Below is an article written by Dave Carach, the General Manager of Metro Ford, for the Dealership Innovation Guide about this success his dealership found after signing with Potratz.

In 2004, Metro Ford in Schenectady, NY was facing some serious challenges. After 30 years in business, the explosive growth of internet marketing, and the change in our market due to General Electric eliminating thousands of jobs, we still had not created the top-of-mind awareness in our market that was needed to prosper the way we had many years ago. Our dealership didn't truly stand out when compared to our competitors. We found that our location was virtually unknown to a lot of buyers. We knew that we were well behind the curve in taking advantage of digital advertising and the Internet sales process, but had no idea where to start or how to set goals. It was my job as sales manager to find answers.

The Solution: Branding Our Dealership

We knew we needed help so we did what every other dealer does: hire an automotive advertising agency. That partnership lasted only about six months, mainly because it felt like the agency was just doing more of the same things we had tried previously. I knew if we really wanted to make a transformation, we could not continue doing the same thing and expect different results.

It was September 2004 that we met with a firm that seemed completely different - in fact, even a little weird in what they were saying - but, we liked what we heard. They created a strategy that would grow and improve over time. Our new partnership was with Potratz, and several years later we continue to work with them, using the same marketing philosophy which began with creating an integrated traditional and digital campaign incorporating the celebrities of the dealership. Dave Dariano, our president, and I, Dave Carach the vice president, became the faces of Metro Ford. We are Dave and Dave, the Dealmakers, "Looking for a Deal We Can't Beat." To accomplish this, we put ourselves in television commercials, print ads and online. We're in all of our advertising, so people feel comfortable when they come into the dealership. They can say, "Hey I saw that guy, I know that guy, I saw him on television."

Positioning Dave and myself as the celebrities of the dealership was a progressive step at the time and continues to be; it's something other agencies don't do in the same style. In our industry, it's hard to walk away from the idea that we must be selling by price, payment, rebates, and sales events. We had always focused on the offer, the hook, instead of creating awareness in a fun way. While it may be true that as a dealership we must always be looking to sell, our strategy also includes branding or "Creating Our Celebrity Status," so when people are shopping, they shop us online and on the lot. We always underestimated the power of incorporating a consistent, branded, and unique message, but that is what has allowed us the luxury of more customers at a lower cost per sale.

Part of the branding process was developing a slogan that represented Dave and me as the celebrities of Metro Ford. We adopted "We're Still Looking for a Deal We Can't Beat." We do a lot of creative advertising around our theme. Dave and I are the sometimes quirky, always outgoing and sometimes (we think always) funny guys of Metro Ford. We have done skits beating deals ranging from running a lemonade stand, fishing for a deal, hunting for a deal, shooting basketball for a deal, and even cooking a pig for a deal. We can be found on the sales floor most days supporting our sales team and interacting with customers. People know who Dave and I are through the humorous ads that have been produced over the years. Customers know we're "Still Looking for a Deal We Can't Beat," which gets our call to action heard, but in a slightly different way. After all, that's what works.. being memorable! Keeping the brand message consistent was not a priority before. Instead, like most dealers, we were focused on one-off sales events, but now we are all about maintaining and developing new ways to impress our dealership's brand message onto the public.

The Integration

Digital marketing has probably been our biggest leap ahead. Embracing technology is a vital step in being the answer to your customers' needs. We have never really considered Facebook and YouTube as part of our advertising plan. We quickly built up our following on various networks. If it's new and it's digital, and if it fits into our budget, we do it! We are not gadget freaks or tech guys, but when that call comes in from Potratz and they say were doing video ppc, video this, video that, text, behavioral, we say, "Great! Let's do it!" Our latest venture has been text marketing and mobile marketing and it seems like we have hit on something that is working like a charm.

We have seen a lot of opportunity for a more integrated campaign for our service department through the use of text marketing and mobile marketing. I know it's a factor in our fixed-ops being up 18 percent this year since we are now communicating with people the way they want to communicate and building interaction. Mobile text coupons are receiving five to seven times the redemption rate of traditional coupons we run in the newspaper. We have found having a mobile strategy essential because it has increase our traffic weekly. It's incredible the impact mobile marketing has had and can only imagine what it will become. We have a strategy in place to continue building our 100 percent opt-in mobile text database, which includes point of sale signage in the service lane, customer waiting areas, wash rooms, vending machines, repair order fliers, entry doors, showroom sales tables and on the lot - whatever we can get people to sign up! We have added our text-in code and QR code, and we use only 100 percent opt-in list to avoid fines that have been handed down to companies much larger than ours in the past.

It isn't only mobile text marketing that has made the difference, but mobile marketing has been a great tool for driving traffic to our websites. In March 2011, we were receiving 2 to 3 percent mobile visitors to our websites. Now we are seeing visits to our site at 12 percent and returning visits as high as 23 percent every month. It was not long ago we would see people with the newspaper on the front seat of their car but now they walk in with an iPad.

A technology that Potratz has had us using for a couple years that we see and hear a lot about from customers is Retargeting. I didn't have the slightest clue what it was at the time but now it is a staple of our marketing. Retargeting is based on behavioral and search terms of a car shopper visiting our website. This strategy has definitely increased our brand awareness. The bottom line is we have more traffic to our websites, more people seeing our ads, clicking our ads, watching our videos. Even when I am at the grocery store we are selling more cars, more people are talking about us, more people knowing who we are outside of the dealership. It's all about awareness and being different than any other dealer. The stats do show that 70 percent of people who are retargeted are more likely to convert on our website or call us. That makes it worth doing if you ask me.

We created a dedicated Internet department and Internet team focused specifically on developing our e-commerce business. The Internet department had to create a new system for handling all of the new leads we were generating from our traditional and Internet branding campaigns. Sales increased by an average of 34 percent. We followed Paul's guidance and built a business development center that is primarily focused on converting our Internet leads into appointments. When the conversation with the customer starts to discuss details about rebates or price, the customer is passed to a sales person, but the BDC follows the process to continue the quest for an appointment. If the customer visits the store and does not purchase, the lead goes back to the BDC for continued interaction. We never mark a lead bad if the contact info is correct..We believe in lead or customers for life in our process, we will win them over one day!

Measurable Success

Over the years we have grown to understand how maintaining a clear, constant and concise brand message enables a customer to see your products as the answer to their needs. By having a set marketing budget, a clear strategy utilizing both traditional and digital media, and marketing Dave and myself as the celebrities, we have increased our gross profit and total sales of used vehicles by 53 percent. This simple marketing philosophy worked to our advantage, while our advertising budget cost per unit decreased. By 2009, we were able to claim our position as the fourth ranking certified pre-owned volume dealer in the New York region and we firmly believe in turning inventory fast. Today, we are only 3 units behind the number one spot and plan on securing the position of largest CPO dealer in the New York region. Sales have seen double-digit growth year over year, gross on the front and back is up and advertising cost for sales and service is below the national average at $375 per vehicle.

It is all about having fun with your marketing strategy, being consistent, staying true to your brand standards, embracing all the tools that are available, and being different in your message delivery. I am so excited for 2012 and I'm confident that the continued integration of our traditional, Internet, and mobile campaigns for both fixed-ops, and sales will take us to higher profits. We will keep saying it "We are Still looking For A Deal We Can't Beat!"

Pinterest has recently captured the attention of the masses, and the social media site is definitely gaining traction; it is now the seventh most popular social network, and keeps growing daily, so it’s vital to think about all that it has to offer in the means of social media. It’s important to consider the marketing potential Pinterest has. A popular image you post (which will link back to your business's website) could theoretically get repinned on hundreds, or even thousands, of different users’ boards!

Using Pinterest For Your Business?

• Make sure your business makes sense with what Pinterest offers. You might be surprised at how many businesses can benefit from Pinterest.
• Use other social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to direct more users to your Pinterest boards.
• Make sure you use Pinterest to feature all the different things your business can offer users.
• Follow popular names to build more awareness around your company.
• Spend a consistent amount of time on Pinterest so that stronger connections can be built.
• Keep your board clean, don’t pin too many different things onto it. Each board should have a clear theme.
• Users like to see boards that relay a lot of concise information, so promote your product as well as others.

• Don’t spam your product out.
• There is such a thing as too much promotion for your product. Keep it regular, but not constant.
• Don’t pin too much onto one board, make separate boards so you can keep them clean and easy to look at.
• Keep in mind Pinterest is all about images, so steer away from pinning too much text.
• Be consistent with the network.

The goal of Pinterest is to focus on consumer goods and products, which makes it an opportune social network for marketers to gain more clients and more attention, so don’t miss out! Not sure how to get started? Contact us now!

By: Yasmine Syed

If you’re not yet familiar with the twitter hashtag #takemymoneyhbo, you ought to be. This hashtag has been utilized by a conglomerate of individuals who petitioned HBO to allow them to subscribe to HBO Go without having to subscribe to a cable TV provider. HBO Go is an app that allows you to stream the HBO programming of your choice to any digital device via the Internet or through a cell phone signal. The app is available for free to HBO subscribers. Adding HBO to your cable package usually costs $10-$15 a month. If HBO Go was available for this same monthly price, it would be a bargain compared to the roughly $100/month that most people pay for cable service.

This petition points to a possible transition of TV to an a la carte service rather than bundled together in expensive packages. After all, does anyone really watch all 300+ channels that come with premium cable packages? We may see a TV platform similar to iTunes in the future, where consumers can purchase individual songs rather than entire albums. It's also likely that TV will follow in the footsteps of music providers like Pandora and Spotify, which will change how advertising will be disseminated. Audiences may be much more targeted and the potential for wasteful ad spending will be diminished. That being true, the explosion of digitally consumed media is making it possible for marketers to produce original programming and distribute it without the active support of a traditional media channels i.e. broadcast TV channels.

Branded content is gaining in popularity and consumers aren’t hostile to it, so long as it’s good. Brands like Nike, Virgin and American Express have all successfully built a following of their brand-led YouTube channels. One example of brand-created content was Pepsi’s live-streamed concert starring Nicki Minaj, which was available for viewing via twitter.com/pepsi and pepsi.com. Had Pepsi gone the traditional sponsorship route, it would have cost them several millions in ad spending. By producing, creating and digitally disseminating the content, they undoubtedly saved in overhead costs and penetrated their target market more effectively. This is all good news for advertisers.

Over the course of the next five years, the cost of advertising will be reduced as more specific modes for targeting emerge. The challenge is staying ahead of the digital wave, which is something we do best at Potratz.

By: Kimberly Roselle

I don't usually think of myself as a trendsetter, but a recent survey has convinced me otherwise. Recent numbers show that I am part of a growing number of people that no longer subscribe to traditional cable or satellite television. Almost two years ago, I cancelled my cable package and bought a digital TV antenna. Now, instead of having hundreds of stations to choose from, I have the four major networks, PBS, and a few local station. I have never seen Mad Man. Now, according to this survey, I am known as a cord-cutter.

According to an April 2012 report by The Convergence Consulting Group, 2.65 million people left behind their cable subscriptions in favor of alternative methods between the years of 2008 and 2011. This number continues to steadily grow. A Nielsen report shows that 4.5 percent of television-owning homes choose to stream entertainment via Netflix, Hulu, or some other internet service rather than through cable. This is in addition to people who view television entirely through the Internet and don't own televisions. That same report noted a 22.8 percent increase in cord-cutters over the past year.

As the number of cord-cutters rise and alternative means of television viewing become more popular, the question arises – is your business reaching this growing number of consumers? Digital advertising is more than just Google AdWords. As an advertiser, it is important to know and understand where your audience is interacting with your message. Then, you must make sure you deliver that message consistently and meaningfully to that audience.

Are your commercials on YouTube? Are your commercials being shown when people stream a TV show over a local network's website? If all of this research seems overwhelming, look to your advertising agency to help guide you in the right direction as these trends change and grow.

"Branding" is a term heard all over the advertising industry, but what does it mean? Simply put, it’s the way you want others to view your dealership. It’s providing potential customers with the understanding of what you represent. Branding is important because it’s an opportunity to provide an image of your dealership; it’s what can help make you recognizable.

This sounds simple enough right? Not exactly. It’s not just enough to come up with an idea of what your brand means, it’s developing a complete campaign that resonates this brand image to viewers throughout everything you do. You must ensure that the image you provide remains a constant through all forms of media - traditional, digital, social, and so on.

Websites, especially social media sites, provide a great opportunity to tell your customers who you are. Provide these details in web panels, status updates, tweets, blogs, etc, keeping in mind that each of these elements should reflect your dealership's "personality". You might think that this is distracting from your efforts to sell cars, but in fact this a tried and true way to increase sales. It's important to showcase more than just current vehicle specials. Show visitors how you helped the local school raise money in a food drive, or how you volunteered at the local humane society. This helps make you more than just another dealership to potential customers, and therefore makes you have a deeming quality that makes you more memorable. Why would you want to be memorable? I think the answer is obvious, don’t you? If you’re memorable, when someone thinks ‘I need to buy a new car’, they’ll think of your dealership, and possibly buy their next vehicle from you. If you don’t stand out, they might not remember you and might not go to your dealership for their next car.

Are you ready to stand out in your local community as more than just a dealership? Contact us now, to get the ball rolling on branding your dealership!

I don’t know if you've noticed, but Honda has recently adopted a new advertising tactic. Well-known and well-liked music has taken a front sesat in their commercials. This makes them memorable and effectively grasps the attention of potential consumers. According to Honda, the reason behind this is to ‘conjure up the rush consumers experience when they first drive off the lot in a new vehicle’.

It seems to me that Honda is on to something. Music is a great advertising technique for any business, but it's particularly practical for car dealerships. Of course, the songs being used in Honda commercials come at a high price,, but there are still opportunities for dealerships to include catchy theme music to help draw a consumer in.

Why is music a sensible element in a car commercial? Think about it this way: what is one of the first things you do upon entering your car? You turn on the radio. In my opinion, cars and music go hand and hand. Personally, I don’t drive anywhere without my music on. So why not take advantage of putting a catchy musical undertone to your commercials? As Honda says, driving and music go hand in hand, and having music in your commercial can help the audience relate to the car driving experience more realistically. Contact us now to see how we can help you make your commercials more memorable, and invoke that ‘rush’ for your potential consumer.