I'd like to question you a bit more around your answers and opinions. I don't necessarily disagree with you but I do believe there's come additional great conversation to be added --
1. Why is "Lead Conversion" by email form / phone call the most important VS bringing/persuading the customer into the store by offering a great experience, on the VDP by desktop AND mobile.
Since we know only a small percentage (>20%) of consumers will ever fill out an online forum (as these percentage decrease over the last few years for the most part), one would argue that the experience the consumer is receiving pre-form fill is more important in driving the conversion to SHOW.
2. I agree with poor call-to actions. Lets step back and ask "why" are they "poor"? Mostly due to being old and stale. We've been using the same call-to-actions for over 15 years now...
- Get your price quote
- Get your e-Price
- Get your internet price (bad)
- Get your trade-in value
- Request sale price
- Schedule test drive (less performing)
- Check availability (this was a good one for awhile and may still have some life to it)
I may have missed a few, but I've made my point. In one way or another our Call to Actions have not changed. Most are based around PRICE - Receiving a Price from the dealership.
Most consumers are going through their 3rd, 4th, 6th purchase while using the dealership website as a shopping tool. At one point or another most have responded (more than once) to the like call-to-actions, ONLY to find the process was NO different - the experience was the same (if not worse). It's unlikely they received a real price quote after giving up their information. Instead they were called and emailed over and over with no real answer to their questions.
The only outcome was those "4 words that make sales managers sound stupid".
I propose we remove ALL lead forms and replace the CTA with the a much different one Call-To-Action - something more engaging (like a stellar chat session) or an incentive that drives the customer physically into the dealer showroom. SOMETHING Different.
One PRIMARY Call-to-Action - not 13 CTA rainbow buttons lined up along the side of a vehicle photo. ONE primary engaging CTA that's gains all of the attention for possible conversion.
We have become industry - dealers and vendors alike, that measures their performance of their website and "internet marketing departments" by lead count alone.
I hear it all the time "How can we get more leads from our website?" "We need more leads" - meanwhile they have a less than average closing ratio and are clueless to what their lead-to-show rate is, since they're not even measuring it.
Why is that?
