What Makes Employees Successful At Converting Dealership Leads?

By Cristian Rivera

Quality employees—just like quality leads—help make sales possible and help grow your auto business. While dealership leads are certainly an important aspect of any auto dealer business, the importance of human employees sometimes goes overlooked when the majority of focus is on the bottom line.

Whether you source your own leads or use a third-party provider obtain leads, employees are always going to be the most important part of every sale. Auto dealers are wise to create an environment where employees can thrive and drive sales. This is accomplished by making sure you are being selective in the kind of employees you add to your team.

Here are are just some of the qualities you should look for when hiring employees in order to maximize your dealership leads:

Honesty & Precision

When it comes to making sales at a dealership, customers need to be able to trust who they are talking to. They are more likely to inquire about an automobile with someone they believe is honest.

Precision is vital to driving sales and converting dealership leads. Having the ability to search and find the best leads to pursue guarantees that your employees will being using their time in an efficient manner.  

Communication

Communication is key not only in personal relationships, but in business relationships as well. Employees who exhibit strong communication skills are more likely to connect with customers in a meaningful way. Customers will appreciate someone who is clear and concise.

Patience

Converting dealership leads into sales takes time and perseverance. Responding to leads in a timely manner is crucial to getting customers on the dealer lot. However, the last thing customers want to feel is pressured. If they get a sense that buying or lease a car will be a stressful endeavor, they will be less likely to patronize your auto dealership. Should you be persistent? Yes – just remember to have patience and avoid jumping the gun.

Don’t forget – CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.

Are You Making The Most of Special Finance Auto Leads?

By Cristian Rivera

In the infamous stock market crash of 2008, many U.S. consumers lost their life savings, homes, cars, and fell further into debt. In the years following the financial crisis, many consumers found themselves needing special financing for big purchases like cars and trucks. In the auto industry, auto dealers around the nation saw special finance auto leads grow in prominence.

Why is this?

As you may already know, special finance auto leads are a unique kind of lead. Most of the time, consumers who find themselves in financial straights have one thought on their mind: Can I afford this? This can often be a daunting question for many, especially if they have bad credit or have had financial issues in the past.

Regardless of how, why, or when their financial struggles started, special finance auto leads target consumers who would normally be overlooked by auto dealers

Simply put, special finance auto leads give consumers the ability to purchase a car even though their credit is not ideal. This puts dealers in a unique position to sell to a target audience who might be concerned or wary of buying a new car due to affordability.

Don’t forget…

While not as many people are experiencing financial hardships compared to the immediate aftermath of the 2008 stock market crash, there will always be a need for auto dealers to provide special financing.

Dealerships that use finance auto leads must remind consumers that no matter their current financial situation or credit score, there is a car that they can afford. These leads help give consumers the peace of mind that financing is always an option and one step closer to purchasing a new car.

CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Auto Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.

Need More Sales? Don’t Underestimate The Value of Used Car Leads

By Cristian Rivera

There were almost 60 million vehicles sold in the United States in 2017, according to data from Statista, a leading source of market and consumer data. Broken down, these sales consisted of 42.7 million used car sales and 17.1 million new car sales.

Is this a new trend?

Not at all. While the number of total car sales has increased globally, U.S. consumers have opted to buy used cars at a greater rate than new cars for more than a decade. For car dealers, used car leads are vital to sustain a healthy number of sales. To understand why used car leads and sales make up a majority of the cars sold, it’s important to fully understand the used car consumer.

Show me the money!!

By far the biggest and most important factor consumers consider when deciding on a used or new car: the price. The down payment, financing, maintenance, car insurance, gas – everything adds up rather quickly for interested car buyers.

The gap in price between new and used cars makes it that much more enticing for consumers to choose the latter. If the only difference between the same car at a lower and a higher price point is that one has a few thousand miles, it almost always makes more sense to go for the lower priced vehicle in the eyes of many U.S consumers. In the same way that used cars often bring good value to consumers, so to is the case for used car leads for auto dealers.

Don’t forget…

Most consumers interested in buying a used car do a fair amount of their shopping, research and price comparison online. The internet can be an auto dealer’s’ best friend when pursuing used car leads as they often bring the leads to you.  

CarsDirect offers the best new car leads and a full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. We encourage you to explore this website to learn about how our award-winning products can help you move more units.  

Sales Pro Tip: Stop Leaving Co-Op Dollars on the Table!

Did you know there’s a very good chance that you have free advertising dollars available to you that you’re not using? We’re talking about co-op advertising dollars. Sure, you probably know what they are. But like many dealers, you may not know the amount you qualify to receive, how to use them or why they’re such a great resource.

How Co-Op Advertising Dollars Can Make a Big Difference

Many co-op programs will allow you to spend your earned credit on several different types of marketing campaigns. These include, but are not limited to, radio spots, TV ads, mailed flyers, social media banners and newspaper promotions.

Some OEMs limit reimbursement to campaigns geared toward new cars. But others will allow you to promote used car sales as well. Certain OEMs will even compensate you for the purchase of sales leads. Just think of what this could potentially do for your sales department!

Have you ever had a great idea for a marketing campaign, only to scrap your plan because the cost would be too high? What if the cost of that campaign could be cut in half with co-op dollars? Again, this is free money that will simply disappear from the table if you don’t put it to use.

Navigating the Challenges of Co-Op Programs

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that some dealers have built the foundations of their success on co-op advertising dollars. Still, it’s easy to see why many dealers have shied away from co-op programs. They can be incredibly complicated and confusing. And in an industry where time is money, it’s understood that there had better be a big payoff if valuable hours are going to be spent.

How are co-op programs complicated? For one thing, different OEMs may refer to dealer advertising reimbursement by different names. For example, Honda’s term for co-op cash is Dealer Marketing Allowance. Meanwhile, some OEMs change the terms and restrictions attached to their co-op programs as often as every month. Sometimes entire programs change on a regular basis. Most OEMs insist on the inclusion of banners with reimbursed campaigns — but some don’t. It’s a lot to keep up with.

Here’s some good news: You can partner with industry experts like CarsDirect and Auto Credit Express to maneuver the co-op world. We can help you keep track of how many co-op advertising dollars you have coming, and provide you with suggestions on how to spend them.

Since we have access to the very latest co-op info from all manufacturers, we are a go-to source when it comes to meeting campaign requirements. We also handle invoice management. No matter what your marketing needs, we know how to optimize billing processes for maximum return.

So if you don’t feel you’re currently getting the most out of your co-op advertising dollars – or if you’re not using them at all – let us show you how to take full advantage of all available programs. To get started at absolutely no charge, click here to connect with a sales consultant.

And don’t forget – CarsDirect and Auto Credit Express can help you sell to all types of customers in addition to special finance buyers. Explore our full suite of products designed to help dealers sell more cars, including New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, and innovative Display Advertising solutions.

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Mastering the Different Types of Online Car Shoppers

Sales Pro Tip: Know the different types of online car shoppers

These days, virtually all consumers do some form of online shopping during the course of their car buying process. CarsDirect wanted to explore differences between different types of online shoppers, which we segmented into smartphone shoppers, tablet shoppers, and computer / laptop shoppers.

We surveyed smartphone car shoppers — defined as those who submitted a lead from a smartphone — to gauge where they stand in the purchase process vs. other online shoppers. The results shed much light on the state of smartphone car shoppers and how close they are to making a purchase. Read on for some interesting excerpts and takeaways from our survey.

Takeaways: Smartphone shoppers are overwhelmingly far into the purchase process, with few shoppers looking for ratings and reviews while almost 50% are looking for pricing information. Shoppers are also looking for information about dealer inventory and photos and colors of the car. A whopping 70% have already decided on trim and options, indicating they are looking for specifically equipped vehicles to purchase.

Takeaways: When it comes to dealer visits, CarsDirect’s survey again shows that smartphone shoppers are very close to purchase. Interestingly, almost 9% of survey respondents were using their phones to look for information while actually visiting a dealer, while almost a quarter of respondents planned to visit a dealer that same day.

Takeaways: It’s official: customers are using their phones as much as they are using traditional computers when car shopping. Consider the fact that many customers are interacting with your store from their phones. Is your site optimized for smartphones? Does it render correctly regardless of which device a customer is using? If it’s not, you might be missing out on sales opportunities.

Takeaways: As we saw above, smartphone customers are generally very close to purchase, so they’re hungry for pricing information. More than half of smartphone shoppers want pricing information from dealers. Additionally, they overwhelmingly want that to receive this information electronically, with almost 70% of smartphone shoppers saying they want to receive prices via e-mail or text message, not by phone call. Make sure you’re equipped to respond to mobile customers using the means they prefer. And don’t play games with pricing, such as the classic “come by the store for a price.” It could lose you the sale, as smartphone customers want immediate information they can act on.

Takeaways: It’s interesting to note that customers are most active on smartphones in the evening and on weekends, whereas desktop is busiest when most customers are in front of a computer at work. Evenings and weekends are of course prime car-buying time, so you’re likely to see a surge of smartphone customers when your store is at its busiest. Remember to not neglect responding to these smartphone customers when your store is busy – they could be just blocks away, ready to make a purchase.

Let CarsDirect help you connect with smartphone shoppers – and all types of shoppers – with our full suite of products designed to help car dealers sell more cars: New Car Leads, Used Car Leads, Special Finance Leads, and innovative Display Advertising and Mobile solutions. Click here to connect with a CarsDirect consultant to create a customized plan to supercharge sales at your store!