Dealers generally tell us they see a slow start at the beginning of the year when it comes to auto sales. Now is the perfect time for dealerships to adjust strategies and optimize their website to help generate auto sales leads for a successful year.

As consumers start to receive their tax refunds, those thinking about purchasing a vehicle will start their research soon, hopefully land on your website and become engaged.

Follow these 3 tips to help turn auto sales leads into customers.

1. Review your website ads

Most auto dealers offer incentives throughout their website, such as $2,500 cash allowance on new car purchases or zero percent financing. If you’re offering static deals but your competitor is offering similar deals, these ads may not be as attractive to the shopper.

To get better automotive leads, consider car dealer ads that are targeted toward the consumer and where they’re at in the buying phase. For example, you can use interactive software on your website to capture whether consumers are starting their research, narrowed down their vehicle options or if they’re ready to buy.

The details you capture from the software can help you determine what type of offer you want to serve up in each experience.

You can then make your offers more relevant and appealing to the buyer, and you can capture quality lead data helping you to create a buyer profile for each website visitor.

2. Make sure your dealership is mobile friendly

If you’ve ever landed on a website on your phone, you know just how frustrating it is when it’s not mobile responsive. Within a second, you’re already onto another website. Making sure you have a mobile friendly website will help keep potential buyers happy.

Your dealership’s website should include response designs. Be sure to check out how your website looks on phones and tablets, working with your website provider to make adjustments as necessary, whether that’s to CTAs, fonts or images or even the layout.

Data proves that people are using their phones now more than ever to start their vehicle research, compare dealership pricing and even make a purchase.

When a visitor comes to your website on their phone, interactive software that’s mobile friendly can also ask them how they prefer to be contacted. Some consumers only want to be contacted by text today, rather than by email or by a call, which helps the dealer tailor the buying experience to each shopper.

To personalize the experience even more, you can ask questions through interactive mobile software on your website that finds out that buyer’s next step, whether it’s to continue browsing on their own, arranging a deal, scheduling a test drive, or requesting to speak to someone at the dealership.

3. Nurture potential car buyers

You have a lot of potential buyers coming to your site. One segment might be looking for used vehicles, another might only be interested in new, while some are interested in specific inventory only. A visitor could be an existing lead in your system, while another is a new visitor or even a previous customer who purchased a vehicle from you in the past.

For each of those types of buyers, you can create a personalized experience with smart CTAs with interactive auto software that captures quality lead data.

For example, based on the data you capture, you may only show manufacturer promotions to only new car shoppers, instead of all visitors.

For visitors in the early stages of their buying journey, you may offer an email newsletter sign-up to help them in their car buying process. In the newsletter, your dealership could offer facts and figures such as safety ratings and new vehicle features, too.

An email newsletter allows you to begin building a relationship with the consumer, making you a trusted source of quality information and reinforces that your dealership cares about its customers.

By offering up more relevant CTAs, you’re giving the consumer a meaningful experience on your website, building their trust, engaging them in their online car shopping experience and hopefully turning that quality lead into a buyer.

About 2 weeks ago, I wrote a piece about the importance of boosting your dealership’s brand over 3rd party brands on your website. I laid out the reasons at a very high level, but the primary reason for focusing so heavily on your own brand is to ensure you stand out to consumers during their online shopping so you're not lost when it’s time to finally buy.

This week, I thought I’d go into a little more detail about how you can fully accentuate your brand on your dealership’s website. Here are 3 effective steps you can do to boost your dealership’s brand:

Integrate Your Brand Into Your Trade-In Tool

One of the first (and arguably easiest) things you can do is integrate your brand into your website’s trade-in tool. Although a number of trade-in tools offer a varied number of customization options, you might be able to work with your software provider to add branded elements to the trade-in experience. Depending on who your software provider is (I’ll try not to be too biased), you might be able to go the extra mile and add multimedia elements to the experience. Videos that explain the trade appraisal process and even unique questions that ask about specific preferences can distinguish your dealership from others.

Now, if you have the resources, another might consider simply building your own trade appraisal tool. With a fully customized trade appraisal integration, you would be able to customize the experience to your heart’s content. The more you customize your trade appraisal experience, the most engaged your consumers would be and they wouldn’t feel a need to go elsewhere.

Focus On Other Types of Interactive Media

Although the trade appraisal tool is the most common and quintessential of automotive website tools, there are other types of interactive experiences that you can throw on your website. One of the best ways you can really put your dealership's brand in the spotlight is to have consumers engage with your website in unique ways. Interactive experiences like assessments, quizzes, and games are all great ways for consumers to learn more about your brand, and in turn, capture valuable information from your consumers for follow-up with.

Aside from obviously being able to integrate your brand’s logos and slogans into those experiences, the experiences themselves are memorable and help consumers retain more information. If you’re thinking of dabbling with interactive experiences, reach out to a reliable website or software provider that can help you create the experiences you want. Simply put, these types of interactions create depth in the conversation between your website and website visitor. That depth allows you to say more in a more meaningful way during their interaction.

Brand Your Price

The last thing I’ll cover regarding boosting your dealership’s brand is the concept of branding your price — something I discussed in-depth in my January 14th blog post. In a nutshell, branding your price literally means appending your brand to a car’s listed price. Whether you’re a “one price” dealership or intend on allowing some room for negotiation, branding your price is a great idea.

By “branding your price,” you’re essentially taking responsibility for the what way your inventory is priced. To ensure there’s trust between you and your consumers regarding this final price, you can leverage videos and images that explain how such prices were calculated. You likely put a lot of work into pricing your inventory competitively. By building value in that price with your brand and explanation of what extent you went to calculating it, you can build trust with consumers.

Not only does this reduce the need for negotiation, but your dealership immediately becomes memorable and it keeps consumers on your website. This separates you from the competition and keeps you in the running for when its time to leave the computer and visit a dealership.

Every dealership is unique and has something special to offer its consumers. That being said, it’s important for your dealership to let folks know, not only that you exist, but that you’re worth looking into. How does your dealership boost its brand?

Last week, I joined in on an interesting forum discussion with DrivingSales’ own Adam Shiflett regarding the relevancy of leads. According to Shiflett, many dealers he had talked to have recently noticed a significant decline in lead volume and conversion rate.

One thing that Shiflett mentioned that was particularly interesting was that he had seen a steady increase in younger consumers visiting these dealership websites. In addition to seeing increased traffic from younger consumers, there was also a swift increase in mobile visits to their websites — which can be rightfully concluded as a direct correlation.

If we’ve learned anything from this, it’s that younger consumers aren’t as willing to relinquish their information as some older consumers — especially in a mobile format that isn’t particularly convenient to fill information out on.

As we continue to see a steady increase in newer, more tech-savvy car drivers, Adam Schiflett asks a bold but not completely logical question: Are lead forms (and leads) "going the way of the Dodo?"
 

When you’re seemingly doing everything right and you’re not seeing any results, then yeah, it sure might seem that way. But what if it just so happens that the definition of a “lead” is simply changing or evolving?

As I’ve mentioned time and time again, the industry standard for lead capture is evolving. However, there are still quite a few dealerships who rely heavily on static lead forms to create opportunities. While static lead forms captured lots of leads back in the day, consumer engagement technology has become far more effective at nabbing a consumer’s attention and getting them to convert.

Although part of the older generations (Generation X-ers & Baby Boomers, more specifically) might still prefer to interact with a salesperson vs. using online technology, the large majority of those younger generations that Shiflett refers to have historically preferred to do research on their own until they’re much closer to completing a transaction with the dealership. And let’s be honest with ourselves: this new generation of tech-savvy, smartphone toting drivers is only continuing to grow. These are just young kids anymore, they’re in their 30’s now and slowly taking over the consumer market.

Instead of filling out a lead form to request information from a salesperson, younger consumers prefer to seek out the information on their own. Before speaking with a live person that will no doubt act as a salesperson more than a resource, consumers like to make use of self-service tools on dealership websites that provide them with everything they need: calculators, assessments, shopping guides, utilities to configure shopping preferences, etc. Of course, the tricky part is determining the best way to capture their information after they’ve leveraged your tools or have gone through assessments.

In the majority of self-service website tools, a consumer needs to submitting their contact information while receiving any sort of additional information (ex: trade appraisal, assessment answers, e-guides, etc.). It’s really not all that surprising when you think about the fact that most of these consumers are use to using sites like Amazon, Yelp, Google, etc. They regularly carry out the complete consumer journey online in a way that is optimized to help them, help themselves.

It’s my belief that the dealer will remain a vital part of the consumer journey in the foreseeable future because it's a large purchase. The transaction itself for most people(not all) will likely still feel much more comfortable to complete at the physical showroom, face to face. It’s easy to make sense of collecting a name and email for the sake of the consumer but not so much when it comes to their phone number.

As this trend continues to become more prominent, it’s becoming clear that dealerships need to reevaluate what the heck a lead actually is. Is a lead just someone that fills out a form and provides their contact information; or is a lead an opportunity? Do all leads need to be responded by a live person? Maybe it’s that some leads need nurtured by your automated marketing tools while others justify the dedicated of your staff resources.

Instead of immediately enticing consumers to give up their contact information, why not warm them up to the idea of volunteering their information. In this self-service age, consumers feel a need to have complete control over every aspect of their purchasing journey before they even think of speaking with someone who could help them. Forcing information to be submitted can easily be hacked and even if it is accurate, it did nothing to get them to respond when you reach out.

Collect information about them beyond contact details. Build a profile on who they are, how they want to shop and the best way to earn their business. This consumer profile can be used in real-time on your site, by your CRM or a number of other powerful AND automated tools, instead of your staff.

This new generation of consumers doesn’t want to be swayed from their initial research and they don’t want their opinions changed by someone who really wants to sell them a car. It’s simply not in the consumer’s best interest, and they know that for a fact. Give your consumers whatever resources you feel might genuinely help them along their purchasing journey — and don’t immediately expect anything in return for that information… at least not for a whole lot.

Enhanced calculators, assessments and shopping guides are all great examples of resources that consumers find extremely useful and that don’t necessarily require that they submit specific contact information (like phone number). The more free resources you provide, the more it incentivizes consumers to actually speak with someone from your dealership directly. One great way to do this is by providing your consumers with choices. After a consumer has done some research on your website, they might feel more confident about moving forward (or down) the purchasing the funnel.

So, let’s say a consumer has determined that after a month or so of research, they’re finally ready to speak with a representative. While doing a bit more research, a consumer fills out a “what car is best for your lifestyle?” assessment and they’re provided contact preference choices. One is a checkbox that says “Are you ready to speak with a dealer representative?” Another is a drop-down that allows consumers to indicate how they want to be contacted. Once again, this is something that give consumers the feeling of complete control. It gives me a say into how they want to conduct research during every step of the purchasing funnel. It doesn’t get more self-service than that!

In a nutshell, the moral of the story is that consumers nowadays don’t like having someone “helicopter” over them. Car shopping isn’t taking up 100% of a consumer’s time just as selling isn’t taking up 100% of your time. Consumers have nearly complete control over most of their purchases and a high standard of being able to do it themselves. This doesn’t mean we can’t still drive more leads and higher conversion rates. We may just want to think about taking a different approach.

Instead of only capturing leads by forcing consumers to talk to a salesperson, capture lead data while consumers help themselves on your website and then leverage that data with the automated systems you have in place. Nurture the customer, warming them up until they actually want to talk to someone at the dealership.

That being said, it’s NEVER a good idea to assume that consumer who has interacted with your dealership’s website is ready to speak with a salesperson. The absolute best way to figure that out is to ask them — and you can do this with your dealership’s website. Not only should you give them room to make decisions about what they want from a car or what they want from their financing, but let them decide when the best time is to talk to someone or make a purchase. There’s no need to rush the process — especially when buying a car can be such a long, drawn-out process. Sit back, observe their behavior, and when they’re ready to come to you, they’ll let you know — and they’ll be able to arm YOU with the information you need to help them out!
 

As soon as the majority of consumers realize that they need a new vehicle, they instantly become immersed in various types of research — most of it involving dealership inventory and financing. In the early part of their research, most consumers will find themselves on a 3rd party branded website like KBB, Edmunds or AutoTrader. Not only are they often looking for a particular type of vehicle, but they’re using that site’s calculators to estimate the value of their current vehicle.

Throughout the last year, I’ve been a HUGE advocate for dealerships possessing their own branded trade-in tools. Obviously, I’m still an advocate for leveraging every aspect of your dealership’s brand; but there’s no denying that consumers (in those early stages) are still visiting 3rd party brands for a lot of this information. These websites have been around for quite a long time and they’ve established the reputation of having valuable and reliable tools that can get consumers the information they’re looking for.

While it’s true that, in an ideal world, your dealership could (and should) provide this same information to a consumer; that’s just not how it works out all the time. Despite this, however, your dealership should hold its brand up on a pedestal above all the others. Even though many consumers are encountering famous, 3rd party brands first, they’re usually following up that website visit with a visit to your dealership’s website. Although a vehicle can be found relatively easily off those 3rd party sites, the majority of those consumers still choose to do business with actual dealerships. Why? Well, on top of the fact 3rd party brands don’t sell vehicles, they have access to services and offers that they wouldn’t otherwise get through a 3rd party brand. Additionally, the ability to physically visit your dealership gives consumers a sense of comfort, when making a large purchase.

When consumers visit your website after visiting 3rd party websites and leveraging their tools, they aren’t necessarily looking to interact with the same tools or content they just did. They’re much more interested in tools, data or specific content tied to your dealership brand and inventory. Independent 3rd party brands do provide a high level of value and let me be clear, I’m  not saying you shouldn’t work with them. My point is that their data can only be so relevant or accurate to what is actually going to transcribe with a transaction at the dealership. That's why there is still tremendous value to visiting the dealership's site. It’s also why what you provide visitors to interact with MUST be unique to your dealership and brand.

What can offer in unique brand values and perks, along with your ability to assist consumers throughout the whole process, are many times what are the deciding factors on where to purchase. Many times, even overriding just price as a driving factor on where to buy.

When it comes to learning how to generate new sales leads, your dealership’s brand is arguably the most important aspect of your marketing strategy. Unfortunately, there are still a number of dealerships who aren’t focused enough on their own brand; leading consumers to go to 3rd party websites in order to complete a transaction. This is obviously something that we don’t want.

Here are 2 major things that your dealership needs to QUIT doing going forward:

Quit Intentionally Sending People Off Your Website

One of the biggest issues I've seen, and continue to see, are dealerships who send their consumers off their site to 3rd party branded websites. It might seem like I'm making this up, but I assure you that I'm not.

The reason many dealerships do this is that they think they're providing consumers with a resource. I mean, technically they're correct. They're providing consumers with a place to find more valuable information. The problem is it isn't on the dealership's website. It’s like sending them back out where they can find competitors and be marketed to by someone else after working so hard for their visit to your website.

It’s enough that many of the 3rd party branded tools dealers use are over-branded and cookie cutter. To actually deliver them off your domain, back into competitor territory, just does not make sense.

Take note that it doesn’t make sense for the consumer either. They’ve likely already been where you're sending them and have interacted with 3rd party tools or content already. They came to your site to learn about you or receive something that validates what they learned elsewhere.

Instead of sending these valuable consumers to a 3rd party website to learn more about a particular vehicle, fill out a credit application or appraise their vehicle, put all those resources on your own website. There's absolutely no reason why your website can't be just as credible and trustworthy as more well-known brands.

Quit Prioritizing 3rd party Brands Over your Own

Another issue plaguing dealerships is that they're completely unwilling to relinquish 3rd party tools and branding from their own website. Once again, I implore you to STOP!

There isn't anything wrong with these 3rd party trade-in and evaluation tools. However, like I mentioned before, most of your consumer base visits these 3rd party websites during the beginning of their research. If they've already gone  through the process of assessing their trade and going through additional experiences on that 3rd party website, what makes you think that they'll leverage the same exact tools on your dealership's website? They know the results won't change, so why would they go through it again? There's no point in putting a KBB or BlackBook tool if you know several of your consumers have already used those tools.

Instead of integrating these 3rd party trade in tools on your website, focus on integrating other types of experiences onto your website. Create a 1st party trade or retail reporting tool. It can still provide a 3rd party brand placed in the bottom corner that validates the source of information is legitimate. However, your brand should be the shining all-star at the top.

Custom build assessments and quizzes are a great way to engage with prospective customers while capturing valuable lead data. Instead of using another brand's logos and templates, custom assessments and quizzes allow your dealership the opportunity to put your brand on display. You can ask unique questions and offer experiences that many of the quintessential 3rd party tools don't have. Additionally, you can add branding elements to your price and your financing that make it uniquely yours. Think of these interactions as ‘self-service’ interactions that can also generate leads. Not obstacles that force website visitors to talk with salespeople. Not only does this add credibility to your dealership, but your dealership becomes distinguishable almost immediately.

The average consumer doesn’t understand the complex dynamics of the automotive industry. In fact, they probably don’t even care enough to learn about it. But these very dynamics are what greatly affect the availability, price and depreciation of vehicles.

Even though many consumers don’t understand these certain complexities, and claim to not care about them, they’re things that consumers care about a LOT.

Think about it. Let’s say a consumer visits your dealership and asks for a lower price on a vehicle. The dealer asks the consumer “Why?” and then the consumer doesn’t have a proper answer for them.

If that consumer happened to understand the complexities of calculating such a price, not only wouldn’t they feel the need to negotiate, but they’d feel more comfortable with the price as it’s likely the best possible calculation.

Back in the day (let’s say 10 or 15 years ago), it was almost to the dealer’s benefit to NOT have to explain the process of pricing to a consumer.

A consumer would visit a dealership, browse the selection at said dealership and take things at face value. If they didn’t like what they saw or researched, they’d leave or try to haggle. If haggling didn’t work (because of a lack of industry knowledge), then again, they’d take their business elsewhere.

Nowadays, however, consumers aren’t okay with being complacent and accepting things as they are. If they can’t get the information they’re looking for, or can’t get the deal they want, that relationship is over. In this tech-savvy age of smart-phones and micro-moments, consumers prefer to self-educate.

Before they make any purchasing decisions or even step foot into your showroom, consumers visit different dealership websites to look at inventory, pricing, financing options, trade appraisals, etc. Additionally, consumers like to take assessments (Ex: what vehicle or financing option is best for me?) and they prefer to read reviews of vehicles and dealerships before committing to anything. After all, purchasing a vehicle is a big decision.

Long story short: You can’t trick people anymore. Now, I’m not saying that your dealership has been tricking people intentionally -- but there’s no such thing as hiding information from car buyers anymore. To alleviate a lot of the conversational friction that stems from a consumer’s lack of education or independence, your dealership needs to provide resources that help improve self-efficiency.

What better way to provide those resources than to publish them on your dealership’s website? It’s your most powerful marketing platform! One of the most important things your dealership should do is educate car buyers about their vehicle of interest and your appraisal process.

Using images and video and other automotive solutions like assessments and calculators, your dealership can explain, at a high level, what the current process is for calculating best prices and determining fair vehicle appraisals. Images, video and interactive experiences have not only help consumers to stay actively engaged on your website, but it helps them retain information as well. Something as simple as a short, 1-minute video next to a specific inventory listing to explain went into calculating a specific price, provides them with the confidence to move further down the purchasing funnel.

In my last piece for DrivingSales, I mentioned that importance of branding your price in order to take responsibility for the information you’re providing to consumers. Educating your consumers about aspects of your dealership is really no different. If anything, the concept of branding your price was just one component of many regarding consumer education.

By taking the time to educate your customers, you decrease their need to ask numerous questions and haggle. If consumers have copious amount of information at their disposal, they won’t even have to speak to a sales rep until they’re basically ready to step into your showroom for a test drive. Even though the ultimate goal is for your sales reps to develop a strong relationship with their consumers, technology has made consumers desire a more independent research experience.

As much as dealers would like to resist the temptation to replace all of their old fashioned marketing and sales tactics online, now is not the time. Consumers will need your help at some point during the car-buying journey — but in early stages, it’s best to leave the information out and let them seek it out themselves. As soon as they find what they’re looking for, I almost guarantee that they’ll be back.

If you’ve been reading my pieces for the last few months, you’ve probably noticed how passionate I am about branding. By branding every aspect of your dealership’s marketing, it makes the consumer’s experience on your website far more engaging and memorable.

In the past, I've discussed the significance of branding your website, your trade appraisal tools, your assessments, etc. That being said, there’s one thing I haven’t touched on with DrivingSales and that’s the concept of “branding your price."

Over the last few years, dealerships have eagerly pushed a “best price” model because it’s well known that consumers don’t like to negotiate. The theory was (and still is) that if you offer consumers the “best possible price” on a vehicle, it’s basically like shouting from the rooftops “we’re the best and you won’t get a better deal anywhere else."

The problem with the “best price” model is that despite consumers not wanting to negotiate, they still expect it — and if they don’t have the opportunity to negotiate, they become highly skeptical of whether or not your “best price” really is the best price. If they don’t get to negotiate, they feel conned….. even though you & I know you’re being totally transparent and honest with your consumers! So, what do you do? Simple. BRAND YOUR PRICE!

What Does Branding Your Price Even Mean?

Branding your price is exactly what you think it means. Basically, you take your “best price” model and you quite literally add your brand to it.

Let’s say your dealership is called “ABC Motors.” You could name your “best price” as “ABC Motors True Price” or “True Deal.” Essentially, the point of placing your brand onto this price is that you’re claiming responsibility of the legitimacy and accuracy of this fair deal. You wouldn't want your name associated with something deceiving, would you? Of course not. By branding your “best price,” your consumers are able to hold you accountable. And guess what? If their experience is a positive one, that helps boost customer loyalty going forward.

Along with becoming a more “pronounced” and distinguishable brand, there are lots of great marketing opportunities and benefits that come with branding your price. Here’s why branded pricing is such a good idea:

Provides an Opportunity to Educate the Consumer

One really cool aspect branding your price is that it opens up the opportunity to educate your consumers. If you’re going to proudly claim this best price as your own, then you might as well explain why. Take the time to tell car buyers how you managed to calculate that price in a creative way. Instead of writing up some longwinded explanation, create an image or a video that explains it. What’s particularly cool about educating your consumer on the pricing is that it makes car buyers want to learn more about your dealership; which helps increase the number of automotive leads your salesmen can work with.

You’d be so surprised how many free, easy-to-use tools are out there to make this possible. Adobe Spark is an awesome, easy-to-use platform that allows you to create videos and images for your website and your social media channels.

Offers a Competitive Edge

In addition to explaining how you managed to come up with your “best price,” you can use the “branded price” as an opportunity to make your actual dealership shine. In a short video or simple image, explain why buying from your dealership or auto group is a good idea.

Explain that this “best price” not only gets you an awesome set of wheels, but it gets you free or discounted services, coupons to auto shops in the area, a great customer experience — really anything that you think would be an advantage to visiting your dealership as opposed to another. You’re basically telling car buyers that this is the best price because you’re the best dealership.

There’s no question that competition in the automotive industry is fierce. By branding every aspect of your marketing possible (yes, even your price), you stand a greater chance of being remembered in a positive way.

Has your dealership tried branding its price? Tell us about it in the comments!

For most dealerships nowadays, website strategy is a HUGE component of their overall business goals. Your website is now the ultimate vessel for capturing sales. 

While focusing on your website's lead capture efforts is certainly beneficial, the problem with this type of thinking (or mindset) is that you lock yourself onto one very specific goal: capture as many high-quality leads as possible. Again, this isn't a bad thing -- but is that your REAL ultimate goal? No! Your dealership's ultimate marketing goal is to get more consumers to visit your dealership in order to initiate a personal conversation(sell more vehicles).

Conversations are important because they allow both the dealer and the consumer to get to know one another. Both parties have information that they're looking for, as well as a goal that needs to be fulfilled. Consumers want to learn more about how to buy a car and dealerships want to know more about their consumers so that they see more auto sales in the future.

Starting that initial discussion can be challenging because different consumers will always be at different stages of the consumer journey. You don't want to come off as too strong, but you don't want to ignore them either. One way to alleviate this pain point is to focus more on the conversations consumers are having with your website VS just the number of leads you're capturing. Allow me to explain....

I've said it over and over again, and I don't think I can ever stress this enough -- consumers can and should have conversations with your website. Like Amazon and Google, it should be a 2-way participatory experience the whole way through.

You don't need to call, email or physically visit someone in order to initiate a discussion. It's all in the tools and resources. When a consumer is on your dealership's website, it's clear that they're on the hunt for something, have questions or need help thinking through their options.

One great way to initiate a conversation is to supply consumers with a guide to help with the options (but not too many, of course) and resources that allow consumers to make important buying decisions. Provide them the opportunity to see suggested inquiries or recommend the next best step suitable for them through an interactive assessment. As soon as they complete those interactions, you can have your website suggest additional actions that suit their individual needs.

This can be done through the use of Dynamic Pathing and Smart CTA's. Depending on the information collected, your dealers can then develop a more personalized "plan of attack" and continue the "discussion" on the phone or ideally, in person. Your follow-up efforts should really be transitioning an already existing conversation between your website and a customer, to a live person in the dealership. This drastically reduces the friction, hesitation and even fear consumers have when considering a live conversation with someone at the dealership. 

For example, if a leads consumer profile dictates their the type of shopping experience they want and all the immediate details of their situation, that's essentially giving the dealership everything that would normally be discussed in the first conversation with a prospect. Now your first live conversation with a lead is more meaningful and effective because you've already really started the conversation online with your website. No one likes having to repeat themselves over and over as you explain your whole situation to each new dealer you talk with. 

Capturing lots and lots of leads is always exciting. There's nothing cooler than seeing all those names and phone numbers popping up in your CRM. But let's be honest for a moment: how valuable are those leads if all you have is a name and their phone number? It isn't very valuable at all. Not until some type of a real conversation takes place.

The reason why interactive experiences are so important is because they allow consumers to ease themselves into the discussion. They're essentially giving you (the dealership) permission to reach out, and they're expecting you to know all about them. Consumers have become savvier over the years and they're fully aware of the capabilities of technology in regards to information collection.

Consumers know damn well that their contact and preference information is a gift to dealers, and they're expecting great service in return. There's no reason to disappoint them. 

Your website is arguably the most important component of your dealership’s overall marketing and sales strategy. The reason I say this is because, outside of your physical dealership and showroom, your website is another place that car buyers visit in order to learn more about your inventory, pricing, financing, etc. If you think about it, the only real difference between your showroom and your website is that one is something you can physically go-to, and the other is online.

If your website isn’t able to provide its consumers with what their looking for — whether it’s a certain type of vehicle, financial information or something else — they’re going to view this as a negative experience and go to another dealership’s website. Another obstacle is that your online consumer likely has hundreds of dealerships within a reasonable driving distance. Unlike when someone takes the time to visit your dealership in person, there is very little investment to visiting you online. This makes it easier for consumers to quickly leave if it’s not EASY to find out what they want. In other words their attention span high and level of tolerance to have to search for what they want is extremely low.

Now, regardless of whether your website is impeccable or a complete mess, let’s call out a few of the most common pitfalls that MANY dealership websites succumb to in poor use of Calls-to-Action or CTAs.

• Overloading CTA’s
• Linking CTA’s to off the site or new tabs
• Using the same exact static form with multiple CTA’s
• Not optimizing for mobile and tablet

So what can dealerships do to improve their website’s Calls-to-Action? Use dealer website solutions and technology that is available and be SMART about your CTA’s. Did you know you can optimize your CTA’s to automatically determine the right call to action to display? That would solve loads of problems right? Instead of 12, you can display just few, relying on the consumer’s behavior and lead data to individually optimize their CTA’s.

Smart CTAs 

The key to the smart CTA’s strategy is trying to get the right message, in front of the right person at the right time. How do you figure that out you ask? This technology reads your website visitors onsite behavior and lead data to help determine the anwser automatically and then executes in real time. 

Onsite consumer behavior

• New or returning visitor
• How many pages have they visited?
• What pages are they on?
• Are they shopping new or used?
• How long have they been on the site?
• Are they a lead yet?

Lead data

• Where are they at in the shopping process
• What’s the next best step for them?
• Are they trading in? What vehicle? How much do they owe?
• What’s their credit score?
• What type of incentives are they most interested in?
• Have they bought from you before?
• How can you ensure you earn their business?

Sound familiar? It should. This list looks a lot like the same questions you would ask if the customer just walked into your showroom. You can enable your website to take the same strategy. Now that you know your CTA’s can change based on behavior and lead data, you and adjust that strategy as well. Leave the phone number on the back burner until you’ve captured some lead data that will help you provide a better experience.

Behavioral based CTAs are buttons or banners that generate based on consumer behavior and lead data captured on your dealership’s website. Depending on what experiences or actions a consumer completes on your website, certain buttons/banners will be displayed; linking them to pages that would logically be of the most interest to them. For example if you have a new visitor, non-lead customer. It might be smart to start with something less committing than a test drive or credit app strategy. Lets engage them with a trade-in calculator and shopping assessment. N

Like targeted and retargeted advertising, behavioral CTAs are becoming extremely popular with automotive dealers. With competition becoming fiercer and fiercer by the minute, dealers need to come up with even more intricate ways to keep consumers consistently engaged on their website, in order to keep them consistently interested. 

How would you use smart CTA's? Share your thoughts on what you could do with smart CTA's on your dealership website below. 

In my last blog post, I discussed how to generate car sales leads by encouraging their consumers to take action on their website through interactive experiences. There are 3 primary reasons why this is so important: 1) Your dealership wants to capture a lead. And there’s no shame in that. 2) You wanna be able to provide your consumers with something they want or need (say, a coupon, an appraisal or assessment). And the last reason -- 3) You want to learn more about what your consumers are interested in so that you’re able to better assist them in the showroom. 

Boosted consumer interactions will (hopefully) allow you to collect lots of useful information on prospective car buyers in order to build individual consumer profiles. Consumer profiles can provide your dealers with a general overview of specific car buyers. Not only will you generally learn about their shopping preferences (if you ask about them, naturally), but you’ll learn more about where they are in their shopping journey. These are generally what I refer to as “positive interactions” — interactions that lead to specific data being collected from an interested party. 

Unfortunately, not all of the data you collect will consist of “positive interactions.” Sometimes you’ll discover that you have quite a number of visitors on your dealership website (through programs like Google Analytics, etc.), but that they aren’t finishing experiences or they’re just leaving your website. Although you often can’t get specific individual consumer information out of those “negative interactions,” those actions taken on your website can still be incredibly useful to both your marketing and, in some cases, your follow-up efforts with other individuals or groups of prospective customers. 

Regardless of whether or not the interactions on your dealership’s website are positive or negative, there are ways you can collect that data and use it to your advantage for your marketing and follow-up efforts. Here’s how:

Leveraging Information from Positive Interactions

As I just mentioned, I often refer to “positive interactions” as completed actions on a dealership’s website — like when a consumer gets the results of their trade appraisal, or they filled out an assessment in order to receive a coupon. Ultimately, your goal as an internet manager (or even a general manager) is to get as many of these “positive interactions” as possible. The more consumers engage with your website, the more likely they are to relinquish their information.

Now, depending on the questions answered (or even the type of experience), the consumer profiles you receive might contain unique information that can be leveraged for any and all future online or even in-store interactions. In fact, even if those positive interactions are repeated, and a consumer is going through various experiences on your website (e-price, trade appraisal, assessment, etc.), you’ll likely receive even more information on them. Additionally, those completed experiences are also a good indicator that a consumer has shown considerable interest in your dealership. If you notice a lot of activity from specific consumers, and you continue to get useful information (purchase intent, vehicle interest, income level, etc.), don’t hesitate to follow-up as soon as you can. Once you know that a consumer is interested (and you have an idea of what they’re interested in), you can initiate a conversation that pushes them further down the purchasing funnel.  

Negative Interactions are Just As Advantageous 

Now you might be asking yourself “What about the negative interactions? What about the consumers that leave my site before completing an experience?” Believe it or not, negative interactions can be just as valuable as the positive interactions. Assuming your dealership’s website uses a web analytics service like Google Analytics, those negative interactions can still be tracked and analyzed. If you’re not getting very many positive interactions from a particular experience on your website, you can go into a program like Google Analytics and examine the activity on a particular page or section of the website. Metrics like bounce rate, page acquisition and behavior flow, can provide insight into what the majority of your consumers are interested in.

If you find, in the behavior flow section, that consumers are dropping off at a section that asks for their e-mail, you might consider adding something more interesting to the experience; or eliminating a section of the experience. It mainly depends on how the consumer got to that point in the first place. Once you have this information, you can work with your provider or website designer to alter the experience to better suit consumer needs.

Depending on how it’s constructed and what experiences you’ve provided to consumers, your dealership website can be the ultimate treasure trove of consumer lead information for your dealership. The more information you have to work with, the easier it’ll be to plan out future marketing strategies and follow-up plans. 

Have you taken the time to observe the positive and negative interactions on your dealership’s website? What was it like?

Getting your consumers to do something can be challenging. As humans, we need a specific reason to do just about anything. The same can be said for your consumers. Unless they see some sort of benefit or reason, what’s the point? This can be particularly challenging when you’re attempting to get your consumers to take action. I’d go as far as saying that there are few things more difficult than trying to convince a consumer to offer their contact information. Here’s how to encourage your consumers to take certain actions on your lead capture platform.

Allow Consumers to Evaluate & Assess Their Situation


Although many car buyers have a fairly solid idea of what they want, it’s very rare that they’ll casually waltz into a dealership and buy a car right on the spot. Car purchasing is a process that generally consists of several steps or stages that consumers typically have to complete before reaching a concrete purchasing decision. Here’s a great example scenario: Let’s say you have someone who’s interested in a car. First, they’ll sift through your dealership’s inventory to determine what kind of vehicle they’d like to purchase (a truck, a sedan, a convertible, etc.). The next thing they’ll do is narrow down their search to specific car type, and then maybe they’ll look at particular brands (or vice versa). Once a few vehicles have been chosen, the next thing the car buyer wants to do is learn more about financing options; or perhaps, inquire about their trade-in. You get the idea. 

Whether you want to believe it or not, your dealership possesses a lot of power. There are a number of different ways to persuade car buyers into making important decisions that move them further down the purchasing funnel (from discovery to the actual purchase phase). And no, this doesn’t necessarily mean doing a ton of schmoozing or sweet-talking (not for those brand new customers anyways). There are a plethora of tools and car dealer software out there that you can integrate onto your dealership’s website that can help consumers to evaluate their situation, or allow them to learn more about the resources that might have access to.

Trade appraisal tools, or even a quiz that provides vehicle suggestions based on their situation allow consumers to finalize one step, so that they can move onto the next. If, for example, a consumer knows how much their trade-in is worth, they can determine other things — like what type of vehicle they should purchase (based on price) or whether or not they should apply for financing. When consumers have a solid idea of what they can and cannot do (or what they can/cannot afford), it opens up more options to them. The aforementioned tools help speed up the process. If your consumers can get answers to their questions and come to conclusions, they’ll be more inclined to relinquish their contact information. 

Incentivize Consumers with Instant Gratification 

I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it once again — everyone loves free stuff. Whether it’s a coupon for a free service, a discount, or money to put towards a new vehicle, consumers will jump through a few hoops if it means saving a few extra bucks. Heck, some folks will jump through a few hoops if it means the chance to win something really awesome.

Now, folks aren’t going to fill out a million different forms and provide you with their blood type or social security number (that’s a little crazy, no?); but many would be willing to provide their email or phone number. So long as they don’t have to spend too much time on a form, consumers will happily provide you with their information — that is, if they’re able to get something immediately in return.

This is why I’ve often said that “lead forms are dead.” Consumers don’t want to submit their information to a unknown realm; only to be called by one of your guys trying to set up a test-drive. Sure, your consumers might want to set up a test drive at some point; but the conversation (at that point) is one-sided. Consumer contact information is extremely valuable, no? Well then, you need to provide them something of equal value. Saving money, getting free services, and being provided with necessary resources is all extremely valuable to consumers. 

Once again, you can leverage your dealership’s website to provide these incentives to your consumers. There are many providers that can integrate “spin-to-win” or “instant win” games onto your website that make the experience both fun and valuable. Additionally, trade appraisal and e-price experiences can provide just as much value — arguably more since they’re providing more relevant information. 

Pique their Curiosity

It’s generally safe to assume that most consumers are very aware of the majority of issues with their home, appliances and modes of transportation. However, there might be a few here issues here and there that you might actually NOT be aware of. It’s very possible that the things you view as normal can actually be alleviated somehow, someway. For instance: your 7 person household might fit pretty comfortably into your mini van — but all that extra weight might impact gas mileage and efficiency. You’re paying tons of hard earned money on filling up your gas tank, and you really don’t know why. It’s just normal for you, and you’ve accepted it as what it is.

For some folks, paying extra for gas isn’t the worst thing ever (especially if they have a vehicle that’s solving one major problem — lots of people), but those dollars can add up. I can guarantee that if that consumer realized just how much extra they were spending on gas, they’d think of switching vehicles pretty fast. One way you can make these big reveals to consumers is by providing them with experiences that pique their curiosity. Some providers have simple quizzes and evaluations that they can easily integrate onto your dealership’s website. Using the scenario I used before, a great example of this would be an evaluation experience entitled “Does your current vehicle suit your needs?” With this experience, the consumer I discussed before could easily figure out if their vehicle isn’t efficient. Once they’ve figured out they have an issue, they can then be provided with practical suggestions and take a look at inventory on your website. They supply you with valuable lead information, and they gain useful insights. It’s a win-win.