Make Your Phones Drive Dealership Traffic

Put Some People Behind Your Phones!

I spend a lot of time at up-your-ups sharing ideas and thoughts on driving dealership traffic.  

An idea about phone calls came across my desk several months ago and now I think it’s time to share it with you. 

Marketing and advertising are designed to drive dealership traffic.  But the end goal is not traffic for traffic sake but traffic that makes the cash register ring. 

If you want your calls to drive more traffic and profit here is something you should look into.

It’s a new tool called Tele Pulse.  It’s the brain child of Dr. John from PCS Global.

In these economic times every dealership has less resources.  Tele Pulse listens to the recording of calls overnight and sends a comprehensive report to you in the morning.

The key to these reports are they simply state  the facts of the call.  They’re not designed to evaluate  the call  handler.  A brief description is given of each call.  Based on this description the calls are grouped and identified into four area’s by Tele Pulse:

1) No Action Needed

2) Needs Follow Up                                                

3) Elevated To Manager Action

4) Save A Deal

The call report as loaded with other useful information including who handled the call, what department etc.   This is a 1o minute read for the General Manager.  It truly gives you the pulse of the days activity.

I know a few dealerships on this new program and they’ve really liked it.  Have your automotive ad agency check it out it’s not expensive and it really delivers results.

If you’d like your marketing and advertising dollars to pay off with adding dollars to your budgets try Tele Pulse.  If your concerned with CSI this is a good place to start as well.

Let me know if you have tried this program or something like it?

Keys To Driving Dealership Traffic

You need to unlock your competitive advantages in this hyper competitive market place.  The trouble is most dealers lock up their true competitive advantage in a difficult market and this is just the opposite of what you should be doing.  Here are six keys for you to turn on the engine to more dealership traffic.

KEY ONE:  CONQUEST SALES

Don’t stop your conquest marketing efforts.  You must still invest in this process.  With all the tools you have available there is no excuse to abandon conquest sales. So Today start planning how to capture sales from people who HAVE NOT yet considered shopping your dealership.  Effective advertising always targets new customers.

Steal sales from the competition.

KEY TWO: THREE-FOLD DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING

1. Get the message to the masses – Target your audience.

2. Provide a valid opportunity to respond – Target your message.

3. Achieve results & sell product – Make it accountable.

YOUR ADVERTISING SHOULD SELL… NOT JUST TELL.

KEY THREE: PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE ADVERTISING MESSAGES

1. Attention Getter  3.   Logical Reason

2. Strong Statement  4.   Urgent Call to Action

KEY FOUR:  CHARACTERISTICS OF CAMPAIGN EXECUTION

1. Planning  3.   Continuity

2. Contrast  4.   Believability

Plan your inventory, plan your best days. With good branding you will have continuity in all your customer touches.  Be creative and contrast. Nothing expands an advertising budget like good creative.  Finally  people are more cynical that ever and if your message is not believable your leaving traffic at the door.

KEY FIVE:  ELEMENTS OF IMPACT PRODUCTION

1. Intensity        3.   Execution

2. Consistency  4.   Different

If you really want effective creative make sure it has these elements.  I have always found that skimping on production makes no sense.  Why put the entire media budget at risk because you want to save a few hundred dollars on production.

KEY SIX:  MAXIMIZE THE SALES DRIVERS

1.   Desirable Inventory

2.   Motivated, Informed and Professional Sales Force

3.   Honest, Ethical and Effective Advertising for Results

If you can’t say yes to these three items you might consider holding off on your campaign until you can yes to all three!

Measure and Evaluate Will Always Drive More Dealership Traffic

Since advertising is not a science, there is no formula or equation to insure its success.  But, you can measure certain elements that will help you determine your advertising’s effectiveness.

Here are the five items you should track.

1. CUSTOMERS

Track how many customers are shopping your dealership, who they are and why they came in today.  In addition, track how customers are shopping. i.e. drive-by, internet, radio, TV or billboard.

2. MARKETING COST

Determine your Cost per Unit (CPU) by dividing your total advertising expenditure for the month by the number of units sold.

Total Ad Dollars Spent for Month = CPU Number of Units Sold

3. REVENUE

Determine your Average Gross by dividing your front end and back end grosses by the number of units sold.

(Front End Gross + Back End Gross)  = Average Gross Number of Units Sold

4. TRANSITION

Determine your Demo Index by dividing your total number of customers by the number of demos.

Total Number of Customers  = Demo Index

Number of Demos

(1 is perfect. The higher the number, the worse the performance.)

5. SALES

Determine your Sales Index by dividing total number of write-ups by the number of deliveries.

Total Number of Write-ups = Demo Index

Deliveries

(1 is perfect. The higher the number, the worse the performance.)

With these five measurements you can effectively evaluate the performance of your sales drivers and make any necessary adjustments.

Six Steps To Drive More Dealership Traffic

ULTIMATELY YOUR MARKETING PLAN HAS TO BE JUDGED!

Did it generate immediate, accountable, and profitable sales? The success of your ongoing advertising will only be as good as the fundamental base of your marketing plan.  I have always thought a river without boundaries is just a swamp.  There’s just no way to find your way without some boundaries.

The following six-step marketing plan I have found provides an advertising strategies for the year.

Each advertising campaign should build upon the success of the preceding campaigns.  By following each of the six steps in order and without compromise, you should expect more sales and profits for an improved bottom line in the year ahead.

STEP 1:  DEFINE AND TARGET YOUR BEST POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

Who are your best potential customers and what are their motivations to buy? What is the best way to reach them? Your best advertising money should be spent on getting new customers into your dealership.  Social media will soon take care of your repeat customers by building a lasting relationship with them.

STEP 2:  CONTROL THE THREE ELEMENTS THAT DRIVE SALES

Lay the foundation to control your sales, products and campaign strategy.  All three of these elements must be present to have the most effective marketing.

STEP 3:  ADVERTISE WITH A PURPOSE

Develop your campaigns to sell specific products to specific customers and relate the compelling reason why they should buy from your dealership.  In your advertising, don’t try to be all things to all people.

STEP 4:  ADVERTISING FOR RESULTS

Combine these four ingredients for maximum advertising dollar effectiveness:

1.  Campaign strategy  3.  High-impact production

2.  Dynamic message   4.  Strategic media placement

STEP 5:  EFFECTIVE MEDIA MARKETING

Use your media placement as a marketing tool.  Be sure to make adjustments to your strategy based on seasonality and product focus.  Use lifestyle buying whenever possible.  Your marketing dollars will be more effective.

STEP 6:  MEASURE AND EVALUATE

Track your results and use them as a base to structure your future campaigns upon.  Keep the winners and learn from the losers.  Use all tracking tools you have.  Don’t cut corners here.  Data is the key to continued success.

These six steps are explained in greater detail in separate blogs.  The pro-active effort invested in these six steps will substantially improve the effectiveness of your Conquest strategy.

One on One Conversation Drives Dealership Traffic

Ok, let’s get back to the basics!    If there’s one mistake dealers make it’s the big audience syndrome.  What’s the big audience syndrome?  It’s the simple concept when talking to a large audience you stop talking to the individuals.  More money is wasted by agencies and dealers talking to a group instead of talking to a single person.

Here’s the deal!   To really have your message resonate with a consumer they need to feel  you’re talking to them.  That one individual needs to believe  you’re the answer to their wants and needs.  

Your message must maintain a one to one  perspective.  

When you’re message has the feel of a large audience communication you’re headed down a dangerous path.  The only path that is worse is when you start talking about yourself. But we’ll tackle that topic another day. 

Large audience syndrome ads  sound like a listing of facts and features.  There is no connection to the  benefits. Benefits are what moves customers.  When you don’t tell one person in the audience why your message is going to make their  life more fulfilling, more fun, less stressful or just generally better, you’re wasting time and money. 

When you write your next ad see if it passes the One To One Test.

1) Have you identified my need?

2) Do you have a unique solution?

3) How is it going to BENEFIT me?

4) Did you ask me to come buy?

Imagine delivering your message to one person  across the desk from you.  Would it motivate them to buy or not.  If not re-write.  

Selling is one to one.  One to one requires a personal sales message.  A form letter is not personal.  A hand written note is personal.  I know you can’t  write a personal note to all of your customers but do you get the picture?  Make your next message a one to one message.  What will actually happen is you’ll connect with that large audience.