Turn Your Website into a Powerful Sales-Driving Tool
Itn's not enough to simply have a website. A really good website is intuitive in its design, offers eye-catching content and calls prospects to action.

By Bob McCann, Director of Education, Channel Blade

More than 60 percent of potential RV buyers research their purchase online, visiting as many as seven websites during the process. Websites are often the first impression dealers get to make on prospects. In the blink of an eye, Internet shoppers decide to click or skip.

That's why an informative and easy-to-navigate website - designed and supported by proven e-business solutions - is absolutely critical, enabling dealers to take full advantage of Internet-generated opportunities. A website that meets the consumer's needs generates incremental traffic and sales.

In this context, you have the opportunity to turn your website into a powerful sales-driving tool, serving as a virtual location, which is often as important as your brick and mortar presence. Why? Because millions of potential buyers are doing their homework online everyday, most likely browsing your website before deciding to visit your dealership. A compelling website generates not only incremental traffic and sales, but it also increases in-store and phone leads.

Engage. Convince. Sell. Your website should facilitate all of the above. Here are some website best practices that have delivered results for thousands of dealers worldwide.

Opt for Intuitive Design
Intuitive design, a term coined by website solutions providers, means that the architecture is designed to quickly and intuitively point visitors to the desired content, generating more leads, faster. In other words, prospects should never be more than once click away from the information they're looking for. For example, the primary sections of your website - new RVs, pre-owned RVs, finance, specials, etc. - should be accessible from any page.

Think of it this way. The less work prospects have to do while browsing your site, the better chances they'll stick around and take action - just as if they were at your physical location.

Successful RV dealers relying on proven website and lead management solutions have seen their website and in-store traffic soar, in quantity and quality - with more potential buyers and more qualified leads.

Intuitive design is the realm of website and lead management solutions provider. You should consider e-business solutions companies that specialize in tools that meet the unique needs of RV manufacturers and dealers.

Captivating Your Audience with Eye-Catching Content
Your new and used RV inventory is your online showroom and deserves careful attention and ongoing maintenance - just like your in-store showroom. Listings, when developed and maintained properly, will often be the most important source of leads from your website.

Your inventory should be consistently updated, featuring eye-catching pictures, as well as complete and well-written RV descriptions, including options and pricing. Turn dreamers into owners. Don't just settle for still shots - piggyback on lifestyle shots provided by the manufacturer(s) you represent. Pictures should include variety, be of high quality and enticing, just like the description. Make prospects "see" themselves in that RV.

Listings without pricing are often ignored and do not generate leads. Specify the MSRP for new RVs and include selling price for pre-owned units, together with a comparable price set by NADA or other valuation company.

Make your listings work harder and further for you. Posting your listings on third-party classified websites, such as RVTrader.com and RVSearch.com, will increase the reach of your virtual showroom.

As for other sections of your website, be sure to pack your "Calendar of Events" with both sales and fun events. Include holiday or end-of-season specials, RV shows, open houses and rallies. Be sure to promoted customized events for women ("Ladies at the Wheel") and new-to-RVing prospects. Remember all these leads you've been getting from Go RVing? Again, illustrate that section with engaging pictures that promote the RVing lifestyle.

Your "News" section should feature your latest accomplishments and RV arrivals, Think new RV line, industry awards, expansion, RV trips and more - always with lifestyle pictures that sell the dream.

You don't need a big player marketing budget to fill your calendar and events page. A strong website solutions provider should make it easy for you to update these sections quickly and consistently. I often visit dealerships with bulletin boards and countertops full of events and activities, but none of these are displayed on their website. And here is the icing on the cake. Rich content, including the most common used terms when researching RVs, is one of the best ways to increase the dealership's search enging rankings for free.

Position Your Dealership as the Local Authority on All Things RVing
Become a true partner, rather than just another dealer focused on immediate profitability. As a resource for prospects, you get to establish and maintain an on-goig relationship that will turn into a sale when the time is right. In the meantime, prospects keep coming back to you for more information and you remain at the forefront of their mind throughout.

Feature a Q&A section and answer the most frequently asked questions about RVs, financing, taxes, etc. You could also start a free-of-charge RV club to enable customers to get together with other RVing enthusiasts for rallies, picnics, and more.

Website shoppers doing their homework run the gamut, from hot prospects who are ready to buy within three months, to Go RVing leads who may have a purchase time frame of up to a year or two. Your content should appeal to all kinds of leads. For example, invite prospect with little to no RVing experience to come and experience RVing firsthand.

Call Prospects to Action
Your website should incorporate a consistent call to action strategy designed to make prospects ask for more information, thus beginning the sales process. A call to action strategy should mirror the various stages of the buying cycle - Awareness, Consideration, Preference, Action and Loyalty. The purpose is to hand-hold prospects, driving them from the Internet to the showroom faster by consistently fulfilling their needs throughout the buying cycle.

As such, every page on your website should include a relevant call to action. Engage prospects to raise their hand and find out more, e.g., "Request a quote," "Trade-in evaluation," "Buyer's Shortcut," "Schedule Service," etc. This way, you accelerate the buying cycle, driving prospects faster to close the sale. Again, leverage a proven website solution to do the heavy lifting for you and invite prospects to share their contact information.

Manage Your Leads
Think of your website leads as walk-in customers. They just happen to "walk in" your website rather than your physical location, but deserve the same prompt, undivided attention. Online response time is actually more critical because you're competing with other dealers. The good news is that you can stand out immediately because research shows that nearly 60 percent of online leads go completely unanswered.

When leveraging an automated lead management process, you can respond to the unique needs of each type of lead at the various stages of the buying cycle without any ongoing maintenance. For example, you can create a buyer profile and automatically notify prospects in teh early stage of the buying cycle of relevant inventory, without imposing regular visits to your dealership. Not only do you stay on top of things with prospects, but you get to maintain and ongoing relationship, which will help you close the sale when the time is right.

The lead management solutions currently available track, process and manage leads from all sources, including manufacturers, online classified portals, your website, RV shows, walk-ins and phone calls, and Go RVing.

Setting up customized e-mail responses and template-driven communications is a cinch. You also can easily and quickly search and segment the prospect and customer database, consistently use scheduled follow-up activities and launch powerful e-marketing campaigns in minutes.

From a management perspective, these solutions enable you to quantifiably measure and improve your sales team's performance and evaluate the return on investment of individual marketing efforts and lead sources.

Last but not least, these affordable solutions are website-based. In other words, there is no need for expensive software and hardware, mandatory on-site service calls or limited accessibility. Your whole team can run the dealership and develop customer relationships from anywhere there is Internet access - at the office, at home, or on the road.

Successful dealerships worldwide are turning their e-business efforts into a measurable profit center for as little as a few hundred dollars a month. Innovative website and lead management solutions, together with on-site education and sales training, are easy to use, cost-effective and customizable for dealerships of all sized.

That being said, turning Internet-generated opportunities into incremental sales requires attention to detail and commitment, just like your physical location does. When combining powerful website and lead management solutions with a creative approach to engaging leads of all kinds, you will increase traffic and sales, turning more prospects into customers over time. So, what are you doing to take advantage of the power the Internet has to offer?

Bob McCann, a 15-year sales education veteran, is the author of the nationally-recognized e-business sales method known as TIPS (Traffic, Interactive Website Process, Sales.) As the Director of Education for Channel Blade Technologies, McCann has developed proven e-business sales processes to support the company's growing list of clients. Channel Blade (www.channelblade.com) provides award-winning online marketing, lead management and sales education solutions to the RV, marine and powersports industries. McCann can be reached at (866) 233-8300, bob.mccann@channelblade.com.