It’s been a busy stretch keeping plugged in to the automotive scene
I’ve been on the road from Las Vegas to Detroit to Quebec City to Nova Scotia — and parts in between — attending auto shows, industry events and conferences.
These events, and most importantly the conversations that take place off the show floor, help us stay on top of the emerging trends and concerns facing our industry. There’s no shortcut to finding credible information, and you need to spend time in the trenches guzzling stale conference coffee and picking through crappy croissants.
After enough exposure to the latest thinking and industry research, clear patterns start to emerge. These patterns and trends help inform our editorial coverage, and help us develop a deep resource of writers and contributors who then share their insights with our readers.
Going through our March issue, and again in this issue, I was struck by the incredible talent our team has assembled to help guide dealers through the changing tide that is affecting their worlds, especially in the realm of digital marketing.
Whether it’s our Digital Drive columnist Jared Hamilton talking about handling your Internet leads, Brian Pasch talking about Google’s Zero Moment of Truth, or Paul Potratz talking about digital strategies, we capture the best ideas and present them to you in these pages. And there’s more to come.
Our regular columnists, like Chuck Seguin, one of Canada’s top automotive retail experts, also attend events, and they too share their own findings and observations. Our contributing editor Huw Evans is a regular on the automotive journalist circuit, and reported to us recently from auto shows and industry events in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and even Geneva.
With all these writers working on your behalf, we aim to bring you the best news and features we can jam into each issue. We recognize that dealers and their staff are busy with the day-to-day operations at their stores, and can’t attend every industry event, regardless of how good the speakers or topics might be. We are proud to serve as your eyes and ears.
