What should we spend our time (and dollars) on in 2016?

[KyleHayden]

Good morning all- My Chevy Store is looking to increase our New Car Sales by 40 Units per month so clearly we need to come up with some new Marketing Strategies in order to accomplish this. Anyone having great success doing something out of the ordinary? Looking for some ideas to help increase our Market Share and units.

Thanks in advance-

 

[Katie Barth]

Attending the Digital Dealer conference this year provided some great takeaways for heading into 2016. Some of the biggest things to focus on from a digital advertising standpoint would be mobile, social/video, inventory targeting, and targeting millennials.

Use mobile as the where and how, and social as your what and why. Social connects the corners of your brand and consumer relationship. Mobile and social are especially important for targeting millennials. If your site isn't responsive and completely adaptable on mobile, they'll move on. And they currently boast $200 billion in spending power!

Inventory targeting will be another big tool in 2016. It would be inefficient to spend the same amount marketing each car- that's where data comes in. It can help you determine which cars need a boost and which are in demand, selling themselves without the added spend.

These are the biggest themes I've seen- but I'd love to hear what trends others are hearing about!

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Kyle, a few thoughts come to mind... maybe you could answer these questions to help out...

1. Will you have the volume of inventory you'll need in order to support this increase?
2. How many sales people do you currently have in the new car department?
3. What's your dealers current show to close average?
4. How many units per month are each of your sales people averaging? (guessing 10)
5. What metrics are being used to help determine if this goal is achievable?

Let's be sure you have the proper ground work in place before we start throwing money into the latest and great marketing trends.

 

[john.quinn]

I guess I still lean old-school. To sell 40 more units a month, a good dealer has to have 100-120 more conversations with Engaged Customers.

Going to find them on Facebook?

I'd prefer to find a bunch of them already on the property -- in the Service department, perhaps?

What data do you have on everyone coming into the lane tomorrow? Who has equity? How is their credit? Can they afford a new car? Who is facing a $500 repair bill? Have they perused any VDP's leading-up to their visit?

What conversations can be enabled in the lane that normally wouldn't occur on the showroom floor tomorrow?

Do you know everything you can know about the people with whom you are already doing business? If not, a worthy area of investment.

 

[KyleHayden]

Thanks for the comments.
Jeff, to answer your questions......
1. Volume of inventory will not be an issue
2. We have 15 to 20 New Car Salesmen
3. Our Lead to Show and Show to Close Ratio are not nearly where they should be. Chances are, we could probably meet that 40 unit goal if BDC processes were tweaked or improved, but because I have very little control over the BDC/Salesmen, I'm focusing solely Digital Marketing.
4. You are correct.......average is closer to 8 than 10 though.
5. Still working on this..........

 

[Chris Cachor]

Kyle, I just checked out the site (good vendor pick) and your Facebook page and I think those areas are pretty good. I think Facebook wise - putting together a video there might be a good place to invest some money. The video could just be a high level thing to highlight the strengths of your dealership against the rest of the local market.

My other suggestion might be a little unconventional but I think there's going to be a lot of people interested in CarPlay. I know two of my friends that actually visited showrooms just to see this in person. I think getting the word out that anyone is free to come and check out how it works in your showroom would be a nice way to increase foot traffic and I think could help get people to trade up. Just a thought, though.

Website wise - two suggestions I would make are to limit the popup/click to close widgets to one per page and I think purchasing a stronger third party widget for handling credit apps (short form, soft credit) would improve lead gen there. Perhaps you could route those leads directly to your floor. I'm not a fan of BDC centers at all...

 

[ed.brooks]

I *was* going to suggest evaluating your pricing before you spend dime one, BUT after looking your website, I'm going to ask how your strategy of not showing an actual transactable price on the site is working for you. From my experience, this will increase leads, but not necessarily sell more cars (chime in @JoePistell )

 

[joe.pistell]

...From my experience, this will increase leads, but not necessarily sell more cars (chime in @JoePistell )

Try a Survey at Delivery, it'll blow your world up. It did mine.

"An Internet Car Shopper's satisfaction is worth more than their leads."
#UncleJoe

 

[Chris Leslie]

Free Beer?

If that doesn't work you need to mine the hell out of your database. That is the only place you are going to find 40 new deals each month. There is no way your site or your social channels are doing the kind of volume they need to, to convert an additional 40 units.

 

[Carey Fried]

Kyle, we've found that many dealerships are mishandling so many inbound phone calls that those 40 additional sales could already be out there without an additional marketing spend. Do you know your call handlers call to appointment rate? On average dealerships convert at 10% (or less) which means they're mishandling so many inbound leads. If you recapture the mishandled prospects, you could set more appointments and sell more new cars. Do you want to discuss this further? I can give you more details.