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Shrinking auto sales, profit margins and automotive advertising budgets have forced automotive advertising agencies to shift their investments from conventional radio, T.V. and print media to the internet and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and too many more to list.  Unfortunately, conventional automotive advertising wisdoms don’t always apply on the Internet Super Highway.  As a result, automotive advertising agencies are struggling to find out not only what works, but how they can prove it to their auto dealer clients who are demanding a verifiable short term R.O.I. for every dollar in today’s struggling economy.  Philip Zelinger, the President of Ad Agency Online, L.L.C. and the host of the automotive advertising resource / networking portal AdAgencyOnline.Net, is directing automotive advertising agencies to promote people over product or price using social media to produce quantifiable and qualified results.

Relationship based selling systems and marketing messages have always been part of the plan for auto dealers in their brick and mortar facilities and it has been carried over to their new online virtual showrooms. However, the assumption that people and personality serve only to build brand awareness or to enhance the retail message vs. replacing it is a dated concept that must be adjusted to fit the demands of today’s empowered customers.  Auto dealer’s self serving retail messages delivered by their automotive advertising agencies — regardless of the media — is no longer perceived as relevant or transparent to online shoppers who prefer to ask their friends and/or trusted third party resources for information they need to make a buying decision.

Digital marketing techniques and priorities established by automotive advertising agencies — such as focusing on Search Engine Optimization, (S.E.O.), Search Engine Marketing, (S.E.M.) and various other manipulations of the algorithms that determine page positions for the online search engines — are no longer the best and/or the only way to deliver a call to action to potential customers.  The newest opportunity for automotive advertising agencies to deliver a message that will sell new and/or pre-owned vehicles as well as service and/or parts is to have their past, present and pending customers do it for them.

Initial attempts to transfer hard retail advertising using conventional media and even digital marketing on the WWW using auto dealer websites or dealer centric third party automotive advertising platforms were not received well by the typical online shopper who traveled onto the Internet Super Highway to avoid car dealers and fast talking car salespeople.  Today’s empowered customers prefer customer centric messages sourced from likeminded consumers sharing their shopping/buying experiences before, during and after their purchases. 

Auto dealers who marketed directly to these social networking communities were seen as wolves in sheep’s clothing as they attempted to sell their products and services from the outside in vs. from the inside out.  Automotive advertising agencies were also challenged by their inability to quantify the short term R.O.I. from their efforts to justify their fees. 

Philip Zelinger discussed some of the new technologies and applications being applied to social media that allow automotive advertising agencies to prove the R.O.I. for social media on his blog talk radio show Lunch With Phil Discussing Automotive Advertising.  The show is an open business meeting featured on the blog talk radio station WAAOL, All Automotive Advertising News All The time that is hosted on AdAgencyOnline.net. 

Philip commented on the subject with some suggested resources that automotive advertising agencies can turn to for best practices in social media and accumulating R.O.I. analytics. “Automotive advertising agencies first and best resource is to listen, learn and apply the best practices associated with social media and social networking offered on automotive advertising resource portals including AutomotiveDigitalMarketing.Com, InternetSalesManager.Org, DrivingSales.Com, DealerElite.Net, Autr.Com, AskPatty.Com , ScottMonty.Com and networks of networkers such as Auto Industry Insiders featured on my own AdAgencyOnline,.net.   I also suggest that automotive advertising agencies continue their education in real world venues like The 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition scheduled Oct. 12-14th, 2010 at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. Many of my affiliated automotive advertising agencies and auto dealer/vendor clients will be hosting sessions there on leveraging social media including mine: C2C + B2B – B2C SQUARED; Learn How This New Social Media Formula Provides New Revenues, New Efficiencies And Greater Profits.”

“As far as leveraging limited resources to promote people over product and price one solution that comes to mind is a vendor client of mine — DealerMouth.  They offer auto dealers a master website that allows them to manage and monitor individual sites for each of their sales people and service writers. The sales people can promote themselves to their own spheres of influence in both the virtual world of Facebook and Twitter and the real world at the dealership by directing them to their personal website as a form of online “Why Buy Here Book” or as a personal blog like forum to talk about life.  More uniquely, the dealer can make sure that their staff is using their online time in a productive manner vs. planning their vacations on company time by using the built in moderator functions to monitor content and online activities during business hours.  The individual sites hosted on DealerMouth are internally linked to the dealer’s online resources so it provides salespeople and service writers with a seamless transition to information they need during or after hours to sell a vehicle or service to a friend when the conversation warrants it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Automotive advertising agencies rely on AdAgencyOnline.Net to surface, review and recommend new automotive advertising vendors and cutting edge automotive advertising applications.  The semi-annual Digital Dealer Conference & Expositions have always earned the support of Philip Zelinger, the host of  http://AdAgencyOnline.Net and the President of a national network of independent affiliated automotive advertising agencies — Ad Agency Online, L.L.C., to help his automotive advertising resource / networking portal live up to expectations.  Philip relies on the conferences to help him discover and share best practices with his automotive advertising and auto dealer/vendor clients and The 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition is no exception.

The 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition represents an opportunity for auto dealers and automotive advertising agencies to listen and learn from automotive advertising experts and dealership practitioners that share a philosophy that a rising tide floats all boats.  The sessions conducted by these auto industry professionals sharing best practices in automotive advertising and dealership operations are complemented by the exhibits presented by various automotive advertising and auto industry vendors who support the conference.  In addition to the attending the sessions and visiting the exhibits most auto dealers and automotive advertising agencies take advantage of the social networking that takes place in this real world venue to build on the relationships that they have matured throughout the year in their online social networking communities.

Philip invited Susan Tyson, the Marketing Director for Dealer Communications – the organizers of the 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition – to join him on his Automotive Advertising Experts blog talk radio show that will air on Friday, September 10th, 2010 on the blog talk radio station WAAOL, All Automotive Advertising News All The Time.  Philip commented on his decision to have Susan on the show to discuss the 9th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition with his online audience of automotive advertising decision makers, “I have already interviewed Michael Roscoe, the President of Dealer Communications, and Cliff Banks, the Vice-President and Editorial Director of Dealer Communications, to review previous Digital Dealer Conferences & Expositions and I am excited to hear from Susan with the expectation that she will provide a new perspective on the event.”

About Susan Tyson

Susan Tyson is the Marketing Director for Dealer Communications. She came on board mid-July with an initial concentration on the promotion of the 9^th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition. Previously, Tyson spent close to 8 years as a marketing manager at Cars.com, primarily focused on the convention and trade show programs. She ran the Cars.com exhibit at the 1^st Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition at the airport Marriott in Nashville in spring, 2006 and continued to manage the Cars.com presence at every Digital Dealer Conference through the 6^th event in Las Vegas in spring 2009 before moving to a sales-communications focused position. Tyson is looking forward to building on the successes of Dealer Communications and the Digital Dealer Conferences to bring world-class best practices to dealerships across the US. Read the rest of this entry »