Want to Boost Sales 20%? Pull One of These 4 Levers!
Scott Joseph
Empowering Entrepreneurial Excellence | Founder of Me Plus Ultra | Host of Business Bourbon & Cigars Leadership Retreats & Podcast | Auto Dealership Owner | J&L Marketing Founder
Marketing guru Jay Abraham teaches there are three (and only three) levers to grow any business. Translated to the auto business they are...
1. Increase how many individual customers you sell to
2. Increase your gross average
3. Increase frequency (how often customers buy)
There is a fourth lever that must be pulled in order to boost how many individual customers buy from you.
That fourth lever is increase your Leads. Most people drastically underestimate how many additional leads are needed to grow sales.
So, here is the formula for boosting sales 20%...
# of Leads = Customers Sold X Gross X Frequency = Growth Potential
Grow any of these four levers 20% and your sales will increase 20%. Grow them all 20% and you will see 80% growth! Can you grow them all? Probably not.
Can you grow one of them 20%? Or two of them? Yes you can. In other words, focus on these4 levers and the math will always work out…
For example - Imagine this is your normal month…
- 1000 total leads = 150 Sold Customers (15% closing%) X $2,000 Gross X 1 Purchases = $300,000
If you see a 20% increase in leads and maintain your closing percentage, it looks like this…
- 1,200 total leads = 180 Sold Customers (15% closing %) X $2,000 Gross X 1 Purchases = $360,000
If you see a 20% increase in gross and maintain your leads and closing percentage, it looks like this…
- 1000 total leads = 150 Sold Customers (15% closing %) X $2,400 Gross X 1 Purchases = $360,000
The easiest of the four levers to increase is the amount of leads you generate.
You can do this without increasing your ad budget one cent. In order for that to happen you have to be willing to dump ineffective marketing/advertising and replace it with a marketing system that produces a steady stream of leads continuously.
How to Increase Your Leads by a minimum of 20%
If you want more leads, your marketing must be more engaging and enroll more people. Which means you must offer something of high perceived value to your in-market audience. The challenge with today’s automotive market is that the Internet is painting automotive dealers into a commodity corner. Developing a true differentiator can be challenging.
Car shoppers are no longer are reliant on dealers for the information needed to buy a car. Car dealers have done an outstanding job integrating new marketing channels to reach their audience.
However, many dealers continue to make the same “old school” offers that worked when customers did rely on them for information. Those same “old school” offers are mostly ignored in today’s market.
If you want to increase your leads 20% or more you need…
- Offers that have a high perceived value to today’s market
- More high perceived value offers
- Better Dynamic Marketing Differentiators
A Successful Dynamic Marketing Differentiator looks like this…
When customers click on that “Get Started” button, they'll be asked for their email address to receive the offers.
Here’s another Dynamic Marketing Differentiator used for Facebook…
A successful dynamic marketing differentiator with email looks like this…
These offers differentiate these dealers because they simply make an irresistible bribe (an offer the car shopper can’t refuse) offering an exclusive chunk of value to a prospect in exchange for their contact information.
The key word in the above definition is EXCLUSIVE.
These Dynamic Marketing Differentiators offer something today’s car buyers want… they want more information, quicker, easier, faster.
These ads offer value other dealers in the market can’t make (especially to conquest prospects) – so it’s unique and different. Most consumers rely on 3rd-party sites for information because they trust them more. You have to be more transparent and give them more of the information they rely on other sites for.
These ads do that and offer a compelling reason why consumers should look towards your inventory before they sell themselves online.
If you want to download a free Whitepaper specifically on this marketing system you can do so by clicking here.
Why ads do not provide you enough leads to grow sales 20%
In nearly every case, the #1 reason an ad does not perform well is because it doesn’t solve a specific problem or there is no exclusivity or urgency to it.
This is a terrible Dynamic Marketing Differentiator…
This is a perfect example of a dealer ad that only talks about themselves… We’ve been in business for 40 years… largest selection (is their selection really better than the entire Internet?) … I can find flexible finance options from my couch… I could go on and on.
There isn’t anything unique or anything that today’s car buyer sees as valuable. Why would anyone click on this ad or be motivated to take any action?
This offer will underperform regardless of the marketing channel it’s on… email, social, etc. Remember the customer does not care about you… they only care about what your offer will do for them.
If you want to attract more people as they enter the market (and influence them before they sell themselves online)… your advertisement needs to answer the question "What's in it for me?" with a compelling answer that truly saves time, effort and money.
You are not saving them time by making it more difficult to get the information they need prior to deciding which 1.4 dealers they will visit.
This ad is even worse…
Just advertising the dealers name is not enough… literally nothing of value offered other than a "Find Yours" button to view inventory. Once again, you can find a much bigger selection all over the Internet… why restrict yourself to only this one dealer’s inventory?
If you want people to shop your inventory you have to give them a real reason why they should.
In both cases there is no specificity, exclusivity or urgency to do anything. J&L Marketing’s testing proves that a Dynamic Marketing Differentiator that solves a specific problem can convert over 60% of the traffic generated into a lead conversion.
Take another look at the three successful Dynamic Marketing Differentiators above and study the use of specificity, exclusivity and urgency…
If you want to increase your leads—start with your Dynamic Marketing Differentiator.
Be specific... offer exclusivity... and create some urgency.
The three successful ads above produced 3X more leads than the dealer’s prior direct marketing. So, they replaced their "old school" offers with something that appeals to today's car shopper and are now in the process of leveraging that message with their other marketing channels.
If you want a to see a marketing program that allows you to make offers other dealers can't make, produces a steady stream of leads all month long and completely differentiates you from everyone else...
Just say... "Yes! I want more information." and click here and schedule a quick call.
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Scott
Scott Joseph is an automotive dealer and CEO of J&L Marketing. With nearly 3 decades of automotive sales, marketing and leadership experience, he helps automotive clients grow predictable sales with his engineered proven marketing process.
White labeled tech for marketing agencies in automotive - we target local, in-market buyers to generate dealer leads.
6 年Another excellent article - completely on the money.