Back to Old School concert ticket giveaway
This is a promotion we are running right now with Wired 96.5 and Sovereign Bank Arena in Philadelphia. If you are interested in participating in promotion this even please conact us.
Remember the old Hip-Hop days? You know, Salt-N-Pepa and Coolio? Well guess what…for one night only, these legendary artists and others from the early 90s are back. AutoConversion and Wired 96.5 have teamed up to throw the biggest “back to school” party in the Atlantic City area with the “Back To Old School” Throwback Concert Saturday Sept 19th at the Sovereign Bank Arena.
This throwback concert will be featuring gigs such as the legendary Salt-N-Pepa, Naughty By Nature, Coolio, Tone Loc, C&C Music Factory, 2 Live Crew, Rob Base, JJ Fad and Snap.
AutoConversion is giving away tickets to this event…You know you want to come out for the Back to Old School Throwback Concert and hear classic songs like, Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”, Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing”, and Salt-N-Pepa’s “Whatta Man”. For more details, click play on the audio player below to hear our radio promotion.
Tickets are limited and available on a first-come first-serve basis. To claim a free pair of tickets, all you have to do is:
- Leave a comment on our Facebook page describing your favorite memory of the acts performing at the “Back To Old School” Throwback Concert. If you want to qualify for up to four (4) tickets, post a video of yourself describing your favorite memory of the acts performing at the show. Be sure to leave us your email and we’ll get in touch with the winners.
- OR if you’re not a Facebook member, simply leave a comment on this blog post sharing your favorite memory from one of the acts scheduled to perform at the “Back To Old School” Throwback Concert.
It’s like the late great Tupac Shakur said, “What more could I say? I wouldn’t be here today if the old school didn’t pave the way”, so come out and support the artists who paved the way for today’s top musicians.
For more information about this event visit the Wired 96.5 website or to purchase additional tickets go to www.sovereignbankarena.com.
Reality Check by the White House
If you have seen the recent marketing effort from WhiteHouse.gov – Reality Check, you may notice their effective use of several contemporary digital marketing methods.
For one, you have a page dedicated to a central theme or purpose which is to address the disparity of facts and fiction among people and the media. This is a good example of what I often call “single point focus”, which is a proven or known method for getting your point across in marketing.
To communicate this message, the page consists of numerous high-grade videos from experts in the field which in this case are people working in or close to the current administration. Video is one of the most effective ways to communicate a message especially when it’s done by real people and not actors.
Now the part that I personally really appreciate is what you see on the right side of the page – links to their Facebook page and Twitter lines in addition to a subscription form. Facebook and Twitter are taking the world by storm right now and for the White House to be on the ball like this, which is a reflection of the administration’s marketing vision and tenacity, gives a large number of visitors a sense of comfort and familiarity. Highly effective.
Not only do you see links to these things but also you see towards the top of it all a share gadget which enables visitors to share this page with friends via email, friends on Facebook, and on Twitter. Giving your audience this ability is known to be highly effective too.
As many have noted over the past year or so, the Obama camp has been highly effective at digitizing its message in a contemporary fashion and this is yet another example of this. Despite whether or not you are on board with the administration’s policies and agenda you must respect its ability to deliver it to this particular audience which by the looks of their Facebook page has accumulated about 306,539 fans.
Or maybe note? According to my math, 306,539 is 0.44% the number of people that voted for Obama in 2008. That is fewer than 1% of his voters. You have to wonder if this is a reflection of how few people are on Facebook or how a measure of interest Facebook users have in the message?
The New Smart Cars
Every so often a good email hits your inbox that is worth sharing. I take no credit for this work and have no one to credit. It was passed along from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Enjoy!
Look at all of the great new choices!
The Smorvette!
The Smaudi A3 AWD!
The Smamborghini!
The Smorsche!
The Smerrari!
And last, but not least,
The Smustang,
bing.com – Microsoft’s response to Google Universal Search
You may notice in your site analytic reporting a referring website called “bing.com”. This is Microsoft’s new search engine which is where users are now directed when going to live.com. Bing.com is meant to be Microsoft’s answer to Google in hopes to reclaim some of its continually diminishing market share in recent years.
According to reports, bing.com is primarily focused on 4 sectors of search:
- planning a trip
- finding a local business
- researching a health condition
- making a purchase decision
You find when using bing.com some peculiar similarities with Google search such as the font and color display of listings and their basic construct. What’s different however is the left sidebar which automatically displays sets of similar phrases to what you just searched, much like a tagging system. Also different, and most notably so, is that bing.com does not mix multi-media types in its searches like Google Universal Search does. What this means is that video clips are not going to appear in your searches unless you specifically use the Video search option.
I don’t plan to follow up with this much. I don’t think it’s a big deal but I did deem it important for you to know why bing.com may be appearing in your site analytic reports and to understand some basic things about it. If you want to stay on top of this you can start by visiting ReadWriteWeb which is where I sourced most of the information in this post.
Baron BMW Blog on iFrames and Facebook
Here is a car dealer blog but it is attached to their website using an iFrame. This presents a few problems, but overall Baron is doing nifty stuff and using Facebook well too so far.
With the iFrame, you diminish your SEO influence. An iFrame is like a box inside a room. It’s its own room, but secluded from everything around it. You can link to the blog’s main page, but from an SEO standpoint you are really linking to a box you can not see inside. A search engine knows it is there, but can not see the contents.
You can link to a page within the blog but then you loose the website shell meant to surround it, so you forgo the visitor experience you initially set out for. Additionally, when you link from the blog, visitors remain in the iFrame unless you insert the parent syntax within the frame tag.
target="_parent"
Another issue is that not all systems and browser support frames. Most today do, with the exception of mobile devices, and most blogs naturally do well on a mobile device. With the iFrame you risk mobile visitors not being able to access your blog at all.
From what I can tell, this blogs looks quite new. It has a few posts and the blogger is clearly sharing himself in addition to the dealership. This is good. Although you must be conscientious of what you publish. The NINJA post pushes the bubble. It will appeal to some, but could throw off others still important to the dealership. There is a threshold for everything, including dealer blogs.
Their facebook group has 53 members, including me. I just became a fan. I look forward to seeing how FB shapes the auto industry. I like what Baron is doing off the bat.
exoticcars blog on myblogsite.com
Came across a car dealer blog today being run on myblogsite.com. There is a big Google AdSense ad smack in front of your face when you visit. Curious if this is placed there by the blog master or by FortuneCity which appears to be running the blog site.
This looks to me like the dealer/blogger discovered the site the other day, set it up, posted a blog and left. For all we know the user never returned.
I see this occasionally. It probably occurs more than we know. When I first started blogging I created multiple new blogs over the course of a few months. It took a while to find which information to publish where. As I did, some of the blogs faded out, but others remained. BlogPro Automotive is really the only one that thrives today from those initial months. It has come a long way for sure. You can visit the original BlogPro site on blogger.
Today I run several sites and am always feeling them out as things progress. It takes time for a blog to evolve. Like raising a child or even growing up yourself. You have to feel it out over time. Conditions and circumstances change and you must re-establish your voice. Listen. Respond. Listen. Respond.
However, consistency proves to pay off over time too. The longer you stick with your niche, however large or small, the more can come out of it. I think that DealerRefresh is a good example of this. Jeff Kershner has been around longer than most, and his tune resounds well with many. When you change your tune, you go sideways (or backwards for some). I know that I have experienced this.
So, where do you take a site like the exoticcars’s blog? I would begin by getting off of that platform. Our WordPress system on BlogPro would suffice. I then would get my logo up there and apply a good-looking theme to the site. There are numerous free themes and themes you can purchase. Themes are like a dress you slip on to your WordPress blog or website. Finally, start posting content on a regular basis. During your first six months to a year you must be posting 2-3 times a week mimally in the dealer world to truly compete.
Blogging and Social Media setups for Car Dealers
For the past 3 years, the auto industry, specifically the dealer community, has inched its way into blogging and social media. It is actually safe to talk about these things whereas fewer than 2 years ago I purposely avoided using such terms in my conversations with dealers and auto insiders because they were still a bit taboo. Now with the unveiling of such companies and services as DealerFeeder, I think we can say that the past is officially behind us.
Of course this day would come, it was only a matter of time. With the efforts of people like Jeff Kershner of DealerRefresh and Ralph Paglia of Automotive Digital Marketing, dealers and auto insiders are becoming increasingly more emerged in the idea and practice of blogging and social media. But what are these things really?
Let’s be clear about something. Setting up a Twitter account or a Facebook account takes 2 minutes, literally. Setting up a blog takes 5 and it is free. If you are paying someone to do this for you without a master plan and direct correlation to your marketing strategy then you are wasting everyone’s time and money. The set up of these things is the least of your concerns. Utilizing them and incorporating them effectively into your sales process is the real challenge.
Looking back to the late 90’s and early 2000’s, I recall the blitzkrieg of car dealers taking on the Web. In the first few years the big question was “should I or shouldn’t I have a website?” Then it was should I or shouldn’t I do pay-per-click advertising (PPC). Now it is “should I or shouldn’t I have a blog and do social networking?”. It’s easy to say yes to these questions but what is not easy to address is the HOW.
Successful business comes down to 3 things most of us know – People. Product. Process. Car dealers have the product and despite today’s economic situation there is no lack of people. There is an abundance of people at the consumer level and at the industry level. But it is the process that throws a wrench into all this.
Dealers have been able to follow a relatively consistent sales and marketing process for 50 or 60 years or so until the advent of the Web. Since then there has been a constant flux in their business processes. First came email, then came Automotive CRM, then Internet Departments, BDC, e-commerce directors, etc. Now we have blogging and social media. Anyone who thinks that incorporating blogging and social media into their marketing strategy simply for the sake of doing it because they “should” is going to be sorely disappointed. So what if you get 500 people following you on Twitter. Are you selling more cars as a result? Is your service business increasing? Are you improving upon your brand equity?
If you are doing these things, what impact are these efforts having on your results? If you can not draw a clear distinction amongst these things then you may be at risk of treading water. Studying your customer behavior and correlating it directly to your efforts is the ugly side of this business which is no different from any other form or method of marketing, conventional or progressive. Obtaining the tools for the trade is as easy as going to the store and buying them, but that doesn’t mean you end up with a killer deck.
Managed Web Services for Small Business
When you visit a restaurant, what does the menu represent for you? Does it depict the restaurant’s products? Does it set the tone for what sort of experience you will have? Maybe it influences your likeliness to stay, order, eat, and drink? I guess my real question is, do you consider it marketing material or an essential component to your experience?
At the risk of getting into semantics, I think it is important to distinguish between services, solutions, and products. The term product can be used in two ways – one to define the widgets, or food, that a company sells and one to define outcome or experience a company offers. For companies that sell widgets, both uses of the word product apply. For those that provide services however only the latter applies, thus your product ultimately is the resulting business experience for customers, employees, vendors, etc.
Creating profit selling widgets is relatively black and white. You have fixed costs and pricing that result in a forecast amount of profit based on sales volume. With services however your costs are difficult to fix. They can vary from customer to customer and from situation to situation. As a result, your profit can fluctuate and scalability throws even more curve balls.
Say hello to Managed Web Services. Like widgets, managed services have a fixed sale price that the customer can budget. The primary difference is that the sale is recurring, typically on a monthly basis. This is not uncommon for IT-related purposes such as computer networking, PC and server maintenance, but there is little market awareness for this when it comes to web-related services. However, that doesn’t mean there is little demand for it let alone supply. In fact, lots of business provide some form of managed web service to customers and customers do have a consistent need for web-related services, you just don’t see it referred to as “managed web services”.
In the coming weeks we will strive to build a case for the mindset of managed web services and depict the importance for businesses to embrace the idea of appointing expert professionals to their web presence to evolve the marketing message, business process, and customer experience in a fixed or budgeted fashion that is solution-driven rather than retainer-driven.
Join me in the PickensPlan Virtual March
On April 1-3, the New Energy Army, that’s a team of Pickens activists, will virtually march on Washington. I don’t know exactly what this entails but I do know that I am supposed to spread the word about this. And so, here it is, your invitation to join the New Energy Army by joining PickensPlan and specifically by signing up for the Virtual March. Nearly 2 million people have signed up so far. Why not be one of us?
You can start by visiting the Virtual March website and registering with the site to sign the petition. The site lists the activities Pickens is seeking from you, which includes things like crafting a letter to your Congress folk, or even visiting them. I have never done this before but it is time.
If you are on the fence about the idea of signing up or getting involved with another site or movement, let me offer some words of encouragement. First off, if you are an Internet Marketing Specialist of any kind, you want to join PickensPlan. You will see first hand what social media, video marketing, and email marketing can do for an organization with a good cause and some money. PickensPlan is inspirational in this sense. Second, this is for your country, the U.S. of A. We need movements like this from the citizen sector. Our country is in dire straights largely because we have left it up to government to pave our future. PickesnPlan offers not only a patch to energy independence, but sets a new precedent in how the Internet can be used to create positive change.
March with me.
People often ask me how I find time to do all the things I do. My response lately as been something on the lines of, “Just break out of the space-time continuum. Time is not real.” Interestingly, most people get that, but often I find they aren’t clear on how to do it.
Well, the reality is, you can’t. At least not in this physical world as far as I know. But, that doesn’t mean you can not do things because you do not have the time to do them. Sure there are limitations to what you can pull off and when, but truth is if you genuinely want to do something you find the time to do it, or create it really.
One such thing for me for which I am striving to create more time is the PickensPlan. This energy independence effort for America is a new movement started by T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil man, last year during the Presidential race. PickensPlan has quickly and effectively spread its word using a balanced mixture of Internet Marketing, T.V. and lobbying. Because of its robust online presence (Pickens uses Ning as its primary website), I have been able to keep in the loop of its activities and growth. My mission as of late is to get more involved and serve more as an activist. Like many Americans, I believe the energy independence is the best path and the right path for this once great nation.
Silver bullets and car sales
Marketing on the Web has taken a hard turn recently towards video and in 2009 video marketing may be all the rave. But will video marketing be just another trend that phases or at least balances out in 2-3 years? Chances are YES, it will.
From 2003 to about 2006, pay-per-click advertising, particularly in the auto industry, took the field by storm. Car dealers were practically forced to spend thousands upon thousands on PPC advertising to stay in the game. Website technology evolved into a death trap for car dealers because the SEO aspect of car dealer websites was completely disregarded. As a result, when the PPC bubble deflated, car dealers were left with few choices for a truly competent website platform.
Website providers have been scrambling the past 2-3 years revamping or overhauling their platforms to meet the SEO needs for car dealers. Today the SEO rat race in the automotive online retail business is about as over-saturated as CRM was 5 years ago. Mysteriously, while everyone now offers “the best SEO”, many dealers still lack vital understanding about the true role that SEO plays in one’s business.
An example of this was revealed to me during a phone call last week with a dealer group. The dealer contacted us about our content marketing services. He explained that he did his own keyword reporting using Web CEO and that he has effectively positioned his websites across thousands of keywords. He had a good video presence going but still when he searched for a particular set of keywords, his competitor sites appeared in the top results but not his. One of which he suggested sold a whopping “6″ cars a month, which is hardly any at all.
While scoping out everything and listening it was clear that not only did this dealer know and understand all the fundamental SEO practices but also was applying them to his online presence, and I told him this. I explained that he is doing everything we teach our dealers to do and that as far as I could tell he was far ahead of the game.
“But why does our competitor rank higher”, he asked.
My response was two-fold…
a.) Just because a site appears higher in a few searches you perform manually doesn’t mean it ranks higher for others nor does it mean the site ranks higher for the majority of keywords you target.
b.) Just because your competitor ranks higher doesn’t mean they sell more cars.
This second response was key. Dealers tend to approach SEO as some sort of silver bullet to their sales needs. But it’s not. SEO is about attraction, visibility, and possibility. I wouldn’t even classify SEO as creating sales opportunities. That’s what conversion accomplishes. SEO creates the possibility for conversion. Big difference.
I don’t know if this is what the dealer needed to or wanted to hear. I think appearing higher in search was more important to him than having a more successful business. I could be wrong. But what I took home from that conversation was the realization of how even the more sophisticated of dealers that has his head wrapped around all this SEO stuff, can sometimes miss the significance SEO has with your business.
If you are looking at video marketing as “the next big thing” or as a silver bullet to your online marketing needs, be warned. Video is great and highly effective, but it’s time-consuming and expensive. You will need good SEO to get your videos watched, and you will also need an effective conversion mechanism. Video itself is not the best conversion tool. Those that have experimented with viral video marketing may testify to this.
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