Wow, what a year!! No doubt a roller coaster ride for our industry. We hear about "the dealer down the road" closing their door just about every other day. While the strong dealers are surviving, too many dealers are just now figuring out that internet marketing needs to be the dominating percentage of their marketing mix.

What will your dealers Marketing Mix be for 2009?? (humm, sounds like a post to me)

Thanks to everyone that has help contribute this year to DealerRefresh. From guest posters, to commenter's to our paid sponsors. The traffic and readership doubles each year, making this another record year for DR. While there have been several other industry related blogs and social networks come out of 2008, we keep doing what we do; finding the right balance of engaging articles while hopefully writing and commenting about what matters most to a dealers internet marketing and sales efforts.

2008 was exciting here for me as we said good bye to the old DealerRefresh design and hello an all new DealerRefresh 3.0.

So as I do every year, digging back into the archives, here are some of the top/engaging posts of 2008.

• To Micro-site or not to Micro-site? - Do Micro-sites really make sense!

• Five Rock-Star Ways to Brand Your Dealer’s Internet Sales Department - One of my personal favorites..somehow it became a little viral

• Here only the strong survive! - I'm still not sure who actually wrote that but that to Todd Smith for sharing it with DealerRefresh.

• Online Dealer Reviews - Are They Ready For Prime Time? - A guest posting by Amit Aggarwal about Online Consumer-generated Dealer Reviews

• How do I grow and evolve my Internet Sales Department? - A post in the Ask/Answer category

• The death of the Internet Director - Has the time come to promote the Internet Director into a much larger role?

• Car Dealers Embrace Online Video - Automotive Online Video Marketing Trends - Does Online Video Marketing Drive Sales?

• Hiring a Full-Time SEO and Internet Marketing Manager for your Dealership - Is it time for dealer to hire a full time inhouse SEO / Internet marketing manager?

• What Car Dealers Can Learn from Obama’s Campaign - 5 strategies dealers (any business) can lean from Obama's presidential campaign.

• Web 2.0 Essential for Dealers to Survive Economic Crisis - These days, the most believable voices come from individuals, not what your dealers says about itself.

• Search Engine Marketing has reached Stage 3 - Search Engine Marketing has been around since the early 2000s and has quickly become a billion dollar advertising system for eCommerce...

• Don’t fall for this junk! - BZ Results gets exposed.

Alright..I'm going to draw the line here. Every year I do this I usually find myself spending hours reviewing some of the older articles and this post takes me way longer than anticipated. :)

It's always exciting to go back and review all the posts from the previous year.  Some of the conversations are timeless and engaging.

I'm not one for predictions because I think anything can happen and shit changes too fast. However I believe 2009 will be a huge year for our industry. Hopefully the economic status will start to favor on the positive side.

Social sites and social networking will of course continue to grow and dealers will eventually have to find their spot within this growing segment. Marketing of the future will be PR. Video will be web "3.0" and dealers will struggle to really grasp this medium.

Twitter will go mainstream; some will figure out how to use this medium to help build transparency.

Speaking of transparency (a word that has been beaten to death on 2008), dealers will be forced more than ever to become transparent. Dealer rating sites like DealerRater and Insiderpages will continue to be even more influential on consumer buying decisions. As this happens dealer reputation management will NEED TO BE at top of mind awareness for car dealers.

I'd like to say 2009 will be the year dealers really take hold and understand the importance of SEO but I'm not holding my breath.

THANKS TO EVERYONE for reading DealerRefresh and for your support and participation in 2008. We have a great community here and some of the best talent in the industry participating, reading and commenting. 2009 is going to be a fun ride! See you next year.

-Jeff