ADUTAINMENT: Advertising as Entertainment
JellyBasket.com - JELLY by the CASE or as a GIFT BASKET.

Best Email Advertising of 2008 to Be Named by Web Marketing Association
The Best email advertising in 86 industries will be judged as part of the 2008 Internet Advertising Competition awards. Companies or agencies wishing to nominate their work for consideration may do so at IACAward.org (http://www.iacaward.org?gad=CNvQkJkDEgjMICey2iA0NRi6nML_AyCb88Qv) before the deadline of January 31, 2008.

SIPA's 32nd Annual Conference Showcases Latest Internet Advertising Trends And Email Marketing Through Client Newsletters
The Specialized Information Publishers Association Will Feature Leadership Keynote Speakers (http://www.newsletters.org/Events/Annual/2008/index.htm), Jay Berkowitz, Josh Macht, Bob Bly, Chris Schroeder And Fredrick Marckini On June 1, 2008 In Washington, DC

Internet Advertising: Viral Ads
Viral ads are called so because they are sent through emails, from account to account, spreading like viruses. The negative connotation of the name is merely due to its dispensational nature and not necessarily to any potential ill-effect brought on by its presence or any possible disruptive intent of the Viral Ad?s designer.

Video Email And Its Impact On Internet Marketing
Email is a revolutionary means of communication facilitated by the advances in information technology. With the acceleration of e-commerce as a consequence of these same technological innovations, email is now a significant means of marketing products and services through the internet. Through email, myriad companies and businesses have a convenient means of reaching potential consumers. Through email, marketing copies get delivered directly to a person?s inbox; companies no longer had to wait for consumers to come across their ads in the internet.

Social Advertising Changing Internet Marketing: Moving From Forced Advertising To Opt-In Ads
SplashCast CEO Helps Define The Emerging New Marketing Field At L.I.S.A Conference - First Forum Dedicated To Social Advertising

Internet Marketing - How to Make your Online Advertising Business Produce Money on Internet Marketing
The success or failure of your Internet marketing business depends largely on the Internet users. If they are interested on the products and services that you are offering for sale, definitely you can expect hundreds to thousands of dollars in revenues from your online business. On the other hand, if they are just too lazy to hear what you want to say and what you are offering, better shut down your personal computer unit and find some other ways of earning money.

Viral Marketing:10 High-Impact, Viral Marketing Strategies,To Explode Your Sales
Hello, do you have any website that is not bringing in a lot of sales?Would you like to know a few smart and sharp viral marketing secrets to turn it around and explode your sales?If yes, may I offer you 10 high impact viral marketing strategies to increase your sales!Viral Marketing is allowing people to giveaway and use your free product or service in order to multiply your marketing quickly over the internet. The idea behind viral marketing is that you include your ad with the freebie people giveaway or use.

Viral Marketing - The Future Of Advertising?
To understand viral marketing you need to be familiar with social memetics ? the idea of viral marketing is to create a product or advert that encourages the end user and potential customer to also become your promoter.

Consorte Media Announces New Email Marketing and Video Advertising Solutions
New product offerings from leading Hispanic digital marketing company give publishers additional ways to monetize traffic and help advertisers connect with Hispanics online

Viral Video Evolved - Startup LonelyBloggers.com Launches With Viral Marketing Case Study
LonelyBloggers.com is proud to announce a 7 episode, 40 minute viral video series called LBTV that can be watched in it's entirety on YouTube right now. Despite recent reports that a viral video now cost up to $250,000 to produce, LonelyBloggers was able to produce our viral video series with only a $5000 budget. Internet marketers need to understand the growing importance of adding video to your marketing mix as people flock to video sharing sites like YouTube. This means potentially free website traffic as a result, all the time presenting your brand in an exciting manner. Viral Marketing has to be considered as a key part of your future marketi...

Viral Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies
First of all, I realize that anything with "viral" in the name doesn't conjure up images of something you want close by, but there is a new type of Internet marketing known as "viral marketing" is worth investigating. Despite its unflattering appellation, it is an effective Internet collaboration marketing tool, and one that is important to understand if you want to expand your business.

MJM Internet Adds Internet Video Production to Enhance Dealership Websites With Tactical, Online Video Marketing
Automobile dealership website production firm, MJM Internet, has added Internet video products to enhance their clients' online marketing. Produced quickly, and at low cost MJMI internet video's feature online actors, and dealership personnel. They help bring car dealerships' online marketing to life using the site, sound and motion of video seemlessly added to their websites. Flexible and effective, integrated video should prove to give dealerships a competative advantage.

Mortgage Marketing - Viral-Email, Referral Marketing Strategy
This is a devastatingly powerful way to extend your marketing reach. For this to work right you need a website that promotes your business.

Using Viral Advergames For Worldwide Advertising and Marketing
Branded online games are being used more and more as an advertising medium by everyone from small businesses to big worldwide brands, but can branded games really help as part of your marketing efforts Branded online games (or Advergames as they are commonly known) can be one of the most effective viral marketing agents, if used correctly

How to Incorporate Viral Marketing Techniques to Your Internet Marketing Arsenal
Viral marketing is not the last disease found, nor a virus to your desktop

Mastering the Art of the Car Business

If you are having success in this business, you are no stranger to the fact that you have to better than average at many things. This is a multi-sided Rubiks Cube of a business if there ever was one. One weak area is all it takes to get your cash flow pipes seriously plugged.

Case Study: This might sound like a plug at first, but this is as good of an example as it gets. In our business for example we tackle everything from lead-to-lender to keep the clients heart rate up. We started building Web sites back in 1999 because we found a way to create a certain visually-induced reaction in a prospects brain that makes them want to submit a sales lead. That was great and today our average Web site conversion rate is around 30 percent of visitors that submit leads. The rest of the industry still hovers around 2.3 percent by comparison. So yippee for us right? Not so fast. A lot of vendors have great products. Just because we can dump 15 times the leads over our dealers heads than our competition doesnt mean theyre going to sell any cars. If youre a dealer, you know exactly what I mean.

So for our next step we decided to go with only one dealer in each market area and put a particular focus on special finance. So in a world where BDC training and systems consist of Debbie The Time Life Operator Syndrome and outsourced BDC programs are a sure-fire ticket to self-destruction, we decided to create the Mastery Council BDC and Internet sales system. The result was a system so effective that I can walk into any of our dealerships and document a 90 percent lead contact rate, a 96 percent appointment set rate and an 80 percent show rate. Yes you heard that correctly, and no, thats not fiction. Thats 69 percent of all leads in the door.

So now we have more leads than would otherwise be possible and the best BDC and sales program that ever grazed planet earth, so now our dealers should be in the money right? Well yes for some, but then up pops another issue.

Advertising: It doesnt matter how well your Web site converts if you dont know how to advertise it. By the time I would get done going through advertising invoices and of course solving the traffic problem, the dealer in question would have already lost thousands in gross. So the next step based on Joe McCloskeys good advice from Colorado was to start an in-house advertising agency. This way we could solve media problems before they happen and have our ear to the ground 24/7. We, of course, were already writing all the creative anyway so why not? I was reluctant at first, mainly because I think agencies are a horrible idea for some very solid reasons, but in the end we launched HyperDrive Media LLC. It was a smart move that resulted in some serious Ninja Jedi advertising methods, which has made our dealers a grip of cash.

So now there should be nothing standing in the way of massive volumes right? Yes for many, but then something else popped up in some of our stores.

In the end it doesnt matter how many leads you have, how well you dominate the market in special finance or how many bodies you drag in the door if your special finance penetration is suffering and you cant get enough people in cars. Okay, so now we already have three companies all of which have been fortunate and smart enough to be the best of their kind anywhere. So now what were we supposed to do with this challenge?

Well, we found the best working special finance guy in the country, stole him, moved him to one of our stores, paid him too much and watched how he did. Then we moved him in-house and made him the head of a new division dedicated to special finance training and more importantly deal monitoring. This has led to special lender arrangements exclusively for our dealer group and is resulting in a landslide of success as we build our open markets but thats not the point.

The point is, we started out as a Web development company almost 10 years ago. Since then weve had to design and launch three record-setting companies and four key programs surrounding Web site conversion, BDC/Internet sales, management and leadership training, strategic advertising placement, and now special finance coaching just to insure that the dealers could take full advantage of the program, sell cars and own the special finance markets in their DMAs. You gotta be kidding me right?

For any dealer out there, just like us, mastering the car business is not about being a jack-of-all-trades; its about being good enough as an organization in each of the specific areas that make up your business to be better than the guy down the street. For us, we cant afford to be second best at anything we do, and trust me were not. There isnt a company or a trainer in the industry that does any of the things we do that we couldnt mow over in the street without breaking a sweat. As a dealer, that should be your goal regarding your competition. I am absolutely resolved and convicted to the best-of-the-best for our dealer group and you should be resolved to be best for yourself? Being competitive means just being about as good as everyone else, and for you that shouldnt be good enough.

Here are some insights on some of the subjects we specialize in that may help you establish a positive outlook for the months ahead.

Special Finance: Contrary to what you may hear, the lending world isnt evaporating. As one lenders program constricts, anothers opens up to take over the other ones market share. Currently were negotiating faster call backs, more approvals, lower fees, faster funding and deeper overall special finance penetration than ever before. You should be experiencing the same.

Internet Leads: Our lead composite in all of our markets have also been stronger than ever, meaning that were seeing better credit overall and a stronger intention to buy. Our leads are derived in an unusual way, but still it should be a reflection of the market. If your people are dragging nothing but the worst credit in the door, theyre probably losing control of the buyers on the phone.

BDC Expectations: Let me make this blisteringly clear. You should be realizing an absolute minimum of 45 percent of all leads ending up as showroom visits and as high as 69 percent. BDCs arent cheap and they should be performing to your expectations.

Advertising: Yes were in a political season and Im sure your ad reps are having a good time making that abundantly clear to you. My advice is to buy deep, buy cheap and keep your finger on the cancellation clause if your compass doesnt point North at some point. Our buys have also been better than ever. Just ignore the rate hype and negotiate with a long-term vision and it will work. We also like to document consistent budget increases from neighboring markets, which brings out the hunger in any media company.

Have a great month and thanks for tuning in!

Eddie Coleman is the CEO of Hyperdrive Technologies Inc. in Portland, Ore. and the author of the automotive industries two best-selling, full-length books, Mastering The Art Of Selling Cars Online and 101 Internet Sales Objection. Eddie can be reached at eddie@hyperdrivetech.com or www.HyperdriveTech.com