Breakfast event at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas

Our Ebay event in Las Vegas, ‘Staying ahead in Digital Automotive’, is now behind us. The purpose of the meeting was simple: we wanted to help dealers and car companies improve in the online automotive. Improve in marketing, getting better in terms of mindset and better in lead follow-up. In addition, our goal was to connect dealers from different countries and from different brands. We have been through some busy months, full of preparations, and the result was there. Goal accomplished and a satisfied audience. That wasn’t self-evident. We organized a lot and you have to make your program very attractive, so that the visitors come to your meeting.

Our biggest competitor in Las Vegas organized something a night earlier and that did not work out that well. At least we had a full tank. A house full of dealers from countries such as Italy, Germany, Denmark, England, Canada, Australia, even South Africa and of course also from the Netherlands. All guests had taken the trouble to come in at 8 am for our session. And that wasn’t easy for many, given the time difference. They didn’t come for nothing. We had a tasty breakfast, based on the tastes and customs in the different countries, and a few excellent presentations. Brian Pasch spoke about the attribution model, Brian Miller about ‘changing, not just to change, but to survive’ and I shared my vision.

Inspect what you expect
My presentation was about lead follow-up in 2018. How do you do that? How do you deal with leads? Still in your e-mailbox and then keep track of who you still have to contact by means of flags? Or hopefully with a CRM, DMS or Internet Lead Management System? Ultimately, it is about having a process to deal with these leads. Having a system is no guarantee for more sales from these leads. Certainly not if you do not inspect what the expected results are. How many potential customers out of 100 leads do your sellers have to talk to? Do you inspect whether they give answers to the questions? Do you inspect how many appointments they make, and ultimately, how many sales? The latter usually does get inspected, but it doesn’t say anything if you want to improve and you don’t take the other metrics into consideration as well. So inspect what you expect from results on these different partial conversions.

Lead follow-up in 2018
But there’s more. In 2018 you also have a different kind of leads that come in. These are the leads that come in via Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Leads that do not have the first name, last name, zip code, address, e-mail and phone number. These leads will show up less and less in your LMS, they will stay in their ecosystem. That means, for example, an Instagram lead wants to be answered within Instagram and not via an e-mail. How do you do that? Your voicemail and / or e-mail templates will certainly not work. In addition, the Instagram lead expects a different approach than the business LinkedIn lead. This also means that there currently is no LMS that can approach these types of leads in a generic way.

Brian Miller
My colleague from eBay Motors was mainly talking about the will to change in order to survive with fun and catchy examples. His tips were also about the practice in in the world of dealership and the way the customer ‘works’ nowadays! The customer of 2018 searches online and mobile! And if you know that there are more than 150 different display formats, then you also know that your website should be really great. The biggest mistake that is made is that photos are unnecessarily crowded by banners with information. In other words, everything requires attention and therefore nothing will really get the extra attention. In addition, the descriptions on the cars must be aimed at selling the car and not at the dealer company.

Michael Cirrilo
Michael was present the next day at the eBay Motors stand to do a live podcast with our Canadian, German and American colleagues about the current state of affairs in the online automotive!

April 24 and 25
Brian Pasch spoke about the attribution model in marketing. How do you calculate this and how should you look at the value (or lack of value) of car portals? Haven’t we been too guided by what Google and Facebook want us to believe? Do you want to know more about this? Sign up for the #DCDW on April 24 and the 2dehands Live in Brussels. More information can be found here!

About Paul de Vries
Paul de Vries became a Key Automotive Spokesperson at eBay (Marktplaats) after selling Nieuweautokopen.nl to eBay back in 2015. Paul is the founder and CEO of the #DCDW Academy and the presenter of the #DCDW Podcast. He is also a by dealers and importers frequently asked speaker in the online automotive industry. Paul is the winner of the prestigious Lighthouse Award 2016 in the U.S.! `Lead the Way op de digitale snelweg’ is Paul’s new book, which can be used as a guide in the online automotive industry. More information is available at: DCDW.nl.