Ilana Zur
Sales is a lot like football. You need a great team with skilled, talented players, but you also need a solid strategy. From the opening kickoff to the final play, when you’re nurturing your automotive sales leads, you can never drop the ball.
Automotive lead capture requires perseverance, strategy, and the drive to win. These metaphors drive home the importance of acquiring and nurturing your leads, from pre-game tailgating all the way to the final touchdown that wins you the game.
1) You Won’t Win Without a Strategy
Professional football isn’t a matter of just releasing the players onto the field and letting them go at it haphazardly. Instead, coaches and their teams create plays and strategies that inform their approach to the game.
You wouldn’t try to win a football game without a strategy, and the same applies to closing the deal with your leads. A great strategy helps you optimize your automotive lead capture, guiding them through every “play” from initial interest to the eventual sale.
Are you going with the “no pressure” tactic or the straight to test drive one?
Along with the initial automotive lead capture, you need to nurture your leads along the way. This means a solid, well-designed sales funnel that keeps people engaged through the whole process, from window shopping to driving off the lot in a brand new car.
2) Fumbling The Ball Can Cost You the Touchdown
If someone fumbles the ball in a football game, a member of the opposing team will swoop right in and grab it. In the process of automotive lead capture, “dropping the ball” means losing your lead. It’s important to keep existing leads engaged. Regular contact via email or phone calls prevents them from forgetting about your dealership. People live busy lives, and there’s only so much “hard drive space” to focus on your brand. If you lose touch, they’ll forget or go to the dealership down the road.
Never fumbling the ball means keeping track of your leads from the initial acquisition all the way to a “touchdown” (in the form of a sale). A customer relations management (CRM) software system can go a long way toward streamlining your sales process as a whole. It’s also important for your digital marketing strategy to be designed to connect with buyers at different points during the process. Targeting people who are thinking about trading in can serve as an initial automotive lead capture. With that said, you shouldn’t lose sight of them if they take a while to start making a serious purchase decision. Maintain that connection as long as you can.
3) You Need Great Players
Professional football is a place for the cream of the crop, the very best football players in the world. A couple of great key MVPs can elevate a football team from forgettable losers to Superbowl champions– especially when combined with great coaching.
Building a sales team starts with hiring the very best talent, people with experience that’s built up their skills on top of a natural underlying talent for making people feel comfortable to trust you and buy from you. Technology solutions like data-driven digital marketing and sophisticated CRMs can be enormously helpful for automotive lead capture and sales, but at the end of the day, auto sales are carried out by people. A good salesperson is great at talking to people, one on one, as one human being to another, to put forth a compelling and persuasive argument.
But even great talent can falter, and everyone has weak points and poor habits that can and should be improved. Good coaching can help. Whether it’s a top salesman or team lead taking a newcomer under their wing, or you’re bringing in a seasoned consultant for professional development, solid coaching can make a good player into an all-time great.
Winning the Game of Automotive Lead Capture
Automotive lead capture is like a game of football. Informed by solid strategies and tactics, you carry your leads from initial capture to the final “touchdown”: closing the sale and watching the customer drive off your lot. To win at the game of automotive lead capture, you need a combination of talented players and expert coaching.
Make every day the Super Bowl at your dealership with AutoLeadStar. Call for your free consultation today, 216-242-1320.