for consumers to find their brand and be linked back to their primary website.

Creating an Account on CarDealerWiki

CarDealerWIki is free but accounts must be approved first. Accounts must come from a dealership email address or from a company that serves the automotive industry. All vendors that serve the auto industry should create a profile page for their business on CarDealerWiki.org.

Now that you know about a great content publishing and Automotive SEO tool, what is stopping you? Create an account today for free automotive advertising resources.

The largest Wiki website for the automotive industry is located at http://www.CarDealerWiki.org and its amazing to see what innovative dealers are doing to leverage this platform.

First, CarDealerWiki is free to create, update, and add pages about your dealership. You can create pages for sales, service, parts, new cars, used cars, and the possibilities are endless.

With all this power, and SEO value that this platform provides, it's odd that so few dealers have leveraged the website. Content publishing must be a part of a comprehensive automotive advertising strategy.

Free platforms like CarDealerWiki.org, press release websites, blogs, bookmarking sites, and social media tools can all be part of a low cost, high ROI strategy.

Capital Ford in Regina

There are many examples of dealers who have leveraged CarDealerWiki to increase the "paths" by which consumers can find their dealership. One of the best examples of Capital Ford Lincoln in Regina Canada.

They have created a number of great pages to market their dealership and best off all their investment in content publishing is paying off. You can visit their main Wiki page at: http://www.cardealerwiki.org/Capital_Ford_Lincoln

Their main dealership page, demonstrates the power of the customizes automotive Wiki platform. Their main Wiki page contains YouTube customer testimonial videos, their blog feed, customer reviews, and live inventory from their daily inventory feed.

One of the biggest advantages of CarDealerWiki.org is that is can accept RSS feeds. That means you can feed in live reviews from DealerRater.com and PrestoReviews.com.

Members of the Automotive Advertising Network (AAN) can use this feature to create sustainable links to their dealership Vehicle Detail Pages because each night the cars that are displayed are updated by what is in stock. This feature creates free "mini-sites" that help increase the visibility of the cars you have for sale.

Basically, members can create their own automotive classified pages, without limit. Capital Ford Lincoln's ability to make pages for each model year that they sell is also paying off. As you can see from the screen capture below, a year, make and model search for the city clearly shows the power of CarDealerWiki for Automotive SEO.

Anytime you use a free platform for content publishing, you need to check if the links that are being created are being respected by the search engines. That is because some platforms place "no follow" tags on all outbound links.

CarDealerWiki.org offers strong Automotive SEO value and "follow" links. Yahoo provides a link checking tool, and you can see that some of the pages that the dealership created are showing as trusted link sources to their main website.

CarDealerWiki in Competitive Markets

In competitive US markets like the Boston suburbs, innovative dealers like Marlboro Nissan use create CarDealerWiki pages to add additional paths for consumers to find their brand and be linked back to their primary website.

Creating an Account on CarDealerWiki

CarDealerWIki is free but accounts must be approved first. Accounts must come from a dealership email address or from a company that serves the automotive industry. All vendors that serve the auto industry should create a profile page for their business on CarDealerWiki.org.

Now that you know about a great content publishing and Automotive SEO tool, what is stopping you? Create an account today for free automotive advertising resources.

PCG Digital Marketing is pleased to announce that David Kain, President of KainAutomotive.com, will be a featured presenter at the 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp.

The title of David’s workshop is: "Digital Sales Process Innovation. Making it easy for Customers to Say Yes!"

In his workshop session David Kain will demonstrate the Digital process elements that leading clients of www.KainAutomotive.com use to blow past their competitors and achieve market leadership.

These proven elements will allow dealers attending the Boot Camp to engage their prospects at the highest level, making it easy for them to hear yes to an appointment and a sale.

The Boot Camp Keynote Speakers will be broadcast live on www.DrivingSalesTV.com. 

PCG Digital Marketing organizes the annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp, which attracts dealers who seek to increase their competitive edge through education of automotive industry best practices, strategies, and technology.
 

Boot Camp Speakers Are Natural Leaders

Attendees of the Boot Camp will benefit from a diverse roster of automotive marketing experts and automotive leaders that include David Kain, Tracy Myers, Jerry Thibeau, Sean Wolfington, Brian Pasch, Jeff Kershner, Andrew DiFeo, Gary May, Matt Murray, Hagen Durant, and Jared Hamilton.

Topics to be covered during the 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp include digital marketing, social media engagement, lead management processes, BDC structure and workflows, video publishing, reputation management, Google Places marketing, Google Adwords strategies, automotive blogging, content syndication, website analytics, as well as Automotive SEO.

The Automotive Marketing Boot Camp is very unique and effective because participants receive conference materials in advance of the class and come fully prepared to engage in actual demonstrations.

Participants use their own accounts during the classes so that they can then continue to work with them on their own long after the boot camp. This year the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp has introduced longer workshop sessions and labs (2.5 hrs) to allow important topics to be covered in greater detail.

The 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp will also feature Technology Showcases, which will offer attendees a glance at the latest vendor innovations for the automotive industry.

Boot Camp Precedes 10th Digital Dealer Conference

The 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp is scheduled for April 16-18th and ends just prior to the 10th Digital Dealer Conference. The two conferences represent the "dynamic duo" of automotive education, technology, and the opportunity to learn industry best practices.

Dealers are encouraged to send their team to both events to get the full benefit of the speakers, classes, and networking while traveling to Orlando.

To view the entire Boot Camp agenda, visit: 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp Agenda

PCG Digital Marketing is pleased to announce that David Kain, President of KainAutomotive.com, will be a featured presenter at the 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp.

The title of David’s workshop is: "Digital Sales Process Innovation. Making it easy for Customers to Say Yes!"

In his workshop session David Kain will demonstrate the Digital process elements that leading clients of www.KainAutomotive.com use to blow past their competitors and achieve market leadership.

These proven elements will allow dealers attending the Boot Camp to engage their prospects at the highest level, making it easy for them to hear yes to an appointment and a sale.

The Boot Camp Keynote Speakers will be broadcast live on www.DrivingSalesTV.com. 

PCG Digital Marketing organizes the annual Automotive Marketing Boot Camp, which attracts dealers who seek to increase their competitive edge through education of automotive industry best practices, strategies, and technology.
 

Boot Camp Speakers Are Natural Leaders

Attendees of the Boot Camp will benefit from a diverse roster of automotive marketing experts and automotive leaders that include David Kain, Tracy Myers, Jerry Thibeau, Sean Wolfington, Brian Pasch, Jeff Kershner, Andrew DiFeo, Gary May, Matt Murray, Hagen Durant, and Jared Hamilton.

Topics to be covered during the 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp include digital marketing, social media engagement, lead management processes, BDC structure and workflows, video publishing, reputation management, Google Places marketing, Google Adwords strategies, automotive blogging, content syndication, website analytics, as well as Automotive SEO.

The Automotive Marketing Boot Camp is very unique and effective because participants receive conference materials in advance of the class and come fully prepared to engage in actual demonstrations.

Participants use their own accounts during the classes so that they can then continue to work with them on their own long after the boot camp. This year the Automotive Marketing Boot Camp has introduced longer workshop sessions and labs (2.5 hrs) to allow important topics to be covered in greater detail.

The 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp will also feature Technology Showcases, which will offer attendees a glance at the latest vendor innovations for the automotive industry.

Boot Camp Precedes 10th Digital Dealer Conference

The 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp is scheduled for April 16-18th and ends just prior to the 10th Digital Dealer Conference. The two conferences represent the "dynamic duo" of automotive education, technology, and the opportunity to learn industry best practices.

Dealers are encouraged to send their team to both events to get the full benefit of the speakers, classes, and networking while traveling to Orlando.

To view the entire Boot Camp agenda, visit: 2011 Automotive Marketing Boot Camp Agenda

One observation from the NADA Convention was the number of website vendors that were integrating social media monitoring and reputation management tracking tools into their client dashboard. Two such companies I had a demo with were @utoRevenue and Dealer.com.

The shift to integrate social media tracking and reputation management alerts will eventually limit the business upside of stand alone reputation management software companies and social media syndication tools.

I predict that these stand alone tools will be seen as a silo applications in the near future. These companies will be either purchased by larger website providers or they will fade away.

Dealer.com Social Relationship Manager

The Dealer.com Social Relationship Manager which was unveiled at the 2011 NADA Convention was impressive.

Customers of Dealer.com that are engaging in social media and use third party reputation management tools should get a demonstration. This is one slick application!

After seeing the integration of social media signals as well as content aggregation, dealers on the Dealer.com platform will be pleased with this timely feature set. I would say that car dealers are finally waking up to the fact that consumers are influenced by the reviews that they find online.

@utoRevenue Reputation Management Tools

@utoRevenue which focuses on client retention processes for the automotive industry has added an IRM dashboard into their product line.

According to their press release: "The 360-degree reputation management solution provides dealers with an innovative approach to tracking, managing, and influencing their online reputation. Going beyond the traditional solicitation techniques employed by most in the industry, customers engage at key points in the retention cycle, when positive experiences are most likely to be captured and negative experiences can be quickly addressed."

It makes sense to me that the service provider that is already responsible to email clients, produce newsletters, and keep client's engaged with the dealership via coupons, offers, and education should leverage that same channel for reputation management.

I know that consumers do NOT want extra calls and email from car dealers. If you are a current customer of @utoRevenue, I would call and get a demo of this new product offering.

Check With Your Platform Provider

Other major website vendors will be rolling out integrated reputation management alerts, escalation processes, and review progress monitoring in the upcoming months. So before you go out an purchase a stand alone product, talk to your website vendor and see what they have in the pipeline.

Data integration will become increasing important in the years ahead, Integrating your IRM data and social engagement stream into your main CRM system will be a wise choice. The opportunities for data mining will only increase when all contact data and outside content are combined in one data warehouse.

One observation from the NADA Convention was the number of website vendors that were integrating social media monitoring and reputation management tracking tools into their client dashboard. Two such companies I had a demo with were @utoRevenue and Dealer.com.

The shift to integrate social media tracking and reputation management alerts will eventually limit the business upside of stand alone reputation management software companies and social media syndication tools.

I predict that these stand alone tools will be seen as a silo applications in the near future. These companies will be either purchased by larger website providers or they will fade away.

Dealer.com Social Relationship Manager

The Dealer.com Social Relationship Manager which was unveiled at the 2011 NADA Convention was impressive.

Customers of Dealer.com that are engaging in social media and use third party reputation management tools should get a demonstration. This is one slick application!

After seeing the integration of social media signals as well as content aggregation, dealers on the Dealer.com platform will be pleased with this timely feature set. I would say that car dealers are finally waking up to the fact that consumers are influenced by the reviews that they find online.

@utoRevenue Reputation Management Tools

@utoRevenue which focuses on client retention processes for the automotive industry has added an IRM dashboard into their product line.

According to their press release: "The 360-degree reputation management solution provides dealers with an innovative approach to tracking, managing, and influencing their online reputation. Going beyond the traditional solicitation techniques employed by most in the industry, customers engage at key points in the retention cycle, when positive experiences are most likely to be captured and negative experiences can be quickly addressed."

It makes sense to me that the service provider that is already responsible to email clients, produce newsletters, and keep client's engaged with the dealership via coupons, offers, and education should leverage that same channel for reputation management.

I know that consumers do NOT want extra calls and email from car dealers. If you are a current customer of @utoRevenue, I would call and get a demo of this new product offering.

Check With Your Platform Provider

Other major website vendors will be rolling out integrated reputation management alerts, escalation processes, and review progress monitoring in the upcoming months. So before you go out an purchase a stand alone product, talk to your website vendor and see what they have in the pipeline.

Data integration will become increasing important in the years ahead, Integrating your IRM data and social engagement stream into your main CRM system will be a wise choice. The opportunities for data mining will only increase when all contact data and outside content are combined in one data warehouse.

Years ago, when Dealerskins changed the face of automotive website design with full Flash based technology, dealers flocked to the new platform because their websites were more "alive" than their static brethren.

The excitement eventually faded when dealers realized that 100% flash website were not indexing properly in organic search results.

Since that realization, website platform providers have moved away from heavy use of Adobe Flash technology in favor of other solutions.

At the recent NADA Convention, website providers revealed some very "flashy" web and mobile designs that might scare dealers at first glance.

The good news is that today's "flashy" effects are not the old school Flash coding but rather HTML5 code. 

This will becoming a standard in the years ahead so if you are in the market for a new platforms, keep reading.

HTML5 Will Add Clarity

HTML5 seeks to clarify web coding standards and document all the "tricks" that were once undocumented. By clarifying specifics — especially in error handling — HTML5 stands to open the doors for much more efficient and effective JavaScript, heralding a new era for robust interactivity with dynamic interfaces and rich user experiences that would be too heavy and difficult, or impossible, to implement in XHTML or HTML4.

As some of the largest website providers retool their website technology for release in 2011 (Cobalt/ADP, TK Carsites, Reynolds, etc.) you will see some solutions include the graphical energy that HTML5 can deliver.

This is very important for applications or websites that are viewed on iPads and iPhone. Currently Apple does NOT support Adobe Flash technology so HTML5 is the way of the future.

So when you get your next demo from your website provider, ask them about their plans to integrate HTML5 coding on their websites to achieve stunning graphics and transitions once reserved only for Adobe Flash. HTML5 compliant websites will be more cross-platform compatible as well.

Years ago, when Dealerskins changed the face of automotive website design with full Flash based technology, dealers flocked to the new platform because their websites were more "alive" than their static brethren.

The excitement eventually faded when dealers realized that 100% flash website were not indexing properly in organic search results.

Since that realization, website platform providers have moved away from heavy use of Adobe Flash technology in favor of other solutions.

At the recent NADA Convention, website providers revealed some very "flashy" web and mobile designs that might scare dealers at first glance.

The good news is that today's "flashy" effects are not the old school Flash coding but rather HTML5 code. 

This will becoming a standard in the years ahead so if you are in the market for a new platforms, keep reading.

HTML5 Will Add Clarity

HTML5 seeks to clarify web coding standards and document all the "tricks" that were once undocumented. By clarifying specifics — especially in error handling — HTML5 stands to open the doors for much more efficient and effective JavaScript, heralding a new era for robust interactivity with dynamic interfaces and rich user experiences that would be too heavy and difficult, or impossible, to implement in XHTML or HTML4.

As some of the largest website providers retool their website technology for release in 2011 (Cobalt/ADP, TK Carsites, Reynolds, etc.) you will see some solutions include the graphical energy that HTML5 can deliver.

This is very important for applications or websites that are viewed on iPads and iPhone. Currently Apple does NOT support Adobe Flash technology so HTML5 is the way of the future.

So when you get your next demo from your website provider, ask them about their plans to integrate HTML5 coding on their websites to achieve stunning graphics and transitions once reserved only for Adobe Flash. HTML5 compliant websites will be more cross-platform compatible as well.