At a Glance
For those too busy to read the whole article, we’ve created the “At a Glance” section with hyperlinks so you can skim the important points and get deeper insight by easily visiting the section that interests you.
- Focusing your efforts on the bottom funnel can result in a decline of your return on investment
- How you engage with your leads will make you stand out better then the competition.
- Getting organized: and separating your marketing qualified leads (MQL) and sales qualified leads (SQL) will help you identify gaps in your conversion funnel.
If you’re in sales, you’re probably a little obsessed with conversions and hitting your monthly quotas. We can’t blame you. Because not only do you want to maximize your bonus, but there’s also nothing else that can match the feeling of closing a sale.
But the hyper-focus on bottom of funnel activities like customer conversions could be giving you tunnel vision, blinding you to the huge potential of the top and middle funnels. But how often does a lead fall into your lap, already looking to buy?
So don’t let this common blindspot cost you sales, commission, or your bonus! Instead, let’s go over some of our best tips for engaging online leads.
Ignore the Top and Middle Funnels at Your Own Risk
You might be thinking that your dealership is doing fine and that you don’t have to worry about the top or middle funnel because you’re happy with your sales. Well, here’s a sobering dose of truth from a recent report:
"Only 3% of all leads are in the bottom funnel."
That means your dealership could be losing out on 97% of your potential leads! Put that way, it’s a lot harder to shrug off, isn’t it? Even if you’re happy with your numbers, you’ve got the potential to be doing so much more!
Besides, can you imagine how high your marketing costs can get if you’re only focusing on 3% of all leads? Not to mention the impact that has on your marketing ROI or ROAS.
A Disciplined Approach to Harvesting and Nurturing Leads
Much of your dealership’s online success depends on engaging your leads better than the competition. Here are a few tips to better engage your leads and build up rapport without alienating them:
- Don’t be too pushy or desperate! Imagine someone asking to marry you on the first date–a huge turn off.
- Don’t act like an order taker: Communication isn’t a one-way street. It goes both ways!
- Give more than simple yes/no answers: You want to appear enthusiastic and interested, and one-word answers gives the opposite impression
- Ask engaging discovery questions: This will help you discover what their needs are, even if they are asking about a specific vehicle. If the vehicle is no longer available, ask if you can help them find something else instead. Get their information, what they are looking for, and follow-up with them.
- Provide valuable customer-centric content for your leads: For example, a pdf that tells customers what to look for in a vehicle and the questions to ask when buying one.
Get Organized for Better Targeting
Organizing your leads into different groups for Market Qualified Leads (MQL) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) because it will help you create more effective targeting strategies while also building a relationship with your leads as you move them down the funnel.
This will also help you maximize your entire digital marketing ad spend and bring your cost per sale down substantially.
In Conclusion
By focusing your efforts on top and middle-funnel initiatives, you will be able to get more out of your marketing spend. Take time to review your customer journey and identify areas where your efforts can use improvement with your customers at the forefront of your mind.
