Unlocking High-Quality Leads: The Secret to Thriving in a Volatile Market

The last 5 years of retail automotive have been the most odd and exciting years that I can remember. We went from the worst thing that could possibly happen (barring an asteroid strike to the planet) to some of the most bizarre and profitable circumstances imaginable.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel for many. Who could have guessed that the consumer would show up with such vigor to purchase a vehicle and that we wouldn’t really have to do anything to make that happen?

However, here we are now. Word from across the industry suggests a steep and sudden decline in interest, website traffic, and the coveted leads. Where did everyone go, and what can we do to get them all back?

When the market softens, it’s important to stay focused on generating the best quality opportunities possible. While it’s clear that things have slowed down for many, car shoppers are still out there purchasing vehicles. Many of my client partners are pacing upward and having record-breaking month after record-breaking month, proving that it’s our job to make sure that car shoppers choose to work with us versus the competition.

So what gives? What are they doing differently? Let’s take a closer look.

What is a better quality lead?

I mentioned that now is the time to focus on generating better quality leads. Let’s quantify what I mean by that. My definition of a better quality lead is one that lands in the CRM and is more workable than many of the other nonsense ones we see. It’s an opportunity that has a higher engagement rate, show rate, and proposal rate — key indicators that a car deal is more likely to result.

Better quality leads mean that you may not see the same quantity within your existing budget, but that isn’t something you should be afraid of. Your focus will be to fill the pipeline with opportunities your BDC won’t have to waste as much time chasing down. It means they will have good phone numbers and email addresses to work with. It means they won’t have to figure out who “RideOrDie4Life1987” is in real life.

The paradigm shift is this: The market has softened, which means there are fewer opportunities as a whole. If we agree that people are still purchasing vehicles right now, despite everything going on around us, that must also mean they were going to buy anyway; that they likely needed less convincing and aren’t likely to be tire-kickers or time-wasters. They have specific needs and are motivated to solve those needs.

So how can we generate better quality leads and take our share of the people who are still showing up to buy?

1. A Well-Defined and Agreed-Upon Definition of Success

When I begin working with new client partners at FlexDealer, this is where we start. It’s one of those items that can make or break everything that follows. It’s shocking to me how few organizations in our industry are aligned around well-defined outcomes. As a result, teams show up to work day in and day out feeling uncertain about what actions to take and whether they will map to anything.

News flash: Without a clear definition of the mission, its objectives, and the desired outcomes, nobody will know what to do. The organization will be filled with highly capable people performing well below their capacity simply because they have been left to their own interpretation of what the organization wants. “Sell more cars” isn’t good enough. “Get more leads” is even worse.

A well-defined and agreed-upon definition of success is the concrete foundation from which everything else builds and stands firm.

2. A Personalized Strategy

Each market, region, city, and dealership is unique. Yes, each desires to sell more vehicles and achieve higher numbers than the month before, but each dealership also has its own challenges: brand perception, personnel issues, budget constraints, varying values, and so on. Unless there is a clear understanding of the dealership’s resources, assets, and liabilities, there will be a skewed perception of what can realistically be accomplished.

Hiring a “marketer” or an “influencer” isn’t a strategy. Signing up for a new agency isn’t a strategy. Taking everything into consideration about what we truly have to work with across the entire dealership ecosystem is what makes the difference.

3. Connect the Dots

Imagine going to a concert where none of the instruments are playing in sync. It wouldn’t take long before what was supposed to be delightful turned into a torturous, anxiety-filled experience.

A common concern I hear from potential clients is that, while their agency reports big numbers to them, they can’t seem to see any more vehicles leaving the lot. These poor dealers are left scratching their heads as to why and how this could be. If traffic is up and conversions are up, why are total units sold down?

A conundrum for sure. In many cases, it’s because everyone was siloed and left to their own interpretation (see point #1). If everyone is siloed, then there isn’t an effective way to connect all the pieces that must come together to achieve the desired end result. A DigAd provider will just run ads for new and used vehicles. An SEO team will create content about whatever topics they see opportunities around. A BDC team will work every lead the exact same way, taking zero consideration for what channel delivered the lead or what phase of the funnel that opportunity fits within.

Progressing from a well-defined mission to a personalized strategy empowers us to connect all the pieces that must come together to create the perfect storm. Imagine how much further your ad dollars would travel if your ads led to a much more relevant website. Imagine how much better your website would be if the content married not only organic opportunities but tied into key customer movements discovered through ad platforms. And imagine how much more effective the BDC would be if they knew what strategy was deployed and driving them opportunities!

4. Team Training: No Longer An Option

Recently, my 15-year-old son tore his ACL/MCL and required knee surgery. While the surgery itself is considered a routine procedure, imagine the outcome if the doctors weren’t specifically trained in this type of surgery. There’s a good reason why we have specialists today.

If our internal teams aren’t training and become more generalists in how they handle the opportunities that come in, we shouldn’t be surprised when the results are, well, general. We’ve seen thousands of cases now where the same individual expresses intent to do business, and with two different agents, they have completely different outcomes. The difference between a high-quality lead and an OK lead is how they are handled.

This is often the most overlooked aspect of the entire ecosystem. We don’t consider our internal team — our physical employees — as part of the marketing or lead generation team, but they definitely are. And by the way, why would we be okay spending hundreds of thousands per year generating opportunities only to fumble the ball in the last few seconds of the final quarter of the game? If we expect our agencies, internal marketers, salespeople, and other vendors to be on top of their game, the same standard must exist for whoever will serve as the last checkpoint to getting that customer through the doors of the dealership.

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How we bring this together at FLX

Our focus as your agency partner is to help you generate higher-quality leads through localized SEO and hyper-targeted advertising. We know that increasing a dealership's topical relevance and making their website more accessible (both to search engines and to consumers) will have a positive impact on the conversions we see from both organic and paid media.

Speaking of conversions, we set up our campaigns to focus on four main conversion types: Web Forms, Chats, Phone Calls, and In-store visits. We add a deeper layer of tracking with our TRACE platform, which visualizes what campaigns are driving the most workable opportunities along with the customer journey and how they became a lead. We can see the customer’s entry point and what they did along the way, right down to pinpointing their actual location, device, and listening to the phone call.

We use this data to strengthen our targeting, guide our on-site work, and ensure that the pieces are unified through to the dealer's internal team. Our onsite visits and training, working alongside internal teams, add a layer of understanding and collaboration that brings everything together into a profitable experience. We get a much truer view of how much higher-quality leads cost and can track that right through to higher engagement rates, show rates, proposal rates, and sold rates.

In today’s market conditions, there is no time to waste. The focus must be on generating higher-quality opportunities through a cohesive and personalized approach, with unified stakeholders and teams who take precise action toward a well-defined and agreed-upon success mission.

Learn more: https://www.flexdealer.com