IT’S NOT 1999 ANYMORESimple Tips for Taking your Dealership Website into the Future

I n 1999, dealership websites became all the rage as the dot-com craze sent our industry scrambling

to catch up. Though 3rd party lead companies had been sending leads since 1995, dealers had begun to realize having their own digital address might make sense. In the age-old argument of “who owns the consumer?” dealers did not want to lose out. This drove many of the still-skeptical dealers (“how long was this Internet thing going to last?”) to open “virtual” (albeit fairly static) web “front doors.”

As time moved on, third-party leads became less effective and more expensive, and Google Adwords stepped into the void – promising direct traffic to dealer websites. Dealerships were inundated with SEM salespeople and ‘specialists’ bent on optimizing their websites, traffic numbers began to rise…but what didn’t rise was conversion rates on those still static sites. Many dealers were still trapped in the third-party lead addiction and thought of their own websites simply as a branding or advertising tool. Even today, dealerships are generally able to

convert only about 1 -2 percent of the very expensive traffic streaming to their website – this is a serious disconnect – all that money spent sending traffic to websites, yet many dealerships still turn to ineffective third-party lead providers when looking for conversions.

But what do I know about any of this? When the dot-com craze was raging on, being a car salesman was the last career on earth I considered. Having lost my trucking business, I was working at a local grocery store stocking shelves, but then I saw an ad promising “you can make $100,000 a

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year selling cars!” Not that I believed the claim, but after seeing the ad a few times, I decided to give it a try.

That was 2003 and, after a couple of tough months when I thought I’d never make it as a car salesman, things turned around – and, amazingly, I became the No. 1 Honda salesperson in the state of Georgia.

Then, in 2006, coming very late to the table, I discovered the power of the Internet. I was lucky, because I was able to work with and learn from very talented co-workers. Better late than never because, soon, I was selling more than 100 cars a month (versus 25 to 35 before I began working with Internet customers). I was fascinated by the online customer and figured out the more I learned about their behavior, the more cars I was able to sell. I found a formula for success: 3 online appointments/day = 1 sale a day. I know that if you don’t sell the first, or even the second, you will always sell the third. This meant that the more valid leads I could acquire directly through my dealership site, the more appointments I could set; therefore, the more vehicles I could move. And this formula worked not only for me but also for others on my team.

Though the Honda dealership I was working for had embraced the Internet and its opportunities wholeheartedly, I knew there were some dealerships out there still holding fast to their pre-2000 notions of the Internet. And, after the Honda dealership came under new management, I started exploring other places where I could make a real difference. I went to Hyundai Mall of Georgia where, after just three months, I helped bring it to the #1 Hyundai Dealership in Southeast Georgia. Then, I found a new digital challenge at Savannah Toyota. When I joined as the Internet sales and digital marketing director, their website had not been updated for over a decade. That’s a few lifetimes in the digital world!

But, credit where credit is due, the owners had woken up to this oversight and were ready to take their website into the next millennium. When I arrived, the site

was achieving 1 percent conversions on 200 leads per month – not a big surprise given the lack of support the website had been given to date.

So how did I take a site that was generating 200 leads per month at less than 1 percent conversion, to a site that generated 500 leads per month – converting a full 20 percent of them and lower cost per sale to $169 from $338? Here are just a few of the things I did, the formula is actually pretty simple and 100 percent effective if correctly applied.

The AssessmentWhen the site was constructed, in 1999, the Internet was still in its infancy and the Internet customer was just as new to online car buying as we were to online car selling. The Savannah site reflected this – it was a flat, non-engaging site, a virtual dead zone. I knew I had to supercharge that site.

There was not a shred of tracking or reporting available about the website – one of the biggest mistakes dealerships make – nevertheless, it was clear that this website was simply obsolete. Not only was there no tracking, there was no search optimization, no SEM spend and no chat. In fact, they weren’t capturing customer data or interacting with the customers at all.

Know Thy CustomerBefore I got too far down the road, I did some good old fashion demographic research by looking at public census information about Savannah, as well as available CRM data. It’s amazing how much you can learn from this step – knowing your customers enables you to figure out the best ways to market to them. It can help shape your messages and also guide you where your marketing dollars are best spent.

Follow the MoneyThen I looked at where the dealership was currently spending money – on vendors, 3rd party leads, classifieds, etc. – and analyzed how I could cut the spend while increasing performance. A lot of this comes down to choosing the right vendors.

Bigger Not Necessarily BetterMy philosophy has always been to choose vendors that are small but strong in their field – big doesn’t always mean better. It took a while, but I was able to convince the owners that just because a vendor is OEM recommended, it doesn’t mean that they were the right choice for us. A good lesson, especially for smaller dealerships. I had a huge amount of confidence with some of the vendors I had already been working with and was fast researching new vendors I believed could help us take the performance of our website to the next level.

Five Biggest Website Mistakes

1. Too Much Choice – don’t confuse users with too many options; they’ll click away and not know why or where they’ve gone.

2. Spending Mega Dollars on Driving Traffic, Then Forgetting to Identify and Convert It – Chat 2.0 is here with mega website analytics and behavioral tracking. If you are stuck in Chat 1.0, time to get out, and while you are at it, make sure your website is tracking every move that customer makes and acting on it.

3. Allowing Clicks Away to 3rd Party Sites – some vendors will try to convince you they need to host your inventory on their sites, this is the last thing you want to do. It screws up your relevance with Google and benefits your provider, not you.

4. Ignoring Analytics/Tracking – First, if you aren’t tracking your site’s performance then you can’t possibly expect its performance to improve. And if you are tracking but not analyzing, then you also can’t expect to improve its performance.

5. Not Knowing Your Customer – do your research, check your database, and understand what they are doing when they are on your website. Make sure your sales team uses all available tracking info from the website URLs to know and understand that customer.

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Rework Investment to Work for Your NeedsOne of the key goals with any website is to optimize for search. We had a huge advantage that our name had our city in it, and yet we still weren’t seeing results. Of course, investing in Google Adwords is important, but you are investing dearly to be at the top of the page with SEM. Why not take 50 percent of that investment and put it towards building up your organic search results – though the rules from SEO are constantly evolving, a good agency can help you figure out how to get your site higher in the rankings, whether that’s by adding unique content; increasing the links into your site from other well respected websites; hosting videos and/or participating in social media. Taking advantage of social media and mobile apps is a great way to stand above the competition. For my dealership, I didn’t opt for the OEM-recommended tools and instead engaged with an agency that could deliver a customized level of service.

Supercharge Your Site to Convert: Chat 2.0 is Here Now that you’ve worked out how to get the customer to the website, the next step is making sure you engage them once they are there. It’s almost a sure bet all your customers will visit your website at one point or other – current statistics show that 4 in 5 people use the Internet to shop for vehicles – so it’s critical that the site is easy to use with no unnecessary links sending your customer away from your site.

I had the basics down, but I knew I needed to go many steps further and literally supercharge the website with tracking and analytics that would make sure that every interaction, published offer, chat etc. was relevant. It’s important to know comprehensively and in real time what each customer was doing, where it had been and then, through the magic of algorithm, score each visitor so he/she was communicated with properly and automatically. In essence, give my website a brain and make every single

visitor identifiable – and do it efficiently and cost-effectively. I discovered this process when I was on a search for an online chat service. I wanted a service that would let our online customer to know we were there to help them with any of their questions – just as we would inside the dealership.

What I discovered was online chat has come a long way recently and, at least through the vendor I chose, it extended well beyond just chat, across the website and into a kind of “Chat 2.0,” that wasn’t going to simply jabber at my customers like a big mouth with no brain, but through its platform. It was making once-invisible traffic completely visible – because it continuously gathered data on every site visitor.

The chat operator knows exactly what a visitor has done on the site before he/she starts using chat—so chat can then be immediately relevant to the customer. This website knowledge extended well beyond chat, into offers/coupons and even matching inventory with the precise vehicles the customer had been looking at – not to mention providing great information for my in-house sales team. This is key, because generally customers are not as forthcoming on the phone, because they are more guarded as they know the sales person is trying to sell them something, which means they tend not to share as much information. But with this info, you can know what they are thinking, so you can approach them in a way that is not as aggressive as the phone. That makes them much more comfortable because they know you are really listening to their needs.

For example, when a customer looks at a Kia Spectra but has also looked at a Camry or Yaris – we can see the amount of time they spend on each and know what other options we can send them. It provides great relationship rapport. We know they are looking at the Spectra but are also interested in a Yaris, so the conversation takes all of that into account. It’s as if we have looked at a picture of their future and can cater to them. And the proof is in the conversions – 75 percent of website visitors who participate in live

chat on our site are now converted into a showroom opportunity.

Fixed Ops is our bread and butter so we knew we had to include them in all our initiatives. For example, when a customer lands on the website and starts looking at service or parts pages, sending them offers on a new car or chatting with them about a vehicle special makes no sense. What does make sense is sending them a coupon for an oil change – so your chat operator starts a service or service appointment based discussion.

Practice Makes PerfectOptimizing the website, social media and even email marketing is only one part of the equation, training the Internet sales managers on how to handle Internet customers is the other crucial part. Once a lead has been created – the ISM needs to take the time to analyze the content of that lead, along with any details they can glean from their website behavior so that they can deliver the experience the customer is expecting.

If they know their customer they are far more likely to create a real sales opportunity – and isn’t that what we all want? Whether it’s 1999 or 2014?

About The Author: Born and raised in Detroit, Brian Lollie is currently Internet Sales and Digital Marketing Director of Savannah Toyota. Brian began his automotive career in 2003 at Honda Mall of Georgia, becoming the

#1 Honda salesperson in Georgia and ranking in the top 10% nationwide. In May 2010, he became Internet Sales Manager for Hyundai Mall of Georgia and, in just three months, helped make it the #1 Hyundai Dealership in Southeast Georgia. In his 11 years working in auto dealerships, Lollie has developed Internet sales and marketing processes that have resulted in consistent increases in car sales, digital marketing ROI and lower cost per sale.

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