Small town dealer, tips and tricks?

[BillKVMotorCo]

I also sent in a lead 3 hours ago and have not received anything back.

 

[Carsten]

Ouch ...
This is a great situation for an AI response.

 

[Balboa Bill]

I don't want to be rude but that website needs love.

Your city has a good sized population. But you are pushing Gainesville. We wouldn't I just drive to a dealer that has more than 2 Tahoes on the lot?

Visit %DEALER_NAME% in %CITY% | New and Used Cars For Sale & Auto Repair Shop

Visit %DEALER_NAME% for a fantastic selection of new Buick & GMC vehicles, used cars, and enjoy our Auto Repair Shop facilities.

www.everettbgmc.com

This dealership is based in a city of 21,ooo but there is another just a few miles of a similar population. Little Rock is just 20 away. They also have to compete against Landers which has the Cowboy chain and others.
Evertt invests heavily in the high schools. they give teachers discounts and just love having locals shop there.

I think there is a lot to pull for ideas from this dealership since they brand themselves most as family business focused on locals.

I have bought from them before and enjoyed the experience.

I didn't come in for hugs...

Inventory is getting better, but that is part of our challenge. I will look at this website for ideas. We have gotten involved with a lot of local events, high school football team, local parades, etc. Thank you!

 

[Balboa Bill]

I've been meaning to get to this post for a while. My two cents.

1. To compete as a small dealer, you have to do things that you know the big dealers are bad at.

a. Improve merchandising​

x. your pictures aren't bad, but there is too much in the background​

xx. the AI background is weak - there are better options​

xxx. group your hot button features together​

xxxx. label your hot button features​

xxxxx. pictures should be in a consistent order that flows well with the layout of the car​

xxxxxx. some may disagree, but, to me, pricing is a part of merchandising - I don't know your market and maybe everybody else is at MSRP minus incentives, but to gain market share you're going to need heavier discounts​

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b. Clean up your site​

x. don't make customer scroll the main page looking for what they want and don't rely on the menus - they should be able to see where they are wanting to go very quickly (new, used, service, parts)​

xx. trade and payment tools shouldn't be the first thing they see and shouldn't be the first crack you get at a form fill as trade leads don't convert as high​

xxx. on desktop remove the CTA's from the VSR - they don't care about that yet and it creates a lot of wasted space and takes longer to get to your next vehicle​

xxxx. on mobile use the same concept and just list the price as well - they don't need the full breakdown yet and you have the same scroll problem​

xxxxx. remove pagination and go to endless scroll​

xxxxxx. too many CTAs on the VDP - keep it simple - I went to one button and started getting more leads - you don't have to go as crazy as me, but 5 is too many​

xxxxxxx. your stack of CTAs actually made me ignore them and I almost missed that you had a payments button​

xxxxxxxx. fix the incentive stack on desktop VDPs - it's messy and fills up the page​

xxxxxxxxx. on desktop look at all of the blank space under the photos on your VDP created by the incentive stack and CTA's​

xxxxxxxxxx. there isn't a location in the description or otherwise that allows the guest to quickly identify the hot button features on the VDP​

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2. If you have trust issues, you need to offer things that build trust.

a. display prices clearly in the windows​

b. offer a used car warranty (i.e. 30 day, 30% P&L powertrain warranty)​

c. return or exchange policy​

d. sign up with DealerRater and start building some reviews and get them on the site somewhere.​

e. customer testimonials​

f. improve your staff page - celebrate your people​

g. boost your FB page for likes​

h. post your customers taking delivery of their vehicles on FB​

i. get rid of "Get ePrice" - that doesn't say "trust me"​

j. this one might be controversial but the market pricing showing savings on used cars is bunk - it creates mistrust IMO​

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Thank you for the time you spent making this great assessment. I have plenty to dig through. One thing I do see is that most of the other GM dealers around are not on DDC. DealerInspire looks to be the top pick. We have had good success so far with improving our Google rating. Word seems to be getting around that we're here and not just a name change.

 

[flosho]

Question for some of the "slim down the CTA" folks.

What is a better converting call to action of "Check Availability" or "Schedule a Test Drive" or "Contact Us" plus then "apply for financing"

We have all 3 on our VDP (The contact us button is more of a fixed scrolling button on the side on desktop).

I'd like to slim the CTAs down to 1 or 2 plus financing CTA. Just not sure if there is any settled science behind WHAT the CTA should say.

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

I'd like to slim the CTAs down to 1 or 2 plus financing CTA. Just not sure if there is any settled science behind WHAT the CTA should say.

The only thing that is settled is that everyone will disagree. Ha. We like "Ask A Question."

 

[BillKVMotorCo]

Thank you for the time you spent making this great assessment. I have plenty to dig through. One thing I do see is that most of the other GM dealers around are not on DDC. DealerInspire looks to be the top pick. We have had good success so far with improving our Google rating. Word seems to be getting around that we're here and not just a name change.

We will be switching to DI for our GM site in February. That's largely driven by the fact that they are now the cheapest player after the Ansira buyout and our GM site isn't our main site that we direct people to so it's not AS important. I also like their layouts better personally. And I like that the backend is WordPress. Nice and simple. I've seen complaints, but I don't think anyone is 100% satisfied with their website provider (though I really love our Motive site).

 

[Balboa Bill]

We will be switching to DI for our GM site in February. That's largely driven by the fact that they are now the cheapest player after the Ansira buyout and our GM site isn't our main site that we direct people to so it's not AS important. I also like their layouts better personally. And I like that the backend is WordPress. Nice and simple. I've seen complaints, but I don't think anyone is 100% satisfied with their website provider (though I really love our Motive sit

When I was doing Subaru, DDC was great to deal with, and maybe it's because of the added GM layer, but I get a lot of "GM doesn't allow that" and the D2C2 layer really slows down the photo updates. It might be just as bad with DI, but when I see a majority running with them, it puts up a flag. I also like the cleaner layout on DI.