Understanding that managing your dealership's reputation is tougher than ever in today's technology-driven society, DMEautomotive has addressed this very issue in the "Online Reputation Management for the Automotive Industry" white paper.  

The intent of this white paper is to help your dealership realize that the daunting task of protecting your reputation online can be done by keeping your ear to the ground (or in this case the computer monitor) with online reputation management strategies.

To obtain a copy of the white paper, please download at DMEautomotive.

Understanding that managing your dealership's reputation is tougher than ever in today's technology-driven society, DMEautomotive has addressed this very issue in the "Online Reputation Management for the Automotive Industry" white paper.  

The intent of this white paper is to help your dealership realize that the daunting task of protecting your reputation online can be done by keeping your ear to the ground (or in this case the computer monitor) with online reputation management strategies.

To obtain a copy of the white paper, please download at DMEautomotive.

According to a recent cell phone study by Pew Internet, “85% of Americans ages 18 and older own a cell phone, making it by far the most popular device among adults” and a great opportunity for car dealerships to utilize for automotive mobile marketing purposes.  Not too surprisingly, the study also found that a great deal of time spent on a mobile phone has nothing to do with talking!  A large majority of people use their mobile phones to text, as well as visit social networks, surf the Internet and take/share photos.  This type of behavior qualifies for a great opportunity to engage your target market in automotive sms marketing services for your dealership.

Since it is clearly evident that Americans have rapidly embraced mobile phones – and their various functionalities – dealerships should consider how to utilize mobile technology to improve automotive mobile marketing efforts.  Here are a few recommended automotive text messaging solutions your dealership should strongly consider implementing:

1.  Automotive Text Messaging Solutions:  By nature, text messaging is meant to be short (160 characters) and to the point.  It is well suited for sending relevant, timely and brief messages that are speaking directly to a customer’s need and/or interest.  Of course, like other modes of communication, unwanted, irrelevant and unnecessary text messages will damage your relationship with customers.  Therefore, some good ways to use text messaging in your automotive mobile marketing efforts – without becoming an annoyance – is to send texts related to:

• Service: service reminders, appointment reminders, missed appointment notifications, additional service recommendations, arrival of a special parts order, and thank you.
• Sales: notification of approaching lease termination, birthday, anniversary, and thank you.

It’s a good idea to get started with text messaging as a form of communication for your dealership because your current young target audience members are texting fanatics. Young adults (ages 18-24) exchange on average 1,630 messages monthly, according to Nielsen.  Note: You definitely want to get your customers to opt-in to receive text messages.  This can be done at the dealership or by implementing an opt-in submission form on your website.  Either way, your dealership must gain consent before sending texts to customers and have an opt-out option available should they no longer wish to receive texts from your dealership.

2. QR Codes: If you don’t know what QR codes are, they are the 2-dimensional barcodes that store information that can be read by a mobile phone or device.  You’ve likely seen everywhere lately: magazine advertisements, promotional pieces and emails, for example.  They are easily scannable barcodes that, when you point your smartphone camera at them, they provide a message, open a website or produce other branded content.  The use of QR Codes is a step toward fully taking advantage of mobile marketing for the automotive industry.

While many OEMs are implementing QR codes in their automotive mobile marketing efforts, car dealerships at the local level can also use them to engage customers in various ways.  One way is to interact with those who peruse their lots during off hours.  A QR code for each used vehicle can be created through a free QR-generator site (such as Kaywa), printed (whether on paper or in sticker form) and posted on the vehicle.  When customers scan the code, they are brought to a page on your dealership’s website regarding that specific vehicle to obtain any additional information and even specials on pricing/financing. QR codes can also be included in your print advertising, whether it be your newspaper ads or direct mail pieces…again, leading traffic to your website.  Lastly, your dealership can place a QR code on service department receipts to lead customers to an online customer service survey.

Though QR codes are fairly new, they are definitely growing in popularity and serve as a great tool to bridge the real and digital world.

3.  Automotive Mobile Apps – Smart phone applications are all the rage.  How many times have you heard “There’s an app for that!”?  Well, even car dealerships are intrigued by the possibility of developing a customized app.

AutoNation has developed a customized app that allows you to explore their new and used car inventory from the comfort of your Smart Phone.  Additionally, it allows you to estimate the Kelley Blue Book value of your current car.

Similar to QR codes above, Mobile Apps allow your dealership to maintain an additional touch point with your customers, providing critical information about vehicles and your dealership (such as directions and contact information) in a very user friendly way. If your current website isn’t mobile optimized, then a mobile app is the best way to share your critical web content to people surfing on a smartphone.

We’ve listed a few ways above for dealerships to include mobile as part of their overall automotive mobile marketing efforts.  Has your dealership implemented any mobile efforts?  What has your experience been thus far?

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

According to a recent cell phone study by Pew Internet, “85% of Americans ages 18 and older own a cell phone, making it by far the most popular device among adults” and a great opportunity for car dealerships to utilize for automotive mobile marketing purposes.  Not too surprisingly, the study also found that a great deal of time spent on a mobile phone has nothing to do with talking!  A large majority of people use their mobile phones to text, as well as visit social networks, surf the Internet and take/share photos.  This type of behavior qualifies for a great opportunity to engage your target market in automotive sms marketing services for your dealership.

Since it is clearly evident that Americans have rapidly embraced mobile phones – and their various functionalities – dealerships should consider how to utilize mobile technology to improve automotive mobile marketing efforts.  Here are a few recommended automotive text messaging solutions your dealership should strongly consider implementing:

1.  Automotive Text Messaging Solutions:  By nature, text messaging is meant to be short (160 characters) and to the point.  It is well suited for sending relevant, timely and brief messages that are speaking directly to a customer’s need and/or interest.  Of course, like other modes of communication, unwanted, irrelevant and unnecessary text messages will damage your relationship with customers.  Therefore, some good ways to use text messaging in your automotive mobile marketing efforts – without becoming an annoyance – is to send texts related to:

• Service: service reminders, appointment reminders, missed appointment notifications, additional service recommendations, arrival of a special parts order, and thank you.
• Sales: notification of approaching lease termination, birthday, anniversary, and thank you.

It’s a good idea to get started with text messaging as a form of communication for your dealership because your current young target audience members are texting fanatics. Young adults (ages 18-24) exchange on average 1,630 messages monthly, according to Nielsen.  Note: You definitely want to get your customers to opt-in to receive text messages.  This can be done at the dealership or by implementing an opt-in submission form on your website.  Either way, your dealership must gain consent before sending texts to customers and have an opt-out option available should they no longer wish to receive texts from your dealership.

2. QR Codes: If you don’t know what QR codes are, they are the 2-dimensional barcodes that store information that can be read by a mobile phone or device.  You’ve likely seen everywhere lately: magazine advertisements, promotional pieces and emails, for example.  They are easily scannable barcodes that, when you point your smartphone camera at them, they provide a message, open a website or produce other branded content.  The use of QR Codes is a step toward fully taking advantage of mobile marketing for the automotive industry.

While many OEMs are implementing QR codes in their automotive mobile marketing efforts, car dealerships at the local level can also use them to engage customers in various ways.  One way is to interact with those who peruse their lots during off hours.  A QR code for each used vehicle can be created through a free QR-generator site (such as Kaywa), printed (whether on paper or in sticker form) and posted on the vehicle.  When customers scan the code, they are brought to a page on your dealership’s website regarding that specific vehicle to obtain any additional information and even specials on pricing/financing. QR codes can also be included in your print advertising, whether it be your newspaper ads or direct mail pieces…again, leading traffic to your website.  Lastly, your dealership can place a QR code on service department receipts to lead customers to an online customer service survey.

Though QR codes are fairly new, they are definitely growing in popularity and serve as a great tool to bridge the real and digital world.

3.  Automotive Mobile Apps – Smart phone applications are all the rage.  How many times have you heard “There’s an app for that!”?  Well, even car dealerships are intrigued by the possibility of developing a customized app.

AutoNation has developed a customized app that allows you to explore their new and used car inventory from the comfort of your Smart Phone.  Additionally, it allows you to estimate the Kelley Blue Book value of your current car.

Similar to QR codes above, Mobile Apps allow your dealership to maintain an additional touch point with your customers, providing critical information about vehicles and your dealership (such as directions and contact information) in a very user friendly way. If your current website isn’t mobile optimized, then a mobile app is the best way to share your critical web content to people surfing on a smartphone.

We’ve listed a few ways above for dealerships to include mobile as part of their overall automotive mobile marketing efforts.  Has your dealership implemented any mobile efforts?  What has your experience been thus far?

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In the highly competitive environment of automotive marketing, online search results for your car dealership can potentially make or break you.—The quality of the links, however, versus the quantity of the links is what will have a true impact on prospects making a purchase decision. 

With that in mind, the following points can help give you a good start in putting together a search engine optimization (SEO) plan that can yield positive results and improved page rankings for your dealership.

Map that site. In the web design process, mapping out a site for navigation is crucial.  It is that step that helps enable search engines to find your dealership’s pages.  The site map also serves a mental roadmap for online users.  Having a clear, concise map of your website serves as an important starting point in SEO planning.

Properly labeled, sized images. If you’re in the business of selling vehicles, it’s a given that you’re putting pictures of your vehicles online for viewing.  Finding bold, clean images is important in selling.  For SEO and web purposes, however, the images should also be properly labeled and sized.  By using a keyword-rich alt tag, search engines get a sense of what an image is about.  The labels will help a dealer’s SEO results; the size of the images will aid in website load times and user experience.

Optimize it. This is perhaps the nuts and bolts of SEO for automotive dealerships: the optimization of your content.  Website content should consist of relevant key words and phrases that web users utilize when searching for a vehicle.   Using a tool like Google Analytics can help fill your content with relevant search terms that improve your SEO and page rankings, putting your dealership in the driver’s seat.

Keep it up to code. Cascading style sheets—or CSS—sets the stage for improving the SEO friendliness of your dealership’s website design.  Utilizing CSS reduces the amount of unnecessary code on the backend of your web pages, improving load times and navigation for users.  It also aids search engines as it allows for its search mechanisms to scan your content at an improved pace.

SEO planning is an important tool for improving your dealership’s website traffic.  These four important points will certainly help in enhancing your dealership’s web presence and help establish it as a place to visit and buy a new or pre-owned vehicle.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In the highly competitive environment of automotive marketing, online search results for your car dealership can potentially make or break you.—The quality of the links, however, versus the quantity of the links is what will have a true impact on prospects making a purchase decision. 

With that in mind, the following points can help give you a good start in putting together a search engine optimization (SEO) plan that can yield positive results and improved page rankings for your dealership.

Map that site. In the web design process, mapping out a site for navigation is crucial.  It is that step that helps enable search engines to find your dealership’s pages.  The site map also serves a mental roadmap for online users.  Having a clear, concise map of your website serves as an important starting point in SEO planning.

Properly labeled, sized images. If you’re in the business of selling vehicles, it’s a given that you’re putting pictures of your vehicles online for viewing.  Finding bold, clean images is important in selling.  For SEO and web purposes, however, the images should also be properly labeled and sized.  By using a keyword-rich alt tag, search engines get a sense of what an image is about.  The labels will help a dealer’s SEO results; the size of the images will aid in website load times and user experience.

Optimize it. This is perhaps the nuts and bolts of SEO for automotive dealerships: the optimization of your content.  Website content should consist of relevant key words and phrases that web users utilize when searching for a vehicle.   Using a tool like Google Analytics can help fill your content with relevant search terms that improve your SEO and page rankings, putting your dealership in the driver’s seat.

Keep it up to code. Cascading style sheets—or CSS—sets the stage for improving the SEO friendliness of your dealership’s website design.  Utilizing CSS reduces the amount of unnecessary code on the backend of your web pages, improving load times and navigation for users.  It also aids search engines as it allows for its search mechanisms to scan your content at an improved pace.

SEO planning is an important tool for improving your dealership’s website traffic.  These four important points will certainly help in enhancing your dealership’s web presence and help establish it as a place to visit and buy a new or pre-owned vehicle.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

When it comes to choosing a customer retention marketing provider, car dealerships need to evaluate the technology behind the programs.  In looking at this technology, three of the following topics must be addressed:

(1)   Will this technology seamlessly integrate your customer data?

(2)   Will it be compatible with your operating system?

(3)   Will it be able to pull current, actionable customer data?

In a perfect world, you could buy a software solution and implement it without any customization necessary.  In reality, that is rarely the case.  Finding a program that provides seamless integration, therefore, is a primary selling point.  It means that you can avoid data integration glitches, keeping costs down and timelines on track.

Another factor that should be considered is how compatible this new software solution will be with your dealership’s operating system.  The compliant software will save much needed time, money and resources that would otherwise be required for ongoing maintenance.  As time goes on, the software will need to grow with the business, and compatibility would allow for key additions to the software’s functionality and other improvements.

Finally, the technology behind your customer retention marketing program must be able to pull actionable data.  Due to the exceptionally high volume of phone calls into a dealership, any plan that has flawed data collection leads to poor revenue. Therefore, the collected analytics should encourage interaction based upon actionable customer data with the goal to attain desired results.

Today’s dealerships see offers from countless marketing vendors.  Understanding the three factors most important to finding the best the best technology match can help.  Remember, seamless integration, compatibility and actionable data help ensure that your dealership’s retention marketing programs can get up and running faster and be most effective in reaching your customers.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

When it comes to choosing a customer retention marketing provider, car dealerships need to evaluate the technology behind the programs.  In looking at this technology, three of the following topics must be addressed:

(1)   Will this technology seamlessly integrate your customer data?

(2)   Will it be compatible with your operating system?

(3)   Will it be able to pull current, actionable customer data?

In a perfect world, you could buy a software solution and implement it without any customization necessary.  In reality, that is rarely the case.  Finding a program that provides seamless integration, therefore, is a primary selling point.  It means that you can avoid data integration glitches, keeping costs down and timelines on track.

Another factor that should be considered is how compatible this new software solution will be with your dealership’s operating system.  The compliant software will save much needed time, money and resources that would otherwise be required for ongoing maintenance.  As time goes on, the software will need to grow with the business, and compatibility would allow for key additions to the software’s functionality and other improvements.

Finally, the technology behind your customer retention marketing program must be able to pull actionable data.  Due to the exceptionally high volume of phone calls into a dealership, any plan that has flawed data collection leads to poor revenue. Therefore, the collected analytics should encourage interaction based upon actionable customer data with the goal to attain desired results.

Today’s dealerships see offers from countless marketing vendors.  Understanding the three factors most important to finding the best the best technology match can help.  Remember, seamless integration, compatibility and actionable data help ensure that your dealership’s retention marketing programs can get up and running faster and be most effective in reaching your customers.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In the automotive service marketing realm, customer relationship programs are essential to successful car dealer marketing.  From new vehicle sales to automotive service, dealerships are always looking for ways to reach out to their customers and improve upon customer loyalty.

By initiating customer relationship campaigns, a car dealership can augment their car dealer direct marketing plans and enhance their bottom lines.

To do so, automotive dealerships can utilize the following tips as a solid foundation for their customer relationship initiatives.

• Get back to your customer. All too frequently, customer relationship marketing can be a one-way street:  all talk and little response often leaves a dealership without a sale.  Dealerships can break through that wall and follow-up by any means available (email, direct mail or phone) to help foster a relationship.

• Relevant updates. The key to any campaign is to keep your customers informed on any upcoming special, new car rollout or manufacturer-backed sales event.  But just remember one thing: it’s the quality of the message, not the quantity.  Flooding mailboxes and email inboxes can have a negative impact on current and future direct marketing campaigns.

• Be involved. A locally owned dealership comes with a set of civic responsibilities.   Being an active, visible member of a community creates a sense of trustworthiness and dedication.  By taking part in charitable causes and other area events, you can help put your dealership in a positive light and generate local goodwill.

• Document, document, document. When prospecting, data is collected to help shape future campaigns.  By compiling additional information (what vehicle they bought, when it was purchased and what brought them there, for example), your dealership’s future campaigns can be finely tuned and personal – helping you improve customer response and make repeat customers.

Creating a lasting relationship with your clients is a vital tool in any business plan.  Following up with your customers, providing relevant updates, being involved in the community and documenting additional data are just some key points to keep in mind when putting together a customer loyalty campaign for your dealership.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.

In the automotive service marketing realm, customer relationship programs are essential to successful car dealer marketing.  From new vehicle sales to automotive service, dealerships are always looking for ways to reach out to their customers and improve upon customer loyalty.

By initiating customer relationship campaigns, a car dealership can augment their car dealer direct marketing plans and enhance their bottom lines.

To do so, automotive dealerships can utilize the following tips as a solid foundation for their customer relationship initiatives.

• Get back to your customer. All too frequently, customer relationship marketing can be a one-way street:  all talk and little response often leaves a dealership without a sale.  Dealerships can break through that wall and follow-up by any means available (email, direct mail or phone) to help foster a relationship.

• Relevant updates. The key to any campaign is to keep your customers informed on any upcoming special, new car rollout or manufacturer-backed sales event.  But just remember one thing: it’s the quality of the message, not the quantity.  Flooding mailboxes and email inboxes can have a negative impact on current and future direct marketing campaigns.

• Be involved. A locally owned dealership comes with a set of civic responsibilities.   Being an active, visible member of a community creates a sense of trustworthiness and dedication.  By taking part in charitable causes and other area events, you can help put your dealership in a positive light and generate local goodwill.

• Document, document, document. When prospecting, data is collected to help shape future campaigns.  By compiling additional information (what vehicle they bought, when it was purchased and what brought them there, for example), your dealership’s future campaigns can be finely tuned and personal – helping you improve customer response and make repeat customers.

Creating a lasting relationship with your clients is a vital tool in any business plan.  Following up with your customers, providing relevant updates, being involved in the community and documenting additional data are just some key points to keep in mind when putting together a customer loyalty campaign for your dealership.

~ Missy Jensen, Social Media Manager at DMEautomotive

Bio:
Missy designs, deploys and maintains the social media initiatives for DMEautomotive in an effort to increase brand awareness, distribute company and industry news, provide updates on products and services and promote consumer engagement. Missy enjoys the process of learning; researching and watching projects come to fruition!

Prior to her transformation into a web specialist and work with DMEautomotive, she has 10 years of experience in the marketing and communications industry. Missy served as the Director, Handicapping & Communications for a regional golf association and helped successfully launch and maintain a cutting edge technology-based ticket resale program on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Missy attended St. Lawrence University where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Psychology. She also holds a Master’s Degree from Miami University in Oxford, OH. She can be reached at missy.jensen@dmeautomotive.com and check her out on LinkedIn.