As a dealership manager it can be difficult to get participation and buy-in from your team. During my many years as a general manager, I found that one of the simplest and most effective ways to get a team to work towards a common goal is through accountability. Accountability (when managed lightly) can create consistency, successful habits and pride in performance. I say…

(Quick Note: This is an excerpt from the 2015 Automotive Dealer Mystery Shop Study we released this year; and the best practices shared below relate to the email and voicemail messages that car dealers should be using when responding to an internet sales lead.)

VOICEMAIL & EMAIL RESPONSES – BEST PRACTICES

It’s important to remember the goal of this process: That is, to drive a reconnection;…

Today’s consumers are more modern, digitally-connected and always on-the-go. To target today’s auto shoppers, dealers must also follow suit – which means being on-line and becoming just as digitally connected. And dealers are listening. In fact, according to research by eMarketer, digital spend is on the rise and will only continue to climb over the next 5 years.

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(Another helpful excerpt from our free 2015 Car Dealer Mystery Shop Study of more than 400 dealers.)

Why Does Lead Response Matter?

Lately, much has been written about the drop in the number of electronic sales leads dealers receive – not coincidentally, of course, most often by those wishing to sell more of their own brand of marketing to these same dealers – and while the decline…

We just finished a 30-day, full (email, phone and text) internet sales mystery shop of 21 dealers for a 20-group presentation I’m delivering next month. Of the 21 dealers we shopped, only five sent an auto-response to the inbound e-lead. Five! This means more than 75% of the dealers did not use an auto-responder.

The 20-group I’m addressing is a mixed group with mostly GM dealers; and it’s interesting that only one of the General Motors dealers used an auto-response. This…

All dealerships get leads that originate from the Internet. Not all dealers, however, are equal when it comes to how they handle these leads. Ever wonder why some dealers are able to close Internet leads at 12+ percent, while others struggle to reach 6 percent? The reason has everything to do with how these leads are handled – from speed of reply to the content in the reply…

Many of us in the marketing department have been trying to reach prospects and customers by email since time began.  The problem is that response rates (opening, reading and taking action) are droping like a stone.  On average an email is only opened, even by someone who knows you 8-11% of the time. And response rates are under 2%.  But text messaging (also known as SMS) can get as much as a 75% open rate.

According to a study posted on …

There’s no doubt that video marketing is exploding in popularity with businesses and consumers. Both Facebook and Twitter are investing heavily in video and, in the case of Facebook, rewarding those who upload their video straight onto its extended reach advertising platform.

The days of reading long text descriptions and features of vehicles on websites are…

Question: How much money is sitting in your Dealership Management System (DMS) right now?

Well, let’s break it down. The average-sized dealership has tens of thousands of customer names in its DMS. Since each name represents a customer—either sales or service—whose ownership of their current vehicle will ultimately come to an end, they make great prospects…

Do you remember the AT&T ad slogan “Reach Out and Touch Someone” from the early 1980s?  It may have been thirty years since that slogan reached its peak in popularity, but it still has a similar meaning today. Our high-paced, digitally driven world has made it even easier to stay in touch with our friends and family. A few typed words on a smartphone, or the sharing of a…

A name without an email address is a wasted opportunity. For every 10,000 contacts pulled from dealership management systems, on average only 3,000 have deliverable email addresses. This means that most dealers are unable to send emails to 70 percent of their past, current and potential customers.

That's money left on the table, folks. Email is probably your…

http://www.BradleyOnDemand.com 856-546-2440

Make Money Mondays with Sean V. Bradley - "Increase Appointment Shows" - Video…

     I love those great months... who doesn't?.  You know the ones.. Excellent production, solid gross and great back end penetration.  Record numbers in the service drive and the parts numbers to support the RO's.

Up tick... Up tick.

Business being better at our physical place of business generally means an up tick in the web traffic.…

Clearwater, FL--October 21st, 2014--AutoLoop LLC, a leading developer of sales-generation and customer-retention software for auto dealers, today announced the addition of Sean Donovan as Sales Representative for western North America. Donovan brings nearly 20 years of automotive marketing, technology, and analytics experience to the team, and his new position…

Virtually every dealership today uses their website, social media channels, and email to be a part of their “voice” when it comes to communicating with their customers and begin building a “trust” relationship long before the shopper ever visits their store.

The ultimate goal of each of these communications is to drive the consumer to your lot.  Your team is…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Urbandale, IA--September 8th, 2014--Flick Fusion (www.flickfusion.com), the industry's leading video marketing provider, today announced the availability of VidMail, a video email marketing tool that makes it easy for auto dealer personnel to create customized videos for lead inquiries without ever having to leave their desk. Video emails are a proven way to increase open rates, click-throughs and…

There are many things that companies can do to earn a customer’s loyalty. However, e-mail marketing isn’t typically high on the list. Consumers get barraged continuously with marketing messages via e-mail. As you go through your in-box, how many do you delete without even reading them in order to get to those you are interested in reading? A very good…

Basic text email absolutely stinks for many of the applications we typically use it for in the automotive industry. There, I said it! Do I have your attention now?

There’s a reason I’m saying this and I think you’ll agree after hearing me out. The fact of the matter is, text communication causes fights. When is the last time you sent your wife, girlfriend, husband, or boyfriend a text message that was completely taken out of context? For me it’s daily, sometimes, even…

Consumers today are increasingly becoming finicky about where and how they want to communicate. While the past may have seen a traditional print ad performing well on its own, that’s increasingly not the case. Data supports the fact that consumers are all over the place and successful marketers know that their message needs to be at every potential touch point possible. The…