by Timothy Martell on May 1, 2013
There has been a lot of buzz surrounding what could possibly be dubbed “The Cars.com Debacle of 2013.” I know, understatement of the year, right? In usual dealer advocate fashion, Jim Ziegler has brought to light a shockingly bad business practice recently instituted by the automotive marketing juggernaut, a practice that could have profound negative effects on all cars.com customers. On the other side of the debate is Brian Pasch, advocating that all should be forgiven because of all the good done for dealers by the cars.com business model. This is quickly developing into a modern day saga of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (For the sake of this example, we’ll just call cars.com the ugly! After all, they don’t have feelings, right?) But who is in right? Could the answer be none of them? [click to continue…]
by Timothy Martell on December 3, 2012
Facebook is pushing hard to extend their influence, and now they are beginning to drill down to a more granular level with their business support. They recently released a guide specifically for automotive dealerships. The only problem is that it isn’t exactly advertised everywhere, so many people may have missed it. It’s nothing revolutionary, but if you are Marketing using Facebook, then it will definitely have a couple tips worth checking out for you. [click to continue…]
by Timothy Martell on November 15, 2012
The value of having one of your videos go viral is hard to measure accurately but there’s no doubt it’s a huge boon for your brand. To get that kind of spread is hard to achieve though, you could make hundreds of videos all designed to go viral and get nowhere. On the other hand, you can make one video where your star accidentally injures himself and end up going viral overnight. The problem is that you rarely can fake it. The internet has a good nose for the authenticity and can smell someone trying too hard from a mile away. But what if you could pay to go viral? Would it be worth the boost to your automotive marketing efforts? [click to continue…]
by Timothy Martell on October 12, 2012
If your company does a lot of mass emailing as part of your automotive internet marketing strategy, it’s important that you’re careful not to fall into the “spam” category. It can be difficult to walk that line between what is acceptable and what is annoying, but it’s important that you’re able to distinguish between the two. When in doubt, you should consult the CAN-SPAM act, a document containing rules from the government on how to mass email in a courteous and legal way. [click to continue…]
by Timothy Martell on September 25, 2012
Retargeting is the newest toy in the toy chest for digital marketing companies. The perceived ROI it brings is making it very popular and the trend has grown to the point that now even Facebook is getting in the game. So what exactly is retargeting and what are the benefits? [click to continue…]
by Timothy Martell on September 17, 2012
We have big news for everyone in the automotive business. Our new book “Unfair Advantage; The World’s Leading Automotive Retail Experts Reveal Their Secrets to Give You the Upper Hand to Grow Your Business and Rev Up Your Profits TODAY!” is available on Amazon.com! [click to continue…]
by Timothy Martell on September 9, 2012
Recently, I called out a couple of vendors for selling a subpar product. I thought about it and decided that if my own services can’t stand up to that level of scrutiny, I have no business telling anyone else what they should do about their service. So over the weekend, I tore apart every thing we do for our clients – Top to bottom; report after report. You know what I found? Something we sell SUCKS and it is completely UNACCEPTABLE. [click to continue…]
