Dealership owners always want their website to look sleek, flashy, and professional—but at the end of the day, the way your site looks isn’t really what’s important. What’s important is the way your site performs. Simply put, an effective website is one that gets you conversions—and for dealers, that means a website that gets buyers calling and making appointments.
How can you make sure your website is doing its job? How can you be certain that it’s functional, not just pretty to look at? Here are four simple tips to make your website a true conversion generator.

Include a Call to Action on Every Page

You can’t simply trust that people will do what you want them to do. You need to spell it out for them. You need to provide a written invitation.

End each page of your website with a strong call to action. Some tips:

– Always include strong verbs—discover, explore, etc.
– Only provide one option. Ask your buyers to call you or email you, but not both.
– Stress value and benefits. Make it clear what they get out of this—a low-pressure consultation with a knowledgeable sales pro, for instance.

Don’t Forget Your Contact Information

It’s wise to include your dealership’s name, address, and phone number on every page of your website. There are several reasons for this. For example, it helps improve local SEO rankings.
It also makes it easy for interested buyers to reach out to you—especially those who are viewing your site from a mobile device. If someone wants to make an appointment, it’s important that you provide them with an easy way to do so. Consistent contact information helps.

Consider Lead Generation Forms

Another way you can make your website work for you is to add a lead generation form. Allow viewers to sign up for email updates or even for a small discount code, in exchange for their name, email address, and phone number.
This, of course, puts the onus on your sales team to make follow-up calls and get those appointments set—but if they’re up to the task, lead gen forms can be useful.

Use the Get My Auto KISS Platform

Finally, keep an eye on the Get My Auto website—because within the next couple of months we’ll be releasing our website creating platform, geared specifically toward used car dealers. The platform—called KISS (Keep It Simple Sites)—makes it easy for you to build a dealership website that actually gets results. In fact, we offer responsive websites that are guaranteed to increase your conversions.
Get My Auto is a marketing company that works exclusively with independent used car dealerships. Our mission is to make you more efficient in selling cars. To learn more about the KISS platform, or any of our other dealer-centered marketing technologies, reach out to the Get My Auto team today.

One of the core functions of the independent auto sales rep is to follow up with leads. When you receive information from an interested buyer—via your website, a social media platform, or even a Craigslist post—it’s vital to make a follow-up call as quickly as possible. How you handle that follow-up call could ultimately make or break this sales opportunity.
In this post, we’ll outline 10 guidelines for making each sales follow-up call count.

How to Make Sales Follow-Up Calls More Effective

1. Pre-plan your calls. Even if you just spend a couple of minutes collecting your thoughts and mapping out some basic points, preparation is key. Don’t make follow-up calls that aren’t pre-planned.
2. Know your objective. Why are you calling this person? To collect information? To instill in them a sense of urgency in visiting your dealership? Always know your goal before making a call.
3. Be up-front. Start each phone conversation by stating the reason for your call. Let your lead know exactly why you’re ringing them up.
4. Gather information. Remember, you don’t sell cars over the phone—you sell appointments. And one of the best ways to get to an appointment is to be vigilant in collecting information—as much information as possible!
5. Remember, you’re not just selling cars. You’re selling your dealership. Always make sure you offer a couple of reasons for your lead to consider your brand over the competition.
6. If you leave a voice mail… make sure you keep it brief, but also emphasize a couple of key reasons why the person should call you back.
7. Be personal. Use the customer’s name throughout your call.
8. Don’t talk the whole time. Instead, ask questions and listen. Remember, a big reason for calling is to gather information. You can’t do that if you’re running your mouth the whole time, dominating the conversation.
9. Don’t leave people on hold. Even if you have to gather information on the fly, try not to leave anyone on hold for more than half a minute. The last thing you want is for a lead to hang up on you because you keep them waiting too long!
10. Always move the conversation toward an appointment. Nudge your lead toward coming down to the dealership to talk some more. Ask, “Can you come in now, or later?”

Learn to Ace Your Phone Follow-Ups

And here’s a bonus tip: When you use Get My Auto’s new BDC Genius program, you can learn exactly how to manage phone conversations in order to increase sales. We invite you to try this new offering today!
And, if you have any lingering concerns about how to capture leads and convert them into sales—whether by phone or otherwise—reach out to our automotive marketing pros directly. Contact Get My Auto now to learn more!

Should your dealership be focusing more on the sale of accessories? There’s certainly an argument to be made for it. Consider some of these figures, from a recent Auto Newsarticle:

– Auto accessories generate more than $40 billion each year.
– The profit margins for auto accessories average around 50 percent.
– Half of all vehicle buyers say they want to accessorize their new car as soon as they buy it.

There’s obviously plenty of reason to consider offering accessories to your buyers. The question is, how can you make your accessory sales efforts successful?

Which Accessories Sell the Most?

A good start is deciding on exactly which accessories you’re going to sell. There are plenty of options, and some are more popular than others. According to Auto News, the 10 bestselling auto accessories include:

1. Floor mats
2. Window tinting
3. Vehicle protection products
4. Factory exterior products—i.e. splash guards
5. Alarms and vehicle recovery products
6. Body side molding
7. Step bars
8. Factory interior products—i.e. cargo nets
9. Wheel accessories
10. Trailer hitches

If you’re looking to get into the vehicle accessories business, you might consider starting with some of the items on this list.

Effectively Selling Vehicle Accessories

The next step is to develop an accessories sales strategy. Some tips and best practices include:

– Get your whole team involved. You should have your auto sales people trying to upsell and cross-sell accessories, but more than that, you should have installation experts available to field any technical questions; their inclusion in the process can boost consumer confidence considerably.
– Incentivize your employees. An important addition to the last point: Your employees may need some incentives to learn about new accessories, and to do their part in promoting them. Again, everyone in your dealership should be included here—not just the people who work in sales.
– Emphasize the convenience of buying accessories on the front end. Some buyers may feel like it’s better to wait and buy accessories down the road. One thing you can do is drive home how much easier it is to just buy them now and have them installed at the dealership—minimizing cost and hassle down the road.
– Keep track of which accessories sell. Some of the accessories you offer your customers may sell better than others. Make sure you keep track of that information, which can help you hone in on the products you offer in the future.
– Place someone in charge of accessory sales. You may not have it in the budget to hire an accessories manager, but you can task someone on your sales team with being the accessories supervisor and point person.

Ultimately, accessories can help you expand your dealership’s profit center. To learn more about effective sales and marketing for your used car business, reach out to the experts at Get My Auto. We’re always here to talk with you about ways to move your sales needle!

In marketing, it’s always important to know your audience, and to be aware of the demographics you’re trying to reach. Ultimately, the goal for your dealership is to sell cars, which means you want to market to people who actually want to purchase an automobile, and preferably who live in your area. Marketing to someone who doesn’t drive, or to someone who lives halfway across the world, just doesn’t make much sense.

So when it comes to Facebook Ads, there’s something very important that you should do well before you actually build your first ad campaign. Specifically, you should create buyer personas, which are essentially detailed profiles that help you get a sense of who you’re marketing to.

Basic Demographics for Your Buyer Personas

First things first: Your buyer persona can and should include some foundational demographics such as age, sex, and geography. This information will come in handy as you try to narrow down the targeting of your Facebook ads.

A little bit less straightforward, but just as essential: Think through some of the reasons why your buyers want to get a new car, and why they might choose your dealership, in particular. Are they looking for prestige? For affordability? For a family-friendly atmosphere? For a special kind of vehicle they can’t find anywhere else? What are their values? What are their motivators? What are their pain points? What problems are they trying to solve, and how might your dealership be the solution?

All of this has its place within a buyer persona.

Tips for Creating a Buyer Persona

Now, a good buyer persona may involve a little speculation and guesswork—it may not be possible to truly know exactly why your buyers make their purchasing decisions, for example—but that doesn’t mean you can’t do some research to help inform your hypotheses. For example, you can look through your contact database to spot trends—maybe most of your customers come from a particular town, or a particular zip code. Maybe you tend to sell to more women than men. Also check with your sales team for any trends they may have spotted.

You might even take the step of conducting some interviews—calling past customers, asking for a few minutes of their time, and figuring out some of their motivators, likes, and dislikes from the time they spent at your dealership.

Once you’ve done some research, you’re ready to put together a buyer persona—which is basically a profile of your average customer. Your persona should include both demographic basics and also some of the psychological/behavioral factors we’d addressed here. Generally, the more detail the better.

Learn More About Buyer Personas

Buyer personas can help you be truly precise in your Facebook Ads targeting, which in turn helps you get the best results. To learn more about how to make good buyer personas, we encourage you to check out our book, The Ultimate Dealer Guide to Facebook Ads. Grab a copy today, and become a true Facebook marketing pro!

When you invest money in marketing your dealership—whether through Web design, PPC, SEO, social media, or email—you obviously want to see a return. The question is, how can you tell when your dealership marketing efforts are really paying off? Here are 10 metrics to consider as you seek to evaluate your digital marketing ROI.

Digital Marketing Metrics to Consider

1. Website traffic. Here’s the obvious one: If more people are coming to your dealership website, then your marketing efforts must be having some effect. You always want your website traffic to increase over time.
2. Web traffic source. As you evaluate your website traffic, pay special attention to where it’s coming from—organic versus paid referrers. This can shed some light on which marketing channels are giving you the best results.
3. Time on site. If your website visitors spend a few minutes on your site, it means you’re offering content that engages them. This is a key ranking signal—meaning it’s something Google’s algorithms use to determine your SEO placement.
4. Bounce rate. This is almost the opposite of time on site; bounce rate refers to the people who visit your dealership website and then immediately navigate away. Of course, you want to keep your bounce rate low.
5. Pages per session. This refers to the number of pages a visitor accesses in a single session at your website. Having a high rate of pages per session can sometimes mean that the user in question is looking at a lot of different content—for example, researching several different cars or reading multiple blog posts. As such, it’s generally a good thing!
6. VDP. Especially pay attention to the time spent on your Vehicle Detail Pages—an important way to surmise which of your vehicles are generating the most interest among buyers.
7. Click to call or chat. Are these buttons performing well? Are they driving engagement and conversions? If not, it may be because you haven’t made them prominent enough.
8. Form submissions. Are people filling out forms to request more information, sign up for your dealership email list, etc.? High form submission rates are always desirable.
9. Cost per lead. How much are you actually paying for each lead you generate? This is an important metric as you consider which of your marketing efforts are truly worthwhile.
10. Conversions. This is what it’s all about, ultimately—though how you define a conversion (sales? Appointments? Phone calls?) may vary from one dealership to the next.

Does Your Digital Marketing Get Results?

As you make an investment in marketing your dealership, it’s important to know that it’s all paying off—and if you’re worried that it isn’t, give us a call. The marketing professionals at Get My Auto are standing by to talk with you about ways to improve your marketing ROI. Contact us today to start the conversation!

Craigslist isn’t always thought of as a key marketing tool for used car dealerships, but in our view, it’s utterly essential. Aside from Facebook, there is no digital platform we recommend more readily than Craigslist. With that said, there are right and wrong ways to use Craigslist for moving inventory. In this post, we’ll offer 10 of our most essential Craigslist tips.

How Your Used Car Dealership Can Make the Most of Craigslist

1. It’s not just about the car. It’s also about your dealership. Each listing you post will need to emphasize the selling points of the vehicle in question—but you should also be sharing the selling points of the dealership itself. What are the customer service accolades you’ve received? What are the reasons to pick your dealership over all the others? Talk up your brand, not just your inventory.
2. Include your prices in the ad title… but only if they’re competitive. Ideally, you’ll have some really hot prices to include in your ads. If you’re not able to top competitors’ prices, though, then it may be best to just not mention pricing in the ad title.
3. Know who you’re marketing too. The selling points you mention and the language you use will vary from, say, the mom seeking a new minivan to the middle-aged man seeking a sports car. Customize your approach according to your audience.
4. Know your market. You may find that some days are better than other for posting new vehicle listings.
5. Include high quality photos. Make sure cars look nice! We recommend taking photos someplace beyond your showroom—ideally a scenic, grassy area in town.
6. Include a strong call to action in each listing. Don’t take for granted that people will pick up the phone to call you. Actually ask them to reach out with any questions they have, or to find out if the vehicle in question is still available.
7. Be ready for calls. Even if the vehicle someone calls about has just been sold, don’t let that lead off the line. Share other, similar vehicles you have in stock, or ask what they are interested in driving.
8. Track everything. Keep records of what seems to work for your dealership on Craigslist, and learn from past ads.
9. Don’t post too much. Remember to brush up on the Craigslist terms of use, and don’t do anything to get your account suspended!
10. Get professional help. If you’re ready to work with an experienced Craigslist marketing team, Get My Auto is always available.

Indeed, we are digital marketing professionals who work exclusively with used car dealerships. We’d love to show you how to use Craigslist most effectively, as part of an integrated digital marketing plan. To learn more, we encourage you to reach out to the Get My Auto team today.

The cost of a new vehicle is climbing—and in fact, it’s shattering previous records. For those in the market for a brand new, straight-from-the-factory car or truck, that’s really not the best news. For those who are looking for great value at a used car dealership, though, it’s not so bad—and for used car dealers, it’s downright great.

We’ve got the full scoop for you right here, along with some thoughts on what it all means for dealers.

New Vehicle Prices are Climbing

According to a new Dealer Marketing report, new vehicle prices hit a historic high point in December; in other words, it’s never cost more money to buy a brand new vehicle.

Dealer Marketing “estimates that the average transaction price of a new vehicle was $36,495 in December, which is a 3 percent increase compared to December of 2016 and a 13 percent increase compared to December of 2012.”

The article goes on to say: “The average down payment on a new car is also estimated to reach all-time high in December of $4,056. This is up $227 compared to December of 2016 and $105 from five years ago.”

Of course, new vehicle prices have been rising steadily over the past year or so—and there’s no reason to think they won’t continue to climb. For this reason, there are actually fewer buyers in the market, though those who are willing to buy new are happy to shell out quite a bit of money to do so.

For many consumers, though, these price points have become prohibitive—and therein lies the real opening for used car dealers.

An Opportunity for Used Car Dealers

As new vehicle prices rise, and buyers become increasingly sticker-shocked, used car dealers have a great opportunity to emphasize the value they offer. After all, used vehicles are typically a fraction of the original price, yet they offer the same reliability and the same bells and whistles.

The bottom line for the buyers is that, by buying from a reputable used car dealership, they can really maximize their bang for buck—either stretching their auto loan further or even avoiding loans altogether in favor of a cash transaction.

This doesn’t mean that used cars are going to sell themselves, though. Dealers must seize this chance to highlight their value over the new vehicle market—something that requires a comprehensive marketing plan.

Marketing Your Dealership

That’s where Get My Auto comes in.

We’re a marketing company that works exclusively with independent auto dealers—and we’re happy to help you market your inventory effectively.

Take hold of this opportunity to speak to buyers who are looking for great value. Promote your independent auto dealership effectively. Get help from the team at Get My Auto.

There is a common assumption among dealerships that the best way to reach more consumers is to lower prices—slashing those sticker costs in order to outflank the competition. It’s a race to the bottom, and in the past it may have worked well—but in today’s auto sales landscape, we’d argue that it’s counterproductive.

Why the Race to the Bottom Doesn’t Work

Certainly the consumers of today want to get maximum bang for their buck—but that doesn’t always mean lowering prices. Instead, dealerships should focus on improving and promoting their own unique value proposition—showing the customer that they will receive a great experience for their hard-earned dollar.

To be sure, if price is the only factor, dealerships will have a hard time competing with Craigslist and with other online discounts; your dealership will quickly lose sales shares, because you just can’t maintain your business while constantly competing with online prices.

Understanding the Sales Funnel

To really understand why the race-to-the-bottom sales mentality doesn’t work, it’s important to understand the buying process. You see, by the time a consumer reaches the bottom of the sales funnel, he or she has typically decided which make and model to buy. This decision has been reached on the basis of ample online research.

Once arriving at that decision point, the only thing left for the customer to consider is where he or she will buy the vehicle. Here, finding the lowest price point is certainly important—but there’s also the matter of overall value. Here’s where dealerships can shine—offering some unique benefit that no other seller can match.

Your dealership’s unique selling proposition could be a great F&I bundle. It could be an easy, no-hassle sales experience. It could be a trusted and affordable service center. It could be something else altogether.

What’s important is that you give the buyer a reason to purchase that vehicle from you, and from no one else—a reason to consider factors other than the bottom-line price. Because if price is all that matters, your dealership will have to constantly chip away at its own margins, or else have literally no way to compete.

Developing Your Value Proposition

Now, a word of caution is in order here: Your unique selling proposition needs to be something that’s a true win-win for you and your customers. Gimmicks or novelties aren’t going to be enough for you to earn business, especially not in the face of the ongoing price wars.

Something else: Your unique selling proposition should be included in all your dealership marketing—including even your own Craigslist ads. After all, Craigslist isn’t just a way for you to sell your inventory. It’s also a way for you to sell your dealership.

We’d love to help you with that, and our marketing professionals know just how to do it. Enlist Get My Auto to help develop and promote your dealership’s unique selling proposition—and get out of that race to the bottom! Contact us today.

Are you familiar with the Seven Car Club theory?

A recent Dealer Marketing article summarizes it pretty well. The idea is that, at every car dealership, there are basically three types of sales representatives. First, there are the overachievers—the people who really go all out to sell 10 vehicles or more each month. On the flipside, there are underachievers, who are either newbies or are simply burned out, and usually just sell a couple of cars monthly.

Then there are those in the middle—people who belong to the Seven Car Club. They sell, on average, just seven vehicles per month—but can never seem to break out of that pattern and do better.

Why the Seven Car Club Matters for Your Used Car Dealership

Now, obviously, having a dealership staffed by Seven Car Club members is preferable to having all underachievers! Even so, many dealerships wonder what they can do to push the seven Car Clubbers to the next level.

Realizing that you’re stuck in the Seven Car Club is the first step, and allows for a clean reset of sales expectations. With that said, how can you strive to move beyond the Seven Car Club at your dealership?

Make Your Dealership Better Than Average

There are a few ways to make that happen.

One thing your dealership can do to take its sales from good to great is to improve your response time. Notice that this doesn’t necessarily mean making your response time faster; rather, it means hitting the sweet spot. Studies confirm that the dealerships that close the most sales are the ones that respond to new leads within 16 to 30 minutes. Those that respond either faster or slower tend not to do as well.

Dealer Marketing finds, for example, that the fastest lead responders actually don’t do very well; though they may be quick, their responses can be poorly written or lacking in critical information.

That brings us to the next point—four crucial elements that every lead response needs. Including multiple vehicle options is recommended. Personalization is key, as well. Third-party references—such as reviews or awards—go a long way toward building trust. Finally, pushing phone calls over in-person visits helps ease the lead through the sales funnel.

A final consideration for dealerships looking to boost their sales: Appointment confirmation. As Dealer Marketing reveals, the sales teams with the best records don’t just set appointments, but actually go the extra mile to confirm them.

“Dealers with strong appointment-confirmation processes average more than 150 percent more appointments per month, which leads to more sales and lower flooring costs,” says the article.

Break Out of the Seven Car Club

These three simple tweaks may be just what it takes to help your sales team move forward—and get out of the Seven Car Club. To learn more about how you can boost your dealership sales numbers, reach out to Get My Auto today.

As a new year approaches, it’s only appropriate to take stock of the last several months—and to assess how the auto industry has fared throughout 2017. The last few years have seen new sales records set time and time again; will 2017 go down as another milestone year, or as a disappointment?

Assessing 2017: Was it a Good Year for Dealerships?

The National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) recently released its midyear report. Though we won’t know 2017’s final sales statistics for quite some time now, these preliminary numbers provide useful benchmarks.

Based on this data, it seems clear that 2017 will not be another record-breaking year for auto dealerships. That may be disappointing, but the news is ultimately very positive. While auto sales didn’t break records this year, they remained very robust. The overall health of the auto industry is quite strong, and many independent auto dealerships are reporting sustained growth.

Specific Findings from the NADA Report

Here are a few specific data points, as well as general observations and trends, from the NADA report.

– Last year’s sales numbers were so high, topping them was always going to be a challenge. This year’s sales numbers seem to be hovering right around last year’s, both for new and lightly-used vehicles.
– Light trucks and SUVs continue to surge in popularity—and for these categories, sales may actually top last year’s, by a little bit.
– Dealership employment and payroll numbers both rose in 2017—great signs for overall growth, and certainly positive developments for dealership employees!
– Dealerships have also benefited from an uptick in service and parts business; most dealership service centers reported some profit growth in 2017.

The report also lists some noteworthy trends that are state-specific; you can consult the full report to see if any of these trends impact your state.

Where Dealerships are Headed

While this news isn’t exactly earth-shattering, it is certainly very positive. The question is, what’s next for independent auto dealerships?

There’s obviously demand, but that alone won’t propel dealerships to new heights. In order to maintain these positive trends, dealerships will need to optimize their marketing efforts, ensuring that they’re both targeting new customers while also staying connected with previous buyers.

In the new year, we recommend dealerships take stock of their current marketing efforts—and consider making upgrades/additions in the following categories:

– Dealer website
– Local SEO
– PPC ads
– Targeted Facebook Ads placement
– Craigslist posting
– Video content

These represent just a few of the opportunities dealerships have for building on 2017’s strong numbers. To learn more about any of these marketing avenues, or to discuss specific ways your dealership can grow, consider reaching out to the Get My Auto team. Contact one of our marketing professionals now!