IM@CS Web: The Better Way To eComm And Process

Powered Webinar: "Influence the Influencer: Creating Brand Advocates with Social Marketing"

Featuring Jill Griffin and Allen Silkin

Date: Thursday, November 12^th
Time: 2pm Central / 1pm Mountain / 12pm Pacific / 3 pm Eastern
Duration: 1 Hour

Get the details and register to attend

Consumers are more demanding than ever and earning their loyalty gets more difficult every day.  Turning them into brand advocates is the holy grail of marketing and the best source of advertising.  But many companies rely solely on traditional marketing tactics to facilitate customer loyalty.  This approach will fall short of the mark unless social marketing is integrated into the mix. 

Join Jill Griffin, The Loyalty Maker, and Allen Silkin of Atkins Nutritionals as they help you learn how to "Influence the Influencer: Creating Brand Advocates with Social Marketing". To attend, please complete the form to the right.

Social marketing helps companies reach audiences in new and more meaningful ways and opens up incredible possibilities for building lasting relationships with consumers.  Not only does social marketing provide a way to communicate with consumers on a personal level, it also provides consumers a voice they have not had in decades: they blog and tweet their brand opinions, they rate and review products, they participate in online discussions and they recommend brands based on their experiences.  If your company is looking for ways to tap into social marketing to create brand advocates, then you need to attend this Webcast.

Jill and Allen will discuss:

• Four ways to tell if a customer in your advocate
• How to climb Advocacy Hierarchy
• Why complainers must be managed and how to do it
• 9 ways to minimize detractors and maximize advocates
• How to get online communities spreading your good name

About our Panelists:

Jill Griffin, The Loyalty Maker
Jill Griffin empowers firms to attract, keep, grow and win-back high value customers. Clients served include Microsoft, Dell, Toyota, Marriott, Hewlett-Packard, Wells Fargo, Western Union, and Sprint. Jill's book Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It was named to Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge list and has been published in six languages. Her coauthored book, Customer Winback , earned Soundview Executive Book Summaries' Best Books Award. Jill newest book is Taming the Search-and-Switch Customer: Earning Customer Loyalty in a Compulsion-to-Compare World (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2009).

Jill serves on the board of directors for restaurant chain Luby's Incorporated, a New York Stock Exchange company with 95 locations and roughly six thousand employees. In addition, Jill serves on the board of the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau as well as the Tri-Cities Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Board Directors. Jill has served on the marketing faculty at the University of Texas (UT) McCombs School of Business. Her books have been adopted as textbooks for MBA and undergraduate customer management courses taught at UT, Northwestern, and other universities. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina Moore School of Business from which she graduated, magna cum laude, with Bachelor of Science and MBA degrees. In 2003, Jill received the Moore School's Distinguished Alumna award. An in-demand speaker, Jill keynotes conferences worldwide.

Allen Silkin, Atkins Nutritionals
Allen is a seasoned internet veteran who specializes in monetizing traffic and content to generate revenue via advertising sales, ecommerce and subscription sales. He experience includes managing internet operations at CBS SportsLine.com, eDiets.com and HealthGrades, Inc. His knowledge includes help companies improve their marketing efforts of social media, ad serving, media planning, sales funnel optimization (A/B and Multi Variable testing), search engine optimization and marketing.


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Powered Webinar: From Zero to Community: Practical Advice for Growing and Nurturing an Online Community

 

Live Webinar on Thursday, September 17th

Featuring Newell Rubbermaid, The Community Roundtable and Powered

A successful social marketing program requires the same comprehensive, well-planned approach that traditional marketing programs demand, and it entails careful consideration of how your company will participate. At the heart of most social marketing programs is some form of online community that can help integrate social media elements into a cohesive program aligned with your marketing objectives – from creating customer engagement to brand loyalty and advocates. Online communities take dedication, perseverance and commitment that go far beyond building a site or joining an existing social network community.

Register to attend to learn:

• How to drive ongoing, active engagement within a branded online community
• Tips for leveraging social media such as Twitter and Facebook to drive awareness of your community initiative
• How online communities help address the need of your customers at every stage of the buying cycle
• The importance of community management on the health of a successful online community

Register here!

Cars.com Webinar: Cashing in on Web 2.0, Using Social Media Sites to Drive Sales

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As online communities grow in ever-increasing numbers, are you a part of the conversation or standing on the sidelines? Social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter allow you to engage your customers outside the store and develop relationships that drive repeat and referral business. This webinar examines the rules of engagement on these sites to help you understand the channels and how you can capitalize on them.
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In this session led by Kathy Kimmel, Cars.com director of automotive consulting and dealer training, you'll learn how to:

• Identify which social media sites connect your store with in-market shoppers
• Incorporate social media sites into your sales process
• Develop site-specific tactics that help you engage car buyers and encourage open communication
• Determine who should manage your social media presence

Friday, August 14, 2009 12:00 pm EDT / 9:00 am PDT

Register Now

Live Webinar: Pitfalls and Best Practices for Building Online Communities

Pitfalls and Best Practices for Building Online Communities

Featuring Forrester Principal Analyst, Lisa Bradner

Date:  Wednesday, June 24th
Time:  3:00 PM Eastern Time/10:00 AM Pacific Time
Duration:  60 Minutes

Online communities offer marketers tremendous business advantage, but content-rich, highly engaging communities don’t just happen—they are planned, designed, and continuously nurtured to deliver real ROI that can help businesses grow. While many platforms abound offering the
promise of community nirvana, we’ll draw from our extensive experience to show how and why successful community building extends way
beyond technology tools.

We’ll share best practices and success stories and discuss how to:  

• Build a solid foundation for your online community initiative
• Leverage what you learn from community members in your organization
• Drive participation and engagement among community members
• Avoid the 7 deadly pitfalls of community development and management

Some Good Time With Some Dealers...MPG Style (Why Weren't More There!?)

Tuesday's MPG event at Proud Bird at LAX was another great session. While we're typically greeting marketers, OEM executives and industry suppliers, this was a great departure and informative (if not inspiring!). Charlie Vogelheim moderated the panel and the room finished the day with great questions. In between, it was all perspective, passion, personality and even a little bit of 'personal'.

Enter Jon Gray (Orange Coast Jeep Chrysler Dodge), Peter Hoffman (Sierra Automotive Group) and Beau Boeckmann (Galpin Motors). OK, there were three domestic dealerships on the panel so you could say the 'bend' was deserved. That being said, dealership owners I've met have all spoken the same way regardless if they were a domestic or import store owner. Fact is these guys know the business and definitely from a perspective rarely caught in the 'media' headlines after networks and publishers are done devouring the OEM stories.

The three principals were asked about everything from the cost to sell a car, how long they've been in business, how many employees they have, involvement with charities...to their take on government involvement in the automotive industry, specifically GM and Chrysler (with the two dealers speaking about being 'in the clear' of store terminations...for now).

One of the most interesting answers the panel gave was in regards to the impact of the Internet on car sales. All were in agreement that our favorite technology has added cost to dealership sales operations, not decreased, while acknowledging that the transparency has provided some significant advantages to their business.

As expected, the most pointed comments were about Washington's takeover of GM and Chrysler (let's say Fiasler since the Fiat purchase is complete as of this morning) and Ford's ability to stay out of the Cirque d' AutoBiz. They spoke of close friends and associates being on the short end of the decision stick.

Reflecting on how auto retail has changed, Boeckmann talked about how attrition in their local market area over the past years has taken the Ford dealership count from 9 to 3. Hoffman related the story of Oldsmobile's unwind a few years ago and how different it is this time around. Gray talked about how disconnected the factory reps are from the reality of dealership business. Both Hoffman and Boeckmann talked about Saturn's new life, albeit from polar opposites: Galpin still has their Saturn franchise while Sierra sold theirs. They both hope for the best with Penske's purchase of the brand.

Boeckmann provided a unique perspective in being a retailer that has a very close relationship with headquarters, even getting to have input on future cars. Mostly, the three businessmen related how hard it is to get both consumers and manufacturers to think of dealerships in a positive light.  All three are obviously passionate about what they do and provide to their communities, and very likely more so today. Even if most dealerships today are in defense mode, these three seem to have a forward-thinking perspective that is completely refreshing backed by the fact that none are throwing in the towel anytime soon.

These retailers don't have golden parachutes, multi-million (or billion) dollar bailout packages, rarely get to sell cars for the same price every time (as the factories do), and  are searching for the logic behind the banks over-reactive pull back (and well as the search for loans so consumers can buy cars). Having seen a handful of dealerships speaking on panels over the past four years, it is clear that it needs to happen much, much more. Kudos to the Motor Press Guild for having the three fine retailers in for a dose of reality (and even a little bit of business and political conjecture).

Free Webinar: Your Site, Your Sales: Win More Deals With More Roads to Your Internet Showroom

Online, you know the power of your website to connect with in-market shoppers and get them into your store to buy a car. How customers arrive at your site, though, can vary with where they are in the purchase process and their internet habits. While some prospects take a direct route by entering the URL, many more buyers arrive via third-party shopping sites, automakers’ sites and search engine results pages. Are you casting the widest possible net to reach them, or are you relying on luck? This webinar examines tactics you can use to lead ready-to-buy shoppers to your site and work with them to win their business.

In this session, you’ll learn:

• Where car buyers look on the internet to get the information they need.
• Which internet sites in-market shoppers consider the most valuable.
• How to leverage third-party sites to drive traffic to your store’s site.
• How to implement SEM and SEO campaigns that drive results.

Friday, June 12, 2009 9:00am PDT/12:00pm PDT

A Day With The Marketers...Automotive News Style

Today was a day filled with marketing statistics, reporting, ideas, videos, commercials, banter, conjecture and more. Ultimately what Automotive News set out to achieve again this year was, I my opinion, point the industry/crowd/listeners to what is and will be happening in the landscape of media and marketing. Did it happen?

Joel Ewanick from Hyundai detailed a number of aspects of the Hyundai Assurance program that has gained the brand major accolades in addition to being mimicked by over 100 companies. His retelling of the time line (just over 30 days) that they produced the campaign in along with the supporting aspects of such a program was impressive. The presentation lacked a 'forward' element, which I'm sure HMA already has done, but that's not likely what he was asked to speak about.

Scion's Jack Hollis struck what I thought was the closest blow to the nail from an engagement standpoint regarding experiential marketing, lifestyle and connection with customers. "We want community" is as close to where a marketer needs to be today! Great visuals were backed by his actual participation in events (and no, not just in a room to watch usability studies through a two-way mirror).

Judy Wheeler form Chrysler (replacement for the absent Steven Landry) had a good presentation that understandably had no major 'forward' view. After having their marketing budget slashed by 50% last week by the White House and Auto Task Force, there was not much to address besides the 'impending' marriage with Fiat. She did bring some ads that are in the hopper which centered around what Chrysler and Jeep brand "build".

John Maloney of Volvo hit on some solid points around their shift from the traditional 'national' unveiling and detailed a number of great points about the XC60's recent 'new' launch campaign. It sounds like Volvo will use the money-saving, impact increasing method again in the near future. He also focused on the brand's image with the new 'City Safety' accident avoidance system.

John Mendel from Honda spoke the words that you rarely hear today: brand, value, consistency. He repeated that call time and again throughout his session which included a throw-back to a nearly 50-year-old Honda motorcycle commercial! Flipping from decade to decade in content and conversation, Mr. Mendel was able to address the solid focus at Honda (along with their agency RPA) that should enable them to deliver more 'safe' marketing. Hopefully they do get a little more edgy than their Facebook and Twitter involvement...

And then there was Mike Sullivan, a.k.a. "L.A. Car Guy", bringing color and comedy to the stage for a retailer's perspective. He got into hard hitting numbers, results, marketing mix, Internet effect and other, more typical in better financial times, tangibles like charity, community involvement and other brand building mantras. Mr. Sullivan and his staff are more than dedicated to their marketing goals and seem poised to achieve success through their different initiatives. They still may have some room to grow on integrated media and retention, but they are clearly looking for more ways to deliver on their Interactive brand.

The closing panel with all the speakers answering questions got a little better, especially around the newspaper/print aspect. While Chrysler's recent direction was more heavily tilted toward print, the overwhelming opinion was a shift away from the paper and to the web. By the same token, these marketers have not hit pay dirt as many marketing efforts still leave behind the largest potential as well as target: the consumer. Content consumption has changed and even content creation has had a noticeable shift. Out industry still lacks the 'teeth' it needs, especially at retail, to really engage the consumer to become part of their lives, especially away from their vehicles.

Overall, it was a great time around well over a thousand ad agency, automotive marketing, manufacturers and service provider folks. Wonder what it'll be like next year...

Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results

Webinar: Reving up Automotive Market Research with Social Media Analysis

As auto manufacturers and suppliers grapple with tough economic times, understanding consumer preferences becomes even more important for near-term survival as well as future viability.

J.D. Power and Associates’ Web Intelligence Division utilizes social media to help the auto industry gain consumer insights, mining the blogosphere for unvarnished insight and unbiased opinion.

We invite you to join us for a webinar to discover how J.D. Power Web Intelligence can take the blogosphere beyond monitoring and turn social media information into action.

This webinar delves into the opinions found social media on topics like the following:

• What are short- and long-term auto industry trends, such as consumer purchase intent?
• How are consumers responding to recent OEM incentive and marketing programs such as job-loss insurance?
• How can automakers more successfully approach Gen Yers?
• How has J.D. Power’s newest spin on segmentation – Tribe ReportsTM – helped other companies gauge marketing effectiveness?

• DATE  Thursday, May 28, 2009

• TIME 2 pm Eastern

• SPEAKER
  Chance Parker
  Vice President & General Manager
  J.D. Power Web Intelligence

Webinar: Ward's eDealer 100

Ward's Dealer Business Editorial Director Cliff Banks will introduce you to successful dealers from the Ward's e-Dealer 100, each of whom have implemented unique sales strategies for driving sales.  The Ward's e-Dealer 100 is considered the industry's benchmark for measuring top franchised new car dealerships by Internet sales, and we've selected dealers from the list to offer insights into the business practices that helped get them on our ranking, and to describe how they'll keep sales rolling in during an economic slump.

Our webinar discussion will offer real-world examples and best practices to help you craft new strategies to ensure you stay strong through this challenging sales climate.  You can't afford to miss it!

Webinar: Industry experts REVEAL THE POWER of 1st Party Leads

 

FREE WEBINAR

By now you understand the capabilities (and limitations) of 3rd party leads. But have you heard of 1st party leads? Join our interactive webinar and learn how generate the highest quality leads directly from your website.

What You Will Learn:
1st party leads close at a higher rate with higher profits
Not all leads are created equally
How to harness the power of your website to generate higher quality leads
How to implement a first party lead strategy at your dealership

When:
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT (11:00 AM - 12:30 PM PDT)