Everyone is aware how the evolution of, nearly instant, access to information has shaped our industry. Today, it might as well be our given right to be able to access this information from anywhere we want thanks to smartphones, tablets, robust cellular service networks and wifi internet access. But this also means that the way your dealership interacts with, and even more importantly, engages with, potential prospects has changed completely.
We Must Engage With the Prospect on THEIR Terms, On Platforms Where THEY Spend Their Time, But In A Way That Benefits Us.
Reread that last statement one more time before continuing. Now, let’s define the term engage. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition; engage means “to hold the attention of” or “to induce to participate.” If done properly, you can be sure to see an increase in warm leads for your sales department. And yes, of course your service department can benefit from this as well. You see, your prospects today not only have access to boatloads of information pertaining to the vehicle they are interested in, but they also have multiple platforms to gain an education on. This goes way beyond the majority of the major listing sites and vehicle manufacturer sites.
Your prospective customers are trusting many of those sites less and less today and instead finding answers to their most pressing questions from platforms that, up until a few years ago, were not considered reliable business or purchase information sources. One excellent example of this is YouTube. Youtube used to be a place to go to waste time at work watching music videos, stupid human videos, and funny cat videos (admit it, you still watch some from time to time). Today over 100 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute (source). Vehicle manufacturers as well as dealerships are finally realizing just how important video content is. Videos have a much higher rate of engagement compared to a static website. In other words, people LOVE video. And, people will use video during their buying/ research process. The question is, how will you educate and engage them using video? Again, most dealers know they need it, just not sure where to begin, and what will drive the best engagement (and in this case, engaged consumers are more likely to turn into leads which turn into sales or service customers).
Do you have a strategy for driving a prospect from one of your videos to your website? If you’re producing inventory videos you’ll want to lead a prospect to a VLP so they may view other vehicles in stock. Or, if you’re using video to promote vehicle specials, you can easily drive a prospect to a custom landing page. If you’re sharing videos on service whether just introducing staff or filming a technician performing different procedures, you’ll want to make sure the person viewing the video has a direct route to the service section of your website. OR, you can choose to set up a separate landing page for service with even more videos. The more a prospect can learn about your dealership, no matter what department, the easier it is to build trust. Remember, people buy from those whom they KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST.
If you can get a prospect to know, like, and trust you before they even pick up the phone, or become foot traffic, your chances of conversion go through the roof compared with a cold prospect. But how much video content does a person need to see before they feel at ease with you? Prospective customers will watch on average at least 30 minutes of video content pertaining to something they want to purchase, and if it’s a large purchase like a vehicle, they will likely watch up to 60 minutes. They want to spend as little time as possible on the fewest number of sites. For that reason alone, it is paramount that you provide answers to their questions AND have a way for them to go directly to your website, VLP, or landing page. At the very least you must have a phone number present somewhere where they can see it (hint: make your dealership’s phone number a watermark at the bottom of each video). Once they have their answers, especially if your YouTube channel has been able to answer those questions, the prospect will see you as a business they can trust and a business who cares since you have taken the time to engage them where they are.
YouTube is a great place, especially to offer information, but don’t forget about other social outlets like Twitter and Facebook. It has been said that the average person spends 27% of their day on social media.This gives you an opportunity to engage with prospective customers on a platform where they spend almost a third of their day! Facebook being the biggest platform, offers a plethora of ways to engage with prospective customers. BUT, the problem is, dealerships either don’t “get” Facebook, or just use it to “direct sell.” If you’re trying to sell directly on Facebook, and social media in general, you’re gonna have a bad time!
While you can easily use YouTube to engage prospects with education about your inventory and your dealership, you’ll want to use social media to further the engagement. You MUST be disruptive. You, your prospects, your sales team, this author, we’re all pushed and pulled in 92 directions every hour of every day. If your dealership is going to shine through all of the minutia that is present all day long, you need to engage with prospects in a way that disrupts whatever they were doing and gets them to pay attention. What can you possibly say or offer to a prospective customer to get them to stop whatever it is they were just doing, and even go a step further and get them to FORGET what they were just doing and give your dealership their undivided attention?
Is there a special going on right now that no other store you compete with is putting up for offer? Can there be? What about a video pertaining to the dealership that is both entertaining AND informative? Why not try running a service special no one else is running. Content is great to share, pictures are helpful, video is great (as we’ve already discussed), but whatever you use to disrupt that person’s day, it must be effective in engaging them to the point where you become more important than whatever they were just doing. And again, since you’re doing it on a platform where they spend their time, you’re offering it to them on their terms.
Engagement is the new follow up
It’s been said that 80% of sales are made after the 5th contact (source), By implementing different avenues for engaging prospects on their terms, you up the chances of a sale from the beginning. BUT, you’ll also want to figure out some ways to engage prospects after they have visited your store and walk without buying (even after getting a talking to). By engaging them before they come in, building trust during the visit, and then using different strategies of engagement to follow up the prospect, you’ll be able to follow up with them in a way that will benefit your dealership (a sale), and will also benefit the prospect (a sale) all by catering to where they spend their time on their terms, not yours. Plus, most other dealers don’t (won’t) go to these lengths to secure a customer. When done correctly, you’ll also likely have many customers buying and servicing with you for a long, long time.