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Old school wisdom like ‘the customer is always right’ have often taken a back seat to automotive advertising agencies and auto dealers who presumed to talk “at” customers rather than listen to them. Hard sell tactics built on that presumption may have sold cars in the past but with the rise of the Internet and social networking media — not so much!Today’s educated car shoppers are bypassing the auto dealer’s real and virtual showrooms in favor of visiting other online information resources. Auto dealers are being replaced by consumers in the formative stage of their buying cycle who turn to trusted friends in social networking communities. These online groups of like minded consumers share their car buying experiences before, during and after the sale and customers find that they are able to provide far more transparent and relevant information than any self serving auto dealer; real or imagined.Similarly, the reach and frequency of the best planned automotive advertising campaign can be trumped with the click of a mouse by a car shopper who can get the information they need to buy a car without having to listen to a sales pitch from a self serving auto dealer. The solution for automotive advertising agencies challenged by a shrinking economy and a consolidating auto industry is obvious — if you can’t beat them, join them.Social networking on the World Wide Web is an extension of an equally established wisdom that people like to do business with people that they like. The social part of this growing online marketing phenomenon is built on trust in friends which is an element of human nature that has survived on the Internet Super Highway. Networking references the value of word of mouth advertising that delivers a single message to a sphere of influence that used to be limited to close friends and family. The Internet now distributes that same message virally on channels like You Tube, My Space, LinkedIn, Face Book, Bebo, Twitter and too many others to list that are growing exponentially.Automotive advertising agencies have been challenged to monetize social networking with mixed results primarily because they attempted to apply best practices learned from their past experiences on conventional media like radio, T.V. and print. Initially, it was assumed that the only adjustment needed was to post the same retail messages that worked in conventional media on the social networks. That was accomplished through the use of banner ads linked back to the auto dealer’s website or with an invitation for the customer to call or visit their real world dealership to get the information they needed beyond the low ball price or payment that was often offered but rarely trusted. These banner ads were seen as an easily avoided nuisance by community members who opted not to play. However, evidence does suggest that they did/do provide a residual impression that adds to the auto dealer’s top of the mind awareness with the car shopper; although sometimes the impression was tainted by the dealer’s intrusion into the community of friends.When the R.O.I. of the banner ads did not meet expectations, automotive advertising agencies attempted to register their auto dealer clients as members of the community to promote themselves from within. Auto dealers were quickly discovered as the wolves in sheep’s clothing that they were and the unwritten rules of etiquette of these social networking sites drove them from the community with their tails between their legs.Automotive advertising agencies have since learned that the elements of human nature that drive word of mouth advertising are fragile and they require transparency to survive in social networking communities. As is often the case, the solution has been provided by the developing technologies that have matured along with the Internet as a marketing media.One such solution is provided by ronsmap.com, a game changing customer centric marketing platform with proprietary applications including vBack and SellersVantage that generate Intelli-Leads with market and consumer intelligence not previously available to auto dealers. vBack is a social media engine that is embedded on the vehicle postings on ronsmap as well as the auto dealer’s website and linked marketing channels with an Ask-a-Friend/Tell-a-Friend feature functionality that develops viral messages trafficked through the social networking communities that the customer belongs to and trusts. In addition, related comments from friends solicited by the customer are attached to the Intelli-Lead as part of their SellersVantage application that also accumulates data on comparable vehicles from the auto dealer’s inventory in accordance with the customer’s stated preferences as well as related real time product and pricing information from local competitive dealer inventories posted on the Internet. This added information is sourced from within the social networking community by the customer — not the auto dealer — preserving the anonymity of the dealer while providing the auto dealer virtually unlimited access to members.This method of C2C marketing from the inside out vs. the now dated B2C marketing from the outside in is unique to ronsmap and it promises to allow automotive advertising agencies access to this growing online media. Conventional media is, and will always be, an integral component of any comprehensive marketing plan, however access to leveraged viral messaging offered by consumer driven social networking channels is the best way for budget challenged auto dealers to sell more for less. After all, what are friends for!

Tell me something? When you were out looking for your first car, what was the one factor that totally dominated your purchase decision? Of course the make of the car did matter. Not to mention price. But it would probably be true if I said that the one decision that gained the maximum importance in swinging your decision was probably the color of the automotive paints the car boasted.Not many of us realize it, but automotive paints have an undeniable role to play in helping people choose their wheels of choice. How many times have we heard people speak in awe about that red Ferrari or the black Cadillac? A Mercedes Benz is always silver or gold and a number of other automobiles have their own pick of automotive paints. Admittedly, we are all suckers for quality automotive paints. And it is a small wonder that these automotive paints influence the kind of car we buy.In the days gone by, automotive paints had a very limited scope. Due to the cost of production of automobiles, most models that rolled out of the assembly lines used either black or white automotive paints. But once automobiles had entrenched themselves in the psyche of the modern man, manufacturers began being pestered by users for a wider range of automotive paints. In America, Ford could safely be said to be the first manufacturer who offered a range of automotive paints. Pretty soon, automobiles began rolling out of assembly lines in all sorts of colors. Automotive paints were here to stay.Today, things have gotten a tad more complicated. Due to the wide variety of automotive paints available in the market, people have begun experimenting with the regular colors of their automobiles. There are a number of two tone automotive paints available in the market and some of the flashier consumers have almost normalized multiple colors. But automotive paints themselves have not remained staid. Today’s automotive paints come in more than just colors. They come with a wide variety of features that earlier generations could only dream of. There are scratch proof automotive paints, rust-free ones and even all weather automotive paints. But one thing is for certain. No matter how high tech these paints get, they still hold a place very close to our hears. And by doing so, they have become the determinants of how and why we loosen our purse strings to buy that blue beemer or green bug!