Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Used Car Market Report from Black Book.

As you can tell we are again recording this market video blog via Skype while on the road. Where has the industry taken us this week? We are coming to you from the exhibition hall floor and the Black Book booth at the 98th annual NADA Convention and Exposition in San Francisco. Unfortunately there is no time to visit nearby Napa Valley or any of the other wineries in the area.



The first part of last week had some of our lender solutions team at the annual AFSA conference, also in San Francisco, and now we are at the ATD and NADA conventions with thousands of franchised dealers and industry…

The video promoted preparation and automation as 2 of 5 keys to high volume auto sales.

Towards the end of the video he offers 20 "no strings attached" FREE videos on selling cars.

The CarChat24 team is proud to announce we have received an Automotive Website Award for Marketing Innovation. The prestigious award was presented in San Francisco on January 22, 2015, as the 2015 National Automotive Dealers Association conference kicked off, and coincides with our fourth DrivingSales award for excellence in chat.

The AWA awards are presented annually just prior to the start of the NADA conference by consulting firm PCG Consulting, Inc., and “recognize the best vendors in automotive digital marketing”, in a variety of categories.

“We are pleased to present CarChat24…

There’s been lots of excitement this week as NADA kicks off this weekend, Super Bowl Sunday is getting closer, and the U.S. President just gave his State of the Union Address. In case you missed everything going on this week, ActivEngage put together the Top 10 automotive news articles and blogs just for you! Enjoy!

10. Chrysler exec sees dealerships, operations evolving

Pete Grady is considering satellite stores and getting service operations closer to consumers. Dealers, what are you thoughts on these possible changes to the standard business…

In this week’s episode of Hard Facts, Samantha uncovers a cost-free way to utilize your bilingual sales staff to reach a broader demographic. Learn how you can implement this strategy at your dealership.

SEO is a complicated practice, especially if you're just starting in 2015. Things have changed a lot in the past 10 years, making it more difficult than ever for small businesses to compete against businesses with large marketing budgets. But as one of the most important parts of a business's digital marketing strategy, you can't ignore SEO.

Content is easily one of the best ways for businesses to take control of their rankings and build up authority with Google and other search engines. It's the simplest strategy, but it's also one of the…

In a recent report by IBM, “Automotive 2025: Industry without borders”, discusses the future of the automotive industry among OEMs, automotive suppliers, and other auto industry participants. The authors Ben Stanley and Kal Gyimesi ask this question,

“How can you form relationships with newer, non-traditional industry participants to provide the digital relationship and customer experience that today’s drivers and passengers demand?”

The answer, left open for you to do some soul-searching, has one obvious answer:

Invest in live chat.

Live chat is a proven…

Once you get over the beauty of the 1970 Dodge Charger in the picture, you might ask yourself, "What does a 45-year-old muscle car have to do with automotive content?"

We've been asked the same type of question multiple times pertaining to content we publish on dealer websites. Sometimes, it's dealers asking. Other times, it's other vendors wondering what we're doing or "tattling" to the dealer about it. The funny part is that when compared to the automotive marketing "gurus" who question it, the dealers tend to understand the philosophy much more quickly than the vendors.

I'm not here to insult anyone. I totally understand why it's hard for many vendors to get, especially the larger ones who have mechanized content, search, and social strategies. The reality is that based upon…

Some people want it to happen,

some wish it would happen,

others make it happen. ~ Michael Jordan

Anybody with even a passing interest in sports in the 80’s and 90’s has vivid memories of basketball legend Michael Jordan defying gravity to fly through the air and slam dunk a basketball. Again, and again, and again. The man was virtually synonymous with Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan, because he did. Such was his dominance not only of the game, but of sports branding, that he still pulls in nearly $100 million a year on branded gear.…