Tag: automotive crm

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Automotive Sales Internet Marketing William Stuff

RANT: Third Party Leads

So I pretty much went on a total rant the other day when I got asked this question:

All;
 
I’m working a deal with a Ford store in XX,XX who’s asked if we have any recommendations for a 3rd party lead provider who’s hot right now.
 
Anyone know of any you’d suggest they look into?
 
Thanks,

We are a marketing company, and we’re pretty darn good at it, too. My response, in short, is below… Agree? Disagree? Have anything to add? Comment below.

The game of chasing the next “hot” 3rd party lead provider is never ending, and rarely fruitful. I, like you and many of the rest of us, have spent tens of thousand of dollars for low-performing next-greatest-thing 3rd party leads, when the real ROI was very low. The highest ROI comes by marketing to his own database (via GoldDigger; also the eDigital team puts together some amazing email marketing; and I’ve heard great things about our direct mail campaigns). Then, home grown 1st party leads have super-high ROI and, again, our eDigital team puts together some great on/off-site SEO, profitable microsites, PPC campaigns; and if he still has just the default Ford dealer website he could probably double his leads quickly just by changing that. Or at the very least, optimizing the site he currently has (most I see are terrible). He’ll get the best bang-for-his-buck here. There’s really enough leads to be gotten from 1st party web leads he shouldn’t have time to look at anything 3rd party.

Then, there’s the question of– what is he doing with the leads he’s got? Is he at a 15% + closing ratio on internet leads? What’s his process? If they aren’t handling the leads he has now properly, how will his money be wisely spent throwing it at lower-quality 3rd party leads? Why spend more money for a lower ROI, when you can invest a little in training that will help him spend the same for a higher ROI?

Sorry, I know you know all this, but it’s a peeve of mine that I keep hearing so many dealers ask about 3rd party leads when there’s a harvest of better 1st party leads at their feet and they just won’t bend down to pick them up!

— to answer your question, I’ve not seen any 3rd party provider that more than just 1 store was happy with.

William Bryant | National Trainer

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Automotive Sales William Stuff

Process Best Practices For Your Automotive CRM Tool

Wrote this for a client, and I’m sharing it with your for free… This make it easier to search, like https://www.promo-seo.co.uk/link-building-gurus/. can’t beat free… not even with a stick!

By the way the picture of the guy above has nothing to do with anything — enjoy!

My advice is as follows:

Showroom customer:

Every customer is different as we all know but if they are unsold, there should be a day of eBrochure sent out with an email thanking the customer for the opportunity. This is akin to the old-school method of leaving a VM on the customer’s home phone so it would be there by the time they got back home from the dealership. Except the eBrochure is track-able, and way more potent!

Next, a manager followup should be made the next day. This is preferable to be the manager who desked the deal since he’s familiar with it. Make the customer feel important.

Since we know the 72-hr hot window for a customer is true now more than ever, the salesman should make at least one attempt the morning and afternoon after. Make that next day phone call perpetual “buy or die” and stick another email/letter task in the third day. And let the call center hit them with our 8 attempts to cover all the bases.

In a workflow in the tool, it would look like this:

Showroom UP -> Day 1 eBrochure task / Day 2 salesman call / Day 2 MGR Call / Day 3 salesman email / perpetual phone call

Phone-up Customer:

We need the appointment, first and foremost. A manager TO is just as important but we don’t want to crowd the customer as they haven’t visited the store yet, so my best stores do something like the following:

Phone ups come in, receptionist logs the call and has sales call the receptionist to receive the phone up. She notes who took the call and if the phone up doesn’t get logged soon, she logs it under source “receptionist.” The (other) stores currently do this to ensure all ups get logged. Log more, sell more!

After the up is logged, schedule the salesman a perpetual phone call with a manager T.O. on the 3rd day so a manager can make sure the salesman has done their job, and to jump in and give authority to get an appointment. Manager must ask for the appointment with authority!

The workflow would look like this in the tool:

Phone UP -> Day 1 salesman phone call / Day 3 manager T.O. phone call

Appointments:

The bottom line to this is confirming the appointments, all the appointments, by a manager. We get 100% T.O.s, 100% confirmed appointments, and we sell more cars. Confirm the appointment by clicking the checkbox next to the appointment on the desklog every morning. Do it in the morning for the day of. My best stores do it without fail and would have it no other way.

 

William Bryant | National Trainer

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Internet Marketing William Stuff

Small Tweaks to Big Automotive Website Results

Recently, someone wanted to get more leads from any source. I quickly found there were minor tweaks he could make to his own website WITHOUT paying thousands of dollars more for extra advertisers and lead providers. These are simple quick tips anyone can use to squeeze more leads out of their existing advertising. These leads come from your own website, which have by FAR the highest closing ratio around. So take notes and ask questions at the end… I’m happy to share!

We have agreements with about everyone….had a terrible experience with Carsdirect 72 leads 0 sales…and customers seem to use it as a wish lists…for new or used…not to mention I hate that they have a site to tell me how much I should be selling my cars for. AutoUSA seemed less attractive when they lost Edmunds. Imotors/Reply.com very low closing ratio..similiar customers to Carsdirect.

So currently we are using Autobytel, Zag, Edmunds, KBB, Dealix, we even pay for 3rd party leads from the manufacturer. We get a total of 550-600 leads on average.

Who do you like….and why?

I am always looking for good companies that are not on my lists or radar and would love to know your closing ratios….

We close over 11% when you include the leads driven by our website…and I have 2 experienced managers and 2 people with no car experience answering the leads. We have a decent system I put in place.

I am just not getting enough leads and I want more traffic…(that does not mean I want to expand my miles radius past 25)…whenever I have stretched it out the close ratio drops too much and puts my R.O.I. out of wack.

Look forward to the thoughts out there.

 

Okay, this is my candid response because you are getting a ton of leads and only selling 60-66 cars/mo… I can narrow down much deeper if you want about your closing ratio because I think it should be much higher, but not right now. Right now, here’s what I see:

#1 when I go to your website (the place where your leads close the best) nothing draws me in. There’s no call to action on your home page. Really you shouldn’t be trying to sell me on your home page, just quickly putting me into where I really want to end up — New Inventory and Used Inventory. As dumb as this sounds these links are not prominent enough, let’s make then stand out — each on their own.

#2 speaking of the nav bar, let’s bury that Facebook link a little since I don’t want any reason to distract visitors on my website to somewhere else. I want them looking at inventory! Reading my reviews! Watching my videos!

I suggest having a “NEW CARS” main nav link, “USED CARS” nav link, with your $10k or less and inventory links the first ones below these main links so people don’t have to even think about where they’re going. Internet ADD anyone?

#3 The inventory details page — Again, get rid of that daggum Facebook link. I don’t want them on Facebook I want them shopping cars. Again, here there’s no call to action on this page. Let’s add a CALL ME NOW 877-313-2767. Also with dealer.com you can add a “click for best price” on your main nav page (and also on the inventory details page) which is proven to create more leads.

#4 It wouldn’t hurt, either, to have at least one real picture of the actual car. This will help generate more leads.

#5 Inventory Details Page — There’s that facebook button again, be gone! Let’s throw in a “CLICK TO TEST DRIVE” button or a “CLICK TO GET APPROVED” button that will actually generate a lead. Call dealer.com and ask about that “Click here for the best price” button, which will show right below your “Internet Price $20,840” on the details page. That’s a very prominent call to action which was always one of the most used lead forms.

#6 One step no one else takes on this page is, notice all that dead white space below the main picture of the car? Below that you can insert a picture (maybe of your internet team, be personal!) and another call to action like “CALL ME NOW 877-313-2767” (let’s get them off that mouse and on the phone baby!)…

Well there’s a lot of steps you can take right now for FREE to generate more 1st party (high closing ratio) leads. Live chat would also be great on your site.

And let me say one thing about pop-up coupons — if you have a well optimized lead generating monster of a site, these will actually hurt your conversion ratio! I’ve tried them all over the place and get the same results. On a mediocre site, sure, but there’s so many other free and better things to do.

… I’m seeing more and more as I browse your site. No specials? Weak keyword optimization… Your blog which I got to through your website has only one post — Kia recalls 70,000 vehicles! Not a good start for leads to be thinking about.

 

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