I have a 5-minute assignment for each of you and if you do it for the next six weeks, I’ll absolutely promise your online lead total will be better than your competition’s.It’s quick. It’s simple. And I’m embarrassed for our industry to say this but it will make you better at online marketing than most dealerships. My assignment for you stems from a 10-minute exercise I did last week. An exercise that was humbling for me because it shows that we haven’t focused enough on this subject with our dealer educational efforts over the past few years.
It’s all about what happens on your website’s homepage from a consumer perspective. More and more websites are going to a responsive design technology that in many cases features a large rotator ad on the homepage. This responsive design allows for websites to be viewed as easily on mobile devices as on PCs. This is hugely important as mobile devices probably make up more than 40 percent of your website’s page views now.
The problem is we as dealership operators don’t consider what happens when our consumers click on a rotator ad or the OEM banner ads we place on our homepage. We place that new OEM banner ad up there with a visual of that sweet lookin’ new model and shout out, “Sam, get the barrel baby, because those leads are going to start pouring in!” This is the problem! Your online marketing job isn’t complete when you simply place the ad on there.
Understand, for your enthusiasts looking at screens all day, their lives now can be summed up in three words: See, read and click. Which means your entire chance at landing that bike buyer depends on what happens after the click. Not what they read. Now what they look at. But what happens after they click! One question for you: Have you actually identified what happens after they click? After the consumer clicks on that big rotator ad on your website homepage, what happens? What’s suppose to happen is the consumer remains on your site and is hopefully closer to an online form they can fill out and leave their contact information on.
What’s not supposed to happen: Anything that doesn’t accomplish the above.
In my 10-minute exercise on different dealership sites, here’s some of what I found:
• When clicked, a rotator ad led me off the dealer’s website and onto an OEM’s website. My reaction: Wow! I guess I’ll go look for another dealership site that actually wants my lead!
• When clicked, a rotator ad on a multi-point dealership site led me back to their original homepage that features all of their locations. Reaction: Say what? I’m looking for information on a specific unit, and you lead me to a page that has addresses for your three locations? Are you trying to make my shopping experience easier or more frustrating?
• When clicked, a rotator ad led me …. nowhere! I clicked on it and nothing happened. Reaction: I think I’ll go do a Google search and find a dealership that has a more helpful online shopping process.
Do yourself a favor: Take 5 minutes today (and every week!) to click on your website homepage’s rotator ads and banner ads. Identify what is happening after the click. Then, and only then, can you shout out, “Sam, get the barrel baby, those leads are going to start pouring in!”