While forums and blogs are not true social networking spaces like some of the other offerings out there they do offer a level of connection and two way communication.  I know from personal experience you can build a business completely from online networking and it all started with this blog.

After speaking with Jeff about his new automotive resource and watching others who offer best practices and guidance I can see where his platform may very well trump all others in the automobile niche today.

This is not to take away from the other offerings but his concept and unique position in the auto industry, a dealership manager, will allow for more of a hands on approach and problem solving platform versus other venues in this highly segmented space.

Jared Hamilton’s DrivingSales and Ralph Paglia’s Automotive Digital Marketing, both very recommended resources, are the original entries that have survived but seem to cater more to the vendor marketing aspect of the business versus hands on knowledge.  Many of the vendors that inhabit these locations don’t bring problem solving on use of their products as much as they use these entries as publishing platforms to showcase their areas of expertise and to keep their names and offerings infront of other in the car business.  Each has a different dynamic and level of quality and are worth checking out.

Others have tried to bring this type of resource to the industry, most notably Automotive News and Imagic Connect, and have failed.  The reasons can only be assumed but perhaps because they were vendor based and tightly moderated.  Neither gained any type of sustainable traction.  While the Imagic offering is still live it is but just a shell with no recent activity.

Ralph Paglia will openly admit the reason he started his network was due to the moderation found on another platform but his does not fall into the “Me Too” crowd like Selling Iron and Auto Dealer Monthly’s offering Auto Dealer People to replace their other abandoned forum because he was able to use his vast network to build his offering to the where it is today, the second largest automotive social network.  Personally I do not see what either of these offer than an attempt to sell advertising based on previously published content and bring little if any value to the industry.

Kain Automotive and I Auto Consultants networks are very different in the space and are not looking to take over like the other commercial offerings and do have a very valid puprose.  The first catering primarily to their customers and inhouse process and the second to consultants in the niche.   Neither one trying to be all things to all people like the two big established networks.

That is the very reason the Dealer Refresh Forum will also take off in the months to come.  It’s traffic and growth will come organically from attraction versus push marketing that we have seen from some of the other networks.  It is will be a great addition as long as they keep it real and do not become influenced by the vendors whose products will eventually come under fire.

Technorati Tags: automotive forum, automotive social networking, DealerRefresh

The topics discussed exceeded expectations and delved into a level of knowledge beyond that of basic seo offerings available to car dealers today.  While many website providers do offer basic services the discussions delved much deeper.

Some of the topics covered were:

• Changes in search that are becoming a reality such as universal search and the Google search wiki.
• Why tag and keyword stuffing are a waste of bandwidth and the negative implications to be expected from these practices.
• Website analytics and why independent third party site performance measurement trumps vendor provided tracking.
• Building search engine trust and the importance of outbound links and linking partners.
• Techniques for ranking for competitors names.
• Inbound linking strategies and internal linking strategies.
• The importance of updated content and the challenges dealers face.
• Pros and cons of website provider platforms.
• Blogging for car dealers and effective use to help build search engine relevance.
• Search engine saturation and how to eliminate third party lead providers from dealers “money term” searches.

Those in attendance were top level website providers, automotive marketing consultants, inventory distribution partners, micro site providers, analytic providers and search marketing providers and consultants.

This years conference was by invitation only and the next one is scheduled for September 18th-21st of this year in Las Vegas.  Make sure you subscribe to ISMinTraining.com to receive details on the next automotive seo conference and for tips and opinion of online automotive marketing.

Technorati Tags: auto industry events, automotive digital marketing, automotive seo

CarFolks.com Main Purpose

What is completely lost in this diatribe is the fact that networking is a great source of business, online or otherwise.

It leads to referrals, direct sales and staying in touch.  While I agree that people can go over board with networking online but what about the great networkers that sell cars to members at their church, the masons lodge or the golf course?  While these activities can take away from business time too they can be a huge marketing tool.

Businesses do not network online or otherwise.  People who work in them do.  Online is no different.  Our friends, old classmates and family are utilizing online networking sites to reconnect, stay in touch and to share memories.  Anyone who has been in auto sales for more than a month knows that people buy from people they like and staying in touch is the best way to insure repeat business.  Online has made that easier.

Nobody wants to connect with “Old School Dealer Group” they want to connect with the individuals who work there.  Everyone has a sphere of influence and by connecting with you online they are opening letting you into their circle where as they may be more hesitant to do so in real life.

• Will they want to follow you on twitter if the only thing you share is the deal of the day or hour?
• Do people want to really want to read your blog if it is nothing but a pitch?
• Would your brother 350 miles away be interested in your facebook wall if your message is to call for a great deal on a car?
• What would your grand ma say if all you did was try to get her to fill out a credit app because “Everybody Rides” from your myspace account?

Not only would it be counter productive to think that is the way to use networking sites it would be just as asinine as the Carfolks.com model.  If you took the time to make connections and become a part of the community and be a participant not just a marketing machine then these sites can work for you.

It is great to reconnect on facebook with an old high school buddy and to catch up on what has been going on in each others lives.  If  you really reconnected with that lost friend they would travel hundreds of mile to buy a car from you and to enjoy a dinner and a drink.  Two good things come from that interaction by not leading with the pitch.  Just by letting people know what you do.  (Personal Story)

The web today is about being connected with others and the applications that help bring everything together.  I get excited about finding applications that can help promote your business.  I was recently sent a press release by Wei at www.easyautosales.com that talks about how they developed an application where cars can be posted via facebook connect.

I see the application being a great tool if used properly in a networking environment.  Consumers can post a car they find and ask their friends for their opinion of it and a salesperson with a large network could feature a recent trade in and tell the cars story to their connections or use it to recommend cars to those that ask.

The line will have to be walked for dealership peronel using it as a marketing tool so not to appear spammy, there is already to much of that at every level in our industry.  Moderation is the key,but if your profile is strong enough you become the car expert in your circle and your friends will appreciate it.

People are going to Facebook not Carfolks.  With monthly visits topping 60 million and growing versus less than 1000 and falling where would you rather your people be? (I know a few blogs that get a lot more traffic than that)

Remember my motto: “Without Traffic Everything Fails”

Technorati Tags: automotive seo, automotive social networking, carfolks.com, facebook.com, myspace.com, online marketing

Automotive Blogging

There are some great blogs that have a decent amount of readership. DealerRefresh, AutomotiveDigitalMarketing, DealerDex, Why Buy Used Cars, Tactical Technique and the DrivingSales Community Blog are some great examples. (if yours is not listed here contact me.  Jeff I rolled you, return the favor?)

Many including myself have expressed opinions and views in their blogs that that others disagree with or may of not been completely flattering to a vendor or individual.  That is the spirit of blogging and increases traffic and viability for all parties.

Many blogs do not publish trackbacks and moderate content even if it shares opinions and interactions with vendors that are not completely flattering from one vendor to another.  Those interactions need to be shared with the online automotive community and it gives both sides the ability to tell their story and not restricted to Kumbaya style other vendor mentions.  If content is going to be restricted in this format then people will stop contributing.

Trackbacks are ways to drive traffic in both directions.

Not publishing them is bad form even if they disagree with the opinion expressed in the original post, however the “old school” mentality exist that if it is not 100% flattering then it is negative.  This is because the old guard does not understand the new rules of the game and they will be summarily crushed if they do not learn the ways of the web.

Perceived negatives are just that perceived.

Many times when something that exposes a flaw in a how support people, marketing paradigms or platforms are discussed, no matter the source, it gives those those companies and individuals feedback to make changes or address concerns.  Censoring content based on opinions and experiences is bad form, just because it is not flattering, and benefits no one.

Just as this post will be construed as an attack on a certain community blog it is not.  It is pointing out some of the flaws and double standards that exist.  If a vendor were to publish something flattering about another vendor it would be allowed to stay.  If it points out a problem it is either edited or deleted, while vendors are allowed to talk about what they do and leverage the power of their marketing budget and name while opposing views are stymied or proof of flaws is deemed negative.  (I have examples but will not share them unless asked)

If your spirit is to share best practices with dealers and exposing problems or false marketing paradigms with a vendor contributes to best practices formation.  However in my opinion the spirit is to protect those with the largest marketing budgets regardless of the truth.   You can’t out market pitfalls, you need to adjust and make changes in thought, products and processes.

To have a positive impact on the web community it has to be give and take as it stands they just take and do not wish to reciprocate by giving back to the web that helps drive traffic.  It is the world wide web not everything needs to point to me web when running a blog that is supposed to have interaction.

What Can Be Done?

If you do not wish to be subject to censorship you can go places that do not have any or you can publish on your own.  Every vendor in the space should have their own space and be willing to contribute in others if the effort can product rewards and still fall into terms of service at a shared platform.  This does not even start to address blogging for car dealers.

Please give your thoughts and opinions?

Technorati Tags: automotive blogging, automotivedigitalmarketing.com, dealerrefresh.com, drivingsales.com, tacticaltechnique.com

On the other hand restricting content because it uses a vendors name and it is not favorable to a specific automotive provider is actually worse than the latter.  People who spend anytime on social networking sites recognize spam and can see past it.  While I do like rules that do not allow overly self promotional content, wordpress.com thrives with these rules in place, but censoring free content which speaks out about vendor interactions or pointing out flaws in marketing pitches is anti social networking.

While it can be considered a privilege to contribute it these arenas and they can be great marketing arenas if you provide value to the conversation these types of sites do need our content to survive.  Neither extreme builds interaction or willingness to contribute and that is possibly why neither platform is doing extremely well.

I have had my comments edited at and trackbacks deleted to www.drivingsales.com, the site with higher than normal standards, when they actually provided value to the conversation and drove traffic to the site.  On the other extreme at www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com, site with tons of spammy content, I have people attack on a personal level in a very unprofessional manner.

I can now understand why the guys over at www.dealerrefresh.com do not spend much time in either place.  They spend their time working on their own property and building their own their tribe at home, where as I have tried to spread out all over the world wide web.

In a recent post at www.drivingsales.com the admin deleted a vendors name when a consultant blogged about Cobalt Websites trying to take credit for his work.  While there is no way to verify the validity of his claims but Cobalt does have the ability to respond and offset it or try to make the situation better.   However when the post was edited Cobalt’s website division may not know they have a problem and it may possibly cause this great contributor to not give them anymore content.

Maybe it is best to provide the real content on your own property and just use the commenting to drive traffic to your own property instead of building someone else’s.

Technorati Tags: automotivedigitalmarketing.com, cobalt websites, drivingsales.com

This brought back memories of some of the things he taught me back in the day, 1990 to be exact.  For example, how he introduced himself to customers on a T.O. “Hey, Joe, how much do you owe…” in his slow, long southern drawl and my favorite, “Do you think we can get it for a dollar,” his way of saying that he was not going to book a trade.

Today, Ol’ Low Ball has one of the most profitable Buy Here Pay Here lots in the country and wanted to come school us young bucks on how the car business really should be.

He told me before our interview he wanted to set up his own blog and was going to show us how it’s done.  I offered him a compromise, because there is enough competition in the automotive blogosphere here and here.  I told him he could access one that is already up and running, with readers and advertisers.  This way he did not have to worry about setting up a new shop and he could have a desk and get a portion of the profit with none of the expense.  (He really liked that idea by the way.)

Paul Rushing (PR) : Ol’ L.B., I am glad you took the time to run me down.  Seeing as how I thought you would be in a nursing home or dead by now.  How did you find me?

L.B. Gross (Ol’ L.B.) : Well buddy, I am glad I found you as well.  I saw your picture when my secretary printed out a newsletter, for me to read, from that other site you are involved with.  I told her to get in touch with you.  She used the computer to find you she said.  I don’t know about all that.  We have one in my office for the grand kids to waste time on myspace.com and for her to get my emails from olelb@aol.com.  I have not been able to check it myself since they quit telling me when I had mail.

P.R.:   Well the business sure has changed since we worked together 18 years ago.  I guess you don’t have a website since you are still using an AOL email address.  Don’t you realize that AOL is more washed up than Detroit?

Ol’ L.B.:  All I know is if people want to send me something via that email, that is the one my secretary tells them to send it to.  I have had it since the mid ’90’s when I got my son the computer that he gave me back 5 years later after he bought a new one.  I don’t know why he did that though, it still worked fine after he showed me how to use AOL.  Then, I had to pay for my email, plus get off the phone to check it.  Now I have to get Sally Ann to turn off the soaps to check it.  She has to unhook the cable TV in her office to do it; I like that.  ‘Bout them boys in Detroit – they really blew that one I think.

P.R.: You know L.B. she just needs a $2 part and some extra cable to not have to turn off the soaps.  But what I really want to know is, how do you think they blew it in Detroit this week?

L.B. : About that part, it did not come with the computer and I ain’t puttin’ no more money in that mess.  I think she is tricking me anyway.  The other day I told her to get my email and the picture was still on.

About them asking for money like that, they really messed up.  You know I am flashy as all get out, especially when I travel to a place like Vegas, but come on Paul, if you’re gonna beg, look like a beggar.  I am sure they had an old K Car or Maverick on the back line they could have all piled into and driven to D.C. It would have taken them prolly 6 hours to get there.  Heck, I bet Marvin, my old auction driver, could have done in 5.  Plus, they should have wore some old kicks, not suits that most people can’t buy with a month’s pay.  You save those for special occasions.  Don’t tell no one but the jacket I got on in that picture came out of the trunk of a car I stole, er bought, at an estate sale.  It still had the plastic on it from the cleaners, but I would’na even wore that.  Some overalls or somthin’, look poor if you gonna talk poor.

P.R. : You have always had a flair.  Now I know why you can burn money like you do.  You don’t pay for much.  What do you think the Internet has done for dealers, seeing how it is a less expensive way to reach people who are really looking for car and not lining bird cages?

Ol’ L.B.: Well, I have not got my website up yet and won’t until my contract with the newspaper is up.  They guaranteed me the back page every Wednesday, coupon day, if I signed a 10 year contract with them for $16,000 a month.  I know it is still working because my salespeople always come to me to work a deal, asking where this or that car is.  I bet 400 people a month miss those special deals we put in there, like the ’07 Prius for $9,000 and ’02 Odyssey van for $2,500.  We switch a few of them to cars we really have and Kapowee, we sell a car; only every now and then does it cause us a problem.  See I tell my people when they call on those “Specials” they need to tell them it is here right now but they better hurry.  Someone is coming in on it.  It is always sold by the time the marks get here.  Every now and then someone calls us from on of those danged cell phones on the lot, but we have gotten good at wiggling around that one.

P.R. : Wow, I am surprised your search engine reputation is not screwed up.  I’ll have to check on that and let you know.  I noticed you used “Kapowee, you sold a car” and wiggling.  I guess you have seen the Badger Commercials.  I thought you did not know much about the web.  You had to be surfing the web to see those, right?

Ol’ L.B. : I get my grandson or my secretary to play them for me and to go to some other places.  I was hoping to get the Badger in here to train my sales people; he knows his stuff.  They also show me other things on the computer, too.  There are a few people around this online stuff that know what they are doing.  I like it when I see the same people putting the same stuff everywhere, or ending all of their writin’s with the same 5 paragraphs at the end.  That looks smart to me.  I am just trying to figure out what a spammer is and why my grandson keeps callin’ it that.

P.R. :  Well, Ol’ L.B. it looks like you got a lot to learn about the right way to use the Internet.  Those things are as dated as your white shoes and belt.  How often do you think you can contribute and start your education?

Ol’ L.B. :  I am gonna do the teachin’ here, son.  Don’t you forget it.  Seein’ how there is so much room for people to pay too much for Internet consulting; that is gonna be my new sideline.  Seein’ as how I can’t get my friends to sell me their old cars anymore; they tell me they get more from Craig List.  My secretary showed me his website. I don’t see that as a way to sell any cars.  Looks like a bunch of garbage to me.  So now I am going get this going.  I’m gonna give these people an education and show them the right way to leverage the web.  My game plan has not changed in over two decades, it is time to get them back on track.  I’ll be back from time to time.  Can you let them know when I send you something to show them?  Let my secretary know and she’ll print it out for me!

P.R. : Will do LB we are looking forward to it.  They can put their email in up top, subscribe to the feed below or bookmark Internet Sales Manager in Training.

Technorati Tags: humor, internet training, L.B. Gross, old school

Dealerships and vendors have a chance if they are not deeply tied to status quo.  Actually many dealers and vendors are thriving in this down cylce, the big three has a chance if they can change their thinking.  What has happend is much like old Wile E Coyote running over the side of a cliff.  His legs keep spinning trying to push forward with all the momentum he has built through his misguded efforts to finally realize there is nothing under his feet but air and all of his hard work has failed him.

This penomenom is happening in all aspect of the car business right now at all levels.  Dealers that have relied on their years of establishment to carry them through are closing their doors, big vendors are being dropped like hot potatoes and the OEM’s are stiffing thier dealers.

The problem does not lie in the economy and the solution is not in a bail out.  The problem lies in companies not realizing the world around them is changing and not adapting to it.  Thinking that they are untouchable and their name and past successes will cary them through.  They are falling off the cliff that Seth Godin talks about in his book “The Dip”.  They waited to long to quit and move into today’s market.

As efforts and results moved up they did not realize that the market around them was changing and they have waited to long to change themselves and hit bottom quickly like the “Super Genius and Mastermind of Possibilities” bound for failure and could not see it until the canyon floor it them in the face.

The ones that are making it right now are working through the proverbial dip.  Things are tight and the cause looks dismal but the light is shinning and wild success is around the corner.  It will be at the expense of the ones that refuse to adapt.

Casualties will come to the big online vendors that have done nothing to improve their products since their inception.  They will be replaced by the little guys they have been scoffing at for the last few years who really understand what it takes to build a site that converts, float bricks in the search engines and grasp the intricacies of long tail marketing.

Dealers who refuse to step in sync with consumers will be left in the dust by those that do.  The dealers who don’t list or give customers prices online, those that do not really leverage the web, the ones who put the customer through eight turns before slamming them into the box, the ones that think rate and payment should be a huge secret.  The same dealers who said the stores that were doing/not doing these things are idiots and will never make it and are destroying “their” market, by giving consumers what they wanted will wind up on the chopping block

The big three not so sure there is much hope for them.  High labor cost, crappy vehicles, stiffing dealers, unfair franchise agreements it is a wonder that they made it this long.  Their legs have been running a hundred miles an hour mid air for quite sometime and the end is near.

The small vendors, the dealers that are in sync and small manufacturers with good products are going to win.  They are working through the dip and will own their respective markets.  The big boys do not stand a chance.  They will be like a bear getting attacked by an army of midgets.  Unless they can make drastic changes to their offerings.

The darkest is before the dawn and working through the dip will pay off.  What is bad it just may be too late for the big boys to catch up now.

Technorati Tags: automotive marketing, automotive seo, the dip

The automotive digital marketing space is now the wild west of the auto industry and represents the best opportunity for dealers, who have the ability to make informed decisions, to promote their dealerships and inventory online. Unfortunately for most dealers they rely on recommendations from individuals or companies that have a back end motive in recommending products and services to them. Like the scouting reports that General Custer had before “the Battle of Little Big Horn” and are being lead to the slaughter.

Carnival like atmospheres and gee whiz presentations with recommendations from people who have not changed their game plan in relation to digital marketing in several years is a recipe for disaster. In this space with enhanced consumer awareness and online trends changing at an alarming rate cookie cutter products with declarations of how well they did in 2005 should tell the dealer to be weary.

This problem is not only presented by consultants and agencies who are trying to carve out a space in a niche that they do not understand it is compounded by the fact vendors that operate in the digital space make recommendations that only serve them and not the dealer.

Today there are so many different flavors of cool aid that is being served up to decision makers it is easy for the dealer to become paralyzed and choose to do nothing. Another big mistake.

The list of terms, tools and disciplines in itself can be confusing to a lay person. Automotive digital marketing, online best practices, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, micro sites, landing pages, CRM, ILM, SEO, PPC, websites, process, conversion ratios, email templates, social media, social networking, dealer ratings, click to call, online chat, online classifieds, twitter, linkedin, plaxo, leads, online merchandising, pop ups, pop unders, text advertising, banner advertising, online directories, blogging, squidoo, consumer generated content, have you got lost yet?

Now you have vendors pitching these individual products or combinations of them in packages as the answer to the dealers online marketing effort. Not to mention the training that must be performed for the use and implementation and process development.

Here is the typical situation. A dealer attends a conference and hears buzz words such as social networking, web 2.0, blogging, seo and sem. Currently they have a website and are sending their inventory to classified sites such as cars.com and autotrader.com and realize that they are not getting the best return on their time and investment.

So they contact a SEO vendor and a SEM vendor to help deliver more traffic to their website and realize that their process is broke after examining their lead handling. In comes the process consultant that gets them signed up with a state of the art ILM and CRM system and buying every lead in a 200 mile radius of their store. However the dealer has set a budget for expanding her Internet presence and soon realizes that all the based are not covered so she starts exploring more options. The SEM vendor tells them how they are going to deliver traffic to the stores website through an intelligent PPC campaign and the traffic will be almost instant and the leads will pour in through the site and they don’t need to buy leads and give them more money to drive traffic that closes at a higher ratio.

Now the SEO vendor explains to her that SEM is not permanent traffic and gets is more expensive over the long haul and tells her that she can buy leads for half the price that most lead vendors charge by buying direct from the lead aggregators while they establish a permanent search engine presence.

Now the autotrader rep and cars.com rep are waiting in the showroom to discuss the cancellation letter that was sent in because the process consultant told her not to waste money there to free up more budget so she can access discount credit leads that have been sold to six dealers already in the last 90 days.

Finally after three weeks of this circle jerk she has decided that she has tried the Internet and it is not worth it because it is not working in her store. She can’t find the ball no matter how hard she searches for it.

All the time her inventory data feed has been down because the modem for her DMS is infected with cockroaches where the parts manager dropped a burrito behind it in the parts warehouse where he hides to take breaks during the day and every email from the store is going into a spam filter because they have a local mail server and the F&I manager and title clerk are sending porn and the email around that says microsoft is going to give them $286 for every time it is forwarded to their 800 person contact list putting all the email address in the to field and the person who did online sales two years ago has an autoresponder set up to send every person who has ever submitted a lead through the website a daily email to call him on his disconnected cell phone to get the best damned service and because they need a car today and it is time for them to step up.

And people wonder why dealers have such a hard time getting it.  It is not their process that is broke it all the processes going on around them inflicted by the vendors who ply their trade in the niche or people who are trying to figure out a way to stay in the car business in a consultave role when they do not even know how to set up an email client.

The good thing is for people who are serving the dealers with integrity and for the dealers that operate with integrity and own a franchise other that one of the big three there is hope.  Current market conditions are going to rid the industry of posers and carnies at all levels.  OEMs, Dealers, vendors, consultants and dealership employees who have been faking it for years.

Now is the time for the dealers to act to own their competitive markets and make rational choices.  This can be done through education or finding consultants that can guide them who do not have an interest in pushing a certain vendors products.

Transparency is a buzz word that vendors and consultants use in their pitches to dealers telling them they need to be transparent with their ionteractions with consumers now dealers need to hold them transparent as well.  If a consultant or vendor that is recomending other widgets for the dealer to use in their online marketing efforts will not provide full disclosure as to ther relationship with these other parties the best thing the dealer can do is tell them to play their shell game at down the road motors and seek education and non biased recomendations.

Now that you are ready to leave and go back about your day take a minute and leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Technorati Tags: automotive internet sales, automotive vendors, online marketing

The top 10 reasons to avoid wordpress.com for a dealership blog

1. Lack of flexibility – You cannot use plugins that help your blog become truly SEO friendly.  No custom title tags or Google sitemaps.
2. Siphoning traffic is against their TOS – If your blog at wordpress.com is only designed to send traffic to your website and not to provide real information to the visitor it will get DELETED.
3. Unprofessional – A blog hosted on a free hosting site says to your visitors that you are not serious enough about what you are doing to be a person they should trust to spend money with.
4. No real customizations – You can add a few custom headers to blogs at wordpress.com but you cannot use a completely customized wordpress theme there.
5. No custom html or .js – You can only use their stats and cannot add form tables or other useful html.
6. “Hey go see my blog at www.imanidiotdealer.wordpress.com” – Get your own domain.
7. Advertising – WordPress.com displays ads on your blog to certian types of visitors.  You may never see them, they code it that way, but your vistors may.
8. Space – The limits at wordpress.com are generous on their free blogs but if you need more space you gotta pay for it.  Which you should be doing anyway.
9. You are placing your content in someone other peoples hands.  You are already doing it with your dealership website, you should own something that belongs to you in your virtual space.
10. By the time you pay to remove adds, add a domain and the extra space you are still subject to their TOS and you can do it yourself and have complete control of your content.

Bonus – WordPress.com does not index your individual post just your home page all keyword indexing is via tag clouds which can be shared by your competiton.

Domain at godaddy – $7.55 a year for .com

Your own hosting account $4.95 a month

Owning your content and not having to appease others: Priceless

If you need help setting up a blog using the software from wordpress.org subscribe to my feed or email subscribe as I am preparing some tutorials to help you learn to set up Car Dealer Blogs.

Technorati Tags: automotive blogging, car dealer blogs, cheap car dealer blogs, wordpress.com dealer blogs

I sure hope that we will see some coverage for the event as eluded to by Jared over at DrivingSales.  If not  the “Dealer Magazine Trio” and vendors in attendance are missing huge marketing opportunities that would allow them to maximize their presence and reach people who were unable to attend or going to the JD Powers event.

I really would of loved to eves drop in on some of the things being presented.  More than anything to see if anything being presented was more than monkey tell, monkey do closed with a sales pitch to buy a training program or process that has not been rewritten in the last 3 years.

Internet marketing techniques and web applications should always be in a state of flux, online presences should be maximized and relying on one size fits all plug and play widgets without real ownership at the dealership level is a waste of marketing capitol.

Just like sales 101 some things will pass the test of time in the automotive Internet arena but that will mostly boil down to process and lead handling, which should always be tweaked as data and trends become evident.

If you are in attendance and take away one idea that could really impact your business make sure you act on it.  It could be as simple as getting back to the basics or as complicated as wiping your online marketing slate clean and restarting from scratch, just make sure you follow through..

Stay up to date on Digital Dealer V and other industry events at DrivingSales

Technorati Tags: dealer magazine, digital dealer, drivingsales, Mike Roscoe, online automotive internet marketing