The MarketPunch Podcast | The Podcast for Automotive Digital Marketing

Welcome to Episode 22 of the MarketPunch Podcast! On this episode, I’ll be joined by SEO expert, best selling author and founder of LifeListed.com – Danny Dover! Not only is Danny all of those things, but he’s also a colleague of mine at Launch Digital Marketing and – more importantly – a friend (awwwwh). I’m always excited when I get a chance to spend some time with Danny because he is full of insight and is always willing to share his knowledge with a knucklehead like me. With Danny’s background in SEO, you might expect that would be the topic of conversation for this episode of the podcast. Nope! That would have been too easy. On today’s show we’re talking about web technology that used to be incredibly expensive, that you can now get for free. There is some awesome information in this episode, so let get on with it. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip of the Week And now for another MarketPunch.auto tip of the…wait…hold on just one second…. It struck me as Danny and I were recording this interview that he was just dishing out tip after tip after tip. In fact Danny puts so many valuable tips out there, that I didn’t want to steal any of his thunder by adding yet another tip in to the podcast. So for the first time ever, we’re skipping the MarketPunch.auto Tip of the Week and getting right in to the interview with Danny. Getting Nerdy With Danny Danny’s favorite thing about technology, is that it breaks down walls. In other industries, things that are the best tend to stay with only the people who can afford them. With technology, it may start out that way, but if the technology becomes useful people can rather quickly have affordable access to it. For me, I think this point is illustrated quite well in the automotive industry. Think about the technology on our cars today that you’d once only find on high end luxury vehicles. Adaptive cruise control, lane departure systems, rear backup cameras, navigation, touch screen infotainment systems. All of these and more used to come with a high price tag, while now it’s not uncommon to find most of these technological features as standard (or slightly upgraded) equipment on almost every vehicle. This Episode is NOT Sponsored by Cloudflare (I promise!) While there are multiple providers of these amazing and free web technologies that Danny talks about in this episode, his favorite provider of these services happens to be Cloudflare. I just wanted to state for the record, that this episode in not sponsored by Cloudflare nor is Danny associated with them in any way. Danny is simply a fan of their products and solutions and when you’re that passionate about something, it makes sense to want to share it with others. It’s a win / win situation. You and I get to learn something new from Danny, and Cloudflare gets some good ol’ fashioned earned media. So unless they monitor their

Welcome to Episode 21 of the MarketPunch Podcast! On this episode, I’ll be joined by Shayan Rostam, Global Director of Registration Operations for .Cars Domains. Earlier this month when I was attending the Kain Automotive Clients & Friends Digital Success Workshop, I met up with Shayan and we both agreed now that the .cars .car and .auto domains have been available for almost a year, it would be cool to do a podcast together and see how these domains are being used today. On this episode, Shayan and I talk about how car dealerships and automotive groups are using a .car .cars or .auto domain today, how consumer awareness of these new domain extensions is taking hold, and why you may want to secure a valuable piece of this digital real estate today lest you miss out. We recorded this episode of the MarketPunch Podcast in the lobby of the 21c Museum Hotel in Lexington, KY – a fascinatiing hotel if you ever get a chance to stay at one. The artwork in the lobby alone is well worth the visit! Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip of the Week This weeks tip comes straight out of my presentation on car dealership website optimization strategies, “Don’t Invite the Guests Before the House is Right“, that I gave at the Kain Automotive Clients & Friends Digital Success Workshop. During my presentation I talked about a nifty web app called Inspectlet and I wanted to give you the scoop on what it is and why you should use it. As they state on their website, Google Analytics tells you what, Inspectlet tells you why. This app features heat mapping, form analytics and my favorite feature – session recording – among others. With session recording, Inspectlet will record the actions that real users on your website are taking. You can see their mouse movement, where a user clicks and hovers even information that’s typed in a form on each page of your website that is visited. You can then use this valuable information, combined with heat map and data from Google Analytics to better understand how your website is being engaged with and ultimately to make informed decisions on optimizing the layout of your website. Want to see how the session recording actually works? Head over to Inspectlet.com and run the live demo. I know you’ll be impressed! Oh, and I almost forgot the best part. Inspectlet offers a free plan that includes session recording and heat mapping so you have no reason not to start using Inspectlet today! Year One: .Cars .Car & .Auto Domains The .car .cars and .auto domains became available to the public for purchase in January 2016. Since that time,

Welcome to Episode 20 of the MarketPunch Podcast! On this episode I’ll be joined by Allyn Hane, Digital Marketing Director of the Coastal States Automotive Group. It’s interesting how life works out sometimes. When I decided to leave the dealership to start working at Launch Digital Marketing, Allyn was working there as the VP of Strategy. But just a few months after I started, Allyn decided to take the opposite-plunge himself and go from the vendor side of the world to the dealership side. Allyn and I had the chance to catch up face to face at the DrivingSales Executive Summit, and we sat down to talk about our own experiences of going from the dealership to a vendor, and vice versa. Also, when Allyn isn’t rocking it out for his automotive group, he’s also known as “The Lawn Care Nut“. With a very successful YouTube channel focused on DIY lawn care, Allyn will also share some his best practices for creating engaging video strategies that you can begin using in the dealership today! Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip of the Week Ok, since we’re talking about shooting video on this episode of the MarketPunch Podcast, it only makes sense to give you a related tip of the week. Without spoiling the interview with the Lawn Care Nut himself, we do talk about how consumers are now expecting a certain level of quality in the videos they’re watching on YouTube. While a newer iPhone or Android device is capable of capturing beautiful video in 4k at 60fps, recording clear audio from a smartphone’s built in microphone can be a bit of a challenge. Especially in outdoor settings. In a perfect world, if you already had a wireless microphone setup, you’d be able to simply plug the wireless receiver into your device and your phone would capture the audio natively. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Even though phones have an 1/8″ input, it’s not equipped to handle the signal of a wireless mic. That’s where this iPhone Microphone Adapter from KVConnection comes into play. Simply plug this bad boy into the 1/8″ jack on your phone (works with all iPhone and most Android devices) and then connect your wireless receiver into the female end of the cable – and bingo-bango, you’re able to capture the crystal clear wireless audio as you shoot video with your phone. One small caveat, if you have an iPhone 7, you’ll also need a Lightning to 3.5mm adapter to connect this cable. If you don’t already have a wireless lavaliere setup here are a couple quality, yet relatively inexpensive, ones you can purchase today. Episode 20 Highlights During the interview, here are a few topics that Allyn and I touch on: * Allyn’s first impressions from going from vendor to dealer. * Jason’s initial reaction from going dealer to vendor. * How vendors and dealers can work together to achieve shared goals.

Welcome to Episode 19 of the MarketPunch Podcast! Today I’ll be joined by David Kain of Kain Automotive to talk about why having a solid automotive digital marketing education is the foundation to your, and your dealership’s, continued success. If you’re not familiar with David, he’s a lifelong automotive industry enthusiast who along with his 8 brothers and sisters were raised at their family Ford Dealership where he remains a partner today. During the Internet boom in 2000 David became a co-founder and COO of FordDirect.com and then started Kain Automotive in 2003 to provide education on all things Digital because he saw the need to assist dealerships with Internet and BDC Operations. I’m thrilled that David was able to join me on this episode of the podcast as we’re both passionate about providing useful and relevant digital marketing information to those who work in the dealership. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip of the Week Today’s MarketPunch.auto tip of the week is a web app that I use whenever I’m investigating a reported decline in organic website traffic. If you’ve ever been in your Google Analytics and noticed a steady or drastic decline in your organic traffic, your fist thought might be to PANIC! It’s a natural feeling to have, however you don’t need to panic just yet. The first thing you should do is start doing some research to look for signs that might tell you a bigger part of the overall story behind the decline in traffic. I have a pretty solid process in place whenever I’m looking into a situation like this, and one of the tools I use is a nifty little web app call the Panguin Tool from Barracuda Digital. Using the Panguin Tool is pretty straight forward. Connect the Google Analytics account that you’d like to inspect, and the app will plot a chart for you showing your organic web traffic over time. The best part though is that it will overlay on top of the chart when any major and minor updates to Google’s algorithm were made. The result is an easy to digest visual that will allow you to see if your website may have been affected by a Penguin, Panda, Pigeon or other update to Google’s algorithm. That being said, even if you see your organic web sessions have decreased around the time there was an update was made to the algorithm, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the direct cause. But it’s certainly a place you can center the next steps of your investigation around. And if there’s nothing that visually suggests your website was penalized by our Google overlords, then you can move on to looking into other factors. The State of Digital Marketing Education in the Dealership For me, there’s a gaping hole when it comes to continuing education in the automotive retail industry. When I asked David what his take was on the issue he spoke about how there is indeed a gap, but the bigger problem is that there’s not a fluid path for those interested to follow.

Welcome to Episode 18 of the MarketPunch Podcast! Today I’ll be joined by David Villa, CEO of Imperial Press Direct and the host of Auto Dealer Live. I wanted to have David on the show so he could tell you all about the Autotainement Network (AN), a podcast resource dedicated to those of us in the automotive industry. AN aims to be a content hub for the growing audience of automotive professionals seeking to grow and evolve. When the network launches on January 5th, 2016  there’ll be over a dozen weekly video podcasts for you to enjoy. I’m honored to be a part of AN with a brand new show called Think Bigger and am looking forward to seeing all the new shows that will be a part of the network. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip of the Week This tip of the week comes courtesy of Eric Miltsch from Auto Outlets USA and member of the MarketPunch Mastermind. When a peer asked what tools should he use to self-audit a new website for SEO purposes, Eric was quick to jump in with recommending the Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool. Just the name of the app alone was enough for me. I mean who doesn’t love the name Screaming Frog?! I downloaded the free Windows app and got to play around with it a little. I have to say I was quite impressed with what I saw. Here’s the description of what the program does from their website: The Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a small desktop program you can install locally on your PC, Mac or Linux machine which spiders websites’ links, images, CSS, script and apps from an SEO perspective. It fetches key onsite elements for SEO, presents them in tabs by type and allows you to filter for common SEO issues, or slice and dice the data how you see fit by exporting into Excel. You can view, analyse and filter the crawl data as it’s gathered and updated continuously in the program’s user interface. The Screaming Frog SEO Spider allows you to quickly crawl, analyse and audit a site from an onsite SEO perspective. It’s particularly good for analysing medium to large sites, where manually checking every page would be extremely labour intensive (or impossible!) and where you can easily miss a redirect, meta refresh or duplicate page issue. I’ll definitely be keeping this app handy on both my PC and my Mac, because I know I’ll be using it frequently. Introducing the Autotainment Network David explains that the Autotainment Network was an idea born from a collaborative effort with he and the team that produces Auto Dealer Live. The Autotainment Network is for Dealer Principals, Executive Management, GM’s, GSM’s, Sales, Front end, Service, Back End, Vendors, and ALL things AUTOMOTIVE!

Welcome to Episode 17 of the MarketPunch Podcast! I’m excited for today’s show because I’ll be joined by Mike Ambrose, COO & co-founder of XYZ. Mike is joining me to talk about three new TLD’s – the .cars .car and .auto domains – and what car dealers need to know about these new domain extensions that were developed specifically for the automotive industry. I know a lot of you have some questions about these new domains, and that’s why I wanted to have Mike on the show. To answer the most pressing questions, give you ideas on how you could use these domains in your dealership and also tell you how you can reserve a .cars .car or .auto domain today. As you may have noticed, I recently switched MarketPunch from a .com to a .auto domain extension. In full disclosure, I met Mike at the DrivingSaels Executive Summit and after having a nice conversation about these domains he asked if I’d be willing to join an early adopters program for the .auto domain which I (obviously) did. During the process of migrating from .com to .auto I realized that Mike would be a great guest to have on the podcast. I hope that by the time you’re done listening to this episode, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of the .cars .car and .auto domains and how you’l be able to use them for your business. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip of the Week Today’s MarketPunch tip of the week comes to you courtesy of Jim Bell from Don Ayres Honda. Jim and I got to hang out for a bit while attending David Kain’s Passport to Automotive Digital Success Conference and that’s when he asked me if I had ever used Cyfe. I had never heard of it until then, but now I think I’m in love. Cyfe is an all-in-one business dashboard app that helps you easily monitor all your business data from one place, With Cyfe you can create dashboards to monitor your websites, social media, SEO, sales, analytics, infrastructure and just about anything else you can think of. The best part is that Cyfe has free forever plan so you can start using it right now! Of course you’ll be slightly limited in the number of dashboards and widgets you can use. But the premium version give you unlimited access to all the tools for only $19 a month. Which is more than affordable in my opinion, especially compared to other enterprise level dashboard apps that are on the market today. .Cars .Car and .Auto – What You Need To Know Back in December of 2013 I wrote an article titled 27 TLD’s Your Dealership Needs to be Aware of which covered the introduction of .cars .car and .auto. Now here we are two years later, and these domains are about ready to become available for purchase. Mike Ambrose, COO and Co-founder of XYZ joined me on the MarketPunch Pod...

Welcome to Episode 16 of the MarketPunch Podcast! Before I dive right into the show notes, I just have to say I’m excited to be bringing you fresh, new episodes of the show. I hope you’re enjoying listening to the podcast as much as I’ve enjoyed recording them. I’ve got another special episode of the podcast lined up for you today. Back at the DrivingSales Executive Summit, I was supposed to be doing a 1-on-1 interview with Eric Miltsch. However as we were walking back to his suite to record the show, it spontaneously evolved to become a round table. So on this episode of the MarketPunch Podcast, I had the pleasure of sitting around a table with these automotive digital marketing pro’s sharing our creative #automarketing insights that you can use TODAY! It’s worth noting that I discovered that the more fun you have recording an episode of this podcast, the more difficult it will be to edit. So if you hear the mic get too hot and clip, or someone talk to low where it’s hard to hear – I apologize. The show’s well worth listening to because the content contained within is outstanding. Just wanted to give you a heads up on the audio. Joining me on the show today is: * Eric Miltsch of Dealer Teamwork and Auto Outlets USA * Jeff Kershner of DealerRefresh.com * Ryan Leslie of DealerRater.com * Will McGinnis of vAuto * Daniel Mondello of Dealer Teamwork Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Announcement Of The Week Normally right after I open the show I give you the MarketPunch tip of the week. But since today’s episode already has 6 tips in it, I decided not to do a tip of the week segment because 7 would have been too many. Instead I’m here to announce that from this moment forward, Marketpunch.com will officially be MarketPunch.auto. Say What?! Here’s the scoop. Almost two years ago I wrote an article called 27 TLDs Your Dealership Needs to be Aware Of. In that article I cover some new top level domains that I think car dealerships would want to secure. Domains like .coupon, .sale, .deals & .blackfriday were going to eventually come online and allow business owners and marketers an opportunity to grab some new real estate Three other domains were also announced at that time .car, .cars and .auto which were developed specifically for the ...

Welcome to Episode 15 of the MarketPunch Podcast! Hey everybody, I’m excited to be back once again with another fresh episode of the show. You might recall that I recently attended the the DrivingSales Executive Summit. While I was there I had the chance to sit down and chat with Kate Frost about social media and how we as automotive marketers use it. But this interview isn’t your typical convo because we’re talking about the 5 biggest mistakes car dealers make when using social media. You’re really going to appreciate the info that Kate shares with you so you can avoid making these mistakes as you continue your journey using social media in your dealership. So if you’re ready, I’m ready. Let’s get down to it and find out what NOT to do when using social media… Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week As you know, content curation is a part of any social media strategy. Simply put, you want to make sure that you’re providing your audience with regular content that’s relevant to their interests. Ideally, you’d be creating much of this content on your blog. However, with the lack of time and resources that we’re often faced with, this just isn’t possible so more often than not, we curate content from the big publisher websites to share with our followers. Now there’s absolutely nothing inherently wrong with this approach. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way. Introducing snip.ly Snip.ly is a website (and browser extension) that lets you attach a call to action on any link you share. I’ve been using it myself for a while now and I love the form and function of this nifty little tool. Just paste any link into snip.ly, and it will overlay your custom message and call to action on that very page. This means that when you curate content for your audience, they’re going to see a message from you on that page you shared. Pretty slick, huh? You have to give snip.ly a try for yourself, I know you’re going to love it! 5 Biggest Mistakes Car Dealers Make When Using Social Media Kate Frost and I sat down to talk about the biggest social media mistakes dealerships make with social media. * Not having a plan * Not investing time, resources and money * Trying too hard to “sell” * Doing social, not being social * Not aligning your traditional media with your social media Make sure to listen to this episode of the MarketPunch Podcast to uncover exactly what these mistakes are, and how you can avoid making them yourself. I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. If you want to reach out to Kate, be social and send her a tweet. Thanks for tuning in to the show, and I look forward to chatting with you all again soon!

Welcome to Episode 14 of the MarketPunch Podcast! I’m just getting back the DrivingSales Executive Summit in Las Vegas and I’m looking forward to bringing you a very special episode of the show today. As soon as the final keynote was complete and #DSES officially closed, I gathered up a few friends to chat about what we learned at the show to share with you. Joining me on the podcast you’ll hear today will be: * Brenda Niedermaier – Marketing & Business Development Manager at Mills Buick GMC.  * Chris K. Leslie – Director of eCommerce at Heinrich Automotive Group. * Susan Gubasta – Dealer Principal at Mississauga Toyota. I truly enjoyed talking with these fine folks and I hope you’ll appreciate our conversation as well. So if you were at #DSES and want to get our thoughts, or if you didn’t attend and want the inside scoop on what went down – this is the show for you! Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week If you have a lot of meetings with people you’ve never met before or don’t know very well, then you’re going to love CharlieApp. Sync Charlie with your calendar and email and your life will change for the better. As meetings get added to your calendar, Charlie combs through 100s of sources and automatically sends you a one‐pager on everyone you’re going to meet with, before you see them. Everything from social accounts, to recent tweets, to company news and more Charlie has your back. Key Takeaways From DSES During the podcast Brenda, Chris, Susan and I have some great conversations covering these subjects: * How storytelling can build genuine connections with our customers * Why it’s critically important to inspect our foundation when business is good * Online retailing of vehicles may not be what you think will be. * How to creatively use selfie sticks in your delivery process * Josh Progue’s Best Idea – how tweaking the order of your VDP pictures can yield fantastic results. * The Power of Networking at #DSES. * Why you need to get your marketing messages to your employees and how to do it. * Build you company culture with a private Facebook Group. * Create happy and loyal customers by simplifying the shopping experience. I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation as much as we enjoyed having it. If you want to reach out to any of these fine folks, feel free to send them a tweet. @BniedBrenda | @ChrisKLeslie | @SGubasta Also,

Welcome to Episode 13 of the MarketPunch Podcast! It’s been way too long since I recorded my last episode (almost a year!) and I’m excited to dust off my trusty Blue Yeti microphone and talk with you all once again. Before I jump in to the show notes, I just want to thank everyone who sent me emails, tweets, Facebook messages, texts and smoke signals the past year asking about the podcast and when new episodes were going to come out. That really meant a lot to me, and I promise I never forgot about you guys. On today’s episode of the show, we’re going to talk a little bit about the past, the present and the future of the MarketPunch podcast. After that, I have some special content lined up that I hope you’ll enjoy. You may recall that last year I was a speaker at the DrivingSales Executive Summit, and gave a presentation called Blog to the Future. Quite a few of you were there in the room to see it live, but I also know a lot of regular MarketPunch’ers didn’t get a chance to take it in. The good news is that before I started my presentation, I setup my handy Roland R-05 audio recorder on the podium to capture the audio of the session. To be honest, the thought was to record the session for my own personal archives. But when I listened to the playback, the audio turned out so well that I realized I could package it up and use it in an episode of the podcast. And that’s what you’re going to hear today! Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week Before we start Blogging to the Future, it’s time for another Marketpunch.auto tip of the week! Since we’re talking about our blogs today, I wanted to share with you a pretty nifty Word Press plugin that I recently discovered and use both on FamilyDealBlog.com and on Marketpunch.auto. The plugin is called Revive Old Posts (formerly Tweet Old Posts) and it really helped me solve the problem of consistently distributing my blog content on social media. This useful plugin helps keep all of your blog content alive by sharing your posts on Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn increasing the reach and frequency of your content. What’s cool is you can set the number of posts to share each day, how often you want to posts to go out and which social networks to send them to. You can also choose to exclude certain content if it’s not fresh and relevant any more. Ultimately this is going to help drive more traffic to your content from your social networks, and I can personally speak to the boost I got here on MarketPunch after I started using the plugin. Blog to the Future Here is my slide deck for Blog to the Future to go along with the audio portion of the podcast.

Welcome to Episode 12 (and the one year anniversary episode) of the MarketPunch Podcast! Talk about time flying by, I can’t believe the podcast is now one year old. Wow! On this episode I’m going to be joined by Kevin Frye, eCommerce Director for the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family, and we’ll be talking about a subject that I think is on the minds of most of us in the #automarketing space… Do we as car dealerships need 3rd party inventory aggregators and lead providers, like AutoTrader, Cars.com and Edmunds.com as a part of our digital marketing strategy? It’s a simple question with a not so simple answer. During our interview, Kevin and I will * Share our thoughts on the recent Edmunds.com “No Haggle” commercial * Discuss how to set up link attribution in your Google Analytics * How to calculate your ROI from AutoTrader and Cars.com * Help you prioritize your digital marketing efforts * …and more! Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week Before we dive in to my interview with Kevin, it’s time for another Marketpunch.auto tip of the week! If you haven’t heard, this week Google finally updated their Google Analytics app for iOS to fully support the iPad. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I can’t tell you how many times I was in a meeting with just my iPad and the situation arose where I wanted to access our Google Analytics to show some data. If you’ve ever tried to bring up the web version of GA before on your iPad, you know it’s not the easiest thing in the world to navigate. The new iPad app makes pulling up your analytics a breeze. And the best part is that the look and feel on the app is intuitive and easy to use. It’s not just porting in the straight web version of Google Analytics, it has it’s own look and feel. If you haven’t done so already, download the Google Analytics App for the iPad today! Welcome Kevin Frye to the MarketPunch Podcast Right off the bat I want to say that Kevin is an inspiration to me personally. Not only is Kevin a leader in our field, but he also graciously shares his knowledge and experience with his peers freely. The original reason I reached out to Kevin to be a guest on the MarketPunch Podcast was to talk about the recent “No Haggle” commercial that Edmunds.com had recently released. Kevin was very vocal rallying his fellow dealers in an effort against the ad and before Kevin could appear on the show, Edmunds pulled the commercial thanks in no small part to his efforts. The Edmunds discussion led us to a bigger discussion about 3rd party inventory aggregator websites including AutoTrader.com and Cars.com. Can You Sever 3rd Party Ties? One of the questions I see come up over and over again is do dealers really need to have their inventory on 3rd party w...

Welcome to Episode 11 of the MarketPunch Podcast! In this episode of the show, I’ll be helping you discover the reasons why you’re going to want to launch you dealership’s blog by 2015. While this episode of the show stands on it’s own in terms of its content, it’s actually a prequel podcast to my Blog to the Future breakout session that I’ll be hosting at the 2014 DrivingSales Executive Summit. My presentation at #DSES accomplishes two things: * It focuses on HOW you can prepare to launch your company blog for 2015. * Shows real-life examples of our blogging efforts on FamilyDealBlog.com – the official blog of the LaFontaine Automotive Group. Because I only have 30 minutes to cover a year’s worth of blogging experience and insights, there isn’t a lot of time to talk about the WHY a dealership needs a blog (more on that in just a minute). This podcast will not only be a great resource for those who attend Blog to the Future, but it’s also anyone who is looking for reasons to launch their company blog. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week Before we jump right in to the reasons your dealership needs a company blog, I wanted to serve you up with another Marketpunch.auto tip of the week. This weeks tip goes hand in hand with this episode of the MarketPunch Podcast and my Blog to the Future breakout session at #DSES. I’ve put together the Ultimate Blogger Resource Pack that will help you prepare to launch or re-launch your company blog. Contained within the resource guide is a: * Step-by-step guide to Launch your company blog * Hand curated list of articles that will help you Become a better blogger * Example editorial calendar complete with blog content ideas for a year * Blank editorial calendar templates * List of digital marketing websites to help you grow * Headline Hacks for coming up with engaging blog titles * How to get more clicks to your blog from Social Media Everything you see listed above are actual resources that I’ve created or curated the past year. The Ultimate Blogger Resource Pack is designed to give you everything you need to help you Blog to the Future. Why You Need  a Company Blog  Once you know the why, the how is easy.  – Jim Rohn , Great American Business Philosopher If you’ve been in the automotive digital marketing space for a while, you’ve probably been to your fair share of conferences that focus on digital marketing.

Welcome to Episode 10 of the MarketPunch Podcast. In this episode, I’m going to be joined by two of my favorite #AutoMarketing pals, Megan Barto – Marketing Director at Ciocca Honda & Hyundai and Robert Karbaum, eCommerce Manager at Weins Canada. This is a very special episode of the MarketPunch Podcast because Megan, Robert and I will be talking all about the DrivingSales Executive Summit. With DSES2014 only a few weeks away, I wanted to use this episode to let first time and regular attendees know what to expect from this year’s DSES and also to take a look back at our involvement in last year’s event. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week Before I bring in Megan and Robert to talk all things DrivingSales, let’s take a look at another Marketpunch.auto tip of the week! This tip comes courtesy of Megan Barto who in turn discovered it from Eric Miltsch. I expect it to come in quite handy this year at DSES and any other conference you might attend in the future. When you attend a conference like DSES, most people want to do two things – take notes, and share what they’re learning on social media (mostly via Twitter). However you know that as fast as the information comes at you, it’s near impossible to take notes and tweet at the same time. That’s where this handy tip comes in. By harnessing the power of IFTTT, Twitter and Google Docs, you can create a special recipe that will effectively turn your tweets into your conference notes. Here’s how it works… When you are at the conference, tweet everything that you want to remember and tag it with a specific hashtag. In this case I’m using #DSES2014. When you setup this recipe on IFTTT, each time you tweet something with #DSES2014, IFTTT will automatically append a Google Spreadsheet with the info contained in that tweet. Do this during the entire conference, and at the end you’ll have a spreadsheet of all your tweets that you can then go back through to compose your notes. How awesome is that? I publicly shared this recipe on IFTTT so you can implement it yourself with just a few clicks of your mouse. Welcome Megan Barto and Robert Karbaum It’s my distinct pleasure to welcome both Megan Barto and Robert Karbaum to this episode of the MarketPunch Podcast. Megan, Robert really got to know each other a bit better at the 2013 DrivingSales Executive Summit as we were each participants in the annual DrivingSales Best Idea Contest. This contest is designed to uncover The Most Innovative Dealership Strategy of the year. Developing a Picture Perfect Online Reputation Megan’s Best Idea was called Picture Perfect Online Rep...

Welcome to Episode 9 of the MarketPunch Podcast! In this episode I’ll be joined by Joe Chura, CEO of Dealer Inspire, and we’ll be talking about responsive and adaptive web design. With mobile and tablet traffic to our websites rapidly approaching the 50% mark for all visits, there’s been a lot of chatter lately about which multi-screen web design strategy works best for car dealers – Responsive or Adaptive. I wanted to bring Joe on the show to talk about how both these design frameworks work so we can compare and contrast the two together. We’ll look at the strengths and weaknesses of both responsive and adaptive web design so by the end of the show, you’ll have gained some creative insights on what may be best for you, your dealership – and most importantly – your web visitors. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week Before I’m joined by Joe Chura, let’s check out another Marketpunch.auto tip of the week. Since we’re talking about our websites and how they display on multiple devices, I wanted to share a tip with you that’s relevant to the conversation. Today I have three web apps that you can use to test how your current website displays on multiple browsers, in various resolutions and on multiple devices to ensure your website is being displayed properly no matter where it’s being viewed at. 1. Browsershots Broswershots.org is a powerful web app that will generate a preview of your website in over 130 different desktop web browsers. Simply enter the URL of the website you wish to preview, select the browsers you wish to preview your site in and within minutes you’ll have an accurate screen shot of how your website displays on each browser. Current and previous versions of Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and some more obscure browsers are supported in Browsershots. 2. MobileTest.me MobileTest.me is a nifty tool that let’s you preview the mobile version of your website on today’s most popular mobile devices. Select which device you want to preview your website on, enter the URL and you’ll be served with a great looking screenshot of exactly how your website appears on that device. Currently you can see what your website looks like on the iPhone 5, HTC One, Nokia Lumina 920, Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus 7 and the iPad Mini. 3. Screenfly Screenfly is pretty cool because not only can you preview your website on the most popular mobile and tablet resolutions, but it also gives you the ability to test your site at multiple desktop/laptop resolutions and even HDTV resolutions. Getting started is as simple as typing in your URL and selecting which device and at which resolution you want to preview your website in. Results are instant, and you’ll get a great feel for how your website responds to different resolutions on different devices. Meet Joe Chura There’s been some healthy debate lately regarding Responsive Web Design (RWD) versus Adaptive ...

Welcome to Episode 8 of the MarketPunch Podcast! I’m excited to be joined once again by my first ever repeat guest of the MarketPunch Podcast, Aaron Wirtz, Marketing and Media Manager at Subaru of Wichita. In this episode, Aaron and I will have a conversation about what you can do to be successful using Instagram in the dealership. Aaron will share with you his creative insights that he’s used to grow the Instagram account for Subaru of Wichita to visually tell the story of his dealership. Enjoy The Show! Never miss an episode. Subscribe via  iTunes | Google Play | RSS | Stitcher MarketPunch Podcast Tip Of The Week Before we bring in Aaron, let’s take a look at another Marketpunch.auto tip of the week. Because we’re talking Instagram in the dealership today, I wanted to share with you a 3rd party tool for managing your Instagram account that will make your life a bit easier. It’s a website called Iconosquare (formerly known as statigram) that’s an all-in-one analytics & web viewer for your Instagram account. Long before Instagram had a desktop component, Iconosquare filled the void by giving users a way to browse their Instagram feed from the comfort of their computer. With Iconosquare you can do everything you can on the Instagram app except posting pictures: * Browse your main Instagram feed * Like and Comment on photos * Follow and unfollow users * Search on hashtags But managing your Instagram account is just part of what Iconosquare can do. It also give you analytics on how your account is performing, hashtag optimization, custom snapshots that you can share, social media assets like custom Facebook timeline covers and business page tabs. All that and so much more. I could go on and on about Iconosquare and everything it can do, but I need to get on to the interview with Aaron, so we can start talking Instagram in the Car Dealership. Welcome Back Aaron Wirtz I’m pumped up today to have Aaron Wirtz back on the MarketPunch Podcast. Aaron is the Media and Marketing Manager of Subaru of Wichita and if you’ve been following along at home, you may recall that Aaron was also the very first guest on the MarketPunch Podcast where we talked Social Media and Community Management in the Dealership. With the ever shifting landscape of social media, I wanted to bring Aaron back on the show to get specific and talk about a social media network that’s probably being under-utilized by car dealers today and what we can do to embrace it – and that’s Instagram. Why Car Dealers Should Be On Instagram With over 200 million monthly active users who generate 1.6 billion ‘likes’ daily, the numbers tell a compelling reason why a car dealership would want to be on Instagram. Number aside, Aaron feels the real opportunity for dealers getting involved on Instagram lies in it’s simplicity to use. The true power in Instagram is that it gives you a...