Whose voice is that? It kind of sounds like me, but it's not the voice I expected. Go ahead and record your voice. I'm sure there's an app for that. As you talk, the sound created by your vocal cords travels not only through the air to your inner ear, but also through your bones and tissues directly to your cochlea. When you listen to your voice recorded, you only hear the over-the-air signal and lose out on all that bass from your bones. The recording gives you the awareness of what your voice actually sounds like to other people.
How you THINK you sound and how you ACTUALLY sound are rarely the same. The equivalent can be said of advertising your vehicles on the Internet.
- "I think my entire inventory is online all the time." (Have you checked recently?)
- "My vendor comes out twice a week to photograph my cars. Of course all of my recent trades have photos online." (Do they?)
- "I spent all morning re-pricing my aged units. Get ready for those leads!" (Did those updates appear on all of my sites?)
Following the same vehicle preparation regiment consistently will foster an environment for getting vehicles online quickly. However, it's important not to allow for complacency to set in and sacrifice quality for the sake of speed.
Dealers spend enormous time and resources on perfecting an online presence. When a recent trade hits the lot it will be washed, photographed, priced, and a description gets written too. This is a significant amount of work for a single vehicle. As car dealers, we perform those tasks every day, every week, and every year on thousands of vehicles.
All of this work is put in with a singular goal in mind...To Sell The Car! Just as your voice sounds different to everyone else, your online ad may also be received differently than what you intended. The Internet savvy car shopper is on average spending over eleven hours online and views hundreds of ads before deciding to step foot in a dealership.
KNOW what your customers see online about your dealership. Search for your vehicles like a consumer would and see if they look like you expected.
- Is the inventory accurate?
- What does the website look like on a mobile phone?
- Is the pricing consistent among all the sites?
- How do the photos look?
- Does the vehicle description highlight the value and option packages that set this vehicle apart from the competition?
Taking the time to perform this check will ensure that your online inventory is presented with the same level of care as the vehicles on your showroom floor. Keeping a vigilant ear to the Internet train tracks will let you hear that small rumbling and give you time to make corrections before that freight train comes through.
Do you hear that clicking sound? Sounds like a sweet symphony of customers clicking on your ads!
