Someone in the community recently asked about revitalizing their internet department/BDC (join the forum discussion here).

For inbound marketing, leads determine success. The assumption is that the higher the lead volume and percentage, the higher the sales and service volume. All too often, these do not go in step with each other. Below we identify ten statistics that are the main cause of increased lead quantity not equating to increases in appointment shows and sales.

1. Setting an appointment at the time the lead is converted will increase show rate 37 percent. – This seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? If the customer commits to the appointment at the time they submit the lead, there is a very powerful psychological affect.

Step 1: Lead Submitted

Step 2: Appointment Made

2. 37 percent of all automotive leads are never responded to. – WOW! That is a scary stat! When you consider that the real average cost of afirst-party lead is close to $100, for 37 percent to hit the floor is absolutely unacceptable. By “responded”, we simply mean that a call is placed from the dealership to a customer.

How to make sure all leads are responded to: Most CRM’s have a lead log of some type. Someone from your dealership should be reviewing that log making sure none of the leads are still open. To be sure that an actual call was placed, each BDC person or salesperson should have entered notes that an actual call was made. If you see a BDC person where more than 30 percent of their contacts result in a “Left voice mail” note, you likely have someone entering this as the default note when they couldn’t get to the lead.

If you really want to take this to the next level, have a proactive system that calls the BDC or salesperson with the lead information. If no contact is made, the system informs the manager immediately or, even better, the lead goes to an outsourced agency that will guarantee to make the call.

3. 86 percent of all automotive leads bought a car from the first dealership to contact them! – Wow, that’s a big number! When you think about this, it makes sense. If 37 percent of leads are never responded to and the number one reason a customer is online is to save time then, if you are the first to contact them with the answers they are seeking, it’s your deal to lose. Let’s face it, as car salespeople, we are at our best when we are with the customer.

4. You are 621 percent more likely to successfully contact a lead if called within five minutes of lead submission. – When we thought about why this happens this way it made perfect sense. According to ZMOT, while the customer may be shopping up to 18 different sources when researching the purchase of a car, the fact is they are doing it ten to twenty minutes at a time. Beyond that time, they are back into the everyday routine of their lives.

5. Contact success drops 100 times when leads are contacted between five to thirty minutes. – Bottom line: Thirty minutes is your cut off. If you don’t contact a lead within 30 minutes, you might as well wait until tomorrow. The results will be the same… BAD!

6. Appointment show rates rose 311 percent when the lead was contacted within five minutes of lead submission. – If you want customers to think you care about them and want their business, be responsive. Nothing says responsive like getting to a customer while they are still on your site.

7. The average number of contact attempts in automotive is 1.7! – There are so many ways to contact and follow up with a customer these days that there is no excuse for this statistic. The first contact doesn’t have to be a call but you should still be calling the customer if they haven’t come in and haven’t responded to digital communication.

8. Contact attempts beyond the second attempt drop off 540 percent but the closing ratio of a successful contact after the second contact attempt rises 222 percent. – This stat speaks for itself…. Never stop following up…EVER!

9. Sending an iCal or Outlook calendar invite for the appointment increased show rates 22 percent - This is a practice you need to get you BDC or Sales Staff in the habit of doing. Most people today manage their lives from their computer and smart phone. If you're not there, you don’t exist.

10. A personal call to confirm an appointment will increase show rates 36 percent. – This goes without saying. Why are we not doing it?

We have a lot going on in the dealership…maybe even more than a CRM system can even manage. To get the job done with inbound marketing, you need to be proactive, responsive and automated. I am afraid the current level of technology dealerships is still insufficient to make that happen. Business is suffering for many as a result and this will only get worse. Customer demand for efficiency will not stop.

Your thoughts?

Someone in the community recently asked about revitalizing their internet department/BDC (join the forum discussion here).

For inbound marketing, leads determine success. The assumption is that the higher the lead volume and percentage, the higher the sales and service volume. All too often, these do not go in step with each other. Below we identify ten statistics that are the main cause of increased lead quantity not equating to increases in appointment shows and sales.

1. Setting an appointment at the time the lead is converted will increase show rate 37 percent. – This seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? If the customer commits to the appointment at the time they submit the lead, there is a very powerful psychological affect.

Step 1: Lead Submitted

Step 2: Appointment Made

2. 37 percent of all automotive leads are never responded to. – WOW! That is a scary stat! When you consider that the real average cost of afirst-party lead is close to $100, for 37 percent to hit the floor is absolutely unacceptable. By “responded”, we simply mean that a call is placed from the dealership to a customer.

How to make sure all leads are responded to: Most CRM’s have a lead log of some type. Someone from your dealership should be reviewing that log making sure none of the leads are still open. To be sure that an actual call was placed, each BDC person or salesperson should have entered notes that an actual call was made. If you see a BDC person where more than 30 percent of their contacts result in a “Left voice mail” note, you likely have someone entering this as the default note when they couldn’t get to the lead.

If you really want to take this to the next level, have a proactive system that calls the BDC or salesperson with the lead information. If no contact is made, the system informs the manager immediately or, even better, the lead goes to an outsourced agency that will guarantee to make the call.

3. 86 percent of all automotive leads bought a car from the first dealership to contact them! – Wow, that’s a big number! When you think about this, it makes sense. If 37 percent of leads are never responded to and the number one reason a customer is online is to save time then, if you are the first to contact them with the answers they are seeking, it’s your deal to lose. Let’s face it, as car salespeople, we are at our best when we are with the customer.

4. You are 621 percent more likely to successfully contact a lead if called within five minutes of lead submission. – When we thought about why this happens this way it made perfect sense. According to ZMOT, while the customer may be shopping up to 18 different sources when researching the purchase of a car, the fact is they are doing it ten to twenty minutes at a time. Beyond that time, they are back into the everyday routine of their lives.

5. Contact success drops 100 times when leads are contacted between five to thirty minutes. – Bottom line: Thirty minutes is your cut off. If you don’t contact a lead within 30 minutes, you might as well wait until tomorrow. The results will be the same… BAD!

6. Appointment show rates rose 311 percent when the lead was contacted within five minutes of lead submission. – If you want customers to think you care about them and want their business, be responsive. Nothing says responsive like getting to a customer while they are still on your site.

7. The average number of contact attempts in automotive is 1.7! – There are so many ways to contact and follow up with a customer these days that there is no excuse for this statistic. The first contact doesn’t have to be a call but you should still be calling the customer if they haven’t come in and haven’t responded to digital communication.

8. Contact attempts beyond the second attempt drop off 540 percent but the closing ratio of a successful contact after the second contact attempt rises 222 percent. – This stat speaks for itself…. Never stop following up…EVER!

9. Sending an iCal or Outlook calendar invite for the appointment increased show rates 22 percent - This is a practice you need to get you BDC or Sales Staff in the habit of doing. Most people today manage their lives from their computer and smart phone. If you're not there, you don’t exist.

10. A personal call to confirm an appointment will increase show rates 36 percent. – This goes without saying. Why are we not doing it?

We have a lot going on in the dealership…maybe even more than a CRM system can even manage. To get the job done with inbound marketing, you need to be proactive, responsive and automated. I am afraid the current level of technology dealerships is still insufficient to make that happen. Business is suffering for many as a result and this will only get worse. Customer demand for efficiency will not stop.

Your thoughts?

Lead > Contact > Show > Sell (LCSS). That is the very definition of Automotive Inbound Marketing.

Have you ever noticed that the vendors in the automotive marketing space who are minimizing the importance of leads are also the same vendors that have never been able to generate them with any success?

Marketing is a conversation. The start of that conversation is a lead. If you’re relying on lot traffic alone, you are not maximizing your sales potential.

By not seeking those conversations prior to the customer coming onto your lot, there is no way to know their motivations for being there. If you don’t know their motivations, then you are simply along for the ride. It’s much easier to sell a vehicle when you have information prior to the customer arriving, wouldn’t you agree? 

The dealerships that understand the LCSS process are the ones who are selling more cars.

Ask yourself this question:

“In today’s connected world, how do you expect to compete if you are not going to get more leads, contact more potential customers and get more of them to show up at your dealership?”

If you come up with an answer to increasing sales that doesn’t include increasing shown appointments through contacting more customers from leads, please enlighten all of us in the comments of this blog post. I assure you that we want to know.  

For those who do not have another answer, I am going to break down each step and give you data and suggestions that I hope will help you see increases across each step of LCSS.

Leads – Lead Generation is actually quite simple, I wish I could tell you that it was magic (it isn’t) and that I was the only wizard who knew the spell (I’m not). Not unlike medieval alchemists, however, it’s science and that can seem like magic. So I am going to give you the secret formula on how to turn leads into gold.

Lead generation is a formula and a four part cognitive process that happens in the mind of your customer.

Four Part Process:

Headline – First and foremost, you must have a compelling headline. People don’t read the web. They scan it. You need to ensure that your headline is compelling and will attract your prospect. Not only do you need to be able to grab their attention but you must also make them want to read or see more.

Offer – Clear, Compelling and Credible. These are the three C’s that must be present in any offer you make to your potential customers. Clarity trumps persuasion. If your dealership is simply producing cute slogans or creating offers that require lengthy explanations, than you are already dead in the water. Customers do not have time for cute. They also do not have the time to spend figuring out exactly what your offer is. If they don’t understand it, they will simply move on to the next offer. THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER OFFER!

Call-To-Action – What do you want the customer to do? Knowing the answer to this question is overlooked far too often.

In most marketing, especially in the case of web marketing, the calls-to-action are generic and non-compelling. An example would be “Get More Information.” This is not a call-to-action. If the customer does click on it, you are not going to get a lead. You are simply moving the customer to the next page that has your submission form below the fold with NO CALL-TO-ACTION at all. A call-to-action has to make the visitor want to act. While a call-to-action like “Get More Information” may increase your VDP views, those have ZERO CAUSATION TO SALES! There certainly may be a correlation but there is no causation. If you want proof, take a look at the highest VDP views on your website. You will find that they correlate to the most popular vehicles you sell. The VDP view itself did not cause more sales, its popularity did.

A Reason – In the end, you must give your prospect a reason to give you their information. If there is no reason provided, don’t be surprised that you didn’t get a lead. The reason you give your customers to convert into a lead is the single most important part of lead generation. If you cannot unlock a reason for customers to give you their information, you will not be successful at generating leads.

The Formula

Your ultimate goal is quality lead generation. A quality lead, however, is not simply a lead that results in a laydown at the end of the buying cycle.

Quality Leads - Quality leads are those that include an accurate name, e-mail address, along with home and cell phone numbers. The accuracy of the information in the lead is what makes it quality, NOT the customer’s position in the buying cycle. Lead generation is the first step. Without good contact information, the remaining steps are useless.

Contact – The lead simply tees up the conversation. Contacting the customer by phone IS the conversation. Without a phone conversation, you will have very few shown appointments. There are some in our industry that believe a contact is defined by connecting via e-mail. Nothing could be further from the truth! The ONLY definition of contact is by phone.

“People buy from people not from websites or emails.”

Phone contact is where the conversation must take place. Purchasing a vehicle is still the second largest purchase most people will make in their lifetime. Purchasing a vehicle is very much related to personality and lifestyle decisions made by the consumer. Most consumers will require a connection to the person they make that purchase from. That will never happen through an email or on a webpage.

Response time is a very important factor when it comes to connecting with customers. Not for the reasons you think or have been told, however. Responding to the lead within five minutes doesn’t make the customer more receptive to you. While it may impress them, and it’s a great start, it’s not going to make the customer choose your dealership over your competition. What a five-minute response time will do is increase the chance that you will be able to contact the customer and that they are still receptive to your information and connection. Once you’ve passed the ten-minute mark, your customer is most likely back to their day-to-day routine of life.

ZMOT will tell you that a customer visits 18 different Internet sites before making a purchase decision. What it doesn’t tell you is that customers visit sites over a 50-day period during sessions lasting only 10-15 minutes at a time. They are not sitting down for two-hour research sessions about a vehicle.

With this in mind, your goal should be to connect to the customer while they are still focused on purchasing a vehicle. By contacting them within five minutes, the customer is more likely to give you their time and set an appointment. Time is the primary reason your customer is on the Internet. The more time you can save them, the more likely you’ll be to get an appointment. By focusing on getting an appointment rather than selling them a car, they’ll be more receptive to you’re the reason you give them to visit your store and, ultimately, set an appointment.

Shown Appointments – All too often, the only reason salespeople give a customer to come to the store is price-based. Salespeople are contacting customers and trying to sell a car, the dealership and themselves on the phone in the limited amount of time the consumer will give them. This is a very hard thing to accomplish. You are asking a customer to make a $40,000 decision over the phone. Most consumers won’t be comfortable doing this and that is why shown appointments hover in the 15-20% range. The ironic part is that some industry experts consider that statistic good. In order to achieve shown appointment rates of 50 percent or more, you need to give the customer a different reason to visit you than to make a $40,000 decision. The bottom line is that consumers want to be eased into the purchase. They are intimidated by this large purchase and, for the most part, won’t be willing to make it over the phone.

To increase shown appointments, salespeople should focus on the test drive and incentivizing customers to visit. You achieve this by making sure that there is no obligation, no pressure to buy and that you simply want to help them make the right decision and give them a gift for visiting. Incentives are the number one way to increase shown appointments. When your incentive is tied to the store visit, not the purchase, you will increase your shown appointments and those will translate into more sales.

Sell – Once the customer comes to the dealership, marketing has done its job. It is still up to the dealer to make a sale. Keep in mind, however, that if you are incentivizing your customer to visit your store, you must be prepared to deliver the incentive instantly while they are still at your store. If you cannot, it will do more harm than good. Ask yourself this question:

“When a customer fills out a form to get an incentive on your site for visiting your dealership what do you think they are expecting when they get to your showroom?”

They expect the incentive, of course.

How do you think they feel when you tell them “The check is in the mail”?

Now you have confirmed your insincerity to a customer who already doubted it.  They will leave feeling as if your incentive was just another hook to get them to come in.

When you do provide the incentive instantly and do so without any strings – not even a test drive – you evoke a sense of reciprocity with the customer. They will have more belief that you are being sincere in your effort. They will be more likely to listen to you and you will be more likely to get a sale.

Automotive Inbound Marketing is about providing value to your prospect in order to initiate a conversation on their terms. When they do reach out to you and initiate a conversation, make sure to provide value, make it easy and, most of all, save the prospect time. That is the number one reason that the customer is on the web to begin with and what they have the least of.

Lead > Contact > Show > Sell (LCSS). That is the very definition of Automotive Inbound Marketing.

Have you ever noticed that the vendors in the automotive marketing space who are minimizing the importance of leads are also the same vendors that have never been able to generate them with any success?

Marketing is a conversation. The start of that conversation is a lead. If you’re relying on lot traffic alone, you are not maximizing your sales potential.

By not seeking those conversations prior to the customer coming onto your lot, there is no way to know their motivations for being there. If you don’t know their motivations, then you are simply along for the ride. It’s much easier to sell a vehicle when you have information prior to the customer arriving, wouldn’t you agree? 

The dealerships that understand the LCSS process are the ones who are selling more cars.

Ask yourself this question:

“In today’s connected world, how do you expect to compete if you are not going to get more leads, contact more potential customers and get more of them to show up at your dealership?”

If you come up with an answer to increasing sales that doesn’t include increasing shown appointments through contacting more customers from leads, please enlighten all of us in the comments of this blog post. I assure you that we want to know.  

For those who do not have another answer, I am going to break down each step and give you data and suggestions that I hope will help you see increases across each step of LCSS.

Leads – Lead Generation is actually quite simple, I wish I could tell you that it was magic (it isn’t) and that I was the only wizard who knew the spell (I’m not). Not unlike medieval alchemists, however, it’s science and that can seem like magic. So I am going to give you the secret formula on how to turn leads into gold.

Lead generation is a formula and a four part cognitive process that happens in the mind of your customer.

Four Part Process:

Headline – First and foremost, you must have a compelling headline. People don’t read the web. They scan it. You need to ensure that your headline is compelling and will attract your prospect. Not only do you need to be able to grab their attention but you must also make them want to read or see more.

Offer – Clear, Compelling and Credible. These are the three C’s that must be present in any offer you make to your potential customers. Clarity trumps persuasion. If your dealership is simply producing cute slogans or creating offers that require lengthy explanations, than you are already dead in the water. Customers do not have time for cute. They also do not have the time to spend figuring out exactly what your offer is. If they don’t understand it, they will simply move on to the next offer. THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER OFFER!

Call-To-Action – What do you want the customer to do? Knowing the answer to this question is overlooked far too often.

In most marketing, especially in the case of web marketing, the calls-to-action are generic and non-compelling. An example would be “Get More Information.” This is not a call-to-action. If the customer does click on it, you are not going to get a lead. You are simply moving the customer to the next page that has your submission form below the fold with NO CALL-TO-ACTION at all. A call-to-action has to make the visitor want to act. While a call-to-action like “Get More Information” may increase your VDP views, those have ZERO CAUSATION TO SALES! There certainly may be a correlation but there is no causation. If you want proof, take a look at the highest VDP views on your website. You will find that they correlate to the most popular vehicles you sell. The VDP view itself did not cause more sales, its popularity did.

A Reason – In the end, you must give your prospect a reason to give you their information. If there is no reason provided, don’t be surprised that you didn’t get a lead. The reason you give your customers to convert into a lead is the single most important part of lead generation. If you cannot unlock a reason for customers to give you their information, you will not be successful at generating leads.

The Formula

Your ultimate goal is quality lead generation. A quality lead, however, is not simply a lead that results in a laydown at the end of the buying cycle.

Quality Leads - Quality leads are those that include an accurate name, e-mail address, along with home and cell phone numbers. The accuracy of the information in the lead is what makes it quality, NOT the customer’s position in the buying cycle. Lead generation is the first step. Without good contact information, the remaining steps are useless.

Contact – The lead simply tees up the conversation. Contacting the customer by phone IS the conversation. Without a phone conversation, you will have very few shown appointments. There are some in our industry that believe a contact is defined by connecting via e-mail. Nothing could be further from the truth! The ONLY definition of contact is by phone.

“People buy from people not from websites or emails.”

Phone contact is where the conversation must take place. Purchasing a vehicle is still the second largest purchase most people will make in their lifetime. Purchasing a vehicle is very much related to personality and lifestyle decisions made by the consumer. Most consumers will require a connection to the person they make that purchase from. That will never happen through an email or on a webpage.

Response time is a very important factor when it comes to connecting with customers. Not for the reasons you think or have been told, however. Responding to the lead within five minutes doesn’t make the customer more receptive to you. While it may impress them, and it’s a great start, it’s not going to make the customer choose your dealership over your competition. What a five-minute response time will do is increase the chance that you will be able to contact the customer and that they are still receptive to your information and connection. Once you’ve passed the ten-minute mark, your customer is most likely back to their day-to-day routine of life.

ZMOT will tell you that a customer visits 18 different Internet sites before making a purchase decision. What it doesn’t tell you is that customers visit sites over a 50-day period during sessions lasting only 10-15 minutes at a time. They are not sitting down for two-hour research sessions about a vehicle.

With this in mind, your goal should be to connect to the customer while they are still focused on purchasing a vehicle. By contacting them within five minutes, the customer is more likely to give you their time and set an appointment. Time is the primary reason your customer is on the Internet. The more time you can save them, the more likely you’ll be to get an appointment. By focusing on getting an appointment rather than selling them a car, they’ll be more receptive to you’re the reason you give them to visit your store and, ultimately, set an appointment.

Shown Appointments – All too often, the only reason salespeople give a customer to come to the store is price-based. Salespeople are contacting customers and trying to sell a car, the dealership and themselves on the phone in the limited amount of time the consumer will give them. This is a very hard thing to accomplish. You are asking a customer to make a $40,000 decision over the phone. Most consumers won’t be comfortable doing this and that is why shown appointments hover in the 15-20% range. The ironic part is that some industry experts consider that statistic good. In order to achieve shown appointment rates of 50 percent or more, you need to give the customer a different reason to visit you than to make a $40,000 decision. The bottom line is that consumers want to be eased into the purchase. They are intimidated by this large purchase and, for the most part, won’t be willing to make it over the phone.

To increase shown appointments, salespeople should focus on the test drive and incentivizing customers to visit. You achieve this by making sure that there is no obligation, no pressure to buy and that you simply want to help them make the right decision and give them a gift for visiting. Incentives are the number one way to increase shown appointments. When your incentive is tied to the store visit, not the purchase, you will increase your shown appointments and those will translate into more sales.

Sell – Once the customer comes to the dealership, marketing has done its job. It is still up to the dealer to make a sale. Keep in mind, however, that if you are incentivizing your customer to visit your store, you must be prepared to deliver the incentive instantly while they are still at your store. If you cannot, it will do more harm than good. Ask yourself this question:

“When a customer fills out a form to get an incentive on your site for visiting your dealership what do you think they are expecting when they get to your showroom?”

They expect the incentive, of course.

How do you think they feel when you tell them “The check is in the mail”?

Now you have confirmed your insincerity to a customer who already doubted it.  They will leave feeling as if your incentive was just another hook to get them to come in.

When you do provide the incentive instantly and do so without any strings – not even a test drive – you evoke a sense of reciprocity with the customer. They will have more belief that you are being sincere in your effort. They will be more likely to listen to you and you will be more likely to get a sale.

Automotive Inbound Marketing is about providing value to your prospect in order to initiate a conversation on their terms. When they do reach out to you and initiate a conversation, make sure to provide value, make it easy and, most of all, save the prospect time. That is the number one reason that the customer is on the web to begin with and what they have the least of.

The basic Law of Reciprocity states: To give and take mutually.

I have thought about this a lot over the last few months. We use this concept very effectively in conversion optimization by giving white papers, special offers etc. on landing pages. The idea is if the person gives something, you then give something of value in exchange. But think about it… you asked for the value FIRST. The visitor had to give you their name in order to get your value.

Isn’t that backward? Shouldn’t you give the value first then ask for the mutual value back?

Amazingly enough, this backward give and take works well; but recent events have made me start to wonder HOW WELL?

Earlier this year we launched ShowroomMagnet, our incentive based behavioral targeting engine for websites. We knew it would work well for conversion because these kind of popovers have always had a positive impact on conversion.  In addition, we’re making and offer and a single clear call to action (something too many websites lack).Not to mention we tested it, as we do EVERYTHING.

BUT there was a surprising side effect.  A few of our dealers started using this in a way we didn’t expect.

It started with Andy Wright at Lehigh Valley Honda, who by far was selling more cars from the program than most of the dealers.  I asked Andy, “What are you doing?” and the answer was so simple it was a little bit scary.

As customers came to the showroom with their gift card validation in hand (or smart phone as the case may be) Lehigh Valley Honda sales people would take them right to the desk and validate their gift card INSTANTLY. They would put it right on the customer’s  smart phone before they even took a test drive!

LeHigh “kept the promise” the website made. And they made it instant – as soon as the customer walked in the door.

There was no hook. There was no caveat.  They had promised a gift for visiting, the customer visited…so the dealership handed over the gift card. 

Here is the surprising part…

I thought when we started this we would see closing rates in the 30% to 40% range and that would be great!

Lehigh Valley Honda’s closing rate…. 68% over the last six months!

Bottom Line – WHEN YOU MAKE A PROMISE… KEEP IT! You’ll be amazed at the number of customers that will reciprocate… it goes back to The Law of Reciprocity.

Too often in our business we think we have to trick people… hook them into doing what we want them to do when really all they want us to do is keep the promise that we made.

Simple right?

So simple it’s a little bit scary!

The basic Law of Reciprocity states: To give and take mutually.

I have thought about this a lot over the last few months. We use this concept very effectively in conversion optimization by giving white papers, special offers etc. on landing pages. The idea is if the person gives something, you then give something of value in exchange. But think about it… you asked for the value FIRST. The visitor had to give you their name in order to get your value.

Isn’t that backward? Shouldn’t you give the value first then ask for the mutual value back?

Amazingly enough, this backward give and take works well; but recent events have made me start to wonder HOW WELL?

Earlier this year we launched ShowroomMagnet, our incentive based behavioral targeting engine for websites. We knew it would work well for conversion because these kind of popovers have always had a positive impact on conversion.  In addition, we’re making and offer and a single clear call to action (something too many websites lack).Not to mention we tested it, as we do EVERYTHING.

BUT there was a surprising side effect.  A few of our dealers started using this in a way we didn’t expect.

It started with Andy Wright at Lehigh Valley Honda, who by far was selling more cars from the program than most of the dealers.  I asked Andy, “What are you doing?” and the answer was so simple it was a little bit scary.

As customers came to the showroom with their gift card validation in hand (or smart phone as the case may be) Lehigh Valley Honda sales people would take them right to the desk and validate their gift card INSTANTLY. They would put it right on the customer’s  smart phone before they even took a test drive!

LeHigh “kept the promise” the website made. And they made it instant – as soon as the customer walked in the door.

There was no hook. There was no caveat.  They had promised a gift for visiting, the customer visited…so the dealership handed over the gift card. 

Here is the surprising part…

I thought when we started this we would see closing rates in the 30% to 40% range and that would be great!

Lehigh Valley Honda’s closing rate…. 68% over the last six months!

Bottom Line – WHEN YOU MAKE A PROMISE… KEEP IT! You’ll be amazed at the number of customers that will reciprocate… it goes back to The Law of Reciprocity.

Too often in our business we think we have to trick people… hook them into doing what we want them to do when really all they want us to do is keep the promise that we made.

Simple right?

So simple it’s a little bit scary!

_^"Why"?

This is the single most difficult concept for most marketers in automotive to understand.  “Why” is the reason AutoTrader and Cars.com run millions of dollars in ads on TV, then put only a fraction of that budget into real content that consumers go online to find “the expensive kind of marketing” as noted by Seth Godin in his book "All Marketers Are Liars" renamed "All Markerters Are Storytellers.”

“Why” is also the reason GM is failing at Facebook. They’re not asking “why” people even want to come to their social sites. They’re posting from within a bubble. “Why” is the reason people debate on Twitter whether they should use Adwords PPC or Facebook.  I absolutely love debates like these because they force people to think about "WHY” they believe what they believe... and “Why” is a much more important question than "WHAT". Ask the Merovingian, he knows.

Facebook or Adwords is not a choice; it's a question of message and intent...the “WHY”of it all.

What Ford and Scott Monty knows, that GM doesn't, is that people don't go to Facebook to find Ford or to find out "What’s going on at Ford"? The truth is, they don’t care!

People go on Facebook to keep up with friends and family and to discover things that are important to them, in other words, the "WHY” of what makes them visit a page. Ford and Scott Monty's team do a terrific job of producing content with that intent, the “Why” of it all, in mind.

People go on Google and other search engines to find things, that is their intent, their "WHY" and smart marketers buy keywords and write ads with that intent in mind. It’s a "WHY" question NOT a "WHAT" question...

It shouldn’t be "WHAT" are your goals from the platform?

But...

WHY are they there?

And more importantly, how can your message fit the visitor’s “why”?

The Merovingian would be proud!

I hope this post has helped you think more about why than what. I will be discussing “WHY” and bringing a lot of data on this subject in my Digital Dealer Session on Oct. 24^th In Las Vegas hope to see you there. 

_^"Why"?

This is the single most difficult concept for most marketers in automotive to understand.  “Why” is the reason AutoTrader and Cars.com run millions of dollars in ads on TV, then put only a fraction of that budget into real content that consumers go online to find “the expensive kind of marketing” as noted by Seth Godin in his book "All Marketers Are Liars" renamed "All Markerters Are Storytellers.”

“Why” is also the reason GM is failing at Facebook. They’re not asking “why” people even want to come to their social sites. They’re posting from within a bubble. “Why” is the reason people debate on Twitter whether they should use Adwords PPC or Facebook.  I absolutely love debates like these because they force people to think about "WHY” they believe what they believe... and “Why” is a much more important question than "WHAT". Ask the Merovingian, he knows.

Facebook or Adwords is not a choice; it's a question of message and intent...the “WHY”of it all.

What Ford and Scott Monty knows, that GM doesn't, is that people don't go to Facebook to find Ford or to find out "What’s going on at Ford"? The truth is, they don’t care!

People go on Facebook to keep up with friends and family and to discover things that are important to them, in other words, the "WHY” of what makes them visit a page. Ford and Scott Monty's team do a terrific job of producing content with that intent, the “Why” of it all, in mind.

People go on Google and other search engines to find things, that is their intent, their "WHY" and smart marketers buy keywords and write ads with that intent in mind. It’s a "WHY" question NOT a "WHAT" question...

It shouldn’t be "WHAT" are your goals from the platform?

But...

WHY are they there?

And more importantly, how can your message fit the visitor’s “why”?

The Merovingian would be proud!

I hope this post has helped you think more about why than what. I will be discussing “WHY” and bringing a lot of data on this subject in my Digital Dealer Session on Oct. 24^th In Las Vegas hope to see you there. 

ZMOT its everywhere seems like these days. With Google as the general session at Digital Dealer this year I thought I would talk about how we see the execution of ZMOT for dealers. Below are the slides from my presentation. I think these numbers will add up to a pattern if you look at the slides closely.

• There is not ONE ZMOT in Automotive there are TWO
•  
• People spend as much time consuming online media as they do off
•  
• Targeting is getting better & faster online, you can now target display like you target adwords
•  
• Offline marketing is just pushing consumers online so you have to be in both and understand where you are pushing them
•  
• It doesn’t matter how good you are at adwords or display, if your ad sucks you won’t get the click no matter how relevant you think your message is to the keyword
•  
• It doesn’t matter how good you are with your adwords or display and even your ad if your landing doesn’t match what you promised you won’t get the conversion
•  
• Remarketing is valuable if you use it right, if you just send the consumer back to the same page they didn’t like before it’s NOT
•  
• IT TAKES A COORDINATED STRATEGY ONLINE AND OFF TO WIN, NOT JUST AN INTEGRATED OR BUNDELED ONE

At the end of the day, I still see a lot of “Marketing Partners” who have a product, widget or new shiny object to sell not a coordinated service offering to help the dealer sell & service more cars.

ZMOT its everywhere seems like these days. With Google as the general session at Digital Dealer this year I thought I would talk about how we see the execution of ZMOT for dealers. Below are the slides from my presentation. I think these numbers will add up to a pattern if you look at the slides closely.

• There is not ONE ZMOT in Automotive there are TWO
•  
• People spend as much time consuming online media as they do off
•  
• Targeting is getting better & faster online, you can now target display like you target adwords
•  
• Offline marketing is just pushing consumers online so you have to be in both and understand where you are pushing them
•  
• It doesn’t matter how good you are at adwords or display, if your ad sucks you won’t get the click no matter how relevant you think your message is to the keyword
•  
• It doesn’t matter how good you are with your adwords or display and even your ad if your landing doesn’t match what you promised you won’t get the conversion
•  
• Remarketing is valuable if you use it right, if you just send the consumer back to the same page they didn’t like before it’s NOT
•  
• IT TAKES A COORDINATED STRATEGY ONLINE AND OFF TO WIN, NOT JUST AN INTEGRATED OR BUNDELED ONE

At the end of the day, I still see a lot of “Marketing Partners” who have a product, widget or new shiny object to sell not a coordinated service offering to help the dealer sell & service more cars.