Potratz was selected as a member of the inaugural Auto Remarketing Canada Power 100, an elite collection of the most influential companies in the used-car and remarketing business. The businesses selected as members of the Auto Remarketing Canada Power 100, will be featured in the fall issue…

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Facebook has recently launched a new application that could change the way you interact with current and potential customers. Facebook Questions, which operates similarly to Quora, Aardvark, LinkedIn Answers and other Q&A sites on the internet, can be a valuable tool for dealerships looking to find out more about their target market. With Facebook Questions you are able to ask a question then either set up specific poll answers for people to vote on, keep the question open-ended allowing… Continue

In today's Potratz online workshop, Dan talked about ways to enhance the look and features of your auto dealership's Facebook business page. One way to give a page a true "custom" feel is to add custom tabs with branded images, content, etc. In our experience with automotive advertising on social media, we find that the more customized the page, the more people like…

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What’s your ultimate goal in running a search engine marketing campaign for your car dealership? To get more clicks on your ads? To lower your cost per click and get the most for your money? To get more conversions when people fill out forms to get a quote? All of these things work step by step closer to your ultimate goal: to sell more cars. That’s what it comes down to.

An…

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In marketing for auto dealers around the country, we spend time analyzing their competition to see how they’re doing with everything from social media marketing to website lead management. In order to beat your competition out in sales, your dealership needs to take the time to look at what competitors are doing. Here are a few quick tips to analyze…

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You can increase leads and conversions through your dealership's Facebook business page. However, you need to take an approach different from hard-sell methods you may have used in the past with traditional advertising. Social media marketing is all about building relationships with your…

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How much of your dealership’s advertising budget goes into promoting your Service Department? Often times it seems that Car Dealers put so much time into getting the Front End ready for Lights, Camera and Action that the Back End gets neglected. Promoting your Service and Parts Center as well as the Body Shop is a healthy way to keep Car Buyers coming into your Service Bay even after their warranty is up.

Consider the age of the average vehicle on the road in your market. All of…

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Facebook Questions and Polls for Auto Dealers

Once you’ve built a fan base for your auto dealership on Facebook, you want to take full advantage of opportunities to survey them and ask questions to get feedback about how to reach them. Surveys are important to make sure that you…

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Social media gives you the opportunity to talk to the world in real time about what you're watching on TV. By posting to Facebook or Twitter on your smartphone, you can reach far beyond the world of your ugly upholstered couch and tell the world what you think about what you see. Positive words about a show can encourage your friends to watch it, and vice versa.

Now, think about the millions…

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So you're managing PR for an automotive brand rolling out a new model, and you're ready to reveal specs that the public is waiting to hear. How do you announce those specs? Traditional PR guidelines would say to write a press release and send it out to major media outlets. Well, for the new 2011 Ford Explorer, Ford has bypassed traditional media and revealed the vehicle step by step over social media.…

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MySpace, attempting to regain its former popularity as a social network, is now letting people sign up with existing Facebook credentials. This new MySpace Mashup feature will supposedly encourage Facebook users to get on, or back on, MySpace. Whether…

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Starting this week, Potratz will produce a short weekly video highlighting the latest trends in digital automotive marketing. Think Tank Tuesday will be a fun and informative source of advice…

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The social networking and media jungle is constantly changing, and sometimes automotive dealers get lost trying to cut through the bush to

stay ahead of current trends. Although it’s beneficial to stay

knowledgeable in the shifting social media arena, using the 1,000 pound

Gorilla (Facebook) to its maximum potential will provide a dealership

with the biggest return on investment.

As we already know, Facebook is the world’s largest social networking…

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