AM’s popular annual Digital Dealer Conference launches today with speakers from Volkswagen, top global marketing agency Ogilvy and the Internet Advertising Bureau already confirmed.

This year’s conference, which takes place at The Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon, Oxfordshire, on Thursday 4th September aims to cover all aspects of digital the modern day automotive retailing environment.

Today’s dealership needs to be a digital and technological hub in order to keep pace with a constantly shifting and rapidly progressing marketplace and AM’s annual Digital Dealer Conference aims to showcase the latest in digital trends.

This year’s event sees speakers such as Marshall Manson, managing director of Social@Ogilvy, part of Ogilvy PR and named by the Holmes Report as the Best Digital Consultancy in the World for 2013, place the organic reach of social media under the microscope. In particular, Manson will focus on Facebook as companies can expect just a 1-2% reach of its fan base as the platform seeks to drive up advertising revenue.

As dealers and manufacturers work even more closely together to deliver a consistent ‘on-brand’ experience, Volkswagen’s head of UK sales operations Ian Plummer will illustrate how they are creating a seamless journey from online through to the showroom and eventually full circle when it comes to replacing the vehicle. Plummer will illustrate how technology is connecting customers from website vehicle configuration through to sitting down at the sales consultant’s desk without having to resubmit personal information.

A staggering 77% of the population own a smartphone and mobile adspend broke the £1bn barrier in April making it bigger than outdoor or radio, head of mobile at the Internet Advertising Bureau Alex Kozloff will draw on the organisation’s mobile audits and analysis of the adoption of mobile among some of the country’s top brands to deliver extensive insight into the current mobile landscape as well as future trends. The IAB is the trade association for online and mobile advertising and also hosts the annual Mobile Engage conference, now in its fifth year.

Comments AM editor Jeremy Bennett: “Digital is now driving retailing and automotive is no exception. The explosion of smartphone usage is phenomenal and dealers still need to get to grips with it from optimising websites and email campaigns to its wider application as consumers further embrace ‘mcommerce’.

“Like or not, the Wild West free-for-all of Facebook seems to be over and other social networks are also focusing their efforts on increasing advertising revenue and dealers need to both understand how social media is evolving and evaluate its usefulness as an advertising channel.

“Meanwhile, here at AM we have witnessed a closer forging of relationships between franchised dealers and their manufacturer partners as developments in technology enables both to stay connected to the customer on a much more individual basis. We expect to see much more collaboration of manufacturer-dealer and customer communications as retention and loyalty takes on a renewed focus in the digital age.

“The conference is already shaping up to be as hard-hitting and cutting-edge as ever and dealers who are serious about keeping ahead of the competition will walk away with insight and tangible advice which can be implemented on their return to their businesses.”

As well as highly charged stage presentations, Digital Dealer includes a series of workshops which take place before and after lunch and the AM Digital Fair, made up of limited but carefully selected trade stands, will provide dealers with access to some of the foremost suppliers in automotive retail today in one place on one day.

Tickets are available to dealers and manufacturers, to book, please contact Emma-Louise Kinnaird on 01733 395133 or email emma-louise.kinnaird@bauermedia.co.uk or visit www.amdigitaldealer.co.uk