Four Ways to Increase Traffic Conversions

You want more traffic? Generating traffic is easy; you can buy all kinds of Internet traffic. Now you want conversions? Well, that becomes a little more difficult. Industry wide, customers are increasingly less willing to send an email lead. They simply do not want to give dealers their email address. But in the cases that they do give you their email address, they expect an immediate response and direct information. It’s also likely that the email address has been created for the sole purpose of car shopping.

Statistics indicate that between 50 and 70 percent of your floor traffic has been on your website and did not call, email or chat before their arrival. This trend is due to several factors, but one main culprit is a lack of attention to conversion optimization. A majority of dealerships’ websites have no conversion funnel or any actionable plan to increase conversions with the current traffic count. If one does exist, it usually consists of adding more contact buttons.

Here are four actionable ways you can help increase conversions and improve the effectiveness of your campaigns:

1. Develop a Clear Call to Action: Ask them to do one thing (call, chat, email, or smoke signal), preferably the one your team excels at and clarify what will happen if they complete the action.
2. Reduce Distractions: Distractions create anxiety and reduce action. Keep it simple.
3. Increase Urgency: Give them a reason to act now. The fear of loss usually outperforms the opportunity of gain.
4. Test, Analyze, Adjust: This is a cyclical process. Make small adjustments you can measure and always, always strive to improve.

In theory it is a simple list to satisfy, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it. Start small and move slowly. You don’t want to make a big change too fast because you could miss an opportunity. As people’s shopping and car buying habits shift with technology, we will have to learn from the data and shift with them.

This is part of an ongoing series of insights by Gayle Rogers, Digital Director at Strong, about refining the Internet strategy at your dealership.