Category Archives: Automotive News
10 Reasons Why Car Dealers Need to Be In Vegas at AutoCon in September!
Posted by Ralph Paglia
10 Reasons Why You Need to Be In Vegas at AutoCon in September!
10 Reasons Why Your Dealership Needs to Send its Management Team to Las Vegas for AutoCon 2013 in September!

Related articles
AutoUSA Introduces Shop-By-Payment for Payment Pro
NADA and ATD Convention Workshops Now Available Online at NADA University
AutoUSA June 2013 Interview
Getting details about auto repair workshops through reviews
Don Reed of DealerPro Training teaches Auto Dealers How to Maximize Marketing ROI at Digital Dealer
Fwd: [Automotive Digital Marketing (ADM)] So, do we like the people, products and service…
Polk And Datalogix Extend Exclusive Digital Automotive Partnership Through 2016
Competitive Advantage: Professional Networking for Car Dealers – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Competitive Advantage: Professional Networking for Car Dealers
AutoTrader Working Now with Experian on Vehicle History Reports
Posted in Automotive, Automotive Digital Marketing, Automotive News, Automotive Professionals, Automotive Social, Automotive Social Marketing, Car Dealers, Conference, Content Marketing, Facebook, Google, Las Vegas, LinkedIn, Reputation Management, Social Marketing, Social Media Advertising, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, YouTube
Tags: 2013, Article Marketing, AutoCon, AutoConnections, Automotive, Automotive Marketing, Automotive Social, Automotive Social Media, Car Dealers, Digital Marketing, Fusion Marketing, Internet Reputation Management, Lon Safko, Marketing, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Bible, Social Media Marketing, Social network
Content Marketing – Automotive Professional Community
Posted by Ralph Paglia
Content Marketing – Automotive Professional Community
Content Marketing
Local Small Businesses or Fortune 500 firms alike, that plan on using Content Marketing as part of their overall Online Strategy must challenge themselves in developing a campaign that underlines the outreach of useful information through accessible channels for maximum conversion.
Before any Content is created there are 4 influential steps in developing your Content Marketing Strategy.
- Research
- Editorial Calendar
- Content Creation
- Distribution
Research :
As with any strategy, the most important course of action is research. A lot of research is the best way to grasp a hold of who your readers are and will be. You need to think in terms of who your audience and what websites do they visit and often engage with.When you are thinking of your audience it is important to note the target demographic and their particular behaviors.
“Search Engine Visibility”.
It is important to create a content marketing editorial calendar to plan your communications to current and prospective customers.
The 2nd step in your Content Marketing Strategy includes laying out what your message will be based on the day, the month and your mood.
1. Remember The Past
First thing first, you are going to need to do a little research and see what has worked before and what has not worked before, for your company and in your industry.
Before you start piecing your content calendar together,
you need to ask these questions:
The Future is always Tomorrow but the seeds are to be planted today.
So here you are, asking yourself a few more questions in a quiet room,
- Where do you see your business in the the future?
- Where do you see your business in a year?
- What type of clients do you want to service and help?
- Are there new services that you can offer for more sales?
- Are you doing everything you can to build your database?
- Is your staff properly trained in conveying your brands’ message?
- Can you see new opportunities that you may have overlooked?
2. Tag Team, You Are It – Idea Brainstorm
Gather a group of your employees in a meeting room and meet with for a purpose. Depending on how big your company is you will have different teammates from different sectors. For our purpose we will talk about a small business – owner, manager, creative, etc. – anyone you think of value who would add insight into how you could best build content for your business. Maybe your accountant or your janitor.
You never know who might be creative.
The Idea Brainstorm, is a perspective that will not only create a spark but will give you the opportunity to see it from their view, from their – “Panoramic Point of View” – you not only see it from their shoes, but also see through their eyes. This Idea Brainstorm not only gives you ideas from which to pull content from but but also an opportunity to hear what your employees are saying. There are times when a group gets together and becomes energetic. This energy sometimes produces ideas that generate millions of dollars.
Always be listening.
Remember, this is a session where ideas can be different and formless, go with the flow and allow different people to communicate. Whoever is in charge, ultimately guides the Idea Brainstormand directs it to stay on course for time restraints. This person will ideally be in charge of gathering all the raw ideas after the session, and creating a structure within the calendar template.
Questions for yourIdea Brainstorm
What content would I like to see if I was a customer?
What are we missing that we can improve on?
What content will be created (i.e.pr, social media, graphics, video, local seo marketing, interviews, etc.)
Any old content you can re-hash for the upcoming year?
What new methods of distribution can be more effective?
Is there a way to integrate offline marketing in to online traffic?
Who is going to write the content?
3. The Editorial Calendar Plan
So you have met with your teammates and gathered intelligence on how to effectively build the proper content that markets to the correct demographic. So now is the time to start working on the calendar. You can start with a simple piece of paper and jot down the day.
If any holidays are in that month make sure to note that and also note it three weeks ahead. In fact, lets go ahead and mark holidays with the colour blue or any colour you desire.
Some people recommend using a monthly calendar, but to be honest the best possible and effective way to to use content marketing is to look as far ahead as up to 12 months. This will give you a specific plan for the year you can relate to whenever.
Add the info to the Content Marketing Calendar
Take your monthly sheet of paper from step 3 and start with the first day. Plot your information on the calendar as well as online for maximum usage. You want to be consistent as well as keep the info simple and direct. Remember to add Conferences, Bills, Holidays, Birthdays and any other information that may provide content.
Repeat this for Each Month (12x)
What’s great about your Automated Social Marketing, is that you can schedule what information you want posted on what day and on what page.
It also can determine the frequency as well as where the information gets distributed to.
As long as you are prepared with a constant stream of content built up, this will help you on the Search Engines. You will be providing your customers and potential clients, a formal introduction as to who you are and the type of information that can formulated from strategy base on your business.
via Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Related articles
Top 15 New Year Resolutions for Marketers Serving Car Dealerships – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Top Blog Posts this Month – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Dealers Should Post Fewer Links and More Interactions, Text, and Images on Twitter – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Twitter Cards Make Video Marketing Easy as 1-2-3 Tweet! – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Static Social Media Products and Services are Destined to Fail – Automotive Marketing Professionals
How do you hire? – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Top 15 New Year Resolutions for Marketers Serving Car Dealerships
Top 20 Ranked Automotive Marketing Professionals – ADM Community
Reputation Management: 80 Percent of Car Buyers Now Influenced by Online Customer Reviews – Automotive Digital Marketing Professional Community
Using Your Website As Your Content Hub – Automotive Marketing Professionals
Posted in Automotive, Automotive Digital Marketing, Automotive News, Automotive Social, Automotive Social Marketing, Car Dealers, Content Marketing, LinkedIn, Social Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Strategy, Twitter, YouTube
Tags: Automotive, Automotive Marketing, Automotive Social, Automotive Social Media, Automotive Social Media Marketing, Car Dealers, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Facebook Page, Social Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategy, Social network, Twitter
Automotive News Interviews Richard Bustillo: “Dealers Get In Your Facebook”
Posted by Ralph Paglia
Automotive Dealers Get in your Facebook
Stores post ads directly on site’s news feeds

Written by David Barkholz —Automotive News |
Richard Bustillo, general manager of Rick Case Honda in Davie, Fla., believes Facebook has finally cracked the code to help dealerships sell vehicles and service.
Marketers have long viewed Facebook as an online cocktail party — fine for socializing but weak for selling cars.
Now that’s changing. Rick Case Honda and other dealerships are starting to take advantage of Facebook’s huge potential to reach customers on the users’ digital home turf, by putting ads directly into their customers’ news feeds.
Technical improvements introduced in September allow dealerships to take their customer lists — with just names and e-mail addresses — and find those people on Facebook. The “custom audience” feature allows dealerships to push ads directly to Facebook users’ news feeds, the must-see center column of the home page that consists of a constantly updated list of posts by a user’s Facebook friends.
Facebook users are more likely to look at news-feed ads than those in the more common ad location, the right side of a Facebook page, the social media giant says.
“Facebook is starting to understand what we need to sell cars,” Bustillo said.
In June at Rick Case Honda, an employee-pricing-for-all promotion on Facebook contributed to a strong month — 615 new vehicles sold — the most of any Honda store nationally for the month, Bustillo said.
Facebook played a key role in the campaign’s success, he said. The store took its customer list with thousands of names and e-mail addresses and identified who were Facebook users. It then delivered to their news feeds the employee-pricing offer, Bustillo said.
Facebook also has improved the ability of dealerships and the factories to put promotional videos in front of car shoppers, Bustillo said. Facebook users are three to four times more likely to click on a video than a static ad, the company has found.
Rick Case Honda in 2012 has sold 4,238 new Hondas through Oct. 23, the third most of any Honda store nationally, the dealership said.
The knock on Facebook, from a marketer’s standpoint, is that although the huge social media site has been useful for automakers to promote brand awareness, it has been nearly irrelevant in the shopping process.
As recently as May, Dataium, a consulting company that monitors online vehicle shopping behavior, found that of 20 million visitors to dealership Web sites, just 120 arrived there directly from a Facebook link. Of that microscopic number, only a handful left contact information to become sales leads, Dataium found.
On the other hand, automakers have been building huge banks of friends and sending them soft sells, such as sponsored stories, that talk about topics such as the environment without a direct pitch for vehicle sales. Jeep, for instance, has more than 2 million Facebook fans.
Viral Advantages
In an interview last week, Doug Frisbie, Facebook’s head of automotive global marketing, said Facebook attained the technical capability to put ads on Facebook users’ news feeds in late January.
Ads placed there are more than eight times more likely than ads on the right side of a user’s Facebook page to prompt a reader to comment on the item or actively “like” it, Frisbie said. Facebook refers to a user’s interaction with an ad or item as “engagement.” And advertisers are seeing 10 times greater recall from news-feed ads than from static ads, he said.
Bustillo said he likes the news-feed ads because the dealership pays for them only when Facebook users click on them. That’s similar to Google paid search.
The ads also have the potential to go viral, Bustillo said. Each Facebook user has on average 130 friends, Facebook said. If a Facebook user shares an ad with friends, it has a multiplier effect of reaching people without additional cost to the dealership. The dealership pays for an ad only when the original audience clicks on it, Bustillo said.
Facebook declined to say how many dealerships or automakers have used the new capabilities to find their customers on Facebook or deliver ads to news feeds.
The company is watching for backlash from its users, accustomed to conversing relatively free of advertising, to having ads placed in their news feeds.
“We are carefully monitoring user engagement and sentiment,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in an earnings call last week. “We look at how users are engaging on our platform, and as we’ve increased the number of ads and news feed we’ve been careful — carefully monitoring that engagement.”
Joe Castle, dealer principal of Castle Chevrolet in suburban Chicago, has matched about 8,000 people on his 14,000-person customer list with their Facebook addresses. In the past three weeks, he sent to their Facebook news feeds an offer for them to buy one oil change and get one free.
In the first two weeks, the campaign, which cost him about $500, generated about $12,000 in oil changes and other maintenance, Castle said. Castle Chevrolet pays Facebook about 60 cents when a customer targeted on Facebook clicks on the offer, he said. The store sold about 1,200 new vehicles in 2011.
“Facebook has really dialed it in,” said Castle, who also is founder of Socialdealer, a social media and reputation-management company for dealers.
Facebook’s features to target shoppers are evolving, Frisbie said. Within a month, Facebook expects to pilot a program with R.L. Polk & Co. that will allow automakers and dealerships to use Polk’s huge database of owners to identify sales prospects, he said.
“We’re talking about getting the right message at the right time in front of in-market shoppers,” Frisbie said.
Target Accord
Rick Case Honda expects to make heavy use of ads and video on Facebook news feeds next year to promote the redesigned 2013 Honda Accord sedan, Bustillo said.
The store is waiting to launch the campaign until early next year, though the 2013s are available now, to leave time for the store to clear 2012 models still in stock, he said.
When the campaign is rolled out, Bustillo said, he intends to shoot videos to potential customers through Facebook extolling the features of the sedan. Moreover, with the help of campaign consultant Tier10Marketing.com, the store will target Accord customers with equity in their cars so he can offer them a new Accord for the same or lower monthly payments, Bustillo said. The targeting capability of Facebook makes it an economical media buy, he said.
Rick Case Honda spends about 20 percent of a $250,000 monthly advertising budget on digital advertising.Bustillo said he gets his best return on investment on the $2,000 a month that he spends on Facebook ads.
“I’m chomping at the bit to get started,” Bustillo said of the upcoming Accord campaign.
You can reach David Barkholz at dbarkholz@crain.com. — Follow David on and
Posted in Automotive, Automotive Digital Marketing, Automotive News, Automotive Professionals, Automotive Social, Automotive Social Marketing, Facebook, Honda Dealer, Social Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Tags: Automotive, Automotive Marketing, Automotive Social, Automotive Social Media, Automotive Social Media Marketing, Car Dealers, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Facebook Page, Fan Acquisition Cost, Marketing, Marketing Campaigns, Richard Bustillo, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing