When you’re planning to make website changes to improve your conversion rate, it’s important to make sure everyone involved can answer the question: What is a conversion? There are a lot of opinions about what constitutes a website conversion – especially from the classified listing sites – and the problem for you is that […]
(This is the first part in a multi-part blog series that will explore virtually everything car dealers and other sales-focused businesses need to know to drive the maximum amount of leads, calls and sales from their existing website traffic.) Car dealers and other businesses looking to dramatically grow their e-leads, their phone calls and even […]
Haven’t you heard? The Leads Are Dead! According to those who struggle to generate consumer sales leads for businesses, “Sales leads are dead.” Furthermore, these (interestingly, mostly digital) marketers claim that today’s connected consumers are simply unwilling to trade their personal information online in exchange for some promise of pricing or other product data. What? […]
Attention All Digital Marketing Snobs: local newspapers are still doing a good job of driving value for local businesses looking to get their messages in front of local consumers. Yes, ad revenue is down, but so are ad rates. And it’s these lower rates that now make it attractive for everyone from car dealers […]
Craigslist Posting Basics for Car Dealers I’ve shared versions of these Craigslist best practices with clients and on the various industry discussion forums over the years, yet never thought of organizing these into an article until someone asked me recently if I had these tips all in one place. Hmm, good idea… so, here they […]
As I’ve written before, your website has just two goals: Attract and Convert. Your site should be constructed in a way that is search-friendly so as to attract visitors; and then once they’re on your website, your only goal is to convert those visitors into buyers. That’s it; the only two goals. Unfortunately, while […]
Cheat Sheet for Free Car Dealer Training Resources About once a week I get asked if there is a place where someone can go to see all of my free training resources cataloged in an easily digestible format. For car dealers looking for just video training, we created a Suggested Training Curriculum for Car […]
Sorry, but Your Special’s Pages Stink… and That’s Costing You Sales! Let’s agree on a few things before we dive into some very simple steps to growing your sales with working specials pages: As the article title explained: Your specials pages are meant to drive customers, not drive them away!; and Your website has […]
If you’re like most of the car dealers, dealer groups and OEMs I work with or address at 20 groups, retargeting website visitors with display advertising consumes roughly a third to a half of your overall digital marketing budget. Moreover, most of the Dealers and General Managers say that accurately measuring the results of […]
(This is an update of a 2011 article I wrote for Digital Dealer Magazine. For some reason, my byline is absent in the online version of that post.) As I’ve said (and written) for a decade, if you’re a for-profit business, your website has only two goals: Attract Visitors. Convert those Visitors into Customers. Attract. […]
Forgive the digression, but when an invention comes along that literally changes the course of mankind, we believe it deserves mention here on AskTheManager.com. The wheel The automobile The personal computer The Internet Coke Zero, The iPhone … and now, Bug-A-Salt! Yes, Bug-A-Salt – or, more specifically, the Bug-A-Salt 2.0 Insect Eradication Gun – […]
More than a few years ago, we compiled a list of the Ten Best Decision-Making Books Ever. And while there have been plenty of other books written on the subject since then, none have been able to crack the list… until now. A few weeks ago, an author contacted us and asked that we […]
Don’t Bring It to Work – Breaking the Family Patterns That Limit Success, by Sylvia Lafair, PhD I absolutely love it when an expert in a non-business field brings their knowledge to the business world. Whether it’s a former all-star athlete turned successful businessman (ala Julius Erving), or a rehabbed musician turned stock trader (ala […]
TheManager’s Leadership Book Review In what may become a regular feature of AskTheManager.com, we tackle the sometimes thankless task of reviewing the work of a published author. While you could argue that we’ve provided book reviews in the past with our Ten Best Leadership Books or our Ten Best Decision Making Books lists, this time […]
Vendors Give The Darnedest Things… Loyal reader Tye Mills sent us a question in response to our Leader’s Gift-Giving Guide article. What are the top 10 wacky gifts you have received from vendors? – Tye Mills Great question, Tye… Hmm, let’s see, the unfortunate result of most truly wacky or […]
Holiday Gifts for the Office Crowd ‘tis the season to think about all the people who helped you get where you are today. Whether you are a senior leader or an up-and-coming manager, it’s important for you to thank those who make an impact in your work life. And by “thank,” I mean give […]
The Rolling Briefcase – A Leader’s Most Important Tool? Not since Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) and his coworkers marveled at the color, font and texture of one another’s business cards in 2000’s American Psycho has a business tool garnered as much admiration and created as much jealousy as the rolling briefcases being dragged through America […]