Even though it’s obvious that I’m a huge advocate for interactive experiences, I can attest that it really is all the rage. Dealerships are lapping up interactive experiences like crazy because it allows consumers to easily interact with your dealership on a personal level. Everyday, consumers visit different dealership websites looking for all sorts of information: inventory, special offers, pricing, etc. That said, there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity for dealerships to leverage interactive content (or interactive experiences) to communicate with their consumers. And, yes -- I know what you’re probably thinking: “Customers won’t take the time to go all the way through that! I need a quick, static form!”

No. You do NOT jut need a static form. If you implement multi-stage conversion (meaning you collect information in different parts of the interactive experience), you won’t miss a single lead from a customer dropping off mid experience.

Whether you choose to go with a provider or develop your own tools, you can provide consumers with experiences that make it a treat to visit your dealership’s website – and maybe even improve your auto dealer digital marketing along the way. Here are some of the most common tools and services that you can turn into interactive experiences:

Trade Appraisals

One of the most popular dealership website tools is the “Trade Appraisal” tool. Most folks looking to purchase a vehicle want to give up what they already have, so finding a dealership that’ll provide the best price is ideal. Instead of having consumers fill out a static form, and providing consumers with a trade appraisal later on (via phone or e-mail), consumers would have the opportunity to get an immediate quote for their vehicle.

Along with their contact information, consumers would answer questions about their vehicle, and the tool would calculate the price based on weighted attributes (quality, brand, etc.). In addition to answering questions about your vehicle, your dealership can heighten the experience even further by asking questions about purchasing habits and intentions. Our own tool, Trade Appraisal Plus, offers dealers the opportunity to ask whatever questions they want, and it gives the consumer the impression that they’re “filling out a buyer profile” — which they actually are!

Instead of having a 3rd party branded tool, consumers want to know what your dealership is going to do about their trade. Providing a quote instead of a “instant cash offer” is more realistic to clients, and you can still capture that lead without having to make a low ball offer. Offer a quote online, and then build value into your process, brand and ‘why buy’ statement when they’re getting a quote from YOUR DEALERSHIP (dealer branded tool), and not a 3rd party tool like KBB.

E-Price

As you’re aware, E-Price offers upfront, the lowest possible vehicle price to consumers online for vehicles they’re researching. Because it saves an immediate trip to the dealership, it’s often the most ideal pricing option for consumers. E-Price has existed for quite some time now, but typically in a static form. Because so many consumers look for e-prices, it would practically be a crime to miss out on turning this tool into an interactive experience.

E-Price has long received the best click-through rate. You could always change it to "ABC Motors Pricing" and insert something more unique as well. Remember, with an interactive experience everything is customizable to your dealership. Unfortunately, there’s room for customers to interpret this CTA as “I can get a better price online”. With an interactive experience, however, you can clearly define exactly what “E-Price” is at your dealership. You can inform customers that the price already listed online is the BEST price, and the market based pricing strategy that was used behind it. Their interaction of interest around a specific vehicle and its price is the perfect time to take a website visitor through an interactive experience. It’s the best of both worlds, the best click-through rate without sacrificing lead quality or consumer experience.

Here’s an example of a plausible experience: Along with collecting contact information (in exchange for the e-price), consumers could answer other questions about their purchasing intentions and then learn about other vehicles in their inventory that match their buyer profile. 

Test Drive Scheduling

Another thing consumers often do on dealership websites is schedule test drives. This is, yet again, another wonderful opportunity to turn this simple static form into a full-on experience — for more reasons than one. Even more than the trade appraisal experience, your test drive scheduling experience should collect as much information from the consumer as humanly possible. Why? Well, when a consumer requests to schedule a test drive, they plan on coming to see you face-to-face. That said, customizing the questions you want to ask (in the experience) is crucial. That way, when you (the dealer), receive that information, you’re able to help the consumer in the dealership. You’ll be able to answer questions before they’re even asked… or before the consumer even thinks to ask them. And again, because you’re asking questions that make sense to your dealership, the consumer will feel more inclined to answer them because they feel more engaged.

Now, did you know how many customers click “Test Drive” but never actually schedule one? You may be surprised just how many opportunities you’re missing because customers are unsure of the process and whether its right for them. You can use interactive lead capture, put consumers in control and let them learn and select the test drive experience they want. You may be surprised just how much more often a customer will actually submit a test drive appointment, if they felt confident about what kind of a test drive experience they would have.

There are lots of ways to turn boring, everyday tools and static forms into interactive experiences. You just need to think about the type interaction you want to see between your dealership and the consumer. The three experiences mentioned before only just scratch the surface of what can be done with your dealership’s website. 

If you have any ideas for an interactive lead capture experience or question about your website, please share in the comments section below. 

There's absolutely no denying that competition between dealers (especially dealers in the same area) is fierce. Many dealers within a fairly short 10-mile radius sell a lot of the same inventory and offer a lot of very similar services and incentives. One thing that's particularly worth mentioning is that the market is only continuing to become more saturated -- with auto groups forever expanding, and entirely new options for consumers to purchase a new or used vehicle, sprouting up out of the woodwork.

As the industry has continued to become more saturated and competitve over the last few years, I've noticed a rather dynamic shift in the automotive digital landscape. Bit by bit, many dealership websites have begun to improve various aspects of their online presence. Dealerships are quickly learning how to get more auto leads through technology. And it makes total sense! It isn't enough to have stellar in-showroom customer service. More and more consumers, everyday, are doing the majority of their research online (for anything -- not just cars); and they already have a really good idea of what they want before stepping foot into the showroom. That said, many dealerships have realized this -- hence the shift.

I think we’re looking at a generation of dealers that are focused on building their own, dealer branded, websites that are customer to their specific dealership. The cookie-cutter, 3rd party branded everything, just isn’t what is working anymore. Consumers want in-depth, engaging tools and content on dealer websites. They want to know about YOUR brand, they’ve already stopped by all the 3rd party sites. It looks like the brightest of dealers out there are very much up to the challenge and are delivering in a big way.

Now, I'm gonna safely assume that 98% of successful dealerships in the United States have a website that allows consumers to look at the most up-to-date inventory, and perhaps, get quotes and sign up for a test drive. While this is definitely the sign of a dealership that understands the way consumers think, these type of cookie-cutter websites (often templated by larger companies) will only make it so far. And no, I'm not saying that you should drop your website provider... the website you have is FINE. The real shift (or change) I'm seeing is that dealerships are now adding more personalized touches to their websites -- and they're doing this as a means of standing out digitally from other dealerships, especially in a non-monetary way. Offering value beyond just price, being that dealers are much more competitive in their pricing between each other than in the past.

Again, many dealership websites are templated by 3rd parties with the purpose of showing off inventory. This means they're really only as vibrant or colorful as the template -- and maybe the inventory. To stand out digitally, dealers have taken to integrating nifty tools that are both sleek and downright useful. For example: many dealership websites are have begun to really customize their own lead generation tools and static forms. They’re swapping out 3rd brand logo images in favor of their own; adding videos and other rich media to make the form more vibrant, and of course, heavily customizing the questions in order to better engage with the consumer. These high personalized interactive lead capture forms are attention-grabbing, useful, and something many other dealerships haven’t adopted yet. They add resourceful color and animation to an otherwise boring and, what can also be, a very stressful experience. And in addition to the widgets and tools being added, dealership websites (in general) are just becoming sleeker, cleaner and more professional looking. 

In addition to modifying their own websites, dealerships are also doing other things to ensure that their digital presence is appealing to their target market. Dealerships are now putting in a tremendous amount of time and effort on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and in some instances, LinkedIn. Once an afterthought, many dealers have really began leveraging social media as a crucial tool for communicating with the local consumers; AND for answering inquiries on a very personal level. This is definitely a huge shift, as most dealers (n the past) have typically thought about customer service happening in the showroom itself. Dealers realize now that consumers are very busy; and if they can get their inquiries and questions answered with a simple message, they will. Another thing dealers are able to do with these platforms is answer questions before consumers even ask them — and that’s by posting useful information on new inventory, promotions and so on. 

Next week, I’ll go into more detail about the most common online implementations and upgrades are for dealerships, and why they’re important for dealership’s to stand out!

Welcome back, folks! Hope you’re all having an awesome week! Over the last 2 weeks, I discussed what Interactive Lead Capture was and why it was important (and useful) for dealerships to adopt. In the final installment of our 3-Part Interactive Lead Capture series, I’m gonna go over lead capture implementation. The implementation aspects of Interactive Lead Capture might seem daunting at first, but hopefully you’ll feel a little more at ease after I lay out a few of your dealership’s options. There are a few ways to go about it, so let’s get started!

Ask Yourself: Use a Provider or Go Your Own Way?

Once you’ve determined that you want to incorporate Interactive Lead Capture into your dealership’s marketing strategy, the first question you’ll need to ask yourself is this: “Do I use a provider or go off on my own?” It isn’t an easy question to answer, but when it comes to lead generation for car dealers, it’s one that absolutely needs to be answered. In order to determine what the best option is for your dealership, you need to carefully look at all of the viable options available to you, in the first place. Do you want more out of your leads besides vehicle information or purchase history? Is standard vehicle preference information all I need? Do I want to incorporate customized imagery into my forms (and questions)? And, of course, do I know someone who can build me a platform; and/or, can they make it cost effective? The answers to those questions (and more) will help your dealership decide on the best way to proceed. Weighing the pros and cons of each option will save your dealership lots of time.

Making The Platform Your Own

Whether you’ve decided to go with a provider or hire someone to develop your tool, in order to fully integrate interactive lead capture into your dealership’s strategy, you need to find ways of “making the platform your own.” Now, you don’t need to go ballistic and plaster your dealership’s logos everywhere (many kudos if you decide to do so, though); but certain aspects of your tool (and the overall experience) should reflect your dealership’s end-goals. Integration isn’t just about placing a tool on your website — it’s about ensuring it also “integrates” or plays well with your strategy. One of the coolest parts about most (if not all) interactive lead capture forms, is the ability to customize certain parts of the experience. Depending on what consumers you’re targeting, and the types of vehicles you’re selling, you’ll want to ask different types of questions and provide different drop-down options for consumers are essentially building out their buyer profiles. Additionally, you’ll want to provide relevant incentives like: their trade-in value, a test drive date, a discount, etc. 

So that about wraps up our 3-part series on Interactive Lead Capture. But if you think that’s everything you need to know about Interactive Lead Capture, you’re sorely mistaken. Over the last 10-12 years, lead capture platforms have evolved faster than one could have ever imagined. As the years pass and technology continues to improve, interactive lead generation platforms will only continue to evolve and become more customizable. I promise divulge further in future blog posts!

Hello, again! Welcome back! In my previous post, I defined Interactive Lead Capture and provided a great example of it. In Part II of this 3-part series on Interactive Lead Capture, I’m going to go over very specific reasons why Interactive Lead Capture works, and why it’s so incredibly beneficial… especially in this day and age. 

Before I move forward, let’s briefly go over last week’s post, shall we? To recap, Interactive Lead Capture is the process of collecting leads through an interactive platform that allows consumers to engage with your brand, and brands to engage with consumers. Consumers are often more inclined to relinquish certain information to these platforms because it often means they receive something in return — like a trade appraisal, trade-in offer or a piece of premium content. 

Anyway, back to why interactive lead capture works….

Although I briefly mentioned an exchange of information, I didn’t go into detail as to why this information was extremely important. The reason why this type of car dealership lead generation is useful is because you’re able to ask consumers specific questions that allow you to better serve them in the future. You’re not just asking for their name or contact information, but rather, you’re asking for information regarding their current scenario… and if you’re a seasoned veteran of the auto industry, you know that no one scenario is exactly alike. Consumers always have different wants and needs based on a number of factors like: family size, financial status, location, preferred OEM, and so on.

Each situation is going to be different; so the more you know about your consumers ahead of time, the better. Instead of consumers having to repeat themselves or divulge on what they’re looking for (when they come into your store), you can draw conclusions based on the information they already provided. This cuts out a lot of unnecessary chatter and allows your dealers to work faster at getting sale. If you already have an idea of what they want (based on the information provided), you can offer viable suggestions. 

“But Russ, what you’re describing is something I already do? I don’t have a tool, but I have a form on my front page! How is that special?” 

Well, for starters, the form you likely have on your front page is a “static form” — which doesn’t ask for anything specific (no drop-downs, no multi-select, etc.), but rather, leaves a blank space for you to fill out your information. That’s nice and all, but interactive lead capture allows dealers to take control over the exchange.

Instead of leaving it up to the consumer to provide information that may or may not be useful (to you or the consumer, quite frankly), dealers can formulate their questions based on their current inventory and current service offerings. It makes things easier and shows the consumer what’s available without directly telling them what’s available. And yes, when I say “formulate their questions” I mean that, depending on the platform you use, YOU can have complete control over the questions that you ask consumers. Whatever information you want to obtain from your consumers can be asked in the tool provided or, if you’re awesome and ambitious, the tool that you create! 

So, to give you a really concrete understanding of what a successful interactive lead capture scenario would look like, here’s an example:

Let’s say you have a mother of 2 visit your dealership. She’s currently a stay-at-home mom, and therefore, on a bit of a tighter budget. Because of this, she wants to get the most out of her trade-in. If she provides you with the make, model and condition of her vehicle, as well as her desired vehicle during her trade appraisal, you can reach out to her after you’ve received her info and provide suggestions based on the info provided. The interactive lead capture form (or the trade appraisal rather) was what piqued her interest; but it was the follow-up conversation between you and her that made the entire experience worthwhile. And really, that’s what interactive lead capture is all about!

Now, you might be worried that consumers will lose interest with these somewhat lengthier form-fills. It’s a completely valid concern, after all. On average, however, 70% of customers actually do go to complete the whole experience. This can likely be credited to the participatory nature of the experience and the sharing of two-way value between the dealers and consumer.

Of course, even if consumers do lose interest, many platforms allow you to make use of multi-stage conversion. With multi-stage conversion, can retain bits and pieces of information that were submitted in previous steps of the form. So even if consumers don’t go through the entire interactive experience, you can still capture some information, and make use of it in future initiatives. 

Stay tuned next week for the final installment of our interactive lead capture series.

Throughout the last decade, interactive lead capture has propelled many dealerships forward in an unbelievable number of ways. So many dealers have been able to engage with their consumers on a very granular level and help them to select the best vehicle and services for their lifestyle. While this has always been possible, interactive lead capture has made it easier for dealers to guide them to the right direction. Of course, there’s one question that remains…..

Just what the heck is Interactive Lead Capture? 

In Part 1 of my 3-Part Blog series on Interactive Lead Capture, I describe exactly what interactive lead capture is and explain the importance of incorporating it into your marketing strategy going forward. 

Now, you may have heard the phrase “interactive content” as some point in your career. It’s a big thing right now in other industries, but it doesn’t really seem to show up in auto. And honestly, that’s okay! Things in the auto industry are just so different. Still, there’s a similar strategy that’s taking place around interactive lead capture. Let’s start with looking at the best definition I can find for Interactive Lead Capture:

Interactive Lead Capture: a premium alternative to traditional static form lead generation that utilizes a participatory experience to capture lead data and drive desired consumer action.

Keep in mind -- the use of multi-stage conversion protects losing customers due to a longer lead submission process than your traditional “quick form” that is just a static, 5 liner. I’ll talk a little bit more about this in a minute.

At this point, you might be asking yourself: Is this something brand new? Or, have I heard of something like this before? YES! You HAVE heard of something like this before. In fact, your dealership is likely using an interactive lead capture tool right now. Do the names Black Book, Auto Trader or KBB ring a bell? They might not be officially classified as Interactive Lead Capture, but I’m here to tell you that’s exactly what it is. It’s tools like these that have helped transform the way car dealership online marketing is planned and executed. 

One of the reasons why they’ve been so successful is that they’re giving consumers a legitimate voice. Instead of it being just an exchange of information, consumers feel they’re filling out a buyer profile more than giving dealers contact information in order to be badgered. Almost all the questions asked ("What kind of car do you want to buy?” or “What is your current budget?”) allow dealers to better assist consumers with their needs. These questions allow dealers to really kickstart the customer relationship.

Additionally, if you ever find yourself concerned that consumers won’t complete the experience, you can certainly try implementing multi-stage conversion into your lead capture strategy. What it means is this: if consumers only fill out a portion of the lead capture form (meaning they don’t complete the entire experience), you can set it up so that you still receive some information, and are able to use it for future marketing initiatives. Of course, chances are pretty darn good that consumers will complete the experience because of its participatory nature.

Naturally, another question you’re probably asking yourself right now is: “If these tools have been around for years, why are talking about them now?” Well, let’s just say that Interactive Lead Capture isn’t limited to the popular tools I mentioned before. Even though Black Book, Auto Trader & KBB are interactive lead capture tools, there’s so much you can do on your own to create an interactive, engaging experience that drawn consumers to you. Stay tuned next week for Part II of our 3-part series, where I go over why interactive content really works, and the many ways it can work for your dealership! 

Interactive content is quickly becoming a standard for marketers in every type of industry imaginable — and yes, this includes the automotive industry. One of the biggest reason for this is because interactive content allows your consumers to well…. interact! When consumers engage with a brand (or in your case, your dealership), they already have some familiarity of what the brand is about, what they sell and more importantly, how the dealership can help them.

Now, mind you, this is nothing new! Dealerships have actually been leveraging interactive content for years. Don’t believe me? Take a look at trade-in tools like Black Book, Auto Trader & Kelly Blue Book (KBB). Consumers input their vehicle information (into the tool) and they’re then provided with an estimated trade-in. Even though it’s basic, it’s still interactive content.

The only real downfall of these tools is that they provide the consumer's estimated trade-in value and nothing more. Additionally, those tools inquire solely about the vehicle, and don’t really delve deep into what the consumer might want or need. Given how much marketing technology have evolved over the last few years, it’d be foolish to think you couldn’t provide the consumer with a more sophisticated user experience with varying types of interactive content. In fact, with all the different resources and vendors out your disposal nowadays, why wouldn’t you come up with your own? Here are the benefits your dealership can reap from your own interactive content:

The Leads Generated Are All Yours

When your dealership uses a service like Black Book or KBB, they’re essentially the ones who are collecting consumer data on your behalf. Sure, you have access to that consumer data, and can reach out to those contacts yourself, but do you really possess full ownership of those contacts? If you decide to not leverage a third-party tool, but rather, create a tool of your very own, all of the leads captured through your system are yours. Period. There’s no risk of losing those leads when you stop using a service, and there’s certainly no expiration on those leads. Whether it’s one day, 6 months or 1 year from now, your guys can reach out with the full knowledge that, at one point, they engaged with your dealership — which brings me to my next point….

No 3rd Party Branding. Create a Customized Experience

Third party tools are typically branded with their own company’s logos, color schemes and layouts. When you create your own interactive content, however, you have the opportunity to create a fully customized, fully branded experience that consumers can immediately acknowledge. Instead of associating their trade-appraisal or trade-in offer from Black Book, KBB or AutoTrader, they’re associating it directly from your dealership. Providing a fully branded experience adds a level of trust that consumers wouldn’t otherwise get by engaging with 3rd party tools from other dealerships. This trust stems from the fact that the information consumers provide seemingly doesn’t differentiate from the information dealerships receive, and consumers don’t have to leave the dealership’s website to even fill out their information.

I know this is against the grain in what dealers have been educated to do in the past and by no means am I saying dealers shouldn't do business with 3rd party brands. However, research shows consumers are most interested in YOUR brand on the dealership website. Further more, today's website visitor is far more educated than in the past. They've already visited 3rd party sites and no longer need to see a 3rd party logo on your dealerships site to know whether or not your trust worthy. 

Of course, in addition to overall trust, what dealership wouldn’t want a branded experience? Not only do you want consumers to acknowledge that your brand exists when they’re using a resource your developed, but you want them to remember you down the line — when they’re shopping around for a vehicle, when they compare offers, and so on. 

Create an Engaging Experience

For most dealers, it’s safe to say that their primary goal is lead generation. And believe me, that’s A-OK in my book! However, when you create your own interactive content, lead generation doesn’t have to be your only initiative. Your dealership has full creative control over how they want their content to look and more importantly, to function. For example: You don’t have to simply inquire about a consumer’s current vehicle. You can ask for any information you feel would be most beneficial to your bottom line — purchase timeframe, desired vehicle type, etc. When creating interactive content for your dealership, you have the grand opportunity to learn more and more about the folks who are interacting with your brand. And in addition to asking custom questions, you might even consider incorporating a fun game or prize that would further incentivize your consumers to engage with your tool. It could be anything — a spin-to-win game, a matching game, or maybe an evaluator quiz that suggest the best vehicle for you. The options are limitless because you’re calling the shots… no one else! 

How does your dealership currently engage with its consumers? Tell us in the comments! 

There’s a myth running rampant right now in the automotive community: Good, reputable dealers don’t run event sales.

Good dealers don’t host any of these 5-day stints inside a giant tent with an ugly purple gorilla out front.

Honest dealers don’t use bait-and-switch tactics to lure customers onto their lot.

Reputable dealers don’t make their staff wade through hoards of prize grabbers in order to find the one car shopper that came in that day.

You’re right. Good dealers don’t do these things, but what we just described is more of a carnival than it is an event sale, and many dealers don’t realize that just because this is one flavor of event sale doesn’t mean that this is the only kind of event you can have.

Judging event sales from this kind of promotion is like eating Long John Silver’s and deciding you don’t like lobster. You may be right when you say that an event sale isn’t right for your dealership, but if you haven’t done it right, it’s impossible to judge whether it’s right for your dealership or not.

I won’t make this complicated. If you really think an event sale is a bad solution for your dealership, I challenge you to run an event sale with three key focuses: Trust, process, and capturing every opportunity. If it still doesn’t work out, you win. Event sales may not be for you.

Build Trust in Every Incentive

The biggest complaint I hear about event sales is that they bring in the wrong kind of crowd. News flash: That’s not the event’s fault, it’s yours. Think about your ideal customer for a minute. Do you think they’re going to be fooled into some scammy looking event sale? The answer’s no.

By their very nature, the kind of customers you want aren’t going to trust your advertising immediately. People looking to buy tend to be skeptical of your claims, whether you’re giving away a prize or handing out a coupon. To win these customers over, you need to build trust around every incentive. If you’re giving out prizes, show winners from your last promotion. If you’re offering coupons or discounts, don’t hide the fine print or make it look too good to be true.

Bottom line: Be honest and upfront with all of your marketing and you will earn more trust and, in the end, more customers.

Document and Enforce a Strict Process

If you did your advertising right, you drove a ton of traffic to your showroom. Now what the hell are you doing with it? Is your sales staff in business-as-usual mode or have you documented a strict sales process that helps them prioritize each up quickly so they can move more metal?

Don’t blame your sales staff here. If your team can’t sell during an event sale and they don’t have a strict process to follow, it’s your fault as their manager. You’re not giving them the tools they need to be successful. The good news is that this kind of process isn’t difficult to create, and we’ve even made a cheat sheet for you!

Capture and Follow Up On Every Opportunity

Does your dealership generate 100% of its revenue from selling cars? I didn’t think so. So why is that the only thing we focus on during event sales?

If you’re running an event sale well, you’re not just capturing the contact info of everyone who walks in the door, you know when they’ll be in the market to buy, what they’re currently driving, and where they get their service done. You can also ask about refinancing and extended warrantees. An effective event sale doesn’t just sell cars, it creates actionable leads for every department of your dealership. If you’re failing to do this, you’re leaving money on the table with every sale.

Now I want to hear from you. Is your dealership for or against event sales? Why? Have you run an event sale where you’ve successfully implemented these suggestions? What holes do you see in this plan? Drop a comment!

Ask any auto dealer who has tried to put on an event sale; getting a prized promotion right can be tough. So tough, in fact, that many dealers avoid doing event sales all together. They claim that the gift grabbers and prize haters are too distracting and it makes it harder for their sales staff to sell cars.

Admittedly, we’ve found that if you don’t have a plan in place, this will be true. With a solid strategy, we have seen many dealers sell record numbers of cars over event sales. Dealers without a strategy, however, often struggle to break even on their events. Here are just a few tips on how you can cash in big on your next event sale.

Qualify Every UP

A common reason dealers don’t run event sales is because they want to avoid “gift grabbers.” By having a plan in place to qualify leads, you can very quickly determine who’s a buyer and who’s just a moocher. All you need to do is make sure that each UP is asked a few questions in a systematic way. Try asking:

1. When they’ll be in the market to buy
2. What kind of car they currently drive
3. What kind of payments they are currently making

This can be recorded with the assistance of UP cards, a spreadsheet, or a program like FATWIN that has these questions baked into the software.

Call on Every Hot Lead

This sounds simple, but dealers forget about it more often that you’d think. Don’t forget to call customers in your system who you know are in the market to buy. People tend to procrastinate, and an extra phone call can be what makes the difference between someone spending their Saturday on a test drive versus on the couch.

Make sure to assign lists to your salespeople and schedule times that each salesperson should dedicate to calling. If you can provide them with a script, that would be even better, but the bottom line is that every hot lead in your system should be getting a phone call.

Sell the Right Cars

Customers who attend event sales tend to prefer used cars at lower price points. If you have the right inventory, you can move a lot of units during an event sale, but if you’re pushing 2014 luxury cars, you may come up dry.

At the end of the day, the most integral component to event sale success is preparation. If you follow these three tips, you’ll be prepared to move more cars at your next event sale.

Hello again friends, its been a while but yet again I need your help. I've been trying to crunch down on the details of my site and how well it is optimized with correct descriptions, keywords, and meta-tags. The problem is we have a portal website that represents 5 locations and in a couple of weeks a new location that is in a different state. I want to properly represent each dealers location with keywords that include the city as well as other keywords that differ from location to the next. For example one location is primarily trucks/diesels and another is luxury vehicles. I'm having trouble coming up with a solid strategy on how best to optimize the site and specifically the portal page to reach its potential on search engines without exceeding the recommended character count for descriptions and headers. Is this just going to be the downfall to having a portal site? Our website looks great and we are doing a lot with blogging, SEO pages, and content marketing to improve our rankings with Google. I just want to ensure our keywords, headers, page descriptions, are correctly optimized. If anyone could help or give reference to a similar situation with a portal site that has it done right I would appreciate it. 

http://www.bartscarstore.com

6 months ago I partnered with www.BizProps.com to bring an idea for a online promotion to life. The thought started during a "Super Sale" when I wondered with all the exposure and traditional strategy, how to take it online. With an ancient strategy that has stood so strong against time I assumed someone had already brought it online. To my amazement there was very little even coming close to the idea and those who were catching on were doing on a very small scale. 

24 hours ago we officially went live with the first version of "Spin2Win" an online promotional game that offers up prizes up to $10,000 and grantees' $1000 per month given away. To play you must register some basic information(including email/phone) and answer a few basic related questions. Each action rewards you with a spin including the opportunity to share on Facebook. A few of those actions are designed to help identify whether the participant is an "in-market" customer or not. Another question asks what you are currently driving and in return their given a estimated trade-in value, up to 125% of NADA trade-in value. 

Being the first version of the game their are a bundle of immediate features that will be coming along as well as several revisions we have already started into. We have only promoted the game via website banners and our Facebook page. We will be launching an email campaign, blog posts, 3rd party banners, and partner promotions with local large online community. In the first 24 hours we received 54 Facebook  shares, 40 Facebook page likes, 175 registrants, and over 100 website visits(76%New, 2:34time on site). We definitely plan on adding other social networks and rewarding customers 

for other actions like uploading contacts for referrals, and writing reviews.

It would be great if you could click the link below and see it for yourself. I would love any feedback at all so please post some comments. CLICK HERE>>>>  http://www.bartscarstore.com/web/spin2win