Bright Ideas

Your showroom equals your brand. What story are you telling? Consistency is key; whether you’re baking a cake, perfecting your golf swing, or promoting the branding of your dealership. If you don’t think consistency is important, I’d like to sway you.

Consumers today are looking to streamline everything they do. Making a large purchase, such as a vehicle, is included in that streamlined-hopeful process. Quicker is better. What many consumers may not realize is that the car buying process can be streamlined, with appointment setting. Whether early on in the search process or the day of the purchase, setting appointments ensures that customers wants and needs will be acknowledged and met.

At any given moment, there are hundreds of things going on at your dealership. Paperwork, sales, test drives, phone calls, meetings, the list goes on. It’s easy to look around and see all these things happening around you. But, what about all the things that are happening that you can’t see? Namely, the customers contacting you through your website — those ever-present internet leads.

Looking for a quick sales booster for your dealership? Last month was a little slow and you need to make up some ground this month? A simple fix is to start generating more online reviews. 90% of customers say their buying decisions are influenced by online reviews.

But online reviews are from customers who already made a purchase, we want consumers who are currently looking for a vehicle.

Selling vehicles is a tough job, you hear one yes after multiple no’s. Or a couple you thought was interested in a car was only window shopping. Each day takes thick skin and the desire to strive for that yes; you know this, your salespeople know this. However, occasionally your team just can’t seem to bounce back from that no. It’s been a tough week on sales and it’s affecting most of your sales team. You’ve hit a slump at the dealership — they are underperforming and you need to turn that around ASAP. Whether it’s low morale, high turnover, or they’re in need of a refocus on motivation, something needs to change.

If your sales department is experiencing some issues, here are four tips to fix those problems.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” Peter Drucker. These are words to live by when dealing with an automotive media budget and marketing plan because evaluation is one of the most important aspects of advertising.

Your media budget includes, among other things, the funds allocated to print, broadcasting, digital, and other forms of advertising for a dealership — known as the marketing plan. Without the marketing plan, many dealerships would be out of business. A dealership with a large chunk of media budget to work with and no marketing plan could see the same fate as dealerships without a marketing plan all together — no business.

The process is simple: determine a marketing plan, evaluate that marketing plan, and make changes where needed, repeat constantly.

Most people don’t include going to a car dealership in their idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon. It may be because the local dealerships are making mistakes in critical areas of the sale. Every dealership has their own way of doing things, but the foundation of skills are the same across the board. Your dealership might be making some of these mistakes when it comes to sales; below are five of the most common mistakes. Check them out then be sure your dealership sales department isn’t making these mistakes, too!

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” Peter Drucker. These are words to live by when dealing with an automotive media budget and marketing plan because evaluation is one of the most important aspects of advertising.

Your media budget includes, among other things, the funds allocated to print, broadcasting, digital, and other forms of advertising for a dealership — known as the marketing plan. Without the marketing plan, many dealerships would be out of business. A dealership with a large chunk of media budget to work with and no marketing plan could see the same fate as dealerships without a marketing plan all together — no business.

Imagine rounding up a six person sales team each day and sending them door to door. That seems like a slow way to reach customers and not very cost effectively, right? But, what if that sales team was able to reach hundreds of homes each day without losing steam? Now that seems like a worthwhile investment. Sending a direct mailer does just that. One envelope packed with the right pieces can be just as effective as the sales team at or from your dealership. Each component of the mailer lines up with a part of the sales process: from the opening lines of the envelope aimed to strike a want in the customer, to the endorsement of a fellow customer in the lift letter, to the call to action in the business reply envelope. The purpose and voice of each different piece comes together to form a full sales pitch. Malcolm Decker, in the book “Million Dollar Mailings” breaks down the various components of a direct mailing piece that, when they work together, can only lead to success.

Months prior to the CES, it was rumored that Google and Ford would be teaming up to lead the automotive industry into a time of autonomous vehicles. However, the rumored partnership turned out to be untrue.

This year at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Ford and Amazon announced they are working together to connect the home and the vehicle. The two big name companies aim to create a communication link that allows consumers to speak with their smart homes from their vehicles and vice versa. These companies are coming together because they saw the need of consumers increasingly desiring to stay connected to homes while on the move.