Articles

Let us meet with your business development center to provide training and guidance to make their jobs more efficient and enable them to increase sales. With a comprehensive marketing approach we can often reduce customer acquisition costs and generate more leads without increasing your marketing budget.

Your business development center is the front line between potential customers and your sales team. They should help reduce friction from the moment a lead is generated and make the process from contact to sale as smooth as possible. A good business development center knows how to field phone calls in a courteous, professional manner. They also know how to respond quickly and comprehensively to email leads and third party site referrals.  

They should know how to answer questions and add value to potential customers and their visits. Appointments are crucial but so are follow-ups.

Business development center management should be proficient in the basics of marketing. Hiring staff with a basic understanding of SEO, Adwords, Facebook, Instagram, and all the relevant third party websites can be very helpful for owners. By understanding the fundamentals of every potential avenue for customer acquisition, your Business Development team can increase revenue and reduce customer acquisition costs.

Analytics are an important aspect of running a business development center. Every customer that contacts your dealership should be screened for how they found you. By collecting this information, you can see how many leads per month come from each marketing avenue. You can then refine your marketing strategy by improving certain campaigns or throwing money at areas where the acquisition costs are meager compared to the number of leads generated. At the end of the day, the math is pretty simple.  

Your business development center should never operate autonomously. Car dealerships thrive off customers that walk through the door. Management should meet with the BDC on a weekly basis at a minimum to discuss marketing campaigns, what’s working, and what isn’t. Collaboration can lead to constant improvement and bridge the gap between the different departments.