How to Improve Dealership Lead Quality to Increase Sales

by automotiveMastermind

In sales, it’s all about the quantity and quality of your leads.

High quality, well-qualified leads generate profitable sales while poor leads waste time and leave sales teams disappointed when they don’t meet their goals. Meaning, while most car dealerships (and their sales teams) are always looking for more leads, what they need is more quality leads.

Gone are the days of hours on the phone trying to reach every customer in your CRM. Dealerships must now filter and manage leads from digital channels like search engine ads, social media and email campaigns.

As more of the automotive buyer journey takes place online, assessing dealership lead quality is crucial.

To improve dealership lead quality and increase sales, dealers need to:

Work with sales to define a “sales-qualified lead”

Implement a lead scoring strategy

Commit to nurturing leads

Schedule marketing and sales sync-up

Leverage automation and predictive marketing software

1. Work with Sales to Define an “SQL”

What is an SQL?

A “sales-qualified lead,” or SQL, is a potential customer who appears to be ready to move to the next stage in the sales process based on a criteria defined by the dealership’s sales department. This criteria typically includes factors like demographic fit, demonstrated interest, budget alignment and readiness to buy.

Why is this important?

Establishing a dealership-wide definition of a sales qualified lead improves alignment across dealership departments including:

Sales

Marketing

The business development center (BDC)

This helps prioritize resources and focus efforts on leads most likely to convert, ultimately improving sales efficiency and effectiveness.

How can this change your dealership?

By implementing clear SQL criteria, dealership sales and marketing teams can prioritize leads, streamline sales operations and improve conversion rates. Ultimately, focusing on SQLs increases return on marketing investments and creates a more efficient, profitable sales pipeline.

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2. Implement Lead Scoring

What is lead scoring?

Lead scoring helps identify sales-qualified leads (SQLs) by ranking potential customers based on criteria agreed upon by marketing and sales teams.

Dealers can rate leads in various ways, assigning points or rankings like “hot,” “warm” and “cold.” Regardless of the method, assigning a score to each lead establishes a hierarchy for sales purposes. This approach guarantees that sales teams prioritize the most promising leads.

Why is this important?

Implementing lead scoring is crucial because it allows dealers to efficiently prioritize leads by combining data from both first-party and high-quality third-party sources. This approach transforms data into an effective lead-scoring model, enabling the sales team to easily identify and engage with the highest-quality leads.

How can it change your dealership?

By focusing on leads that are more likely to convert, dealers can enhance productivity, improve conversion rates, and align marketing and sales efforts more effectively.

Implementing a lead scoring process also enables dealership sales teams to nurture “lukewarm” prospects not quite ready to purchase, keeping them engaged until they’re ready to re-enter the buying journey.

3. Commit to Lead Nurturing

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing is the deliberate process of guiding prospects down the sales funnel, establishing relationships by communicating with buyers, regardless of their readiness to make a purchase.

The objective of lead nurturing is to build trust with customers by delivering personalized, transparent communications and marketing messages. This approach ensures that your dealership remains at the forefront of customers’ minds when they are ready to make another buying decision.

Why is it important?

Most car shoppers concentrate on sales activities at the end of their buying process – but they spend a lot of time researching before that. During this time, it is crucial for dealers to connect with prospective buyers and communicate their message effectively to keep them engaged until they are ready to purchase.

How can it change your dealership?

Dealers can maximize customer engagement and their return on marketing investments by analyzing the insights stored inside their CRM, DMS, equity mining tool and sales platform to implement effective nurturing campaigns.

Examining high-quality, third-party data to personalize and target marketing messages enables dealers to build customer relationships and maximize campaign engagement.

4. Create a Marketing to Sales Sync-Up

What is a marketing to sales sync-up?

A marketing to sales sync-up is a regular meeting to keep marketing and sales teams aligned and working together. These check-ins are essential for maintaining success through lead-generation strategies.

Each week, management should review a few offer sheets, emails and phone calls. At least once a month, the team should review, update and report lead grades to marketing during these syncs.

How can this change your dealership and why is it important?

Keeping a dealership’s sales and marketing departments on the same page ensures both teams are working towards a common goal – and empowers both departments to provide helpful feedback. This benefits both parties and keeps both teams in the same lane.

5. Use Automation and Predictive Marketing Software

What is automation and predictive marketing software?

Automation and predictive marketing software uses data to predict customer behavior and simplify tasks such as sending follow-up emails or tracking lead interactions.

Rather than manually sifting through a dealership’s CRM, marketing automation technology automatically assigns scores to leads based on a variety of factors including:

Marketing interactions

First-party data

Third-party data

Mastermind takes this one step further by generating an accurate and up-to-date Behavior Prediction Score® (BPS) that ranks buyers on a scale of 1 to 100. From here, Mastermind automatically targets and engages customers across a dealer’s loyalty, service and conquest portfolios at key points throughout their buying journey.

Why is this important?

Using marketing automation software is crucial for dealers to enhance lead quality and achieve lasting success in any market. Instead of cold calling, this technology helps dealers find and connect with potential customers based on data. It makes marketing more efficient and increases the likelihood of selling more cars.

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How can this change your dealership?

By improving lead quality, automation and predictive marketing software enable dealerships to focus on high-potential opportunities, streamline follow-up processes and enhance overall sales efficiency. This approach reduces wasted effort, increases conversion rates and maximizes return on investment.

Want to learn how Mastermind empowers dealers to generate more high-quality leads that convert into profitable sales? Contact us today for a free consultation.