Sales down? -chase mid-funnel buyers.

This article will be short and to the point.

In the past 5 days, I have visited with 4 GM's that all have the same problem. So I thought I would share a solution.

The problem areas:

• Direct mail offers are dead or showing little response. Especially finance offers.
• Traffic is not converting from the websites. They seem to have the same or more traffic hitting their websites, but they are not converting.
• They're sitting with too much inventory. In some cases 120-150 day supply on some car lines.

Here's how I would fix these problems.

First off, everyone is focused on sales, not harvesting buyers. Very few dealers are focused on mid-funnel buyers. Hyundai and other OEM's are starting to attack these mid-funnel buyers which I believe is the smartest thing you can do. The problem that I see even with a mid-funnel game plan, is that most dealers haven't trained their salespeople how to handle the mid-funnel buyer. That's another article...They could easily blow a sale by asking the wrong questions to mid -funnel traffic.

The reward is a higher gross, happier customer, and most likely, less brain damage during the sales and delivery process.

Start off by taking web traffic more serious. Not the ones your talking to, but the ones your not talking to. Since our company has the ability to identify home addresses, we mail overnight to everyone that is in a local PMA of a dealership a private offer to get them off the couch or office and into the dealership now, offering things like Amazon gift cards, or Yeti coolers, additional money off, etc.

Either it be with my company or others that digitally retarget those website visitors, you've got to move quicker to get in position to sell a car before the guys down the street have a shot at them. You can't close some one that no longer exists. Mid-funnels are becoming the new buyer you can't afford to wait for.

Geo-fencing is another way of harvesting buyers. I don't want to talk about that in this article, but the feeling that I have visiting dealerships, is that most of you have started to do this digitally. But all of the managers that I have talked to, don't know how to approach these conquests very successfully. I'll write about this at a later date.

Finally, if you want to tackle more sales, focus on harvesting website traffic. Most of you get 50 to 100 legit hits or VDP visits every day. When I interview these visitors by phone, they tell me that most all are buying and it's just a matter of timing and finding the right car. (uh...salesperson)

For a short time during July, I offer a free consultation over the phone of your situation. Visiting over 2000 stores, I assure you that your situation could be different, however I'll share with you some tools that you can use now for the tariff troubles that I believe is going to hit us this fall.

You may contact me at bsattree@wilengroup.com to schedule a 15-30 minute call.

Bill Sattree

Mid funnel, sales, direct mail, programmatic mail, automotive, dealerships, Hyundai, KIA, Toyota, GM , Honda, Digital marketing, Internet sales