Welcome to the UpShift Digital Articles.

The UpShift Digital Articles space is primarily dedicated to interactive marketing within the automotive industry. The purpose of our blogs are to monitor the key happenings, reveals and updates within the automotive sector, such as new models, new information regarding everything from hybrids to the latest exotic vehicle on the market.

We will also spend a good portion of the space discussing interactive marketing, from both a media perspective and from that of an auto dealership. Best dealership practices, from merchandising techniques, photos suites and pricing models, to how to properly recognize and manage online shoppers when they begin to interact with a store.

From the media perspective, we will monitor the death of the traditional media (read: PRINT) that have ignored the interactive space to their detriment and the players that have recognized what a strong focus on interactive advertising will do to their business that may have a leg up on everyone else.

Interactive advertising is on the cusp of major changes. The days of posting a dealers inventory on a single destination site with one photo and unresearched price point are over. We will frequently comment on cutting edge new products that will have an immediate impact in the automotive space. Key players ready to make dramatic headway include proximity marketing with mobile, email process management, new focus on search engine optimization (not marketing) and localized geo-targeted networks. Folks, if you still think following up with an email lead in a static fashion without understanding where the shoppers are in the buying cycle, then that 9% closing ratio is as good as it gets.

And by the way, we speak our minds.