The Dealer Impact Blog

Karl Chevrolet’s Carl Moyer: In the Driver’s Seat and Out of the Ordinary

Automotive News TV Special Report gets up close and personal with auto dealer Carl Moyer, as he shares insights and best practices that helped him build a rock-solid Chevy empire at Karl Chevrolet in suburban Des Moines, Iowa.  Dealer Impact Systems is proud to be a long-time partner with Karl Chevrolet, serving the dealership as a client since 2003.  We salute Mr. Moyer as an industry innovator, and congratulate him and his entire team on making Karl Chevrolet one of the nation’s most progressive and successful dealerships.

Buick Is Creating Brand Ambassadors Via Twitter

In this article from Social Fresh. Automaker Buick is doing its best to create brand advocates in order to revamp and redefine its mature image. Just a quick disclaimer the author of the post is currently working as a Buick Brand Ambassador in Chicago on behalf of the brand.

In an effort to reinvent the brand, Buick knows they have a lot of work to do. They want to trade in the old fuddy-duddy grandpa image that has plagued the brand for the last decade for a hipper more modern brand impression.

In August, AdAge reported Buick was the fastest growing car brand in the US, but they are still struggling to rid the brand of their dated image. It is a large effort that General Motors has undertaken to broaden the appeal of Buick. And just as they have been doing with Chevrolet, they are reaching out to social media to help change the public’s awareness of the brand.

Via: Social Fresh

Stay up to date in this social media revolution — follow @dealerimpact on Twitter and Like our Facebook Page.

How Social Media Drives New Business: Six Case Studies

Businesses both big and small are flocking to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. The fact is that a presence on these platforms not only allows companies to engage in conversations with consumers, but also serves as an outlet to drive sales through deals and coupons.

And while major brands like Starbucks, Virgin, and Levi’s have been participating in the social web for some time now, the rate of adoption among small businesses is increasing too. According to a recent University of Maryland study, social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. But as these businesses look to Facebook and Twitter to connect with customers, many are finding that some strategies work and some do not produce results. We’ll be exploring these questions at a panel on Social Media and Businesses at our Social Currency CrunchUp on July 30. We’ve found some local and national businesses using social media effectively, ranging from Levi’s to a creme brulee cart, whose case studies are below.  Some of these businesses will be sharing their experiences at the CrunchUp (You can buy tickets to the CrunchUp here).

Via: Techcrunch

Check out these great case studies they are quite interesting.

5 Tips for Managing Your Companys Brand on the Web

Brand management in the current era means not just keeping an ever-present eye on the social web, but also engaging in meaningful ways with brand advocates and detractors. Professionals in the field have come to accept social media as crucial to their jobs, but most know that managing a company’s brand on the web is so much more than setting up shop on social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Here we’ll give you an inside look at the strategies of avant garde industry leaders who’ve spent years figuring out how to move beyond social media hype and implement practical management practices into their daily work routines.

Brad Nelson, Jeremy Thum, Joel Price, Joel Frey and Bowen Payson are all marketers behind big brand names. They’ve done the dirty work. Their lessons and words of wisdom range from finding ways to unify digital assets to knowing your niche, and each tip should be heeded by those looking to follow in their footsteps.

1. Let Someone Else Say It
2. Unify Digital Properties
3. Leave Your Ego Behind
4. Know Your Niche
5. Don’t Wallow or Gloat

Via: Mashable

Just setting up a Twitter and Facebook accounts isn’t enough on today’s social internet honest customer engagement is key to any company’s brand.

We Must Protect This Brand

In order to create one solid image throughout your customer base, and continue to maintain that image, consistency is critical. A brand will only fracture itself by introducing new “personalities” in each of the spaces it occupies a presence.

If you’re not consistent then your customers have to meet you and get to know you all over again. Not to mention finding you in these spaces turns out to be a lot harder. It turns into a game of ‘50 First Dates’. But trust me – unlike romantic comedies, all does not end well.

Now this is not to say you shouldn’t evolve your brand over time. That is not what I’m talking about. What I am talking about is at one point in time is your brand presenting a united front to its customers in a platform agnostic way? A company’s brand is a very valuable asset and as a social media practitioner it is your responsibility to protect it in the social space. Here are three ways to do just that.

Via: Social Fresh

Protecting your dealership’s brand is paramount in this social networking era. A clear, consistent message will demonstrate to your customers that you are listening making them that much more likely to share their experience.

The Factor x 10 drives traffic from social media and video portals

The Factor of 10 increases a website’s chances of being found by a factor of 10. The program creates 10 Points of Presence (POPs) out on the internet to increase your chances of being found and at the same time increasing your current website’s popularity with all the search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Each of these pages is specially formulated (SEO) for the search engine spiders to find and index their content, thus by creating these satellite websites out on the web we create a network of doorways for people to find you. These satellite pages can exist anywhere, even inside the Facebook network.

The Factor x10 Examples:
Satellite Pages

• Yes Team Auto Pontiac – Steubenville, OH

Facebook Fanpages

• Holmes Auto – Des Moines, IA

YouTube Channels

• Des Moines Imports – Des Moines, IA

Please contact us to find out more about the Factor of 10 and make it easier for customers to find you vs. your competition.

Brian Cox

President

Dealer Impact Systems

www.dealerimpact.com

Tags: aol, car dealerships, facebook, google, microsites, search engines, traffic, video, website, yahoo, youtube

The Power of Satellite Videos, the number one way to drive traffic to your virtual dealership!

Videos provide visual stimulation and an emotional response, however provoking an action from that response only happens when people can find them. Satellite Videos dramatically increase conversion ratios and time on your website, but the general population is not on your website day in and day out.

Dealer Impact believes your website presence should be in as many places as possible, all the time. We all know YouTube is the number one video portal on the internet, so if you export your videos, let’s say 100 for easy math, that is 100 more Points of Presence (POPs) you didn’t have before. The video player comes with an embed code that allows you to integrate these videos anywhere. You can embed them on Facebook pages, eBay, Cars.com, blogs, anywhere.

Each video acts like a satellite in cyberspace, a POP, for people to find you. Place them in popular social media sites or portals where there are hundreds of millions of potential customers giving them a direct link back to your dealership.

Let the power of Satellite Videos put your dealership on the screen of every computer on the planet.

Brian Cox

President

Dealer Impact Systems

www.dealerimpact.com

Tags: dealership, google, leads, search engine, video, youtube

What is Branding and How Important is it to Your Marketing Strategy?

By Laura Lake, About.com

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.

Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem.The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:

• Delivers the message clearly
• Confirms your credibility
• Connects your target prospects emotionally
• Motivates the buyer
• Concretes User Loyalty

To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. You do this by integrating your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact. Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot.

A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It’s important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. It’s a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you do not want to be without.

Source: http://marketing.about.com/cs/brandmktg/a/whatisbranding.htm

Living Your Brand – It Starts With People

A few weeks ago, we discussed how your brand is more than the sum of your tagline, logo and name. Rather, it’s a promise that you deliver to individuals every time they interact with your company. And that promise begins and ends in one place — your people.

Even in an automated and digital world, people do business with people — it’s there that we begin to judge the organizations we dealing with. So, if you’re positioning your dealership as “the customer-friendly alternative to the big boys” then your people best live every aspect of that. If your brand promise is “the lowest price, no exceptions,” then how your people act and make decisions should change to reflect that.

In short, if your people can’t live your brand, then it doesn’t matter what your logo looks like or your tagline says.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC 

A Brand Is A Promise

I’m often asked about “branding” in terms of a company’s name, logo or tagline. Although these three elements are important, they constitute a small fraction of your brand.

Instead of thinking about your brand in terms of logos and taglines, think of your brand as a promise. Your brand is the promise you make to customers, employees, strategic partners, the media and everyone else. When you talk about brand, you’re really talking about experience — the experience an individual can expect each and every time they interact with your company. This extends to every touchpoint of your business, from calling customer service, visiting your showroom, clicking out to your website and returning to your dealership for service.

Thinking about branding in these terms forces you to ask different questions about how you run and position your business. Branding in this way can have dramatic effects on your business — effects that changing up a logo or tagline will never have on their own.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC