A visit to the NADA Convention, the automotive forums, or your email spam folder will tell you one crystal clear truth: there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of vendors vying for your attention. The automotive industry is saturated with an extremely large number of dealer-specific marketing vendors – probably more than any other industry. Standing out[…]
If You’re Finding Us, We Can Help Your Customers Find You
By JDRucker Automotive Advertising, Automotive SEO, Automotive Social Media, Dealer Authority, Dealer Tips, General, Philosophy, Uncategorized May 01, 2014
Not Trying Lotlinx is Pure Insanity
By JDRucker Dealer Tips, General, Uncategorized, VDP Marketing Apr 30, 2014
There is one universal question that we ask all of our clients and most of our prospects on just about every call. “Why haven’t you tried Lotlinx yet?” This post is designed to offer rebuttals to the most common objections. We are extremely particular about the products that we’re willing to resell to the point[…]
Social Media Drives Sales (if you’re doing it right)
By JDRucker Automotive Social Media, Dealer Tips, General, Uncategorized Apr 30, 2014
The promise that was made indirectly by social media sites and directly by social media companies in the early days of the boom a few years ago was that getting in front of the masses was great way to sell more. Fast forward to today and the tune has changed for many, not because the[…]
Dealer Authority Reviews ActivEngage: First Thoughts
By JDRucker Dealer Tips, General, TTAP, Uncategorized Apr 28, 2014
When we initially started our journey to find the best chat providers in the industry, we really thought we would come out of this with a handful of good ones and a handful of bad ones. So far, we’ve reviewed several and only two have been worth recommending to our clients. ActivEngage is one of[…]
Calling Out Vendors on the PPC Service Fee Percentage
By JDRucker Automotive PPC, Dealer Tips, Philosophy, Uncategorized Apr 21, 2014
This is definitely going to be an unpopular post with many vendors, particularly in the automotive industry. It’s a debate that has been raging since before I even hit the vendor side of the business and I still recall a conversation about it that I had with a company when I was at my last[…]
SEO is About Traffic, Not Rankings
By JDRucker Automotive SEO, Dealer Tips, General, Uncategorized Apr 20, 2014
It’s amazing how the measurements of SEO strength have remained obscured for so long. We can’t claim pure innocence here; when showing wins for our clients or presenting during product pitches, we point to rankings from time to time as well. However, this is not a true indicator of SEO prowess in most cases. Search[…]
Get Your Cars in Front of More Shoppers
By JDRucker Dealer Authority, Dealer Tips, Philosophy, Uncategorized, VDP Marketing Apr 18, 2014
It's easy to complicate things. Both car dealers and automotive vendors have a tendency to get aggressive and approach their marketing from a scientific perspective, driven by data and focused on results. This is a good thing. However, it can also lead down the wrong path if you try to over-think it. The reality is[...]
Internal versus Outsourced Social Media: Why a Hybrid Makes the Most Sense
By JDRucker Automotive Social Media, Dealer Tips, General, Uncategorized Apr 12, 2014
There are three basic types of customers that we work with when it comes to social media. That’s not to say that we classify our clients or anything – they all get the best in a way that fits in with their needs and assets. In automotive social media, the results are all that really[…]
Why We Love Lotlinx
By JDRucker Dealer Tips, General, Uncategorized, VDP Marketing Apr 06, 2014
It’s pretty simple, really. Our company has been very selective with our partners since our inception, but Lotlinx stood out as a real winner for our clients. They possess three primary qualities that make them ideal as a part of our product offering.
We Apologize. The Free Social Media Trial Was More Successful Than We Could Bear.
By JDRucker Automotive Social Media, Dealer Authority, Dealer Tips, News, Uncategorized Apr 03, 2014
As Harry Doyle would say, the expectations we set for our social media trial was, “Juuuuust a bit outside.” Bob Uecker‘s iconic play-by-play character in Major League watched a pitch fly seven feet off the plate, which is about how far away our estimates were. We thought we would get a handful and run the[…]