How many email leads do you get every month at your dealership? How many do you successfully engage in conversation with? How many of your scheduled appointments show? How many of those test drives turn into write-ups? What is your average response time? How many are you able to set an appointment with? How many of those appointments take a test drive? How many of those write-ups turn into sales?

These are all questions you should know the answer to.

Without this data, you will never know where your strengths and weaknesses are, which is the first step to improving at anything. As the old saying goes — If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

What percentage of email leads do you think you should be closing? 5 percent? 10 percent? 20 percent? 40 percent?

Average dealers close approximately 5-10 percent of the email leads they receive.

Elite dealers close approximately 20-25 percent of the email leads they receive.

Let’s do some simple math.

If your store receives 100 emails leads a month and you close at 5 percent, you are going to close five deals.

If your store receives 100 email leads a month and you close at 25 percent, you are going to close 25 deals.

Imagine what those extra 20 deals a month would do to your bottom line. There are no incremental expenses, just you getting more out of what you are already paying for.

You’re probably wondering, how do you go from closing 5 percent of your email leads to 25 percent? Well, that’s magic question, isn’t it? I’ve had the benefit of consulting on dealers in both brackets, and it’s pretty clear what separates the elite from the rest.

First and foremost, it all comes down to process in the store. You’ll never achieve strong, repeatable results without having a rock-solid process.

Below I’ve listed out what I’m calling “The 4 Commandments of Handling Online Leads” — They might not be inscribed into a stone tablet, but if your team learns to excel in these four areas, your closing ratio will improve and you’ll sell more cars as a result.

SPEED

Every second counts. The first commandment is both obvious and self-explanatory. The faster you get back to the prospect, the better your chances of establishing contact. A response time of 15 minutes compared to a response time of 45 minutes could very well be the difference between you winning the business or missing out. If you can get back to them while they are still browsing on their computer, you’re much more like to a get conversation started. A fast response time will often derail the shopper from visiting your competitors websites, as they are now busy engaging with you.

PERSISTENCE

Most dealerships really drop the ball on both short and long-term follow-up. There is only one right way to follow-up with prospects, and that is until they ‘buy or opt-out’. What does that mean? It means you need to have a process (either manual or automated) where you follow-up with unsold (and sold, for that matter) prospects indefinitely. The car shopping process is long; it generally takes a shopper 30+ days to purchase a vehicle after they first submitted a lead. Despite the long shopping cycle, most car dealerships fail to follow-up past the first few days, greatly hurting their chances of winning the prospects business in the long run.

QUALITY

It’s not enough to just send a response in a timely manner, or follow-up a dozen times, the emails need to be of high quality. What does a high quality email look like? You need to focus on grammar, structure and content.

Most emails that I see being sent to prospects today fall short in these three areas. When you’re trying to win the confidence of someone, hoping they will spend $20,000 to $70,000 at your place of business, you need to earn their trust. If you can’t instill confidence that you can write a coherent sentence or a proper paragraph structure, why should they trust you with the second largest purchase they will make in their lifetime? Impress car shoppers and improve your chances of closing the deal by including something over and above what they asked for, like a personalized video or CarProof report.

TACT

Last, but not least, your email needs to have tact. If you want to close at 25 percent like the best of the best, you need to be more than a question-answering- robot. Communication is an art-form; you can easily win or lose this battle with the words you choose to write in your email. Words can start wars, or they can make people fall in love. They are the most powerful tool we have at our disposal.

Every email you send to a prospect should include a question, as this will increase the chances of engaging in conversation. If you don’t ask a question, why should the prospect respond to you? What kind of questions should you be asking? Here are some examples of questions that will help ensure you keep the communication flowing:

Creating a strong and reliable lead handling process in your dealership will take some time, but it will be well worth the effort once you and your team reach the Promised Land. Follow The 4 Commandments of Handling Online Leads religiously, and you will see the light.

Kevin Gordon is a co-founder of Convertus, a fast growing automotive digital marketing agency based out of Vancouver. Contact Kevin at kgordon@convertus.com or call 888.354.6441 to see how Convertus can help you craft a winning digital marketing presence for your store.