want to be able to catch a consumer’s attention right from the start with a well-placed ad and with your dealership’s value propositions. For the biggest impact, look to increase your trade/sell reach by utilizing your other marketing channels like display, social and video to ensure that you’re sharing your message with local in-market consumers during all stages of their journey across platforms and devices. TACTIC #6: Get Trades from Traditional Ads Just as the inventory shortage was brought about by the pandemic, so was the accelerated adoption of technology that changed consumer behavior. One such technology is the QR code, which had been largely overlooked for a decade, but now has become a common feature in our daily lives. If you want to make sure you’re giving your dealership every opportunity to acquire more cars, use QR codes in your newspaper, direct mail and TV advertising. When scanned, they’ll lead a consumer directly to the trade/ sell experience on your website. QR codes not only create engaging offline-to-online experiences, but they also provide a better insight into the ROI of your traditional advertising campaigns — which historically has been challenging to prove. TACTIC #7: Future-Proof Your Follow Up It’s important to understand that all the opportunities in the world to acquire a vehicle won’t mean a thing if you haven’t developed a specific follow-up process for your dealership. Too often, a trade or sell lead gets treated just like any other sales opportunity. It hits the CRM, and then a salesperson or BDC agent picks up the phone to give them a call. More often than not, they leave a voice message, and then the CRM automated email follow-up process kicks in for the next 90 days. As fewer people answer phone calls from unknown numbers and email continues to become less urgent for consumers to check regularly — texting has become the best way to follow up with all of your leads to get an immediate response. Closing Thoughts No matter how your dealership’s inventory is being affected by industry trends, there are always ways to enhance your vehicle acquisition process. Start by looking for simple ways to improve the tactics you’re already embracing. If you don’t see the level of results you want, try one (or all) of these tactics that you haven’t used before, and watch how it will make your acquisition operations more effective for today, and the future. NEW NAME SAME PEOPLE AND SERVICE YOU’VE KNOWN FOR YEARS We are pleased to announce that Somerset CPAs and Advisors has joined CBIZ and MHM. Together, CBIZ and MHM are one of the nation’s Top 15 accounting providers.* 800.469.7206 | cbiz.com Effective Feb. ’23 *Accounting Today – March 2023 CBIZ is a business consulting, tax and financial services provider and works closely with MHM (Mayer Hoffman McCann P.C.), an independent CPA firm providing audit, review and attest services. CBIZ and MHM are members of Kreston Global, a worldwide network of independent accounting firms. © Copyright 2023. CBIZ, Inc. NYSE Listed: CBZ. All rights reserved. 20 Illinois Automobile Dealer News
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