What's Important In Digital Marketing for Car Dealers: Top Lead Handling Tips

Do you know what the MOST important part of your automotive digital marketing strategy is? Other agencies may preach that there are particular Key Performance Indicators (or KPIs) within your campaigns or SEO strategy that you can measure to determine if you have been successful or not. However, we know that if all of those measurements do not translate to more car sales, then we were not truly successful.

Our automotive SEO digital marketing strategy goes a step beyond our competition by offering car dealers custom lead handling analysis. We provide our dealers with a snapshot of how their sales team is handling all of the potential customers we're sending them, then provide them with insights on how they can continue to improve. Our SEO Agency Team has spent countless hours testing and compiling the top 7 lead handling tips that will drive more car sales for your dealership, and you can see them below:

7 Lead Handling Tips That Drive More Sales

1. Respond Quickly

With your customers being more informed and demanding than ever before, it has truly become a race for who gets initial contact with the customer. Studies show that if customers are not contacted back within five minutes of showing interest, the risk of losing them is very high. In fact, the risk of losing a customer after ten minutes of no-contact can be as high as 80%!

2. Have An Always-On Model

While your dealership may be open from 9 am to 5 pm, your digital storefront is open 24/7! It is critical in this day and age to have a plan for after-hours when it comes to your store. Setting up systems like live chat, automation, and more can help ensure that you’re not losing out on sales, even when you’re sleeping.

3. Personalize Your Response

We all know that every customer is unique and different, so why are you sending them all the same templated reply? During initial contact, it’s imperative that you determine what the customer cares about and cater your reply to their individual needs. Things such as adding in a personalized walk-around video for your customer of the vehicle that they inquired about.

4. Stay Engaged and Never Give Up

By not following up on leads after a certain number of days or lack of responses, you could possibly be leaving dollars on the table. For most customers, the car buying cycle is an average of 45 days, meaning you could be missing customers at the most critical time of their buying process.

5. Answer The Customer’s Original Question

It's likely that when your customer submitted their lead, they submitted an inquiry about the vehicle they’re looking at or have a question about the car buying process. It's important to make sure to answer the original question submitted by this customer. Not doing this can sometimes cause frustration and induce a lack of interest if not handled properly.

6. Capture the Customer’s Information Quickly

If you're on the phone with a potential customer, it's important that you ask for the customer’s name, phone numer, and email address. This is a fail-safe in case the call gets disconnected, but also allows you to retarget those customers with ads even if they don't purchase from you on that particular day

7. ALWAYS Ask to Set an Appointment

Creating an appointment sets an obligation with the customer to follow through and come to the dealership. You have reserved a spot on their busy schedule and are more likely to see success because of it. Set and Show percentages are a crucial piece of measuring the success of your lead handling efforts over time!

Automotive Lead Handling Experts

At Click Here, our automotive lead handling experts evaluate your dealerships’ performance in handling website leads, phone call leads, and more to provide you with meaningful insights that you can bring back to your sales team. As seen in the chart below, on average, car dealerships in our portfolio with SEO services see a 35% increase in conversion rate compared to clients with no SEO services. If you're interested in moving the needle on what truly matters in your automotive digital marketing, contact Click Here's team of automotive SEO experts today!

Watch the video below of our Director of Account Services, Zack Hill, explaining the importance of analyzing your lead handling processes and the top ways that you can improve today!