Don’t Spend Another Dollar On Advertising
Until You Watch And Read This!

Understanding today’s market:

We are living in the digital age. People can view your inventory online, negotiate their deal via email, and even watch test drive videos on YouTube. Everything is geared to keep the client out of your dealership. With an influx of Virtual customers, we need to improve the skillset of our sales people so the value of coming into the dealership can be given to the phone and internet customer without making us sound desperate. Understanding how communicate as people will help you to identify the shortcomings with each one of our lead sources: Walk in, Phone and Internet.

Where Are Customers Coming From?

Today our advertising sources are bountiful, but they can be broken down to the following groups:

Let's Look At The Positives And Negatives Of Each One.

Internet

Pros

Pros

• Your lot can appear bigger than it is
• You can reach a large audience
• It’s relatively inexpensive
• You can easily increase or decrease your monthly spend
• Social media and selling sites drive traffic to themselves and will allow you advertise to its database
• You can direct your advertising to only people in the market
• Its where people are trained to shop
• Your social selling/ranking sites are paying to get your customer, driving traffic to you
• You can isolate the current vehicle shopper in the beginning of their shopping cycle

Cons

Cons

• You can spend too much by reaching too far
• Customers don’t want to come into the dealership
• Customers tend to call or text
• Customers don’t believe the deal or offer
• Poor processes make your advertising dollars a waste
• Inability to convert over the phone will result in wasted advertising dollars

Radio/TV

Pros

Pros

• Your lot can appear bigger than it is
• You can reach a large audience
• Often includes limited internet postings
• Brand recognition
• Keeps your dealership “top of mind”

Cons

Cons

• You must have a “hook”: a memorable jingle or catchphrase
• People listening to the radio are doing something else
• Relying on their memory
• Blanket approach marketing low return
• Customers don’t want to come into the dealership
• Customers tend to call or text
• Customers don’t believe the deal or offer
• Rapid disclaimers cause distrust for the customers
• Paying 100% of the cost to reach out to 1% of in the market buyers

Print

Pros

Pros

• Something in their hands
• Disclaimers are identified easily
• Relatively cheap now that it has become less popular
• Selectable demographics from list companies

Cons

Cons

• Nobody checks their mailbox to buy something
• Forces people to go online to check you out
• Paying 100% of the cost to reach out to 1% of in the market buyers
• Customers don’t want to come into the dealership
• Customers tend to call or text
• Customers don’t believe the deal or offer

Communication Essentials

Let me explain why I say that. When you or your sales people are in front of a customer you communicate 3 separate ways.

Here are some quick ways to improve your closing on those “Virtual” prospects.

Phone Communication

1. Ensure your staff answers the phone professionally
2. Ensure that they know your inventory – sounding confused will cost you deals
3. Give them a script to learn. this script should be designed to yield the desired results which is an Appointment that shows!
4. Make sure they tactfully offer the caller something other than the vehicle they called in on – I call that the “Shake Up”
5. Make sure they are collecting the callers information, and give them a way of getting it without saying “in case we get disconnected” that is viewed by the public as extremely weak, and cheesy both of those are identities that we don’t want or need.
6. Make sure they are asking for the appointment – we have listened to thousands of calls and we found that over half the calls taken never get asked to come into the dealership
7. Make sure they anchor the appointment – don’t jump off the phone after the client agrees to come in. Set the appointment at a specific time and day – not “after work on Friday”

Email Communication

1. Send a quality first response:
   • Introduce yourself
   • Answer the question of the prospect
   • Provide a reason why to do business with you
   • Offer them other vehicles
   • Share your social media rankings with them (if they are above 3 stars)
   • Ask for an appointment
2. Develop a 5 day follow up program that consists of 2 phone calls, and one email a day until your sales associate makes contact.
3. Develop an extended follow up process that will last 6 months, it can be as easy as one email every 20 days – these can be templates
4. Once you make two-way contact – meaning the prospect is replying to your emails, only send them one-line emails. I train internet departments to keep their emails to 140 characters or less, like it’s a tweet on twitter. 90% of all emails are read on a phone, make sure that your entire message fits on the first screen. If the prospect must scroll, they will skip it. Think about it, if you get an email from someone that is 3 pages long, you don’t read it, you tell yourself that you will read it when you are back on your computer. And how often do you remember to read it?
5. Text anyone that left a phone number. 93% of all text messages are read. Make sure you follow your states laws for opting in, and Do not call list regulations.

We have an extensive video library with testing and accountability for your staff. We offer in store training, conference style training where multiple dealerships send people, we have webinars, and conference calls. We can help you sell more cars and make more money today, not 90 days from now. Reach out to your account manager for all options and select the one that works best for your unique situation.

Additional Training Options