GLOVEBOX COMMUNITY

As someone who has attended numerous conferences south of the border I have always had a desire to help start building a decent digital marketing conference north of the border. Almost a year ago Glovebox had the privilege of assisting the Trillium Automotive Dealers Association (then the Toronto Automotive Dealers Association) in putting together their first Canadian Digital Dealer Conference. We also had the good fortune of sharing a case study of one of our client's shift to a full digital marketing strategy at the show.

What a difference a year makes! The TADA ran their second Canadian Digital Dealer Conference last fall and the third installment is fast approaching for Ottawa and Toronto on February 20th and 21st. Michele Kearney of the TADA has already informed us that tickets for both locations are moving very well and it is looking like the conference is heading for another sell-out. It's easy to see why with speakers like Clayton Stanfield (Ebay Motors), Todd Smith (ActiveEngage), Sean Wolfington(VinSolutions), and Bill Tighe (Facebook Autos Canada) filling out some of the sessions. The team and I from Glovebox will also be very involved on both days providing social media and event hosting support. We're thrilled to be working with the TADA on what's becoming a great conference.

I think it’s important for dealers to understand that these events evolve and grow in order to support dealer marketing initiatives as their competitive landscape changes. Good conferences ensure that show to show the speakers and content being provided is relevant and not repetitive. I know firsthand that Todd and Michele from the TADA attend a lot of conferences to find cutting edge content and the most up to date information for dealers. So if you’re a dealer who attended the Canadian Digital Dealer Conference last spring it may serve you well to make a point of attending one or two shows a year to ensure you aren’t left behind by your competition.

For all the dealers out there still scratching their heads about how to tackle digital marketing strategies, these events are a great opportunity to invest in your staff and invest in your store’s future. The insight and inspiration they will get from spending a day at the Canadian Digital Dealer Conference will be well worth the price of admission.

If you need more information on the Canadian Digital Dealer Conference simply click on the link below to visit the TADA website.

We look forward to meeting new attendees and hope to see many familiar faces in the audience as well; it’s going to be a dynamite conference!

I wanted to talk about other ways to tag your customers or other pages that may be of interest and benefit to your fan page and your fans. It's called @tagging and this little feature can expand your pages reach throughout the social network. Facebook started to leverage the strength of @tagging in comments and status updates to further engage its users. It has been in play for a while now but many dealerships don't capitalize on its strength.

Let's start with building more awareness for your fan page through other successful pages with @tagging. The first thing you want to do is find pages you feel are relevant to your own and your fans interests. Search Google for keywords in your market followed by the word Facebook, you can also using Facebook to search these pages as well. Use both to maximize your results. Once you have found the pages you'll want to make an introduction to the page owners, this information can be found in the "About" section. Reach out to them and suggest cross promoting on each other's page. Both pages will benefit from extra exposure to each other's fans and the boost in credibility that you're looking for other pages of interest on behalf of your fans.

To @tag a page you've connected with, type in the "@" symbol followed by the name of that fan page you want to tag. You can tag any other fan page on Facebook, but to tag a person, or personal profile, it must be done from your personal profile. Your comment will show at the top of their page, and their fans can click your page name and go directly to your fan page.

As the rules of engagement constantly evolve on Facebook there are a few key things to remember:

Never tag spam or an irrelevant page. Tag pages in your market.

Do not tag multiple pages in the same post. This can lead to your being banned from pages and is considered spam.

Do not mention sales or promotions. This can also lead to your being banned.

Another great way to leverage @tagging is to tag your audience on your fan page. You can tag individuals from your fan page if they have commented on your post. This is a great way to keep the conversation going between you and your fans, address any questions they may have about a post or promotion and increase the exposure of your post.

A simple @tag can go a long way for your dealership fan page, gaining exposure and fans through better connections and relationships with other page owners. I hope it proves useful for your page too!

Although "Team Canada" (as I have nicknamed our group of Canadian dealers) was traversing Day 1 of the conference as more of a larger unit, we all have seemed to have our own agendas set for the day. I have spent the morning alone, selecting the sessions I want to attend and downing a mixture of fruit smoothies and 5 Hour Energy drinks. It makes me feel like a Tour de France racer (without all the illegal drugs in my system).

Hitting the opening session I try to concentrate the content but am hung up on the poor use of presentation graphics for such a large room. I tweet a suggestion that maybe the presenters should attend a session on making their presentation slides engaging. Apparently my sarcastic remark has legs as Kevin Frye singles me out in an afternoon session to check with me on the quality of his slides. He gets a pass, mainly because he used a photo of Tim Curry as Pennywise from the Stephen King Movie "IT", terrible movie but the most terrifying clown ever. EVER.

Opening session aside, I can claim a "dud" free day; Shaun Raines, Kevin Frye, Jerry Thibeau and Heather McKinnon all delivered great content. Jerry's live mystery shop of the audience's stores was really entertaining. Team Canada regrouped by the end of the day and hit the Vendor Expo one last time to get in some demos before the teardowns begin tomorrow in earnest.

We lost half of our group throughout the day as folks started to catch flights back home, meetings to attend, cars to sell. The remainder of the group stayed on the resort and had another amazing dinner filled with a combination of shop talk, name calling and lots of laughs. All this warm weather and good food can't be good for anyone. My feel good moment of the day was when one of our clients, Glen, committed another store from his group to our Glovebox V2 web system. He stated that the content from his morning session proved that he needs to innovate sooner rather than later. His confidence in our product and approach really made my day.

Ahead tomorrow is a very quick half day of sessions before the resort becomes a bit of a ghost town as the car dealer population thins radically. I however will decompress by the pool in the afternoon with the gang who aren't flying out until Friday. Seeing that tomorrow is my birthday I think it's well deserved! I wonder if room service has ice cream cake???

Today's Highlight: Heather McKinnon's and Kevin Frye's takes on reputation management and customer reviews.

Today's Lowlight: My Blackberry Torch and AT& T's roaming service, I hate you both. I shouldn't be so harsh...no it's ok, I really do hate you.

I'm writing this as Day 1 is wrapping up. It's an interesting trip as Glovebox and the Toronto Automotive Dealers Association worked very hard to organize a healthy group of Canadian Attendees form the GTA to join us for the conference. We had an impromptu meeting of the group midday before tackling the panels and seminars that filled the afternoon track. It's nice to see more Canadians here, mingling with their US counterparts and benefiting from insights that Glovebox uses for own efforts when working with our clients.

The resort/conference centre is a massive complex but it's packed. Apparently there is an international plastics convention here that has drawn 160,000 people?! I'm not sure if that number is myth but a lot of returning attendees to our conference had to find rooms elsewhere in the area as the resort is booked solid. I also now know that there are over 2000 kinds of plastic, landfills be damned!

This afternoon's sessions are well attended; the smaller rooms fill quickly so you hustle from room to room. I have had the good fortune of only sitting through one "dud" so far. I was polite and stayed until the end. A recommendation to that presenter, if you are going to present a seminar that walks people through "50 Best Practises Any Dealer Can Implement", please make it engaging. At the 14th point I wanted to hang myself, but find that most conference centres lack open beams and a supply of rope to facilitate this.

I decide to pass on Google's ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) keynote presentation which is ending the day. ZMOT is getting a lot of buzz in the automotive digital arena and many experts are tying into everything they're talking about. However I feel it's a little overplayed, OK I think it's getting beaten to death. I get that there's great data and studies to back it up but it feels like some folks are trying to run it down everyone's throats. I have probably angered the ZMOT gods by my comments and should watch my back.

I can't imagine a conference without social media, I have had the privilege of getting to know so many auto folks through social media and been able to access incredible content through them. Folks tweet heavily during these shows and the tags trend right away, it's also a great way of pulling info from speakers you may have missed during the course of the day. Check out #dd12 to see what I mean. I have noticed the vendors have been a bit spammy prior to the show starting. The seminar chatter should drown it out.

I'm running into a lot of familiar faces and look forward to catching up with them as well as experiencing the next 2 days with our group.

Today's highlight: Joe Webb's panel on The Makings of A Great Internet Director.

Today's low light: No WI-FI in the conference area?! WTF!? Kinda weak considering it's a "digital" conference.

What's for dinner?: Tonight we're all heading to the Big Fin. If things get out of hand I will post those pics in tomorrow's post. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in Orlando fills my Twitter account...

I made a promise to myself that following my next conference I would make time to properly capture my thoughts and musings and get them into my blog. That being said I had the priviliedge of attending another Digital Dealer conference and came away like I always do, filled with new insights, facts, figures and of course the opportunity to connect with some really awesome people.

Four of us headed down together, Barry Hillier, Ralph Reefke and myself, all from Dashboard/Glovebox and Susan Gubasta, owner of Mississauga Toyota. It was nice to add a couple more Canadians to the group, more importantly to bring a dealer like Susan whose dealership is embracing broader digital strategies for her dealership. We grabbed our schedules and diligently assigned ourselves to as many seminars as we could (Barry and I have travelled together in the past and adopted the same system of "divide and conquer" across the schedule). Having four of us taking in seminars throughout the conference really allowed the team to digest a lot of content and we used our free time in the evenings to share what we learned that day.

By the second day it became clear to me that my notebook got more of a workout whenever I attended a workshop where a detailed case study was presented. What was it about those seminars that really engaged me more than the others? Personally I feel that if you can put your money where your mouth is - you've got a good case study backing you up. You can talk to me all day about how social, mobile and video marketing are going to propel your dealership's business into the stratosphere but if you're just delivering industry stats and trending reports you don't have me locked in. I need you to prove it. Now I know some of that falls to the fact I am a digital marketer and I live and breathe that information every day. One of the most powerful tools we have as digital marketers is the ability to measure finite ROI against our efforts. I try to educate my clients whenever I can on this ever evolving digital/social arena, if I have a case study where I can show them a real dealer, who experiences the same challenges as they do...it resonates louder than just pummelling them with industry stats.

Case Study Highlights:

David Boice, Tier 10 Marketing gave us "Case Study - Hendrick Lexus LeapFrogs 14 Spots in Just Three Months" and it was an excellent seminar. Hendrick Lexus was experiencing a severe slump in its sales and service and engaged Tier 10 to assist them in a strategy to reignite the dealership as a whole. David set up the background, goals and strategy of the Hendrick Lexus project and brought the audience through every phase of a remarkable integrated campaign. For every goal laid out in the strategy, David was able to tie all the efforts back to real ROI for his clients (and the audience as well).

Kevin Frye (Jeff Wyler Automotive Family) and Sean Stapleton (VinSolutions) presented "The Future of One" a case study in how Kevin's automotive group integrated their online strategies with one full service provider. Kevin connected with his fellow dealers right away, many whom have struggled or are struggling to corral all of their vendors and technologies on a daily basis at their stores. The seminar was successful because you had someone from the trenches in front of a room full of dealers telling them what their own challenges were, what was the tipping point for change and what were the immediate results based on what they committed to. I'll turn a blind eye to the fact it was heavy on pitching a product (a conference no-no) because they were transparent with their data and their results.

When Digital Dealer 11 hits Vegas make sure you dig through your Agenda and find those seminars that deliver strong case studies, the insight provided could have a profound effect on the success of your digital/social strategies.

I want to give a couple of shout outs to the presenters, everyone did a fantatsic job and it takes a lot of time and preparation to do what you do, so thanks!

Presenter Highlights:

Duncan Scarry, Moore & Scarry - Digital Marketing Hacks: 10 Digital Marketing Secrets that will Save you $100,000 Next Year Learn digital marketing secrets the industry doesn't want you to know about - Vendors all over the conference probably didn't want anyone near Duncan's presentation! Duncan walked the room through industry "buzz verticals" and showed the room how to utilize them on a shoestring budget. Simple, insightful and empowering for dealers with experience in digital and social media strategies.

Dan Moore, Smart Web Concepts - The Future of Communicating on the Customer's Level - Dan had his work cut out for him kicking Thursday morning off after Wednesday night's parties. Dan walked the room through ways of using other verticals (other than phone and email) to enahnce their customer communications. Dan covered a ton of ground and engaged the participants in lots of good Q&A. The sign of a good seminar is when Q&A is going long and the next group is already starting to take over the room.

Mathew Belk, Better Car People - Google Places is More Important than your Web Site - I have attended Mathew's seminar at the last conference and was really looking forward to this one. Mathew walked the audience through how to take ownership of their Google Places page, set up alerts, get reviews to your places page and use Places analytics. Mathew's presentation style makes it very easy for inexperienced dealers to pick up the content while always peppering the presentation with nuggets of wisdom for the seasoned attendees.

And finally I want to ask, was I the only one who put my twitter handle (@brentwees) on my nametag? C'mon folks, social media was the major focus of the conference again and I'm the only guy to think of doing this? (I think if @DealerNerd was at the conference he'd have my back!) Here's hoping everyone's handles are more visible in Vegas!

Looking forward to seeing everyone in October!

For this post I want to present 3 excellent examples of video content focused on a dealership's Fixed Operations. Any Fixed Operations manager will tell you that he or she faces increased and aggressive marketing from aftermarket "express" stores and local mechanics. Continuing to pepper your customers with a direct mail piece week after week, month after month may not be the best "long-tail" strategy to keep them in the bays. Adding more new media to your efforts will engage an audience that is constantly online, not standing at their mailbox waiting for flyers to fill their recycling bins.

Staff Tips:

This is a great video, Bob Holloway the Guest Relations Manager walks the viewer through some simple "self-help" tread check tips in under 2 minutes. The audio is clear, the camera person does a nice job of keeping a simple shot in line and works close ups when necessary (always best to try to story board your video out prior for best results). The video description and tags are well thought out, lending to excellent indexing on YouTube. A video like this is always a great way to show transparency to your customers/viewers and potentially gain new customers in the bays, in the case of Bob's dealership they offer free gauges to anyone who wants one in the video.

Empowering them with simple DIY tips will show that:

An interview with a customer like Connie is so valuable for your dealership. In less than a minute and a half she reveals how long she's been a customer, the number of vehicles she has purchased from Sonora Nissan and thoroughly explains the reasons for her loyalty. What I liked most about this video was that Connie talks about her lack of mechanical knowledge and how much she trusts the technicians at the dealership, listing several advisors/technicians by first name, including a member of the Finance department. This type of video is great for reputation management, showing viewers there is a caring staff and services in place to ensure the ownership experience for the customer is the best it can be.

Testimonials:

Service Department Tours/Meet the Staff:

A solid video from start to finish. Dan, our video's host, interviews Capital Ford's Ivan Leibel and walks the viewer through a high-level tour of Capital Ford's Fixed Operations. They cover a lot of ground in the 3 minute video but highlight items of interest like the state of the art facility, the flexibilty to service any size of vehicle from a sub-compact to an RV/heavy truck and the fact they have 5 journeyman master techs on their staff (more than any other dealership in Canada). The production company who shot the video did a great job. Smooth transitions, great picture quality and Dan the host keeps things humourous without being over the top.

GET SHOOTING!

Naturally, keeping these videos in front of your loyal customers may make them more inclined to speak to your Service Advisors after their vehicles come off warranty and continue to demonstrate a loyalty to your store and staff. If store is diligent about creating regular content you may see the videos working to draw new customers to your bays as well, and in time, to your showroom.

As I passed I immediately whipped out my smartphone to capture the contents because I thought what a great piece of information for consumers (especially first time buyers) to be armed with during their purchase cycle. In 5 concise and well written points it communicates some major pitfalls of financing a purchase on your Line of Credit (now for my neighbours to the south the rules may be different, this sign was in a Canadian dealership). Dropping content like this into your dealership blog, Facebook Fan Page and Twitter feed is sure to drum up conversations with your followers/fans and at the end of the day that's exactly what we want out of this content. A dealership could even go so far as to shoot a video with their F&I staff to really dive into the topic further. Your social media strategy should encompass all departments of your dealership and the best practices they take into all of their interactions with their customers.

Audit your in-dealership signage, I'm sure there are tons of nuggets you and your staff can expand on anytime your tapped for channel content.