Websites, SEO, SEM, Display, Social, Marketing

A newly promoted Internet Department manager asks for guidance on becoming more valuable to her GM who wants her to learn website development, marketing, and related skills. The community offers concrete advice: develop consistent daily learning habits through industry resources (DealerRefresh, DrivingSales, webinars), study competitor websites and best practices, leverage vendor relationships for education, and critically—learn to communicate her work effectively to leadership so the GM understands what she does and can support her initiatives.

A dealer asks for recommendations on Honda e-parts catalog systems. Nathan Carr recommends Software Global for its customization capabilities despite dated design, warns against TradeMotion for poor responsiveness, and notes that newer market entrants often use revenue-sharing models rather than monthly fees, so dealers should choose based on their involvement level and preferred pricing structure.

Dealers debate Twitter's effectiveness as a sales tool, with optimists like ryan.leslie citing Newton Nissan's success in winning a customer through social listening and engagement, while skeptics like kcar question the ROI of spending significant time for one sale. The thread eventually shifts toward consensus that Twitter can generate results when dealers actively listen and engage authentically in conversations rather than pushing sales, though the key challenge is identifying efficient tools and strategies to scale these efforts beyond manual searching.

George Nenni opens a discussion on how car dealerships should prepare for Facebook Graph Search, framing it as Facebook's attempt to compete with traditional web search by surfacing connections between users and local businesses. The thread highlights the importance of optimizing dealership Facebook pages to take advantage of Graph Search's natural language and social data capabilities. The single reply offers only brief praise, leaving the strategic insights largely within Nenni's original post.

Ryan Leslie organizes a meetup for DealerRefresh members attending Digital Dealer 14 in Orlando, referencing Yago's offer to buy drinks for active forum participants, and invites attendees to visit booth #313. Multiple community members confirm their attendance and express interest in meeting up, though Yago clarifies he'll be at the Vegas Digital Dealer event instead. The thread serves as a casual coordination point for networking among automotive industry professionals at the conference.

The thread explores a challenging exercise proposed by Brian Pasch: dealers must articulate 3+ compelling reasons why customers should buy from their dealership specifically. Multiple contributors emphasize that most dealers struggle to answer this question because they lack genuine differentiation, instead relying on generic industry talking points that apply equally to competitors. The key insight is that successful dealerships must first identify their authentic "core brand message" or unique selling proposition, then cascade that message to individual salespeople and implement it consistently—with examples like no-haggle pricing, non-commissioned sales staff, and loyalty programs serving as concrete differentiators worth building marketing around.

A dealer shares their success in building strong online reputation (4.7 rating with 54 reviews across multiple platforms) but struggles to measure its actual impact on customer decisions, since few customers explicitly mention reviews. The key insight from replies is that reviews likely influence decisions more subtly than customers admit—tracking this requires asking deeper questions at point-of-sale (like "why did you choose us?") and potentially using visual cues to make customers aware of where they encountered the dealership's online presence.

A vendor advocate outlines how dealers can use Google Analytics Multi-Channel Sales Funnels (MCSF) to prove that blog posts and custom content contribute to lead submissions, making it easier to justify content budgets internally. A follow-up commenter from a call tracking company highlights that MCSF can also incorporate phone call conversions, not just form submissions, and promotes their CallConvert product as a way to tell the full attribution story. The thread is brief and leans promotional, but the core insight is that multi-channel attribution tools can finally give content marketers a measurable business case inside the dealership.

A Cobalt post uses the classic toddler 'Why Game' as a metaphor for how dealers should keep asking 'why' to uncover and articulate genuine differentiators rather than blending into the industry's white noise. Commenters are largely positive, with one noting the concept feels familiar and the author confirming it's part of a multi-channel campaign spanning blogs, video, and an eBook. The key takeaway is that persistent questioning helps dealers cut through generic messaging and find their real value proposition.

JessicaRuth shares an Automotive News article about dealership transparency and highlights that 43% of new car shoppers use phones on the lot, prompting discussion about modern retail practices. She solicits best practices and examples from dealers who have implemented transparency strategies like QR codes and mobile-optimized websites. The thread explores how dealerships can adapt to changing consumer behavior by embracing digital transparency tools.

Jeff Kershner posted a original DealerRefresh cartoon humorously depicting Facebook as a toilet, likely commenting on the frustration dealers and marketers feel about wasted ad spend or declining organic reach on the platform. The thread is primarily visual and satirical in nature, inviting community reaction to the metaphor. It reflects a broader sentiment among automotive marketers questioning the ROI and reliability of Facebook as a marketing channel.

The thread discusses a strategy to convert service customers into sales by presenting trade-in valuations on their service invoices and offering to waive service charges if they trade in their vehicle. While the concept isn't entirely new, participants confirm it's an effective but underutilized tactic, with one dealer reporting success and noting that CRM integration between service and sales departments is crucial for execution but often overlooked at dealerships.

Aaron Wirtz discovered a suspicious Google+ page called "Local photos" that contains thousands of photo albums, including images from his dealership's former Suzuki inventory that he cannot remove from his Google Local listing despite flagging them. The thread documents this unusual issue and Aaron's attempt to resolve it through Google's flagging system, while fellow forum members offer sympathy for the quirky problem. The key insight is that dealerships may encounter unauthorized aggregation of their photos on Google+ pages, with unclear mechanisms for removal.

Drew Ament explains how to create video email wraps by extracting YouTube video IDs from URLs using PHP and embedding them dynamically in emails, providing a working code example. A commenter raises an important security concern about the lack of input sanitization, noting that the code could be exploited to inject arbitrary HTML unless functions like strip_tags() or preg_replace() are added. The thread demonstrates a useful marketing technique while highlighting a critical best practice consideration for implementation.

A dealer marketer seeks advice on converting mobile website visitors into leads, noting that while mobile traffic has grown from 15.5% to 39.3% of total traffic, mobile users rarely submit forms or call. The original poster has implemented sticky footer CTAs (Click to Call, Click to Chat via Text, Directions) and is redesigning VLP/VDP pages with stronger calls to action, soliciting best practices from other automotive professionals on mobile conversion tactics.

A dealer seeks recommendations for a photo hosting service to replace Photobucket, specifically needing batch upload, custom drag-and-drop organization, and multiple output format options (HTML, email links, etc.) for efficiently organizing and sharing vehicle photos. Responses suggest practical alternatives including basic web hosting, imgur.com, and Amazon Media Sharing, though the thread doesn't reach a definitive consensus on the best solution. The key insight is that no single existing tool fully met the original poster's workflow needs, indicating a potential gap in dealer-focused photo management tools.

Dealers and industry observers debate AutoTrader's rising costs and whether the platform delivers enough value to justify them. The thread draws comparisons to lower-cost alternatives like carsforsale.com ($99/month), caroodle.com ($300/month), and TrueCar's tiered independent dealer pricing, with several vendor reps jumping in to pitch their own services. The key takeaway is widespread dealer frustration with AutoTrader's pricing model, lack of performance guarantees, and long-term contracts, driving interest in cheaper competitors.

A lighthearted post by Jeff Kershner sharing a cartoon that humorously highlights the value of knowing Photoshop in the automotive dealership marketing world. No extended discussion follows, making it a quick, amusing visual break for industry professionals who handle digital creative work. The implied takeaway is that Photoshop skills are a surprisingly useful asset in dealer marketing roles.

A dealer inquires about text messaging solutions for their dealership, prompting recommendations for several platforms including AutoUpLink USA, DealerHD, and Trumpia, each offering different features and pricing models. A key insight emerges from experienced contributors that blast text messaging often backfires for dealers by adding customers to do-not-call lists, while one-to-one personalized texting conversations with accountability monitoring (like Contact At Once) proves more effective for customer engagement.

A dealer using eCarList reports a system-wide VIN decoder problem causing incorrect trim levels and vehicle options to display randomly, resulting in customer complaints about misleading listings. After discussing root causes with other dealers and vendors, the consensus points to either a data mapping issue between Dealer Specialties and eCarList or poor implementation on eCarList's side, with the suggested solution being to switch to a more robust data feed from Dealer Specialties rather than relying on eCarList's faulty decoder.

Automotive marketers noticed that dates and individual scores disappeared from Google Reviews, sparking concern about Google's reliability and its impact on dealership reputation strategies. One dealer shared a frustrating history of losing hundreds of reviews with little recourse from Google. The issue turned out to be a roughly 72-hour bug, with dates and scores eventually restored.

Aaron Wirtz makes a case for using animated GIFs as an underutilized but effective tool in automotive digital marketing and social media, noting their longevity and broad platform support including Google+. Jeff Kershner expands on the idea with a creative application: using hover-triggered animated GIFs on dealership 'About Us' staff pages to showcase personality and reduce camera shyness. The thread is lighthearted, with industry professionals embracing the concept as a simple way to differentiate dealership websites and humanize staff profiles.