Digital marketing is worth it, but only if you use those leads.

Why are you spending so much money on digital advertising? Maybe someone told you Facebook is a great source of leads, or maybe you saw the benefit of reaching out to this broad, dynamic audience. Either way, you’re on the right track — but there’s something you’re missing.

Digital marketing is a great way to get leads from demographics that operate online with increasing exclusivity, but most dealerships direct their online leads to unintuitive websites, clunky lead gen forms and messy transitions between digital and showroom interactions. You’re losing potential customers at every step. To make the most of your digital leads, you need a better process.

The Conversion Problem

Your problem isn’t a lack of leads. If your social media and digital advertising are effective, you’ve got all the leads you could want. The problem is what happens after you get the interest of your online audience.

You’re funneling your online customers straight into a broken system, and it’s driving them away. Recent research shows that 18% of online lead forms didn’t get any response at all. Even ignoring the clunky and confusing pipeline that struggles to convert digital customers into showroom buyers, that’s nearly one-fifth of leads simply getting ignored. Advertising budget well spent?

The conversion from online to in-store is a major bottleneck in the sales process, and salespeople still believe they can fix it by bombarding customers with requests for a phone call or dealership appointment. It’s not working. Customers want to buy from you, but you’re losing them in your attempt to bring them in.

The Digital Solution

This is starting to seem like a paradox: the harder you try, the worse you do. But the problem lies in the tactics, and the solution exists in change. Instead of pairing old-school sales methods with new-school marketing, try applying a modern solution to this modern problem.

Think about food delivery services like Foodora and Uber Eats. Delivery has existed forever, but now it works with your smartphone. The delivery business has been disrupted: a simple app gives customers complete control of their orders from start to finish, and from couch, car or cubicle. You’ll notice that the user doesn’t have to go to Uber’s website and schedule a phone call to get their dinner.

The good news is that there’s a “online food deliver app” for the automotive industry. Omni-channel digital retailing solutions give your customers the ability to navigate the leap between computer and showroom at their leisure, as many times as they want. When your customers can own their journey from start to finish on any device, the transition to your showroom happens when the customer is primed to buy.

Make it Easy

The effortless customer experience of a true omni-channel solution is the best way to close more of your digital leads. The e-commerce platform provides a natural entry point into your sales process, and that ease of use carries customers along as far as they want to go before showing up at your front door.

When customers do arrive, they’re more informed, more confident and ready to buy. Instead of wasting time begging leads to book an appointment via email, your sales team can work with higher quality leads who have already sold the cars to themselves. That’s how you increase your return without spending a dollar more on marketing.

Andrew Tai, CEO, Motoinsight