Discussion Forum: Use of Blogs

			“Get involved in the discussions going on in our forums. Or start one of your own. Just scroll down and look for the magazine and/or topic area you wish to discuss.”

If you’re here to comment on an article in one of our print publications, just look under that magazine’s name and find the subject area that coincides with the subject area in which the article ran in the print publication, i.e., Jim Ziegler’s articles run under “Dealer Advocate”, so if you wanted to comment on an article of Jim’s, just click “Dealer Advocate” under “Dealer magazine” forums and click on the thread titled the same as his article in the magazine.”

Dealer Magazine Homepage

Welcome Guest

All Forums

Internet Sales

Topic: Use of Blogs

Message posted by Rubin_Dastoor on 20 July 2007 at 3:19pm - IP Logged

Rubin_Dastoor

Standard Member

United States
20 July 2007
1 Posts

Hello everyone!

Just curious to see who is actually utilizing BLOGS in their marketing efforts in regards to new car sales. We have talked about incorporating this idea recently and I am just trying to get some opinions and views of its effectiveness or lack there of.

Thanks for everyones input!

-----------------
Rubin Dastoor
The BMW Store
513-271-8700
6131 Stewart Rd
Cincinnati, Oh, 45227

Message posted by Mike on 23 July 2007 at 9:16am - IP Logged

Mike

Platinum Member

11 April 2003
4 Posts

Mike Stewart the blog GURU will be speaking at the 3rd Digital Dealer Conference & Exp8ition in Las Vegas Oct 1st-3rd.

There's a link on the home page of the Digital Dealer website.

Message posted by EDDIEN on 17 September 2007 at 4:24pm - IP Logged

EDDIEN

Standard Member

United States
17 September 2007
1 Posts

INTERESTING CONCEPT,

I WAS WONDERING IF MIKE OR SOMEONE ELSE EDUCATED IN THIS SUBJECT COULD CONTACT ME ABOUT IT? MY NAME IS ED NAPLETON A CAR DEALER IN CHICAGO AND MY NUMBER IS 630-417-2935

-----------------
ED NAPLETON

Message posted by carbase on 18 September 2007 at 9:33am - IP Logged

carbase

Standard Member

United States
17 September 2007
3 Posts

Yes blogs are a great way to build up traffic to your site, engage customers and keep search engine spiders frequently visiting. A dealer web site provider could update it for you, or your internet manager could do it. I like youtube vide8 of funny car related things, or car pictures.

Christine
www.CarBase.com

Message posted by bhoecht on 17 October 2007 at 7:33pm - IP Logged

bhoecht

Standard Member

United States
17 October 2007
7 Posts

Ryan Gerardi is a friend. He is the former COO of HomeNet. (484) 319-0022 or ryan@autoconversion.net.

He is currently pursuing his dream of being an entrepreneur and building a business to bring the effects of blogging to automotive retailers.

While it doesn't show what it would do for a car dealer, this is my favorite site that he built. The video is soooo cool.

www.webtwologies.com/aboutus.php

-----------------
Brian E. Hoecht
President + CEO
www.Ai-Dealer.com
Sell More Cars with a Car Dealer Shopping Cart for your Website

Message posted by yhurg on 19 October 2007 at 9:14pm - IP Logged

yhurg

Guest

United States
22 November 2006
1 Posts

Thank you Brian for the tip.

Ed and Rubin, we have launched a new blog this month to provide insights and information for car dealers about how and why Blog/RSS Marketing benefits dealerships. Essentially it is a form of organic search marketing that also has ties with your CRM process.

Check out our blog http://blog.autoconversion.net/ and let me know if you would like to see the online presentation for our blog marketing product.

-Ryan

Message posted by marketraisecorp on 24 October 2007 at 4:27am - IP Logged

Search for other posts by marketraisecorp

marketraisecorp

Standard Member

United States
27 September 2007
6 Posts

The key to making money through affiliate programs or other forms of advertising is traffic, which is simply the sheer number of visitors who arrive at your blog daily.In terms of affiliate marketing and SEO, the more visitors your website has,better are the chances or rather pr8pects of your products and services to be recomended from your website.Many first time bloggers automatically assume that once their blog is setup and they put a few p8ts on it, they will get some hits and regular readers. This is quite untrue. You won’t get any traffic if no one knows about your website.There are many different ways to market your blog and gain more visitors which will eventually allow you to make money through blog-based affiliate marketing.The use of blog traffic exchanges is one method you should consider.In this partricular article I intend to showcase methods for proper blog usability which will automatically ensure sucess for the reason of blogging.

BLOG USABILITY
The first priority your blog has to have is presentation. M8t web users are instantly turned off by poor presentation or common designs that seems to be tacky at the best. It is a known fact that, no person would prefer satying logged on to a website if the navigation is annoying. The aim is to have a unique blog, different than all the other weblogs on the net.It shouldn’t take a reader more than a click, if any, to find your email address or a contact form. This makes the reader feel like someone who actually runs and cares about the website. An about page(regarding author details) is also a great asset to have on a personal site or blog. The more a reader knows about you, the more they trust your content.

CONTENT

Your blog’s usability goes hand in hand with its content. You can specialize in an unusual subject as long as you have an idea of how many people might be interested in that subject. If you do well with your niche subject matter, you could get some crazy traffic for being the only decent blog online with that type of content. On the other hand you could have widely used content, such as some aspect of technology, but add your own twist with your opinion or comparing/contrasting from other tech analysts. People won't go to ur site to read other people's edition ,rather they will be on the lookout for new takes.Reblogging is a very bad thing. The one thing to kill your traffic is having identical content to another several hundred blogs.Finding out what your content should be is a key element of your blog’s identity and the type of image your blog will ultimately emit.More over reblogging or using other people's content will only allow google to announce your website as a PLR(plaugearized)website.

-----------------
MarketRaise Corp
www.marketraise.com

Message posted by bhoecht on 24 October 2007 at 4:15pm - IP Logged

bhoecht

Standard Member

United States
17 October 2007
7 Posts

There are lots of reasons for having a blog... getting lots of traffic + affiliate marketing / Google Adwords montetization is only one of them.

From the research I have seen, that is only one reason... top bloggers do so because they have a passion for what they do and blogging gives them an outlet for it that they otherwise would not have had. They are gurus, experts and even just th8e who need to share what they know (or if they are ticked off enough, need to share).

Big words like ALL or NONE do not apply to this space. Personally, I blog because I love to learn, decry hypocrisy wherever I find it (and I find it as thinly veiled marketing EVERYWHERE in blogs)... but I've also learned to read thru blogs, press releases + whitepapers for knowledge + insight that is being shaped by what the business wants you to believe about their product.

What was Nixon's line??? You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but never all of the people all of the time.

Bad news... on the web... try to fool anyone any of the time and we will call you out and shame you publicly...

Blogging for the monetization of the traffic... pleeeeeaaaassseee... get real because you have passion, speak the truth... good things happen when you do. The GREAT companies of the future will NOT be built by click-by-distractions. That feeds the advertisers... not you... (althought if you believe 1% of the affiliate marketers, they are all retired in just a few easy months)... There are great paths to monetization that happen other than thru the really easy ones of affiliate marketing and Adwords.

Learn to find your voice of truth. Of reason. Do it with the Character Values of Virtue, Honesty and Passion. Do it because you believe it is true.

$$$ will find you if you become a trusted voice. That's what Web 2.0 / social media is all about, not some cynical hijacking of content production into monetization through advertising.

Think thru this line... I love to buy, just hate to be sold...

Live it.

-----------------
Brian E. Hoecht
President + CEO
www.Ai-Dealer.com
Sell More Cars with a Car Dealer Shopping Cart for your Website

Message posted by Sporkman on 05 December 2007 at 7:56pm - IP Logged

Sporkman

Standard Member

United States
09 October 2007
2 Posts

You can get a free blog at www.blogger.com. It's pretty quick & easy.

-----------------
Web-Based Employee Scheduling
Amortization calculator

Message posted by marketraisecorp on 30 June 2008 at 9:43am - IP Logged

marketraisecorp

Standard Member

United States
27 September 2007
6 Posts

Hi.Blog plays an important role in interaction between the various field peoples.Such as SEO person can communicate with net market peoples and present there views.Similarly,students can place there doubts and experiences on the blog.

http://www.marketraise.com

-----------------
MarketRaise Corp
www.marketraise.com

Message posted by njwoods on 27 April 2009 at 1:22pm - IP Logged

njwoods

Standard Member

United States
01 April 2009
2 Posts

In addition to blogs you may wish to try using image galleries with categories of new/used cars on your lot and past cars on your lot. Each car title that you have on your site could land you another visitor from google.

As well in order to make more use of your blogs try to p8t the full specs of the car you're listing. Car nuts go around the web searching for these specs before they buy a car.

-----------------
need any help to reward the employees or customers....promotional products

Message posted by gtrman5 on 21 May 2009 at 2:48pm - IP Logged

gtrman5

Standard Member

United States
21 May 2009
2 Posts

The best thing to do is to write blogs about industry updates, provide updates on sales/service/parts specials, and provide any special recognition that your dealership has received. If you have a salesman of the month, write a small blog and give them credit. If you have 0% financing, make a small update of it. If your dealership has just received great scores on dealerrater.com or carfolks.com, let the world know. Also, provide a link on your dealer website for these blogs and social networking sites. If you find that this takes up too much time, hire outside help or a vendor that can help you write content and monitor these things for you. As a matter of fact this is my specialty.

-----------------
Stan Sher
CEO/Auto Industry Consultant
Social Sher - DISS

If you wish to post a reply to this thread you must first Login
If you are not already registered you must first register

Forum Jump

Printable version