Archives for December 2015

Automotive Internet Media, Inc. recently teamed up with Google’s Wildfire social platform to enhance their already successful social media marketing package for the automotive industry.
Automotive Internet Media’s team will continue to work with their clients to provide great online content and promotion, but will now leverage the Google Wildfire platform to achieve even greater results. Whether you are looking to build brand awareness, capture more leads, or amplify your dealership’s marketing reach, this solution will enhance your digital presence.
“Our social media strategy combined with Google’s Wildfire platform puts our clients’ digital marketing on steroids,” said Tony French, President of Automotive Internet Media. “We plan to integrate Google’s Wildfire into all of our social media accounts. By partnering with Google, we will leverage their social platform to increase engagement for our clients and help auto dealers use social media to sell and service more vehicles.”
Automotive Internet Media’s social media marketing program is built on creating unique and engaging digital content for each dealership with syndication to social media networks such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest. The results include increased organic traffic back to the dealership’s website, and amplified brand awareness and online engagement with consumers. Automotive Internet Media’s social marketing program, combined with Wildfire will create a best-of-breed social solution for the automotive industry that offers sophisticated real-time analytics in one complete platform.
“We are excited to have been selected by Google and Wildfire to be one of their first automotive partners,” French continued. “We are a small but growing company that takes pride in providing really effective products at a competitive price.”
Auto dealers looking to get the first-mover advantage can contact Automotive Internet Media at 866.423.0246 or email info@automotiveinternetmedia.com.
About Automotive Internet Media, Inc.
Automotive Internet Media is a small firm with big expertise in digital marketing for auto dealers. We do digital marketing smart, and we do it right. We provide best-in-class products and services such as search engine marketing/PPC, search engine optimization (SEO), social media services, retargeting, display advertising, vehicle video services, lead generation, email marketing, and consulting to the automotive industry.
Automotive Internet Media encompasses an integrated network of highly specialized consumer websites that generate leads, drive online traffic and connect digital advertising with their clients’ brand objectives. With a solid foundation for growth, the company is simultaneously building its current brands while continuing to grow by launching and managing other properties and providing digital marketing services to automotive dealerships.
Click here for more information about Automotive Internet Media’s social media program.

“Web 3.0 is here (mobile websites, real-time, video, GPS) and the ubiquitous shopper is empowered like never before. Dealers must breakthrough the patterns of communication that are defeating them and get on the same page with the customer, literally the same page.”

Mitch discusses industry changes in the past few years and what cars.com is doing in response. He also touches on the increased prevalence of mobile.

More and more car dealers are starting to truly grasp that the internet is the most powerful way to market their dealership and advertise their inventory. For years, dealerships would check the box. “Yep, I’ve got my inventory in Autotrader and Cars.com. I’ve got that internet thing all covered.”
It used to be that progressive dealerships would venture outside that paradigm but now we see that most dealerships have to do more online to compete. There are many good products and services in the market to help dealers win the online consumer but when you boil it all down it comes down to very important 2 factors.
The first is having the right inventory fairly priced in the market. Sure you can sell almost any kind of vehicle. I’ve said it many times myself over the years, “there’s an ass for every seat,” but that’s really the exception and not the rule. Dealerships need to purchase the fastest turning inventory for their brand and their market and price it competitively.
The second and most important, advertising your inventory – bringing as many potential customers to your dealership who might otherwise never know that vehicle exists.
One can argue there’s a lot more to selling cars. Dealerships need good salespeople, effective internal processes, a good reputation, a good service department, etc.  I believe that too but let’s face it, having good inventory and lots of people see that inventory is the top two in my book.
There are lots of ways to marketing your inventory. As I mentioned, ponying-up to Autotrader and Cars.com is a way that many dealerships bring in customers. Both of these companies have first-rate sites and good markets. Millions of shoppers visit these sites every month. But is allocating all or most of your marketing dollars to one or two sources the best way to capture more market share? It would be like Toyota only advertising on NBC and CBS. Or Ford spending their entire print adverting budget in Field and Stream magazine. Smart companies, big and small find ways to capture as many potential clients in as many different markets as possible.
What if you can advertise your inventory to millions of auto shoppers in multiple markets and only pay when a consumer is interested in your specific vehicle? What if you can take that potential customer shopping around the internet and land them directly on your vehicle detail page of the car they are interested in? What if you can take part of your current budget and translate that into more visitors to your website, more leads and more sales?
AIM’s CarClicks new marketing program will do just that. We take your inventory and upload it daily to over 20 different automotive sites that produce over 20 million monthly auto shoppers. We display your inventory in these sites with priority over other inventory within a 50 mile radius of your dealership. Consumers interested in a specific vehicle are driven directly to the dealership website’s vehicle detail page. All for less than a cup of Starbucks coffee. CarClicks leverages the biggest online market of auto shoppers, provides shoppers who are deep in the sales funnel, uses cutting edge technology and is very efficient and effective. It’s the new way to drive quality traffic to your website. To learn more click here.
 

DriveChicago.com, the automotive portal owned and operated by the Chicago Automobile Trade Association (CATA), is partnering with Automotive Internet Media (AIM) to help CATA dealer members get more exposure to vehicle inventory and dealership websites.
“Automotive portals are fantastic for helping auto shoppers find vehicles,” said Tony French, president of AIM. “DriveChicago.com is terrific for Chicagoland auto shoppers because they can see every dealership’s inventory without going back and forth between other sites. DriveChicago.com is provided free to CATA dealers and has become a clearinghouse for Chicago area automotive information.”
Until now, DriveChicago.com worked like most other automotive portals. When the consumer modified the search based on their vehicle preference and clicked into a specific vehicle, the DriveChicago.com vehicle-detail page would render. Now, participating dealers will have the ability to drive the consumer who is interested in a specific vehicle from DriveChicago.com directly to the vehicle-detail page on the dealership website.
For Chicago auto dealers, this increases the opportunity for high quality leads. Leads from third party automotive portals have been decreasing in quantity and quality for years as car shoppers are becoming more reluctant to submit their personal information through third-party lead forms. Working directly with the dealership builds consumer trust and dramatically increases lead conversion because consumers know they are connecting with the business that can help them. It’s a much safer and better experience for the auto shopper.
How it works:
AIM will charge dealers a small fee for every customer who is sent to a vehicle detail page on the dealer’s website. Compared to other forms of advertising, the fee charged is below marketing costs. Most important, part of that fee is reinvested back into advertising that will drive more auto shoppers to DriveChicago.com, resulting in greater lead generation.
“This program is a winner for our dealer members, and a winner for DriveChicago.com,” said Tony Guido, chairman of the CATA’s DriveChicago.com Committee and owner of Arlington Heights Ford. “Our dealers are getting great traffic directly to their website at a cost lower than market value. At the same time they are reinvesting in DriveChicago.com. This marketing program will provide dealers with more options on how they reach Chicagoland auto shoppers.”
“This innovative digital marketing approach is somewhat new to the automotive industry,” said French. “Most dealerships measure and compare their marketing efforts in terms of leads. This is an important metric to measure; however the data will tell you the most effective metric in terms of actually selling a car is getting your inventory more exposure. If people don’t know you have a car for sale, they can’t possibly buy it. We are excited to add DriveChciago.com to a network of automotive sites that produce millions of auto shoppers.”
DriveChicago.com was launched in 2000 and has been providing Chicagoland auto shoppers with the ability to see “Virtually Every Vehicle in Town” in one easy-to-use website. The portal lists nearly every vehicle from every Chicago-area new-car dealership, so shoppers don’t need search multiple Websites to find the vehicle they want.
About The Chicago Automobile Trade Association
Founded in 1904, the Chicago Automobile Trade Association is the nation’s oldest and largest metropolitan dealer organization. It is comprised of more than 400 franchised new-car dealers and an additional 150 allied members. The group’s dealer members employ about 19,000 people in the metropolitan area. The association has produced the world famous Chicago Auto Show since 1935. For more information please visit CATA.info.
About Automotive Internet Media, Inc.
Automotive Internet Media is a growing provider of digital marketing products and services for the automotive industry. We provide best-in-class products and services such as dealership websites, search engine marketing/pay per click advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), social media services, retargeting, display advertising, vehicle video services, lead generation, email marketing and consulting to the automotive industry. Automotive Internet Media is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. For additional information please visit www.automotiveinternetmedia.com.

Philanthropist and founder of Kentucky’s largest auto dealership, Sam Swope, died Tuesday, December 9^th, surrounded by his family and friends. He was 88 years old.
Swope bought his first small dealership in 1952, and turned it into the 69th largest auto group in the country. He was also a natural salesman, with the ability to turn all situations into wildly successful opportunities.
In January 1959 when a propane truck exploded and burned down one of Swope’s Elizabethtown centers, he took a photo of all his cars lined up in front the rubble, and published it in a newspaper ad with the message: “We have NO OVERHEAD and PLENTY OF CARS.”
A few years after, a hail storm damaged every car in his inventory, and Swope invited everyone to a “hail sale”. The customers counted the number of dents on the car, and received a discount based on that number.
Swope was also a well known philanthropist, greatly involved in Masonic groups, the Kentucky Humane Society, and the Boy Scouts, but his most generous relationship was with the Kosair Charities, which resulted in millions of dollars of donations for disabled children.
Swope was truly a visionary and a legacy, and news of his death affected many all over the country. Even the mayor of Louisville, Greg Fischer, described Swope as “a pillar in Louisville, from his entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen to his compassion for people and animals. We’ve lost a great citizen, but his legacy and impact will live for many generations.”
The Swope family released a statement asking for donations to Kosair Charity or the Kentucky Humane Society, and thanked the Louisville community for all of their support.