Very good points, Brian. I have a few to mention. In fact, I blogged about them here: http://www.krusecontrolinc.com/facebook-marketing-mistakes-automotive-social-media/

Thanks Kathi for the additional tools to help dealers. Will you be at DSES next week?

Smart choices Brian. Marketers (especially new ones) must change the way they think about their activities. Just be active doesn't cut it; you must be effective. The #1 item, & my biggest pet peeve, is not including the link. Facebook has provided such an easy opportunity to help drive valuable traffic back to your site - FOR FREE - use it by including those links.

The all mighty link! Call to action! It seems like people get so caught up in everything else around business social and forget why we are engaging in the first place. Thank you for making it clear in this post, Brian. No link, no conversion.... Im constantly reminding my team to link back to VDP's and landing pages...

Hi Brian, yes I will. I'm flying in on Monday morning. Looking forward to hanging out!

Brian, I tend to always agree with you. Often its hard for dealers to find content and its even harder for them to create their own. If they create their own its got to be relevant, informative and ideally entertaining. We've had some fun with videos of local businesses test driving vehicles then telling their fans to visit the dealer for a test drive. Imagine a ski shop test driving a vehicle for skiers. See examples at www.youtube.com/letsgotestdrive . Cheers!

Jon - that's an awesome idea! Love it.

Very good points, Brian. I have a few to mention. In fact, I blogged about them here: http://www.krusecontrolinc.com/facebook-marketing-mistakes-automotive-social-media/

Thanks Kathi for the additional tools to help dealers. Will you be at DSES next week?

Smart choices Brian. Marketers (especially new ones) must change the way they think about their activities. Just be active doesn't cut it; you must be effective. The #1 item, & my biggest pet peeve, is not including the link. Facebook has provided such an easy opportunity to help drive valuable traffic back to your site - FOR FREE - use it by including those links.

The all mighty link! Call to action! It seems like people get so caught up in everything else around business social and forget why we are engaging in the first place. Thank you for making it clear in this post, Brian. No link, no conversion.... Im constantly reminding my team to link back to VDP's and landing pages...

Hi Brian, yes I will. I'm flying in on Monday morning. Looking forward to hanging out!

Brian, I tend to always agree with you. Often its hard for dealers to find content and its even harder for them to create their own. If they create their own its got to be relevant, informative and ideally entertaining. We've had some fun with videos of local businesses test driving vehicles then telling their fans to visit the dealer for a test drive. Imagine a ski shop test driving a vehicle for skiers. See examples at www.youtube.com/letsgotestdrive . Cheers!

Jon - that's an awesome idea! Love it.

Very good points. I would also point out that if you are using call tracking technologies and just attributing calls to the last touch or last visitor path before the call happened, this can be an extremely flawed metric. Most web visitors come and go to a dealer website 3-5 times from different sources, before actually making a call. If you just give attribution to the last entry point before the call, it's just part of the picture. The first touch may be as important or more so as the last touch. There are solutions that can track all the touch-points that led to a call and allow you to optimize ad-spend automatically based on different touch-point attribution models.

Tony, that is a great point to ad to this discussion. Attribution modeling will be the next wave of improvements for digital marketing investments. A know a few companies that are working on this and the channel is how to make it useable information for the business.

Great post Brian. I would be very surprised if there are still dealers sharp enough to read these forums who don't take the time/money to invest in their people and phone process. If you didn't believe in phones then you wouldn't be advertising with companies like Cars.com/Autotrader and you wouldn't even be in the service business. If you do believe in phones then cheap companies like Carwars/Century Interactive and Phone Ninjas are no brainers. There are other out there too, but use someone. I have used Phone Ninjas for over three years and I am coming up on a year with Carwars. Both companies do a great job of making accountability on the phones fun. Your total monthly training budget as a dealership should be 2% of gross profit. Spend it wisely. Regards, Michael Speigl Managing Partner Wesley Chapel Honda

Michael I recently saw some data with CarWars and I was very impressed at what they do and the reasonable cost associated with the product. My clients who use PhoneNinjas have seen a significant increase in appointments and show, which of course adds directly to the bottom line.

Great post Brian! A great dealer friend of mine read your blog, doubted the numbers, ran his own to find he had received 8200 calls since July with 2400 internet leads showing! Nationally, In 2 million measured calls the stats are 50% of all New Car Dept sales calls never reach the sales/bdc reps (Just answer the phone for your first big lift!), and 56% of the ones that do are not providing contact information. Only 22% resulting in an appointment, and CRM is doomed by no information...There is a big disconnect with the Ad Dollar! Dealers have always fixed what they can measure (forgive the cliche)----No matter how you do it...measure it! We have seen Phone Ninjas effectively maintain and improve the performance level of call handlers, preventing the need for the expensive training merry-go-round. Real call training and catching the call handler 'doing it right' as well as opportunities is a powerful combo.

Chip At AutoCon 2013 two dealers told me that the one product that they would never cancel is CallRevu...that was the first time I ever heard a dealer say something like that. Obviously they get it!

Great examples Brian - unique tracking numbers were always a major element of our sites, social efforts and the off-line efforts. Knowing where they were responding from helped frame the context of the call and helped train for specific situations as well. Simple to set up - use'em. (I guess I'll have to return your b-day gift now as well)

Eric-Keep the power of Dynamic numbers in play for your social marketing as well, most tracking companies provide them--- have you had success with them?

Hi Chip - Yes, we had a lot of success with them.

I work for a dealer group with 8 OEM rooftops which has been on the Phone Ninjas program since 2011. The script takes some time to get accustomed to so one doesn't sound like a robot - but once you get it - it comes off naturally. If your employees take the time *to care* it should be cake for them. But let's get down to some real numbers: Before Phone Ninjas - we were hovering around a 20% Set Appointment Percentage. As of late, we're hovering around a 60% Set Appointment Percentage. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that extra 40% has also increased our total number of sales. The "Ninja Way" also allows you to set solid appointments and get all the pertinent information you need prior to the customer's arrival. Phone calls are increasing month over month, if your staff isn't prepared to handle the effectively - you're going to be losing out on lots of sales.

Megan, thank you for sharing the ROI of investing in phone scripts, training, and accountability. The ROI is there clearly so you must have greater leadership. Congrats!

Great article Brian! As you would suspect, we couldn't agree more. Michael, thanks for the kind words. We appreciate it greatly! As a vendor of call tracking, it's fun to hear Brian speak to the value of getting back to the basics. We preach a similar vision: Connect calls to people who can help, request an appointment, follow up with prospects. If that sounds horribly daunting, know there are great tools all around to help. Success starts with awareness and is realized through leadership and commitment to consistent improvement.

Brian- you're spot-on here. Thanks for sharing. We had a tracking client of ours once say that he "spends thousands of dollars a month to get the phone to ring, and then we lose the sale at the phone." 'Nuff said. I believe that because the phone is often viewed as just a fixed asset that it is undervalued as the most important club in the bag. We've had more than one client whose employees sound like they are in a race to get off the phone once they answer it. Call recording and evaluation does peel back some (often ugly) layers of the onion.

Very good points. I would also point out that if you are using call tracking technologies and just attributing calls to the last touch or last visitor path before the call happened, this can be an extremely flawed metric. Most web visitors come and go to a dealer website 3-5 times from different sources, before actually making a call. If you just give attribution to the last entry point before the call, it's just part of the picture. The first touch may be as important or more so as the last touch. There are solutions that can track all the touch-points that led to a call and allow you to optimize ad-spend automatically based on different touch-point attribution models.

Tony, that is a great point to ad to this discussion. Attribution modeling will be the next wave of improvements for digital marketing investments. A know a few companies that are working on this and the channel is how to make it useable information for the business.

Great post Brian. I would be very surprised if there are still dealers sharp enough to read these forums who don't take the time/money to invest in their people and phone process. If you didn't believe in phones then you wouldn't be advertising with companies like Cars.com/Autotrader and you wouldn't even be in the service business. If you do believe in phones then cheap companies like Carwars/Century Interactive and Phone Ninjas are no brainers. There are other out there too, but use someone. I have used Phone Ninjas for over three years and I am coming up on a year with Carwars. Both companies do a great job of making accountability on the phones fun. Your total monthly training budget as a dealership should be 2% of gross profit. Spend it wisely. Regards, Michael Speigl Managing Partner Wesley Chapel Honda

Michael I recently saw some data with CarWars and I was very impressed at what they do and the reasonable cost associated with the product. My clients who use PhoneNinjas have seen a significant increase in appointments and show, which of course adds directly to the bottom line.

Great post Brian! A great dealer friend of mine read your blog, doubted the numbers, ran his own to find he had received 8200 calls since July with 2400 internet leads showing! Nationally, In 2 million measured calls the stats are 50% of all New Car Dept sales calls never reach the sales/bdc reps (Just answer the phone for your first big lift!), and 56% of the ones that do are not providing contact information. Only 22% resulting in an appointment, and CRM is doomed by no information...There is a big disconnect with the Ad Dollar! Dealers have always fixed what they can measure (forgive the cliche)----No matter how you do it...measure it! We have seen Phone Ninjas effectively maintain and improve the performance level of call handlers, preventing the need for the expensive training merry-go-round. Real call training and catching the call handler 'doing it right' as well as opportunities is a powerful combo.

Chip At AutoCon 2013 two dealers told me that the one product that they would never cancel is CallRevu...that was the first time I ever heard a dealer say something like that. Obviously they get it!

Great examples Brian - unique tracking numbers were always a major element of our sites, social efforts and the off-line efforts. Knowing where they were responding from helped frame the context of the call and helped train for specific situations as well. Simple to set up - use'em. (I guess I'll have to return your b-day gift now as well)

Eric-Keep the power of Dynamic numbers in play for your social marketing as well, most tracking companies provide them--- have you had success with them?

Hi Chip - Yes, we had a lot of success with them.

I work for a dealer group with 8 OEM rooftops which has been on the Phone Ninjas program since 2011. The script takes some time to get accustomed to so one doesn't sound like a robot - but once you get it - it comes off naturally. If your employees take the time *to care* it should be cake for them. But let's get down to some real numbers: Before Phone Ninjas - we were hovering around a 20% Set Appointment Percentage. As of late, we're hovering around a 60% Set Appointment Percentage. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that extra 40% has also increased our total number of sales. The "Ninja Way" also allows you to set solid appointments and get all the pertinent information you need prior to the customer's arrival. Phone calls are increasing month over month, if your staff isn't prepared to handle the effectively - you're going to be losing out on lots of sales.

Megan, thank you for sharing the ROI of investing in phone scripts, training, and accountability. The ROI is there clearly so you must have greater leadership. Congrats!

Great article Brian! As you would suspect, we couldn't agree more. Michael, thanks for the kind words. We appreciate it greatly! As a vendor of call tracking, it's fun to hear Brian speak to the value of getting back to the basics. We preach a similar vision: Connect calls to people who can help, request an appointment, follow up with prospects. If that sounds horribly daunting, know there are great tools all around to help. Success starts with awareness and is realized through leadership and commitment to consistent improvement.

Brian- you're spot-on here. Thanks for sharing. We had a tracking client of ours once say that he "spends thousands of dollars a month to get the phone to ring, and then we lose the sale at the phone." 'Nuff said. I believe that because the phone is often viewed as just a fixed asset that it is undervalued as the most important club in the bag. We've had more than one client whose employees sound like they are in a race to get off the phone once they answer it. Call recording and evaluation does peel back some (often ugly) layers of the onion.

Here are the 5 key areas I believe every DMM should focus on (in no particular order): 1. Digital vendor selection + management: Understand the language they speak, set clear goals + objectives, and make sure all vendors are working together for best results. 2. Content Marketing: Creation and upkeep of online assets, develop content strategy, developing new content via blogs, video, downloads and more. 3. Local: Optimize for local seo, manage social platforms, manage online review collection + sharing. 4. Sales enablement: Work with BDC + Sales manager to develop email templates, drip programs, and provide sales with the tools they need to move leads down the funnel. 5. ROI Driven Reporting: Put systems in place to monitor performance, show how digital affects bottom line, alignment with monthly sales goals and objectives. Both granular reporting (direct manager) and high level (GM).

Having lived this, I have some really strong feelings on the matter. Bottom line, dealer's don't really need or want this position, and maybe they're right. When I was the Digital Marketing Manager for a New England auto group, I was in charge of all online based items including all marketing, reputation, customer service, process, lead management and accountability for 2 Nissan stores, a Toyota store and a Jaguar store. At its peak, my department cost the company (payroll, training, advertising tools like AutoTrader, etc) about $750,000 annually. This produced about $110 million in gross sales and about $3.3 million in net profit for those stores. Understand that is the gross and net attributed to our department. Now, while that was a tremendous win, the path to make that happen was a horrible and constant war with personnel who didn't understand (or want to) digital marketing. The "hate the internet guy(s)/gal(s)" is a common theme in auto-retail - i realize its not a problem everywhere - but it still represents a majority stance from the auto retail entrenched. And at the end of the day, they might not be wrong! Did my staff and I provide solid ROI - absolutely. But as a vendor I can provide those same stores the exact level of service that I and my staff as employee's provided for less than $250,000 and no FICA, FUDA, SUDA, sick-days, benefits, 401k, HR issues, etc. The real answer isn't to make up dealership positions with titles that care no empowerment and provide no path to accountability. The answer is for GM's, GSM's, Sales Managers, Service Managers, and Parts Managers - ANYONE who has ANY say in marketing spend to be required to learn at least enough to hold vendors accountable. Dealer's have more than enough 6 figure salaries walking around to get the job done - they don't need another! And at the end of the day why do dealers do any of it? Why do we need BDC's? Because we don't want to hold sales people accountable and train them. Why do we need Digital Marketing Managers? Because we don't want to hold management accountable to learn their craft. If they can learn to spot a paint job on a used car trade in in bright summer sun when the customer says "no its never been in an accident," they can learn to spot a digital snake oil salesmen. If they can learn to read a financial statement, understand pump-in, pump-out, zip code analysis, reg data, trends in seasonality and its effect on auction prices, they can learn to look at a vendors digital analysis and know if its a load of BS or valuable reporting that can guide intelligent marketing decisions. Enough is enough. Dealers don't need to spend more or empower laziness, they just need real vendors to come to the table and actually deliver on the value we promised in the first place - and maybe do just a little bit of homework.

Everydealer who doesn't have a Digital Marketing Manager in charge of all their marketing and CRM, should watch Moneyball. Then watch it again. Then go find a Theo Epstein of their own and teach them the car business.

Hi, I am a digital marketing manager for a 5 franchise auto group in southern california and was curious what the average median salary for this position is?

I'm not sure how a Sales Manager, GM, GSM or Internet Manager could possibly ever have the time to manage all of the vendors and game-changers that exist in the world of marketing and advertising. I'm not a big fan of exclusively digital marketing directors. Dealerships need to make sure that all of their creative is consistent across all various media and advertisements. Ditto that to their offers and promotions most of the time as well. There is just no way someone could manage multiple salespeople or departments and manage all of the advertising plus the digital.

How do CEO's manage fortune 500 companies? You have to establish a chain of command in your departments that report back to one source, and no offense but there aren't that many game changers in the advertisement industry it's the same old stuff repackaged and rebranded. I believe one person can handle those tasks. I know because I'm doing it. The majority of dealers have their social media managers in some back office on facebook all day. Guess what you know who my social media managers are my receptionist they are on the front lines interacting with customers on the sales floor social media is about what's going on now. How can someone know what's going on in a back office? Schedule meetings with 3rd party sites to audit accounts monthly. Hiring all these companies to do what people are to lazy to do is a waste of resources. If someone isn't qualified fire then hire someone who is.

Timothy although you can offer all those solutions to an auto group for 1/3 the cost there still needs to be someone in-house to monitor your companies performance which doesn't eliminate the cost of employees. How many people at a dealership understand any digital marketing terms? My guess is none, the reason why you started an agency is because you saw how much dealers pay these companies monthly to manage their SEM accounts. I'm sure you said HEY I can do that right from my couch and now you advocate for out sourcing this position. The truth is and I stand firm on my belief that a DMM is a valid and necessary role in any dealership.

Here are the 5 key areas I believe every DMM should focus on (in no particular order): 1. Digital vendor selection + management: Understand the language they speak, set clear goals + objectives, and make sure all vendors are working together for best results. 2. Content Marketing: Creation and upkeep of online assets, develop content strategy, developing new content via blogs, video, downloads and more. 3. Local: Optimize for local seo, manage social platforms, manage online review collection + sharing. 4. Sales enablement: Work with BDC + Sales manager to develop email templates, drip programs, and provide sales with the tools they need to move leads down the funnel. 5. ROI Driven Reporting: Put systems in place to monitor performance, show how digital affects bottom line, alignment with monthly sales goals and objectives. Both granular reporting (direct manager) and high level (GM).

Having lived this, I have some really strong feelings on the matter. Bottom line, dealer's don't really need or want this position, and maybe they're right. When I was the Digital Marketing Manager for a New England auto group, I was in charge of all online based items including all marketing, reputation, customer service, process, lead management and accountability for 2 Nissan stores, a Toyota store and a Jaguar store. At its peak, my department cost the company (payroll, training, advertising tools like AutoTrader, etc) about $750,000 annually. This produced about $110 million in gross sales and about $3.3 million in net profit for those stores. Understand that is the gross and net attributed to our department. Now, while that was a tremendous win, the path to make that happen was a horrible and constant war with personnel who didn't understand (or want to) digital marketing. The "hate the internet guy(s)/gal(s)" is a common theme in auto-retail - i realize its not a problem everywhere - but it still represents a majority stance from the auto retail entrenched. And at the end of the day, they might not be wrong! Did my staff and I provide solid ROI - absolutely. But as a vendor I can provide those same stores the exact level of service that I and my staff as employee's provided for less than $250,000 and no FICA, FUDA, SUDA, sick-days, benefits, 401k, HR issues, etc. The real answer isn't to make up dealership positions with titles that care no empowerment and provide no path to accountability. The answer is for GM's, GSM's, Sales Managers, Service Managers, and Parts Managers - ANYONE who has ANY say in marketing spend to be required to learn at least enough to hold vendors accountable. Dealer's have more than enough 6 figure salaries walking around to get the job done - they don't need another! And at the end of the day why do dealers do any of it? Why do we need BDC's? Because we don't want to hold sales people accountable and train them. Why do we need Digital Marketing Managers? Because we don't want to hold management accountable to learn their craft. If they can learn to spot a paint job on a used car trade in in bright summer sun when the customer says "no its never been in an accident," they can learn to spot a digital snake oil salesmen. If they can learn to read a financial statement, understand pump-in, pump-out, zip code analysis, reg data, trends in seasonality and its effect on auction prices, they can learn to look at a vendors digital analysis and know if its a load of BS or valuable reporting that can guide intelligent marketing decisions. Enough is enough. Dealers don't need to spend more or empower laziness, they just need real vendors to come to the table and actually deliver on the value we promised in the first place - and maybe do just a little bit of homework.

Everydealer who doesn't have a Digital Marketing Manager in charge of all their marketing and CRM, should watch Moneyball. Then watch it again. Then go find a Theo Epstein of their own and teach them the car business.

Hi, I am a digital marketing manager for a 5 franchise auto group in southern california and was curious what the average median salary for this position is?

I'm not sure how a Sales Manager, GM, GSM or Internet Manager could possibly ever have the time to manage all of the vendors and game-changers that exist in the world of marketing and advertising. I'm not a big fan of exclusively digital marketing directors. Dealerships need to make sure that all of their creative is consistent across all various media and advertisements. Ditto that to their offers and promotions most of the time as well. There is just no way someone could manage multiple salespeople or departments and manage all of the advertising plus the digital.

How do CEO's manage fortune 500 companies? You have to establish a chain of command in your departments that report back to one source, and no offense but there aren't that many game changers in the advertisement industry it's the same old stuff repackaged and rebranded. I believe one person can handle those tasks. I know because I'm doing it. The majority of dealers have their social media managers in some back office on facebook all day. Guess what you know who my social media managers are my receptionist they are on the front lines interacting with customers on the sales floor social media is about what's going on now. How can someone know what's going on in a back office? Schedule meetings with 3rd party sites to audit accounts monthly. Hiring all these companies to do what people are to lazy to do is a waste of resources. If someone isn't qualified fire then hire someone who is.

Timothy although you can offer all those solutions to an auto group for 1/3 the cost there still needs to be someone in-house to monitor your companies performance which doesn't eliminate the cost of employees. How many people at a dealership understand any digital marketing terms? My guess is none, the reason why you started an agency is because you saw how much dealers pay these companies monthly to manage their SEM accounts. I'm sure you said HEY I can do that right from my couch and now you advocate for out sourcing this position. The truth is and I stand firm on my belief that a DMM is a valid and necessary role in any dealership.