Freelance
How to Create a Dealership Newsletter That Drives Sales
Many marketing channels are available to help you promote your car dealership business. Some are more effective than others. Although people rely more on social media to spread the word about their products and services, email marketing has always been the most cost-effective.
Unfortunately, many novice marketers consider it an obsolete method of marketing only because it has been around almost as long as the internet itself. However, experts will tell you that it is often their most potent weapon for boosting the ROI of a business.
For car dealership businesses, it'd be best to use newsletter campaigns. They can send out newsletters every month or even every week to engage old and new clients alike. What makes email newsletters so good is that it's a low-cost strategy that can deliver a high payoff. First, however, the newsletter needs to be attractive; otherwise, the whole campaign will go fruitless.
So, you need to practice engaging techniques in developing the newsletter campaign. You must ensure that you offer a good balance of product info, company news, and other information you want to share with your recipients, such as discounts.
Many marketers lose confidence in email campaigns because they don't get the desired response from them. However, they never try to figure out what they could be doing wrong. Here are a few ways you can create a dealership newsletter that drives sales.
Don't Be Too "Salesy"
Our reason for sending out the newsletter is undoubtedly to produce sales. However, it shouldn't be too apparent, or else you run the risk of putting off the customers. If your customers are able to notice that the reason the brand is reaching out to them is to secure a deal, they won't be interested in opening it. Moreover, if you continue to badger them with the same salesy newsletter, they might even unsubscribe.
So you need to ensure that the newsletter is interesting enough to catch the recipients' attention instead of pushing them away. For example, you can offer your recipients tips, news updates, research, special offers, etc. It should just be intriguing enough to deliver value about your brand. You can then send it to your recipients using a mass email service.
Design Matters
The newsletter's content plays a vital role in deciding whether the recipient will open the newsletter or not. But once the recipients open it, the focus shifts on the design too. The recipient will instantly close the newsletter if the design is confusing and there are just boxes of texts that don't make sense.
You may have killer content, but the recipients will not read it if it doesn't look good. They will abandon the newsletter the moment they lay eyes on it. So make sure you avoid overcrowding your newsletter with uninteresting graphics or animations.
Focus on keeping your newsletter design neat and sorted. Also, avoid clutter and allow your message to be simpler to comprehend. The clearer your message will be, the longer your subscribers will stick around.
You will be addressing all of your subscribers with that newsletter, so it needs to have elements that relate to the perspective of every subscriber unless it is personalized. The design should also be optimized for mobile, tablet, computer, or any other device.
Impactful Subject Line
There are hundreds of incoming emails. How will your email stand out among them? Before the recipients open the newsletter, he gets to read the subject line. If they find the subject line intriguing and relatable enough, they will open the email or abandon it. So, in order to create a strong impression, you need to create a good subject line.
Forty-seven percent of people decide to open the email after considering the subject line. Sixty-nine percent of people choose to report it in the subject line. This alone tells you the importance of a good subject line.
So, keep the subject line concise, relevant to the content, and engaging. It would be even better if you used active words in it. This will help engage the recipient and grab their attention.
You can also personalize the subject line to make it feel more welcoming. Personalization has been known to increase 18% open rates.
Offer Exciting Incentives
Discounts and coupons always get customers excited. You can send newsletters to your subscribers with referral programs, special discount codes to your car dealership. But these incentives need to provide real value to your recipients. They should be compelling enough that they would instantly want to avail themselves.
This is an excellent method to increase your email engagement rate. However, this strategy is also only successful with thorough research that targets your audiences' pain points. Segment the subscribers according to your data analytics and craft the right newsletters.
Provide Valuable Content
What content you include in your newsletter can create a significant difference in its effectiveness. First, you need to know what information will intrigue your customers. It could be the launch of a new car, a rare model of a car that only you have imported, a new franchise of your dealership, etc.
It is essential to observe and analyze the behavioral data of the subscribers. You should have knowledge about what your subscribers expect to gain from your business. Providing the information they have been anticipating can prove to be effective.
Conclusion
It might take you more than one try to finally master the art of formulating an engaging newsletter, but you cannot give up. If you are keen enough, you will understand the priorities and interests of your subscribers in no time. Once you figure out what the subscribers want to see, you won't have trouble providing it.
Freelance
Car Dealership Marketing Ideas: 5 Ways To Get Your Vehicles Off The Lot
Back in the day, people used to walk from one auto dealer to another in person. But today, in the digital world, people do all their research online since there is more information available online than you can get in a showroom. So, the customers like to gather all the information before they physically step into a showroom.
According to a study by Google, 53% of shoppers do their research online before purchasing anything to ensure they're making the right choice.
While researching, most customers land on third-party websites, which means just having information about your business on your website isn't enough. This means you cannot survive without having a digital marketing strategy. Otherwise, the customer might likely land on a website that gives a negative review of your business, and just like that, you will lose a potential customer.
5 Marketing Ideas For Your Car Dealership Business
- Get Active On Social Media
Social media is a platform where you can market your brand to a massive audience and get quick engagement if done right. 79% of the USA population uses social media – how can you miss out on using the platform to get an audience and build customers for your brand.
The best part about social media marketing is that you can target your audience through SMO. There's a lot you can do – make a youtube video and share it on other social media platforms, take polls, use hashtags for a campaign, etc.
You can use brainstorming tools in group sessions to help you get more creative ideas for your social media campaign.
- Make Your Website SEO Friendly
When your potential customers search you online, they expect your website to show up at the top. To increase the visibility of your website and rank it at the top or at least on the first page of the search engine, you need to make your website SEO-friendly.
Your website doesn't need to be fancy with a killer website design. Of course, that can help you make it more engaging, but that is not part of making it SEO-friendly. If you want to make it SEO-friendly, you need to ensure that it is loaded with the right keywords related to your business.
Moreover, it should be easy to navigate, responsive, and have all the information that addresses every query that the customer might need answers to – your address, phone number, and other contact details. You can post regular blogs on your website that cover different aspects of your business.
- Use Your Email Database
One of the most prominent, effective, and affordable ways of marketing your car dealership business is email marketing campaigns. For example, you might have an email database of your previous or potential customers, which you can use to reach out to them.
However, you need to make sure you don't just start bombarding your subscribers with random emails. On average, every user receives 121 emails per day, so they will instinctively start avoiding your emails or maybe even report them as spam. Hence, start a properly planned email marketing campaign to promote a new car, sale announcement, offer incentives, etc.
Besides that, you can also send your customers feedback forms to get details on how you can improve and identify the areas of problem. This type of email marketing can build your brand reputation and help you retain your customers.
- Manage Online Review
One tangible way of getting more customers has always been word of mouth – online reviews are just a more modern form. People do their online research hoping to find what other people have to say about your brands. This makes managing your online reviews a very vital element of marketing.
Whenever your customers buy from you, encourage them to post an online review for it so that more people can see how happy your customers were with your service and come to buy from you too.
- Plan Your Campaigns According To Trends
One way to ensure the success of your campaign is by following the trends. If people can relate to you, your posts will get more attention, and more people will know about your brand. Besides, notice trends of things triggering more sales – a specific day, time, act, etc.
You can also schedule your paid campaigns according to the trends so that it gets maximum attention. For example, this will remind your customers if they are planning to buy a car.
Conclusion
Just like any other industry, car dealerships businesses also need to market themselves to get more customers. This will, in turn, help them in growing their business and generating more revenue. The more traffic you get on your online platforms, the chances of increasing your sales increases too.
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Freelance
Automotive Email Marketing: 5 Tips To Boost ROI On Emails
Email marketing remains a solid marketing strategy even with the rise in other digital platforms that promote businesses. It enables businesses to connect with their existing and potential customers to increase their sales and boost their ROI.
Studies suggest that email marketing can make $38 for every $1 spent, which means a business can generate a 3800% return on investment.
This is why savvy car dealers continue to use email marketing to promote their business, for, e.g., by sending monthly WordPress email newsletters. These car dealerships witness an increase in their ROI and sales through their email marketing strategies.
This article will show you five ways you can use email marketing as a powerful promotional strategy for your automotive dealership.
Take The Time To Craft An Attention-Grabbing Subject Line
Your email's subject line is the most important element of a successful automotive email marketing campaign as it leaves the first impression on your customer base. Engaging or enticing subject lines are important for attracting people’s attention and compelling them to open their emails.
Since the automotive industry has little content to offer, you need to develop a short yet persuasive subject line that integrates strong verbs. Also, create urgency around your subject lines to let your customers know that they will be missing out on a big opportunity if they don’t open the email.
Create Mobile-Responsive Emails
With the rise in smartphone usage, most of your potential customers use their mobile phones to open their inboxes. Emails that aren’t mobile-optimized don’t look good on the small screen. This causes your prospects to either delete the email or ignore it without taking action.
This is why it’s important to use mobile-optimized email templates for all your automotive dealership emails. Before you send out these emails, you need to double-check them to ensure that they display properly on mobile phone devices or tablets.
Integrate Videos Into Your Emails
Using interactive videos in your emails increases its click-through rate and boosts your video's chances of getting shared. For your automotive dealership, you can make videos that include car displays, walk-around, special announcements, and a lot more.
Moreover, most of your potential customers are interested in watching automotive-related videos to get a good view of the cars you offer at your dealership. This is the best way to showcase your high-selling cars and highlight their special qualities while increasing your email subscribers list.
Create A High-Quality Segmented Email Subscribers’ List
For a successful email marketing campaign, you need a high-quality email list. By dividing your email list into segments, you can create a more targeted email marketing campaign that increases conversion chances.
Now, you can segment your email list by demographics, behavioral data, and their position in the sales funnel. The entire segmentation strategy depends on you and what works best for your automotive dealership.
This is important because not all your customers are looking to purchase the same thing. Thus, by segmentation, you can increase your email marketing campaign's chances of successfully targeting a specific subscriber.
Personalize Your Emails For Maximum Impact
To stand out from other dealerships, you need to send highly personalized and targeted emails that can help foster positive relationships with your customer base.
Reports suggest that businesses experience a 14% higher click-through rate and 10% higher conversion rates when sending personalized emails. This is because personalized emails contain targeted content that a specific person needs to see. This could include their names or personalized promotional offers that they show an interest in.
Enhance your personalized email strategy by creating automated behavioral trigger emails that offer several options to the recipient based on their previous buying behavior. This way, you can be sure that they’ll take some kind of action to let you into their lives. For example, you could tell them to reply to the email for more information, call you or click on a button to continue receiving your emails.
Wrapping Up
Email marketing plays a huge role in directing prospects towards your automotive dealership. With emails, you can always remain on top of the minds of your customers and potential clients.
By creating newsletters, promoting cross-sells, and automating your email marketing campaign, you can send a lot of promotional content to a segmented and highly targeted customer base.
This, in turn, increases your conversion rate leading to a boost in your ROI.
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Freelance
How Using Live Chat Software Can Drive Your Dealerships Sales
Let’s admit it: Many vehicle buyers still have trauma from poor sales staff who went for a hard sell and ultimately turned the buyer instead. The spectre of the smarmy car salesman still haunts the popular imagination for many vehicle buyers.
This is a problem, of course. Even if dealerships prac tice respectful sales techniques, many buyers avoid sales help like the plague. This both undermines the ability for dealerships to support customers on their buying journey, and it reduces sales because well-trained sales staff don’t get the opportunity to sing the praises of the vehicles on offer or guide the customer to the appropriate vehicle.
Even though this perception of the pushy car salesman will take time to fix, that doesn’t mean that dealerships are lacking options for engaging with customers during the pre-sales process. One option that savvy dealerships are starting to use is live chat, a way to engage one-on-one with prospective customers without the stigma associated with the “car salesman.”
Sales Without the Hard Sell
One reason that dealers are going toward the adoption of live chat for increased vehicle sales is that live chat avoids the stigma of the in-person sales agent.
Potential vehicle buyers can get their questions answered through live chat, but they also know they can close their web browser at any time if the sales agent at the dealership gets pushy. Thus, potential buyers can ask questions without the fear factor.
For the dealership, live chat also works. Dealers can still greet customers. They can still sit down with them at a virtual desk to pre-qualify them and to discuss in real-time what models might be good for the customer. They still can answer questions that the customer might have and guide them in a direction that will lead to a sale. With live chat, dealers also can still share sales collateral such as brochures and promotional offers.
Live chat delivers all the same benefits of being there with the customer in the showroom, but without the fear from customers that things will get out of hand.
Improved Awareness on What Customers Really Need
Then there’s the feedback loop.
“Live chat software has a number of features for helping you nurture your online customers and, thus, improve your business,” notes Jason Grills in an article published by Live Agent, a leading live chat software solution on the market. “One of those features is real-time monitoring, which enables you to gather information about people checking out your website so that you can learn more about them in order to know exactly how and when to offer a helping hand.”
Real-time monitoring shows you how your visitors have found your website, where they are located, which pages they are viewing, how long they stay on each one, as well as how many times they have visited your website and whether or not they have interacted with you before, according to Grills. This can all be used for better understanding what works and what does not in your sales approach.
Through direct interaction with customers via live chat, your dealership also can better track which questions customers
Live Chat Builds Trust
A second reason that dealerships are starting to use live chat for sales is because the platform builds trust that encourages a greater willingness to purchase from the dealership. As every effective dealer knows, trust is critical for closing the sale.
More than three-quarters of people surveyed by Bold Software said that live chat positively affects their attitude toward a company, according to the industry news portal, Digital Commerce 360.
This is because buyers can interact with a dealership even when browsing at home, turning a static dealership website into a live person-to-person interaction. Dealerships become real when there is a human interaction beyond the passive billboard-style websites that sell or provide information. With this direct interaction comes trust much earlier than the moment a buyer steps foot in a dealership to take a test drive.
Guidance Earlier in the Buying Journey
Live chat also boosts dealership sales by better educating customers, a key consideration especially for Millennial buyers who often research before talking with a sales agent.
Vehicle buyers often have a lot of questions. This makes sense because any vehicle is a major purchase. When customers go researching online to figure out the options and make sense of the market, dealerships can be ready to answer questions and guide customers by having live chat enabled on their site.
Live chat is less invasive than visiting a dealership, and it helps dealers connect with customers much earlier in the buying journey. So instead of customers researching on their own and hunting for answers to questions, live chat makes it possible for dealerships to be there early on in the research phase to quickly answer questions and take control of the sale.
are asking, and what is attracting or repelling about a particular model.
Conclusion
Using technology such as live chat to complement sales skills and general knowledge of the field can give a great competitive advantage to a salesman. Most of the niches are already overcrowded, however, in this case, only a small amount of people are diving deep into using modern technologies to differentiate one from the rest.
So while the problem of a stigma around car salesmen lingers, it still is possible to proactively sell and engage with customers. You just have to think outside of the box a bit and use the latest technology. In this case, live chat functionality.
2 Comments
We've been using DRIFT for chat and it's amazing. Cost is crazy low. In fact, they have a free plan and you can install it on your car dealer website or blog and start engaging people like never before, right away.
The PRIMARY reason I selected DRIFT, was because they get it.
Zipwhip Text Messaging
How do you manage getting actually information from your clients? I feel that chat is advantageous but is very anonymous. You may get a name and maybe an email but very often the info a client provides is inaccurate and not the most useful of info.
Freelance
How to Generate Four Times More Leads for Your Dealership
In auto sales, you need customers that are ready to buy, right now, and have the resources to do so. You need qualified leads to get anywhere, and generating these leads can be a challenge. Potential leads are everywhere—just open a phone book and start cold-calling—but unless you're willing to waste a lot of time sifting through the masses to find qualified leads, you need ways to start generating those qualified leads that are ready to buy.
How Can I Get More Qualified Leads for My Business?
Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to generate qualified leads, and some of these are simpler than you may expect.
Get Smart About Ads
There’s a reason that Facebook and Google are valued so highly as companies: They’ve become the dominant platforms for advertisements and connecting buyers and sellers.
When you’re looking for more leads, therefore, optimizing your ad buys and follow up is one of the most important ways to boost the number of solid, qualified leads.
Where many businesses go wrong, however, is how they track and respond to interest generated from Facebook and Google ads. Invest in tools that help your dealership do more with ad clicks, tools such as lead generation service, LeadsBridge.
LeadsBridge works by connecting your lead generation tools such as landing page builders or Facebook Lead Ads directly with your customer relationship management (CRM) software so prospects can be stored and acted upon more easily. If you’re using a dealership CRM such as VinSolutions, for instance, you can have prospects who come from a lead ad automatically added to a drip marketing campaign or added to a sales rep call list. This can significantly boost the effectiveness of your ads in generating leads because every lead is automatically acted upon and nothing falls through the cracks.
Answer Customers Rapidly.
If your customers are contacting you, whether looking for information or lodging a complete, the iron is hot. Strike it by responding, quickly, to those customers. A study from The Social Habit found that 42 percent of customers expect a response within an hour of contact. Moreover, 32 percent of customers expect a response within 30 minutes.
The faster you can respond to customers, the more likely you are to retain those customers. These, in turn, become some of your most qualified leads: the ones who actually told you what they will buy if you can get it for them.
Keep your Web Presence Up To Date.
Have you updated your websites lately? Are you using both mobile and desktop web presences? If you're keeping up, then you're improving the chances of customers finding you and becoming a qualified lead. There's more to this than just good website management, though.
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Be at the right place... A Dealer.com study noted that shoppers coming in from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter spend 20 percent more time on the website, and view 27 percent more pages per visit. And with 41 percent of traffic on dealer websites coming in from mobile devices—tablets and smartphones—being available where the customer wants to see more information improves your chances.
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...at the right time. That same Dealer.com study found that over a third—37 percent—of total leads hit on Mondays and Tuesdays, so be prepared to hit extra hard during those days. Not being ready for days where customers are cropping up makes you that much more likely to miss qualified leads. Finding qualified leads is all about sorting the wheat from the chaff, and the more stalks you have to work with, the more likely you are to find wheat.
Become an Authority.
Building customer trust is a great way to build qualified leads. Since many car buyers start their search online, you can take advantage of tools like search engines and your CRM to better connect with those online car shoppers. Start writing for the web, specifically about cars. Set up your own car blog addressing those questions that you hear every day on the lot: which cars have the best gas mileage, what's a good car for a rough winter, what's a good car for senior citizens, and the like are fodder for things your customers want to read anyway.
When you become a trusted information source, you're also likely to draw more attention, more questions, and more qualified leads.
Use the Right Tools.
No one fixes an engine by hitting it with a hammer. No one makes a website more relatable by using tools that any 12 year old can use to set up his blog. Start out right from scratch by using dealer-specific website development tools like Flexdealer or Dealersocket, or the aforementioned Leadsbridge. Use inventory management tools like Lotwizard. The more industry-specific your development tools, the better the quality of your leads; these are tools inherently designed for use in this field.
Why trust anything else to the development of your main communications measures with your customers or how you keep track of what's on the lot?
Where Do I Begin To Improve My Count of Qualified Leads?
There is, in the end, no wrong way to start here. The more methods you put into practice, the more likely you are to generate leads that will give you a much better chance at sales. It's better if you don't try to put too many into play too rapidly—it's possible to have too many balls in the air to successfully juggle, after all—but casting a wider net improves your chances of landing your target.
In the end, it's all about getting more leads, and better vetting the leads you have to turn these into qualified leads.
1 Comment
Dealership News
Seems like the best way to start is to respond to leads as they come in, right as they come in, and with full transparency. You want numbers? 80% of inbound leads aren't followed up on. Hard to believe. As a dealer, you may have enough leads already, but your approach to systematically processing those leads through the old sales funnel doesn't follow a "best practices" approach. Sadly, that's the case with most dealers.
Freelance
5 Tips For Selling Cars To Online Remote Buyers
Today’s car dealerships can take their sales beyond the showroom and retail to buyers across the globe. Buying products online is now part of everyday life for customers, even those as large as cars, and research indicates that around 5 percent of all cars will be sold online by 2020.
Dealerships selling rare or high-end vehicles will reach more interested buyers online than in your local area, and if your business is planning to target remote buyers online, how can you improve your chances of securing sales?
Take More Pictures than You Think You May Need
Your customer is prepared to spend thousands of dollars on a car they have yet to see in person, have yet to sit in, have yet to even touch. It requires a lot of trust on their part, and securing that is vital.
The fewer pictures you have, the more difficult it will be for customers to trust you. Take more photographs than you think you actually need – buyers may want to see under the seats, inside the glove box, and close-ups of every window.
Snap pictures of the car inch by inch. Get under the hood, get in the trunk, get as much of it onto your website as you can. Use a high-quality camera, and ensure the lighting allows you to capture the car’s true color and finish. Don’t simply grab a couple of fuzzy images on your phone as the sun’s going down.
Offer Live Video Tours of the Vehicle
Live video streaming makes a terrific complement to your photos. Rather than a pre-recorded video, live video is interactive: you can answer questions from your potential buyer, and show them any part of the vehicle they want to see, all in real-time.
This is your opportunity to show the car off in its full glory, drawing attention to its strongest features and its design. Live video is especially beneficial when selling rare or high-end vehicles, as buyers are likely to want more detail before committing to high prices. They may want to hear the engine purr or get a close-up inspection under the hood.
Using a quality video streaming service is key, though, particularly when chatting to customers in distant countries with weaker connections. Your buyer will only become frustrated if your video lags, cuts out, or loses sound, and the visual quality should be crisp enough for them to see their potential purchase in great detail.
Never Underestimate the Power of Long-Distance Engagement
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking an online sale isn’t quite a ‘real’ sale. Just because you’re dealing with a customer half the world away doesn’t mean you shouldn’t approach this sale as you would others.
There’s no real difference between trying to engage your buyer online and in the flesh. You may be relying on the power of the written word, photos, and videos (we’ll get to this later) to capture consumers’ attention, but you should still employ the same techniques you’re familiar with.
Make the customer see how perfect the car is for their personal needs. If it’s a vintage car that every collector wants, focus on the unique touches, the thrill of driving it, the possibilities the buyer has ahead of them. The customer has to feel as if they’re standing in the showroom with you, as if they could reach out and touch this mouth-watering vehicle.
Be as Responsive as Possible
Customers buying cars online are willing to spend a lot of money on a product bought sign-unseen. You’re expecting them to believe in your dealership’s reliability and reputaton, so the least you can do is be responsive.
If they ask a question via email or text message, answer it as soon as you can, as effectively as you can. If they want to arrange a live video call for a closer look at the car, be willing to oblige. This goes back to our former point about the power of long-distance engagement: if you make customers visiting your dealership feel as if you would move mountains to satisfy them, keep this in mind when selling online.
Don’t become complacent because you have a vehicle the buyer really wants, even if it is rare: they may be unwilling to put up with poor response times or rude service regardless of how difficult it may be to find the same vehicle elsewhere.
Compose an Irresistible Description
Your description of the vehicle is just as vital as the pictures and live video tours. Along with your headline, this is the first chance you’ll have to capture the buyer’s attention and pull them in.
Study the type of language other successful sellers of high-end or luxury products use: your goal is to make the car appear absolutely irresistible, as if clicking away from it is simply out of the question.
The things that excite you about the vehicle are likely to be the same ones that attract the customer. What are they? How do they improve the sensation of driving it? What makes the design so different to mainstream vehicles, and why should it be in the customer’s collection?
Even when selling standard cars online, talk about how the vehicle will improve the driver’s life and offer a better experience than their current one. A lazy, vague description could mean all the difference between landing a sale and missing it altogether.
Selling cars to remote buyers online enables you to reach a more diverse demographic and target those people more likely to buy specific ‘niche’ vehicles. Have you considered integrating online sales into your dealership’s range of services?
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Freelance
How Your Dealership Can Use Video Chat To Increase Sales
When it comes to driving sales in your dealership, there might be some disagreement about the particular tactics that really make a difference, but there are a few key criteria that almost all revenue-boosting technologies have in common: they streamline the customer experience, provide a mechanism for differentiation, and help you offer a better customer experience. Face it, the world is going more digital and not all companies are ready to take advantage of that transition. Video chat is one of the great new technologies that can help improve the way your business operates today, and it can help differentiate your dealership from the dozens of others that your customer might visit. Here are some of the key reasons why.
Your customer hates the current buying process
Do you think people enjoy coming to your dealership? It might surprise you but for the most part, your customers actually hate it, primarily because of the current buying process. In fact, 72% of buyers would actually visit dealerships more often if the buying process were improved. To convince your customers that you have improved that process, it’s essential that you provide methods of differentiating your dealership prior to them showing up on the lot in the first place.
Services like video chat can be integrated into your website or app to provide cutting edge service that can be used by customers before ever walking on the lot. It not only improves the level of customer care that you are able to offer throughout your interaction, but you can also implement video chat more easily than ever before. Video chat companies like Agora.io have made it far easier for you to implement HD video chat with customers with varying connection speeds, for fast, rock solid service.
Video chat provides a method of differentiation
When it comes to acquiring new customers, differentiating your dealership is the key, particularly in markets with a lot of competition. When you are increasingly working with a larger geographic base of customers, your customers will want to see businesses competing on price and available services as well. More importantly, only 43% of buyers purchase the make or model of car they initially considered, and with 80% of new vehicle buyers using the Internet to assist with their search, solidifying your points of differentiation on your website is key.
Video chat is an interesting method of differentiation in that manner because it can be used with your potential customers from the moment that they arrive on your site. Since video chat is still underutilized in the auto industry today, having it available on your website will immediately solidify your stance as a customer oriented, technology focused dealership in their eyes.
Video chat can revolutionize the entire customer experience, from sales to support
You can keep video chat within the sales process at your dealership, but it can add value to your customers anywhere from pre-sale support through to fulfilling ongoing service requests. You can use video chat to clearly communicate to your customers, including scheduling interactive walkthroughs of cars on your lot, allowing your customer to have their questions answered during the walkthrough, and create a more interactive experience for them before they set foot on the dealership.
Similarly, you can use video chat to discuss service options and answer questions about the service process at your dealership, giving your customers a window into the service bay and access to expert advice as to what they can do to keep their car running smoothly.
Video chat is an addition that allows your dealership to really differentiate itself from your competition and provide a distinct value proposition to your customers as well. Using a video chat service like Agora.io not only allows you to implement video chat more easily, but it also allows you to offer crystal clear HD quality that can run on a variety of connection speeds. Have you thought about implementing a video chat system in your dealership? What questions do you have about the process? Sound off in the comments.
4 Comments
TrouDigital Signage
Great post. At TrouDigital we couldn't agree more that dealerships need to embrace technology. Your post inspired us to share our two cents on the modern showroom.
1TeamSynergy
Creating P2P [Person2Person] exceptional customer experience relationships that become mutually loyal is the real paradigm shift customers WANT now. If Video Chat is simple, crystal clear, and synergistically leads to next positive step, positives await. What is simple? Device and browser independent, no downloads or plug-ins. Skype, Facetime, Hangout, etc. all require everyone to belong, downloading their program. Most of us know 'crystal clear' is a sometime, not all the time happenstance with these limited Video Chat stand-alone products that naturally then limits next step seamlessness.
For 41/2 years I've been using & teaching Talk Fusion, the world's only all-in-one video solution. Talk Fusion was just awarded The WebRTC [Real-Time Communication] Video Chat Product of the Year award for 2016 for their invention that is device and browser independent with crystal clear quality you've not experienced prior, that seamlessly and synergistically transforms relationship and experiences to real P2P loyalty, as you can easily move from your Video Chat Room to a Live Meeting to video validate via desktop sharing, sharing browser and file sharing, to smartphone for vehicle/service walkaround/inspections, to any/every video validating experience that can be recorded and archived for everyone, Video Email, Video Newsletters, unlimited video hosting, Contact management system, Video Blog, all fully branding the Personal Brand [YOU] of Business and the Business, with all your contact information, and perhaps even completing a transaction using video to validate persons and facts!
For all Talk Fusion Video products combined my subscription is $50 a month, as will yours. But first, try ALL products FREE for 30 days with no obligation and no credit card, just your name and email. Once you try, you'll subscribe too! www.TryFreeNow.com. During your trial we'll also provide FREE best example habit use learning for every possible defining relationship branding moment of every customer experience! Our aim is to earn each Personal Brand of Business a minimum 10 over-the-moon customers that Video share YOU with everyone they know and bring friends to you in just 30 days, if you start with the commitment to achieve it!
I recommend everyone QUIT focusing on 'increasing SALES' and place all focus on the "CAUSE" of sales --- earning trust, earning loyalty exceeding customer experience expectations video validating them and facts all the time. Exceeding Customer Experience Expectations will then "CAUSE" your expectations to be exceeded! Promise!
1 Comment
Martins Ville
Freelance 360 Photographer
The first five words in any email or vehicle description should sell your dealership or the car. I've witnessed so many dealerships continue to make the same mistakes decade after decade week after week day after day thinking that they can just Auto add pre-made key phrases that they think is impacting their business. It's not. I think we live in an age where the lay down customer is pretty much inevitable due to low new car inventory in the fact that a lot of people just have to get a car. What I really wish is that owners of dealerships and general managers held their sales managers responsible for everything. I was the digital marketing director for 20 years, and the only reason why these guys never wanted me to get into management, it's because I made them look so good, I made the managers 100 + $1,000 salaries every year and help the dealership pound and capture massive financial rewards from the manufacturers. I never got nothing. So when you send out your resume to the next car dealership you want to work for, it should be as follows: management position expected inside 3-years