Post on 09-Jul-2020
transcript
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Lead Tracking for auto dealers
A N e B O O K B Y
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INTRODUCTION
WHY LEAD TRACKING?How can you tell if a lead is truly interested in your product or
service? By arming yourself with the right data.
In this eBook, you’ll learn what lead tracking is and how you can
build a powerful lead tracking strategy, including:
• The benefits of connecting your CRM with lead tracking
software
• How lead tracking connects your marketing and sales teams
• Tips for using your CRM data to its full potential
• How to best use both historical and real-time data to qualify
new leads
Before you know it, you’ll be able to bring data from every corner
of your dealership together to help both your sales and your
marketing teams.
Let’s get started!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHAT IS LEAD TRACKING? 3
HOW LEAD TRACKING WORKS 5
COLLECTING CRM DATA 7
UNLOCKING CRM POTENTIAL 8
QUALIFYING LEADS 10
REPORTING RESULTS 10
HISTORICAL VS. REAL-TIME DATA 11
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WHAT IS LEAD TRACKING?
Lead tracking is the process of documenting and segmenting
prospective customers based on their online actions.
Successful lead tracking hinges on having the right data from your
customer relationship management (CRM) system and using it
strategically and responsibly alongside your marketing strategy.
Your auto dealership is likely using a CRM, but most CRMs don’t
offer many options for segmentation along with their limited lead
tracking capabilities. Often, a CRM’s tech updates are lacking, which
compromises the potential for using the data well.
That’s why the data generated from tracking leads needs to be
combined with marketing automation software. Those two tools
work hand in hand to give both your marketing and your sales
teams insight into your contact database.
Why do this? Because you don’t just want leads; you want
qualified leads who actually want to talk to your sales team.
And you want to know how to talk to them!
Lead tracking is the process of documenting and segmenting prospective customers based on their online actions.
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These days, people don’t flood the showroom or pick up the phone
to call a dealership.
Instead, they scour the Internet to research which vehicle they want
to purchase and where they want to buy it. Today, the average
buyer visits only 1.6 dealerships while shopping, compared to
five dealerships in the early 2000s.
Converting an Internet lead is no easy feat, and you should know
Internet leads don’t start with a form submission. Before shoppers
even see your form, they run into one of your dealership’s Google
or Facebook ads or a landing page on your website. They have
a whole context of experience before they even hit the “submit”
button. If your sales staff defines an Internet lead as a form
submission, you’re missing out on many prospective customers.
With lead curation constantly evolving, what does lead tracking look
like in today’s auto market?
It all starts with data.
With lead curation constantly evolving, what does lead tracking look like in today’s auto market?
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HOW LEAD TRACKING SOFTWARE WORKS
Lead tracking software, such as HubSpot or SharpSpring, is
where data comes into play.
When a prospective lead visits your website, he or she
receives a cookie: a piece of data sent from the website and
stored on the user’s web browser. The cookie allows the
website to identify a user as a return visitor.
But you’re not tracking contacts yet. Even with cookies stored
in their web browsers, users remain anonymous — until they
become trackable in your lead tracking software by either
filling out a form or clicking one of your emails.
Then, the website can identify a returning visitor in your
software’s database. Now, you can track all digital activity
of the contact on your website.
The software tracks and stores a chronological list of
interactions between your leads and your brand in one place.
This lead tracking gives you the ability to monitor a lead’s
behavior and score each lead for sales potential.
Lead tracking software summarizes important interactions
in the form of a lifecycle stage that will help your sales team
prioritize leads.
These lifecycle stages are vital because they allow for
productive interactions. This way, you aren’t contacting
someone with little or no interest in your brand — or, even
worse, completely ignoring people whose behavior indicates
they’re about ready to purchase a vehicle.
LEAD TRACKING IN ACTIONSo how do you put this information to use?
All data, both old and new, is stored in your CRM database.
While these databases, such as VinSolutions or DealerSocket,
have great features for lead management, they lack several
behavior tracking features found in many marketing
software databases.
To leverage the power of a CRM, our team at 9 Clouds imports
data from a CRM into our marketing software. Once the
contact is imported, we can track their behavior from several
different touch points — such as emails clicked, website visits,
social mentions, video views, and more.
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We use this marketing software hand in hand with your CRM,
so the rest of your dealership doesn’t have to worry about
making a big shift to a new platform.
By monitoring their behavior, we can then sort contacts into
lifecycle stages that trace their progress through the buyer’s
journey, including marketing qualified leads (MQLs), sales
qualified leads (SQLs), or dormant contacts. When you track
a lead’s behavior in this way, you can engage them with an
email or a phone call when they are ready.
You can determine everything from whom to target with an
email to whom your dealership should contact personally
by phone. For example, if your lead tracking software tells
you a lead opened your last email and then visited five
similar vehicle description pages (VDPs) on your website, the
software can push that SQL into your CRM so your team
knows to reach out to them. (If you need help with this, ask us
about our Connector tool.)
BEST PRACTICES FOR LEAD TRACKINGIt’s important to keep your lists current for the best results.
We regularly pull data from our clients’ CRMs and import it
into our lead tracking software in order to provide the most
up-to-date and relevant lead information.
We don’t want our clients wasting their valuable time barking
up the wrong tree. That’s why we constantly refresh our lists,
remove dead leads, and — once a lead meets the client’s
criteria — send only the best SQLs to their sales team through
an automated process. If these steps aren’t part of your lead
tracking process, now is the time to make some changes.
Here’s an example of tracking contacts’ online behavior in a “hot leads” smart list.
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COLLECTING DATA IN YOUR CRM
You can pull data from a number of places in your CRM. Each
contact will have a unique source and place in the buyer’s journey.
NEW DATA: Most new lead contact information is collected from
third-party sites, such as Cars.com, Edmunds, Autotrader, or
Carsforsale.com, with a small percentage coming directly from your
own website or showroom.
PREVIOUS DATA: While current lead data is important, collecting
historic lead data is also crucial. Today’s customer will enter the
sales cycle again in the next two years or so. If your store provided
a positive sales experience for a customer and collected all their
contact info, you could easily be at the top of their list (and their
inbox) the next time they look for a vehicle.
CLEAN UP YOUR DATAEach year, about 25% of a customer database decays, meaning
those contacts are no longer worth your marketing efforts.
Behavior tracking allows you to keep your contact list fresh and
save you time by communicating only with qualified leads.
It’s important to collect both new and previous data from your CRM to import into your marketing software.
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UNLOCKING THE FULL POTENTIAL OF YOUR CRM
As we mentioned before, your CRM is just a piece of the lead
tracking service puzzle. It becomes a full-on marketing tool when
you combine it with marketing automation software.
The lead tracking 9 Clouds provides often generates too many leads
for a sales rep to actually manage. When that happens, 9 Clouds
provides personalized follow-up for the individual lead using the
marketing software’s workflow functionality.
As opposed to a generic follow-up, we can contact leads by emailing
them with a message that actually speaks to their position in the
buyer’s journey. Because of the data collected from the CRM that
we’ve imported into our marketing software, we know what they’re
looking for and how to address their needs.
You can also run social media ads targeting people who already
own or are interested in your brand in a specific location. It seems
complicated, but with the combined power of lead tracking and
marketing automation software, it’s easier than ever. (And, with
tools such as Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences, you can further
leverage your data to reach even more potential customers.)
With a marketing software’s workflow functionality, you can automatically send a relevant email in response to a lead’s behavior on your site.
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Here’s an example of an email 9 Clouds sends to alert a sales team about a hot lead.
These follow-up workflow messages have two clear goals:
1. Get the lead to visit your website.
2. Alert the sales rep about the lead the moment they visit your
website.
Getting a lead on the phone can be a challenge. People are often
tied up in meetings or away from their phones.
However, if a sales rep knows the second someone is looking at a
vehicle, they can call that lead immediately, knowing that they are
already browsing inventory on their computer or phone.
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QUALIFYING LEADS
Distinguishing between a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and a
sales qualified lead (SQL) will save you time and money.
An MQL could be someone just browsing your showroom in
July, waiting for the winter specials. You want to keep sending
this lead emails, but you don’t want to waste time calling them.
On the other hand, an SQL could be someone who clicked on
two brand-specific emails and then explored five pages on your
website, all within the past 45 days. This person isn’t just
casually browsing your inventory.
Opening an email is good, but clicking an email is great. Clicking
two model-specific emails within 45 days? That’s gold. They are
certainly worth calling since they are actively pursuing a vehicle.
However you decide to qualify leads, just make sure those
qualifications are relayed to the sales rep. They may never
trust the “leads” list again if, in the past, they only received the
names of those who opened an email or filled out a form three
months ago. If you provide them with quality leads, be sure to
let them know the criteria for those leads.
REPORTING RESULTS
Last but not least, you need to bring the lead full circle and track
their progress. Did the sales rep make a follow-up call? Did they
visit the store or make a purchase? This info is important to
everyone involved with the lead, from the person who created
the email to whoever assigned the lead to a sales rep.
What’s the point of handing out quality leads if no one follows
up with them? Lead lists should never have a “set it and
forget it” strategy. Each lead needs to be nurtured, and results
need to be reported.
You can easily report those results within your lead tracking
software system. You should set up a connection between your
marketing software and your CRM. This seamless integration
gives you real-time results about your leads and their
interactions with your dealership. This certainly takes more
effort to set up, but it is a great investment.
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Both your historical data (past customers) and your real-time data (potential customers actively browsing) are crucial for successful lead tracking.
HISTORICAL VS. REAL-TIME DATA
Connecting your marketing automation software with your CRM
gives you access to real-time data. This is something to which a lot
of dealerships don’t pay attention.
Don’t let your dealership make the same mistake. It will hurt your
business in the long run.
We’re not saying you should ignore historical data altogether,
either. It really takes a combination of historical and real-time data
to fully track leads for your dealership.
HISTORICAL DATAA lot of auto dealers get wrapped up in the historical data: the static
information their store has on a customer. This includes things like
previous purchases, past service ROs, and calls or leads submitted.
For many years, these were the only statistics a dealership could
gather about a customer. And, yes, these are things you still want to
record and recognize.
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You might get a CRM alert for each customer who needs a service
appointment after three months. Or maybe you’ll receive a
notification to start talking about trading in to someone who hasn’t
purchased in a couple years.
These tactics are great starting points and useful email
communications to have with your customers. But at the end of the
day, the information isn’t up to date.
REAL-TIME DATAReal-time data is the best measurement of who is ready to buy. This
information includes the web pages people are visiting, the emails
they are clicking, the ads with which they’re interacting, and the
likelihood that they are ready to purchase.
Using lead tracking software, your dealership can discover which
customers are ready to buy and which ones are not showing
interest. These predictive analytics help focus your sales
representatives’ time on the highest-value leads. Real-time data
online allows you to more productively focus your marketing and
sales efforts.
Here’s an example of a list featuring valuable real-time data.
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Lead tracking is a balance of both marketing and sales tactics, and your teams must work together to be successful.
PUT IT TO WORKYou can start using real-time data by adding marketing automation
software to your website. This will help you get the most out of your
digital marketing.
Then, you can add your historical customer data from your CRM
or dealership management system (DMS) into your marketing
automation software. This combines the best of both worlds,
putting all of the valuable information in one place.
Like we’ve said before, lead tracking is really a balance of
marketing and sales tactics. If your teams aren’t working
together, you won’t have any success trying to put these new
concepts to work for your dealership.
You also won’t see any progress if you don’t pay attention to both
real-time and historical data. Using the historical data gives you a
starting point — a place to build your digital marketing plans. Then,
the real-time data will bring your dealership into the twenty-first
century, ensuring your marketing matches the demands of your
customers.
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Once this is all set up, you can employ the two main types of
lead tracking:
• Lead qualification: With lead qualification, you can
view all information about a contact from a single online
dashboard in your software. You can even create custom
properties to store any kind of data you want. Then, you
can use that data to segment your contacts, send them
targeted emails, personalize content according to their
stage in the buyer’s journey — you name it!
• CRM integration: Lead tracking truly comes full circle with
something like our Connector tool, which sends the
sales-ready leads we generate straight into your CRM. Once
we decide on your ideal criteria for warm and hot leads,
we’ll get them to automatically feed into your CRM, so your
salespeople are alerted the second someone indicates they
might be ready for follow-up.
To give you a good idea of what successful lead tracking looks
like, check out the results we’ve achieved for our clients by
reading our lead tracking case studies.
READY TO GET STARTED WITH LEAD TRACKING?If you’re not sure where to begin with finding and implementing
marketing automation software, or if you’re interested in
learning more about CRM integration with our Connector, we’d
be happy to chat with you.
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THANKS FOR READING! Looking for digital success? That’s why we
made this resource.
Most dealers have a heap of useful data, too
many digital vendors and software platforms,
a few social media accounts, and hundreds
of special sales or service offers that are not
reaching their potential.
At 9 Clouds, we take your data from all of the
software you are using and put it in one place.
You have access to unified, understandable
data. Your customer’s complete digital profile
is quickly accessible. We use this information
to tell your sales reps who is ready to buy
before they fill out a form.
We can also send marketing material to
customers based on their individual data.
The person looking at the red truck gets an
email about the red truck. The person who has
serviced their car five times this year gets an
email with a trade-in offer. This personalized
marketing increases leads and sales (just
check out our case studies for proof).
So why are we just giving away our automotive
marketing secrets? Because we’re nice, and
because we believe in digital karma.
When your dealership is ready to move to the
next level of digital marketing, get in touch
with us!
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