Internet Marketing Blog

Marketing vs. Sales At Your RV Dealership

Its important to make sure your marketing and sales team are working together at your RV dealership.

We’ve all heard stories about how a dealerships marketing and sales team didn’t work well together and it hurt their dealership, and we want to learn from their mistakes.

The biggest mistake you can make as an RV dealership is thinking there is such thing as marketing vs. sales. The truth is, you have to have marketing AND sales.

Train Your RV Sales Team On How To Close More RV Sales

Without customer leads for your sales team you sell no RV’s.

Without a trained sales team to close your customer leads you sell minimal RV’s.

The goal is to have marketing and sales at your RV dealership.

When you have an amazing marketing team getting customer leads for your sales team and a sales team of closers, life is good at the dealership.

When you have customer leads sparingly and a sales team that is mediocre time will be tough.

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Moral of the story?

Make sure you have the right marketing and sales team before you waste your time and marketing spend.

To be an efficient and lean RV dealership that continuously closes deals you have to have the right team.

Focus on getting the right marketing and sales team at your dealership and your sales goals won’t be so hard to reach.

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Auditing Your RV Dealerships Marketing Budget

Auditing your RV dealerships marketing budget has never been more important than it is now.

If you want to be one of the RV dealerships that stay around and don’t get bought out by a giant like Camping World, then you have to make sure your marketing and sales processes are lean and efficient.

As you look at auditing your RV dealerships marketing budget, there are a couple things to keep in mind.

The whole purpose of our marketing is to create a conversation and customer lead for our sales team.

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This means our billboards, TV commercials, radio ads, digital ads, etc, are all designed to create a conversation with our sales team and our customers.

So when we look at our marketing budget and where we have our dollars allocated, we have to keep at the top of our mind, “how many conversations did this marketing avenue create?”.

This is important to keep in mind because say our monthly marketing budget looks like this:

Billboards – $1000
Radio Ads – $1000
Local TV ads – $5000
Online Ads – $500

With this outlined marketing budget your RV dealership would be spending $7500 a month to start a conversation with your sales team and your customer.

The next piece of the puzzle is understanding how many conversations these marketing avenues create.

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So for example, say you track the conversations and it looks something like this:

Billboards started 100 conversations. ($10 per lead)
Radio Ads started 75 conversations. ($13 per lead)
Local TV Ads started 300 conversations. ($16 per lead)
Online Ads started 100 conversations. ($5 per lead)

If the numbers look like this when tracking the conversations and breaking down your budget it won’t be hard to see how your RV dealership could get more efficient.

If your RV dealerships marketing audit produce similar results to the numbers above then it would make sense to adjust your budget.

Think about it.

We will never sell a RV without starting a conversation with our sales team and our customers.

So the main objective in your marketing should be to start that conversation.

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If it cost you $5 a lead to start a conversation using your online ads, while it takes $10+ to create a conversation with a radio, TV ad, or billboard, then to create a lean marketing process we would adjust our budget and put more into our online ads.

Sometimes this is hard because it is harder to track the ROI of our TV ads, radio commercials, and billboards.

Without having a solid process and asking every buyer, “What piece of our marketing brought you to our dealership” it gets hard to track.

The good thing about online ads is the date is right in front of you.

With online ads you can see how much it cost to get the click back to your website.

Next you should track how many of those clicks turn into an internet lead, so you can track online ROI.

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Auditing your RV dealerships marketing budget like outlined above is very important.

When your competition are giants like Camping World, it is impossible to go head on head with your marketing budget.

The only way to sustain against a giant is to have leaner marketing and sales processes.

So don’t make the mistake of never auditing your RV dealerships marketing budget because it could be the reason your dealership gets bought out.

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Charge What You’re Worth

When I look back upon the last decade I spent in business, it’s filled with different stories. Different narratives. Some moments I cringe at, and others I embrace. Yet, there’s part of me that is thankful for all the mistakes I made while growing up in the business world. In each mistake was a lesson, and the biggest lesson was to charge what you’re worth.

In my younger years, I was talented enough to get places, but I didn’t have the character enough to keep me in those same positions. I would be afraid of failure or pressured by “more respected persons” that said my work wasn’t good enough to charge what I knew was fair. This usually gave them a bunch of free labor from me and left me resentful of the work I was doing. That is why the biggest mistake I made while growing up in business was not charging what I was worth. So my advice, charge what you’re worth.

Check People’s Motives

Charging a fair amount for my work was one of the biggest problems I had when I started out in business. I guess it started as a confidence thing. It was true that I knew more than the average bear, but I didn’t feel confident enough in my skills to charge what I deserved to be paid for my services. In that, I ended up doing a lot of unnecessary work for free. It was ridiculous! My friends in the field told me to charge but I had some mentors that explained I should be doing things for free to build my portfolio.

Obviously I think it’s a big deal to have a proper portfolio, but at the same time, I don’t think this means selling yourself short. It is only the clients that I’ve given discounts or not charged a fair amount to that I’ve had problems with when it comes to payment. They either would pay late or not pay at all. It becomes a tug of war match to even get your money from some of them after the work is completed. So be wise, and don’t devalue yourself to please other people.

Never Second Guess Yourself

Never ever second guess yourself when it comes to charging for your work. Charge a fair amount. Be honest. And do what you promised. Everyone in business knows marketing is a lot of trial and error, so if you have a client that pushes you against the wall for a sure outcome explain that there’s no magic formula. Just show your case studies from the past and let them come to their own conclusion.

Think about the ads we all see on tv for weight-loss drugs. These huge results and always in the fine print even says results not typical. Every client is different and so is every marketing push you help set up for them. Don’t get trapped in the anxiety of not delivering dramatic results. Do your best and let it go if they try to downgrade your work so they don’t have to pay a fair amount.

Charge What You’re Worth

Also, it’s important to pick the right clients for you. The truth is, not every person is the right client for you despite what you may think. Niching down and handpicking the RIGHT clients is something that you should be doing. For example, if you are a digital marketer or social media person you need to pick clients that embrace this. Not people that don’t value these things. It’s not your job to convince people to get on the boat but it is your job to help the people that are already on to get to the destination they want.

I hope this helps someone not make the same mistakes I did. Love yourself. Love others. And do the best that you can always!

Stay Pushing,

Tia

Ways BDC Reps Can Stand Out Against The Competition In 2020

All internet departments are run differently and in that, all internet directors and BDC Reps are different too. But being different is something that makes us unique and helps us stand out against the competition. This blog explains a few different ways BDC Reps can stand out against the competition in 2020.

Get More Internet Leads

The top ways Rep’s can stand out are by implementing these three things into their digital strategy:

1. Introduction Video’s

2. Clean and Helpful Signatures

3. Social Media Strategies

Introduction Videos

One of the things that made the biggest impact on my Internet Manager career was making an Introduction video. This video had “client testimonials” and explained what I could do for my clients. It allowed them to know upfront all the different services that I provided which helped make me more of a person rather than just some imaginary figure behind a keyboard.

Clean and Helpful Signatures

Another thing I did was I made sure that my signature had aesthetic appeal while also including valuable information. I included a custom made graphic that had my picture so customers could recognize me along with all my contact information including my direct cellphone number. This gave them direct access to me without them getting lost in transfers through the dealership receptionist.

Reps can also add a “get approved for financing” option at the bottom of their signature. This makes it easy for customers to click the link and submit their credit directly to the dealership.

Social Media Strategies

Before I started Ron Marhofer Hyundai, there was not a Facebook page for the company. So when I became Internet Manager I made sure to create this page along with a YouTube channel.

Through these social media outlets, I was able to help our customers receive useful information while making it easy for others to find us through social search. I even ended up helping the dealership rank on the first page of Google in our area for the search phrase “How To Pair Your Phone to BlueTooth on Hyundai Sonata”.

The video provided helpful information for our customers and prospects alike. It also gave us a higher ranking for a valuable keyword on Google. Without any promotion, the video itself ended up getting over 100,000 views. Not too bad for a $0 marketing budget.

Learn How To Sell More Cars Online

Change can be a scary thing at first but in the end, you’ll be thankful you tried. With that being said, the more you do these simple things, the more successful you and your dealership will be. Thanks for reading ways BDC Reps can stand out against the competition in 2020 and I look forward to seeing how these tips helped you in 2020.

Until Next Time, Stay Pushing,

Tia Lentini

What Is Wrong With My Digital Marketing Strategy?

When you think about your digital marketing strategy a lot of different things may pop into your mind.

The truth is, your digital marketing strategy should be evolving monthly and get more efficient as time goes on, but what all goes into a good strategy?

Is it just about having a website, a Facebook page, and an email account, or are there more things to a digital marketing strategy?

In today’s market, you have to be in many places at one time to get your customers attention so listen up.

I would say your digital marketing team and strategy is the biggest key performance indicators (KPI) for your company’s sales.

The idea behind digital marketing strategy is getting all of your digital marketing working together so you can generate a true customer lead.

In simple terms, how well is your website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pay-Per Click Ads, SEO, E-Mail marketing, and everything else working together to reach your target customer.

While some companies have just a website and a Facebook page, (that they never touch) other companies are taking their digital strategy serious. The serious companies are making sure they’re omnipresent across the internet and search engines.

We are no longer in a time where just having a website is good enough to attract your ideal customer.

Consumers are using every tool they have at their disposal to make sure they are working with the most credible companies and buying the most credible products.

From Google, Facebook, Yelp reviews, pictures, videos, your website, the content you create, and everything in between. Your ideal customers are using all of these tools and more to decide if they want to work with your company or not.

This is very important if you’re a business owner because you have to be able to keep up with the times and know if your digital marketing strategy is set for success or failure.

How do you make sure your digital marketing strategy is set up for success?

You should be asking your marketing team questions like these:

How are we targeting our ideal customers with PPC ads?
How are we using Facebook to build a relevant audience we can continue marketing to?
How good is our website at generating a lead once a potential customer visits the site?
How are we using video to drive engagement and interest with our target customers?
How are we using e-mail marketing to stay in front of our customers and keep them up-to-date with what is happening at the company?
How often are we using Facebook Live, LinkedIn Live, YouTube Live, and other forms of Live video to generate new interest and spark new conversations?
How are we following up with the leads from last month that nobody has called or talked to yet?
And the list goes on…

As you can tell, there are a lot of important questions that need to be answered when it comes to your online strategy.

How well can you answer these questions about your digital marketing strategy?

How often is your company doing a digital marketing audit to make sure your strategy is as efficient as it can be?

How well is your sales team following up with the customer leads your digital marketing creates?

Remember, the most adaptable businesses survive.

Don’t Complain About The Dealerships Leads & Get Your Own

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

If you’re one of those sales people who tell your co-workers that the “leads are bad” and this is why you can’t close a deal then read this post 100 times. Too many sales associates complain about the dealership leads they’re provided yet they never do anything to bring their own leads, and it’s silly to even think about.

Now, I will agree that it is a dealerships job to give their sales associates plenty of leads so they can fill their pipeline and close more deals.

However, I do not think it is fair for sales associates to take the leads a dealership is creating for them and not follow up with them properly or write them off as a non buyer before they’ve even qualified them. Sales associates have to do a better job of implementing at least an 18 month follow up process with their customers to ensure they don’t leave any money on the table; and realistically the longer the follow up process the better.

Side Note: It is a good practice to still follow up with your customers even after you’ve made the sale.

Now, Instead of looking at dealer supplied leads as wasted time and non buyers, start to implement your sales and follow up process with them for days, weeks, months, and years on end.

Start Generating Your Own Dealership Leads

On top of implementing a solid follow up and sales process with your dealerships leads, you should also start to do your own lead generation.

With a cell phone and the free tools that you have at your finger tips, it is easier than ever to generate leads for yourself.

As a sales associate you can take the already existing pictures of your units (Hopefully they are HD) and you can add your own unit postings on sites like Craigslist.org. You can also have your most recent customers tag you on Facebook and have them give you a review so their friends and family can see who they bought their unit from. There are a lot of powerful tools out there… use them!

One thing a lot of dealerships are missing out on is Facebook Live. Sales associates should start using their dealerships Facebook pages to go “Live” as a way to generate more leads and trust with your customers.

This is also good because it gives your sales team a great platform to demo your units on and is live directly to your customers.

Here Is An Example Of A Facebook Live We Shot For A Dealership

In the digital age there is no excuse for sales associates to not be generating at least some of their own leads, and as technology grows, the need for these types of sales professionals is going to rise. With cell phones, websites, and digital marketing growing quicker then ever; it is a sales persons job to stay up-to-date on the newest and best lead generation and digital sales strategies so they can help their dealerships and companies grow instead of holding them back.

Stop complaining about the leads and start creating them!

Lead Generation Image Source