Paul Potratz of Potratz Partners Advertising begins this week’s “Think Tank Tuesday” video with a controversial question: “Is your business an e-commerce business or brick-and-mortar?”

Interestingly, the answer doesn’t really matter, he said.

Potratz says whether you have a physical location or not, you have to be an e-commerce business, as well.

And that starts with ensuring your engaging potential customers online.

In this week’s video, Potratz shares a few techniques to ensure a dealership’s website is engaging and gives shoppers enough information to justify a purchase.

Potratz explains that your website must tell potential buyers who you are and why they should buy from you, as well as give information on why the shopper would benefit from buying from your dealership.

Potratz also touches on a fairly new term in the advertising world which can help dealers engage more shoppers: marketing automation.

Marketing automation is a tool which allows you to track the “digital body language” or potential shoppers and gauge whether they are a serious potentialy buyer.

Then, marketing automation can send automated emails to these shoppers, potentially turning “marketing qualified leads into sales qualified leads.”

For more on this new tool and how to better engage shoppers online, see the latest “Think Tank Tuesday” video here.