What does it take to acquire your next customer?
I would consider this one of the biggest takeaways coming from the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference this past July.
The greatest part about this conference wasn’t about what you need to spend to acquire a customer, but actually how you can cut down costs on your digital marketing. Below we will explore cost effective ways to help acquire qualified sales opportunities in the automotive industry through your digital advertising
Inspect Outcomes & Stop Counting Conversion
One of the first topics that was discussed in Brian Pasch’s Google SEM Session was whether a conversion generated through a dealer’s search engine marketing should be considered a lead. Statistically speaking, not all conversions are going to generate qualified leads.
During this session, Brian broke down the conversions of a dealer’s SEM strategy. This showcased that 67% were phone calls, 28% were form fills and 5% were text to chat. Out of the total number of what this dealer was considering a “conversion,” only 20% ended up being sales from phone calls.
The point behind this conversation was that all conversions aren’t necessarily always going to be a lead and the metric we should be striving to aim for is the cost per sale opportunity.
How To Obtain Qualified Sales Opportunities?
The most qualified way to create a sales opportunity through SEM is phone calls because they can be considered a trackable metric. Whether it’s the Cost Per Call or monitoring phone calls, dealers will have a better understanding of how their SEM strategy contributes to their bottom line through this measurement of success.
Another statistic that was presented during this session was “ after Inspecting one million google SEM Calls 12.84% were identified as sales opportunities”. On average, 12%-13% of phone calls through SEM are considered a qualified sales opportunity.
Rethinking Your SEM Strategy
Knowing that phone calls are the best way to obtain a potential sales opportunity will allow dealers to better optimize their SEM strategies. Optimizing a Dealer’s Google My Business listing can also be one of the most cost effective ways to optimize your business organically. This specific function on google is perfect for targeting local traffic, also having clear calls to actions on the page. Brian even compared GMB as the newer version of the yellow pages.
Call to actions on Google My Business:
- Call the store
- Visit the Website
- Get Directions
- Store Hours
Dealers love the idea of bidding on their brand name. In this SEM panel, it was suggested to not be the best strategy because potentially qualified shoppers who are typing in a dealership’s name are more than likely already familiar with their brand. Reason being If a person consciously writes that specific dealer’s name, their mind is already set on that dealership.
When a dealer’s GMB is optimized and set up properly, they are optimized to be found on google, allow dealers extra budget to bid on different, possibly more competitive keywords through their SEM strategy.
Should Sales People Brand Themselves ?
Moving forward to Glenn Pasch’s session “Should Salespeople Brand Themselves,” all four guest speakers discussed their passion for having sales people brand themselves. A couple of reasons why is for the fact they have an easier way of building a connection with a potential customer. Some examples of building this common ground could be sports teams, hobbies, and just good informative content. Since we all consume content differently nowadays., this is a very cost effective strategy when it comes to finding the next potential sales opportunity.
Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin, media gives sales people the ability to be directly connected to potential customers and answer questions and concerns directly. Social Media also gives sales people a common ground with potential customers and the ability to be prepared with any prior concerns when they meet a customer face to face.
Sales people being able to brand themselves at the dealership allows them to showcase how unique they are compared to sales people at other dealerships.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the best way to acquire your next potential customer is to make sure you are looking at the right metrics. A strong way to figure that out is by tracking and monitoring sales calls. Tracking these calls can help build a strategy to improve the chances of closing a sale.
Ultimately, the best way to acquire your next potential customer is to make sure you are looking at the right metrics. A strong way to figure that out is by tracking and monitoring sales calls. Tracking these calls can help build a strategy to improve the chances of closing a sale.
Another cost effective strategy is to optimize a Google My Business listing. Optimizing GMB is as easy as making sure the call to actions are properly updated. Letting your sales representatives brand themselves. This is giving them the ability to potentially build a connection with customers via social media. Moreover, you can sign up today and rewatch all the sessions at DMSC. Sign Up Here!
If your business is looking to enhance it’s ability to obtain qualified sales opportunities, reach out to the PCG Digital team today!
Melvin Green
Drive Your Meta Advertising Strategy Using Conversational Commerce
