Derrick Woolfson

Company: Beltway Companies

Derrick Woolfson

Beltway Companies

Jun 6, 2019

How Much Money Are You Losing By Not Managing Your Dealers Website?

There is more to managing your dealer website than simply relying on your vendors to do everything. A common perception is that once you have signed up with a marketing agency as well as third-party vendors that they will manage the content on your site. However, the fact of the matter is that it is a two-way street. If there is information that needs to be updated such as but not limited to staff pages, specials, dealer hours, blogs, social media posts, inventory, messaging, to name a few it is the responsibility of the dealership to provide that information to the vendor. It is not uncommon, however, for a dealer to go onto their website and realize that much of the information/content on the site is outdated or no longer relevant. And as we know, having relevant content on the site is crucial for the dealer to maximize their ROI. To ensure that all of your content is up to date, here are the top items to check regularly. 

Staff Pages: Who is Working at the Dealership? 

If you have staff profiles without photos or bio's it does not help you. Nor does it help your dealership to have a staff profile active on the site when they have not been at the dealership for some time. One of the best ways to manage this process is to include this in your hiring process. Once the employee has agreed to onboard with your dealership, you can have one of your HR employees take their photo, collect their bio, and either submit that information to the web host (or a marketing agency for those that have one), so that it gets completed. In many cases, this is a task that is pushed to the BDC Manager. Regardless of whom you have to take care of the project, it is much easier to have it be apart of the hiring process vs. looking at it periodically. 

Specials Pages for Sales & Fixed-Op's

For those of you who advertise specials (which should be all of us), it is essential to have specials listed on the pages. I cannot tell you how many times I have gone onto a dealer website and it says "check back later for specials" - mind you, this is mid-month. That said, if you can create a monthly specials checklist, you can assign one person from each department the task of creating the specials. For those with a marketing agency, they can usually provide creative content for you. With regards to vehicle specials, your dealer website platforms usually enable you on the dealer level to easily add stock numbers to a specials page. Just make sure that whoever is doing specials for new vehicles that they comply with your OEM's standards. Having specials can create traffic and most importantly convert more customers off of your site!

Dealership Photos With Outdated Models. Your First Impression Counts. 

Having photos of the dealership can have a very positive effect on your website. However, it is essential to make sure that the photos on the website are up-to-date. Where it is not best to have a photo that is a few years old with outdated models. That said, one of the best ways to tackle this project is to update the photos either quarterly or annually. You can easily assign this to a manager in each department, at which point you can quickly load the new updated photos onto the website.

Another thing to consider when it comes to photos of the dealership is to make sure that the dealership is clean and that the photo does not show damage, debris, or clutter. For example, if you were to take a photo of your service lounge, but one of the display walls is empty and or has outdated material on display, it can look sloppy. Remember, this is the first impression of your dealership. 

Bottom Line: a marketing agency can do much work for your dealership; however, to maximize the results it is still best to have your team on the dealer level checking the items above to ensure that all of your content is up to date. One other added benefit of consistently checking your dealer website is that you can help find any issues or errors that impact the user's experience. For example, while adding specials if you notice that the form fill link is broken, you can take the necessary steps to get this resolved. 

How often do you check your dealership's website to update content? If not, does your marketing agency check your site? 


 

Derrick Woolfson

Beltway Companies

Business Development

829

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