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By Bobby Malatia, KainAutomotive.com April 23, 2008 Most of us can agree that the leads the Internet department receives from the dealership's own Web site are of better quality and typically close at a higher percentage than third-party leads or even OEM leads. So it stands to reason that the more leads we can get through our own Web site, the better our overall closing percentage and sales will be. But how do we get more leads from our Web site? How do we get more people to visit our Web site? How do we get more visitors who are going to the Web site to do business with your dealership whether they submit a lead or not? Getting more people to submit leads while on your Web site is probably the easiest of these questions to address, even though it may seem like the toughest. You just need to understand that people will do what you want them to do if they think it is in their best interest to do it. Another way to look at this is if the customers see a benefit to themselves for doing something, they have no problems doing it. You create this perceived benefit by providing many lead submission forms throughout the Web site, literally on almost every page, and giving them different themes. For example, "Quick Quotes," "Cannot find what you are looking for" or "Make an Offer" forms are good regular lead submissions for your Web site. Once you have done this, you can then add additional services like "Black Book Online," "Credit Jockey" or discounted coupons. All of these will increase the chances someone will fill out a form in order to receive additional benefits from you and the dealership. You just need to remember that the more different types of forms you have available on your Web site, the greater the chance you will hit on a "Hot Button" of the visitor. Once you have the proper forms in place, you then want to drive more traffic to your site. The easiest way to accomplish this is by promoting your Web address (URL) on all your marketing campaigns as well as creating some marketing around the Web site itself. Most dealerships do this now, though it surprises me how there are still so many that do not, so the next step in driving more traffic is to work with your Web site provider to make sure your site is optimized properly. Most providers do a good job optimizing dealership sites with common searches or local searches using the dealership's name, but most stop short of using the surrounding areas and they do not focus on individual vehicle searches that a lot of shoppers are using now. If you can promote your Web site in this manner, it will increase your opportunity that shoppers will click to your site since you have something similar to what they are searching for — especially if your dealership is doing a good job with name branding in your DMA, because they will recognize your dealership name and feel more comfortable clicking on your link before clicking on another. Combining this with some paid search will really propel you in attracting the greatest number of shoppers to your site. Now that you have a working plan for attracting more visitors and the forms in place to turn a good percentage of them into leads, you can focus on what the visitors are seeing on your site and what you can do to expose them to your philosophy of business. Our experience shows us that even if your site converts visitors into leads well, you will only see about 5 to 8 percent become e-mail leads. Even if you add in phone calls that originate from the site, you will still have about 75 percent of the visitors who will not do either one. So what can you do to increase your chances that these visitors who do not reach out to you still learn what is in store for them if they do business with you or even if they just visit the dealership? The best way to do this is through video. Video is becoming much more popular, and there are some dealerships using it to promote their inventory, but I think there are many other places on your Web site where it can be utilized. If you think of video as a relationship builder, you can use it to let the visitors know what you and all your profit centers are about. Using video in this nature will create several advantages that the visitors will be exposed to: 1. Video is a multimedia application that will create a better experience for the visitor. 2. Using video will keep visitors on your site longer. 3. It allows you to emotionally let the visitor know what they can expect when they do business with your dealership. The best way to do this is by putting your owner or general manager, whoever is the face or voice of the dealership, in front of the camera, allowing them to share the ideas of the dealership itself. Also, be mindful that it is not all about sales and promotion. You can use video for informative reasons or even instructional ones such as how to schedule service or how easy it is to contact the dealership just by filling out one of the forms. If you treat your Web site like the virtual showroom it is and focus on the customer experience, you will increase your chances of creating customers even if they do not submit a lead or call you on the phone. |
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