It’s no secret that advertising methods that worked in years past no longer work, so how can you market your dealership in today’s economy?
I recently saw a presentation on What’s Next Marketing and Advertising by Paul Isakson on Slideshare. One of the points that he makes is that the future of marketing is NOT about doing and saying things TO people, rather the future of marketing is about doing things WITH and FOR people. Mr. Isakson’s presentation said that the future of marketing is:
This week, Brian Pasch and JD Rucker discuss link building for car dealers. They go over some techniques that people at a dealership can either use to start building their own links or to know what to look for in companies that they consider hiring.
We are pleased to announce the appointment of JD Rucker as our Chief Marketing Officer. JD has been with TK Carsites for nearly 3 years. Previously as Vice President of Dealer Marketing, JD helped the search engine optimization and social media departments to gain top-spot exposure on both the search engines as well as social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Now, he will be leading the marketing efforts of both the dealers and the company itself. Read more about it on MSN News.
For over years, TK Carsites has had one of the most robust automotive blog networks in the industry. We have excellent staff writers who have their finger on the pulse of the auto industry, especially as it pertains to car dealers and their customers.
As we expand the blog network to include more content, we are reaching out to the community to offer mutual benefit to others with automotive-related blogs.
We are looking for original content, a strong voice, and the kind of material that is of interest to our readers. The engagement can be at any level from one-time guest posts to intern-generated content and beyond. Those who demonstrate consistency of content may even be offered a paid position writing for our network.
It’s hard to know who to trust sometimes. One of the biggest challenges for car dealers and businesses in general is that the Internet is the perfect venue for finding both information and disinformation. If someone wants to get the message out that they’re the best at something, they can often “prove” it through data that is made so easy to find online.
In other words, it’s easy to be “slick” with a company’s online marketing efforts.
TK Carsites is heading in a different direction with our own marketing. In a recent analysis performed by a marketing firm, we were told that our research and development was “too geared towards automotive consumer research.” When we create new products or improve on existing ones, we focus on the question, “Will this increase leads for our clients?”
According to the analysis, this is the wrong way to do it. We were told to “follow the lead of others in the automotive website industry and first determine if something will easily sell to car dealers.” The report said we should focus more on the “sizzle rather than the steak.”
With due respect to the marketing firm who performed the analysis, this just isn’t the way we want to do business. Our goal is to offer the most effective products on the market. Selling the products is important, of course, but if they don’t work as promised, we aren’t interested in producing it.
Having a strong social media strategy is a key for car dealers wanting to be successful in 2010 and beyond. While using social media for marketing isn’t new, it has hit a tipping point this year that has brought it into focus and made it a “must have” aspect of any car dealer’s advertising arsenal.
This is one part of a five part series that will be posted on various sites. It covers the basics: a 30,000 foot view of the various social media sites as well as easy, practical ways that the sites can be used.
Why Do Car Dealers Need Social Media?
If you haven’t heard, social media is big. It’s getting bigger. In America, more time is spent on either Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or blogs than the rest of the Internet combined.
Brian Pasch from Pasch Consulting, Paul Rushing from DealerBytes, and JD Rucker from TK Carsites will be putting together an Automotive Marketing Boot Camp for car dealers the day before NADA 2010 Convention in February.
The details are being put together now. The idea behind the Boot Camp is to have a full day of comprehensive training in the areas of SEO, Social Media, and other components of automotive Internet marketing that car dealers can use to improve their exposure and increase their leads.
This article originally appeared in the September, 2009 issue of Auto Dealer Monthly
The only good news about a decline in sales of new cars over the past several months: used cars are fueling the automotive rebound. As consumers trend to buying used instead of new, dealers are filling their lots with pre-owned vehicles to meet the increased demand.
You have the cars. They want them. How do you bring them to you? How can you stand out from your competitors? With marketing budgets being cut, many dealers are looking to the Internet to “spend smarter.” There are still obstacles. With hundreds of vendors and marketing firms flaunting their products, it’s possible to spend more online than offline. Luckily, there are only three areas you have to cover to make sure you’re geared for success.
The key to success for a website vendor can be broken down into three major components: traffic, leads, and customer service. As George Albrecht Jr, Timothy Martell, and Kevin Lepine depict in the testimonial below, TK Carsites has emerged as an industry leader in these three important facets.
ORANGE, Calif., Nov. 6 — TK Carsites, Inc. received the Automotive Search Marketing Architecture (ASMA) “Super Charged Search” award and Brian Pasch, CEO of the Pasch Consulting Group, and the source behind the ASMA report, stated publicly, “TK Carsites is the ONLY website provider that I do not look forward to competing with on SEO and Social Media.” The 2nd annual ASMA report seeks to provide car dealers with an unbiased evaluation of automotive website platforms and integrated search marketing tools.
The 2009 Automotive Search Marketing Architecture (ASMA) report released at the Digital Dealer Conference revealed major improvements to TK Carsites web platforms including a Google SEO compliant inventory module, embedded blogging, and dynamic homepage banner graphics which helped them earn them the Super Charged Search Marketing merit award.
It’s no secret that advertising methods that worked in years past no longer work, so how can you market your dealership in today’s economy?
