DealerRefresh

Obstacles, Observations and Opinions of an Automotive Internet Sales & Marketing Manager

Laura Hemphill is the Content Manager for Foureyes , the intelligent sales platform. With a passion for customer-centric marketing, Laura specializes in using data to tell compelling stories and produce measurable results.

About the Author

Laura Hemphill

Laura Hemphill is the Content Manager for Foureyes , the intelligent sales platform. With a passion for customer-centric marketing, Laura specializes in using data to tell compelling stories and produce measurable results.

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Competing With Convenience

As a consumer, online shopping is appealing because of the convenience. I can browse, research, compare, and purchase—usually all from the comfort of my couch. In automotive, companies like Vroom and Carvana are building their brands and marketing around the idea that they can make car buying an easy, convenient, and even enjoyable online shopping experience for consumers. They’ve seen positive results, but profitability concerns and rocky financial reports have also shown that taking the automotive retail experience and moving it online is not an instant recipe for success.

At a glance, the ability to buy a car online seems to provide the convenience that consumers appreciate and expect in 2019. But in reality, simply moving to ecommerce doesn’t correct the frustrations that customers experience or associate with purchasing a vehicle. It takes more than a ‘click-to-buy’ option to disrupt the auto retail experience. The setbacks these companies have faced shed light on why online retailing in automotive isn’t yet taking off; however, their wins also make it clear that working to create a convenient, enjoyable customer experience can lead to sales success. With each tweak to their sales process, companies like Carvana and Vroom begin to model what a positive ecommerce experience for automotive may look like and provide key takeaways that dealerships can learn from:

1. Build a Digital Brand

Customers should know your brand name, and they should know why they do. Whether it’s because you have the lowest prices, the largest inventory, the best financing, the fastest sales process, or the funniest commercials, it’s important to stand out from the competition online by having one positive attribute that consumers clearly associate with your dealership. It’s not enough to have a generic tagline about your customer service. Online retailers are making a name for themselves by being direct about what they do and why customers should buy from them. Build a clear brand and consistently reinforce your messaging internally and across digital marketing channels.

To really reap the benefits of brand awareness, make sure your marketing matches how customers are talking about you online. Poor reviews and low star ratings have an impact that no marketing can work around. Be direct and ask customers to share feedback online. If you’re providing the experience you say you are, your reviews will reinforce your brand messaging and act as word-of-mouth referrals. 

2. Offer Online Tools & Resources

Online retailers rely on high-quality photos and videos since customers can’t view their inventory in person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t leverage these as well. Create a robust digital showroom by investing in 360-degree spinners, walkaround videos, virtual test drives, and instructional videos highlighting car technology or features. Embed pricing calculators and trade-in estimators on your website and make financing information readily available. Consider adding a FAQs page that details the purchasing process and what to expect as a customer. Include time estimates and make important documents available to print so customers can come prepared and cut down their time at the dealership.

Once you’ve built out resources on your website, don’t just let them sit there for customers to find. Proactively share videos, pricing tools, and online resources with sales prospects to help customers make decisions and move further down the path to purchase. 

3. Streamline the Sales Process

72% of consumers would visit dealerships more often if the buying process was improved and 56% of shoppers would buy more cars if the process was easier. Especially when you’re spending thousands of dollars on marketing to generate leads, don’t neglect the role your sales process plays in converting those leads to sales. Evaluate your current sales experience to see where you can learn from online retailers to increase transparency, and speed up the process for customers. 

The best place to start? Financing. Carvana makes the claim that their financing and purchase process takes “as little as ten minutes,” while it took new-car buyers at the dealership 3.6 hours to complete a purchase in 2017 on average, according to the J.D. Power U.S. Sales Satisfaction Index. That’s a big difference and when car shoppers are weighing their options, it could be a deal breaker. You can’t change the amount of paperwork required by your state, but if there are ways you can simplify the process, incremental changes can have a big payoff. Think about whether or not you can increase price and payment transparency, allow car shoppers to complete their paperwork at home or online, or provide the option to pick up their vehicle the next day instead of waiting at your dealership.

Improving the Retail Experience

Whether you offer online ordering or not, these are just a few ways to take the best of ecommerce and apply it to automotive. What other tips or advice do you have? Are there changes you’ve implemented at your dealership to improve the retail experience? 

Share your thoughts in the comments below! At Foureyes, we specialize in technology that helps you make incremental changes to improve the overall experience for customers and move more metal. We would love to hear from you what changes you’ve successfully made and where you’re in need of support—let’s tackle your sales challenges together.

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3 Tools to Re-Engage Cold Leads

If you’re looking to the end of the month and are feeling like your lead funnel isn’t as full as you’d like, there’s good news. With the help of a few tools, you can re-engage cold leads and find warm leads you thought were lost.

1. Use Sales Intelligence to Reconsider Lost Leads

Our data study found that 22% of leads marked ‘lost’ were still shopping dealership websites after 7 days without any CRM sales activity or outreach. If you think 1 out of every 5 leads are lost when they’re actually still interested, you’re missing a huge amount of warm leads that you could be engaging!

Right now you have customers who are actively browsing your online inventory, viewing VDP pages, and submitting forms, chats, or calling your dealership—clear indicators that they are interested car buyers. Some are new leads, but a good portion are existing leads that you may not realize are still in the market. Revisit your cold lead lists to see why they were marked ‘lost’ and who may be a good candidate to follow up with. If you have sales intelligence, use it to monitor the website activity of your leads in real-time. A sales optimization tool can alert you to prospects who are back on your website and give you insight into which cold leads are not actually lost.

2. Use Your CRM to Reconnect with Past Customers

Once an appropriate amount of time has passed, sold lead lists in in your CRM can turn into upsell opportunities. Use your CRM to filter by model year purchased, lease end date, etc. to build a prospect list of past customers who may be ready for a new vehicle. Use upcoming 2020 models, sales on 2019 models, vehicle technology, safety advances, and other new information to let sold leads know why you’re reaching out and reopen the conversation. 

In addition to purchase data, consider the date of last service. CNW Marketing Research found that customers who regularly serviced their vehicles at a dealership became repeat vehicle buyers at that dealership 86% of the time. Look for loyal customers in your CRM and consider skimming your dealership’s review and social media pages to spot brand advocates who have the potential to become repeat customers.

3. Use Dynamic Email to Re-Engage Leads

Dynamic email can be used to engage cold leads, unsold leads in your CRM, and not-so-lost leads found using sales intelligence. Nearly 75% of adults say that email is their preferred method of communication and 91% of shoppers want to hear from companies they do business with over email. By personalizing email content to each lead, and including specific vehicles and inventory they’ve already shown interest in, you can re-engage each lead type and bring them back into the sales funnel.

Start with dynamic, inventory-specific emails that share new information, such as lower prices, new inventory, similar vehicles they may be interested in, and sales events or incentives to take advantage of. You can create and send these messages manually or let a dynamic email software take care of it for you. Monitor responses and if you don’t get a response, follow up with a personal phone call to reiterate why you thought of them and what new information or incentives you have to offer.

Sales Tools to Keep Leads Engaged 

With the majority of car buying research and conversations happening online, salespeople often feel left in the dark. But these tools should shed light on your sales process and provide insights to help you determine which leads are in market and re-engage prospects. To drive real results, make sure you have tools that work together and complement your existing sales strategies.

Foureyes is the intelligent sales platform that empowers salespeople with sales tools that help auto dealerships engage, understand, and close leads faster. Schedule a demo to learn how Tap and 20/20 can help you engage leads and get more sales from your existing pipeline.