12:54 am, July 26, 2010
I AM delighted that autotorq is sponsoring the Car Dealer Ewards again this year and based on the 2009 judging session, we are in for more healthy and heated debate on what makes a good website.
Over the past year, consumer expectations and sophistication have increased rapidly, driven by advanced offerings in the retail and travel sectors, but I would question if the automotive industry as a whole has kept up. If your website isn’t up to scratch, then potential customers will go straight to your competitors!
In the following months I will focus on how to match your online presence with what users really want, by focusing on four main themes:
Is your web strategy integrated into your business strategy? Your online presence must be viewed, managed and developed as part of your overall acquisition and retention strategy. We have been refining our ACR methodology (Attract, Convert & Retain) to help integrate your website into your business strategy to drive sales to new levels.
Social Media – everyone is talking about it, and many are trying to make it work, but will it really improve how you attract, convert and retain customers or can it do more damage than good?
Reporting and Insights – fed up receiving piles of monthly meaningless reports that you don’t have time to read? Knowing what to measure, backed by insights, benchmarking and guidance is key to making the correct decisions. I will show you how to separate the wood from the trees.
Your staff. No matter how good your website, marketing, CRM or reporting tools are, they won’t deliver bottom line success unless your staff are fully engaged. If your staff don’t ‘get it’ then what chance do they have of converting customers that already do? Education and change management are key to getting your team to take ownership.
by Stewart Niblock, Car Dealer Ewards headline sponsor Autotorq.com’s CEO
ENTER NOW
Submitting your website is a piece of cake. All we need is an email to [email protected] with the following details:
1 Your name and position
2 Company name
3 Website address
4 Name of the agency who designed the site, or if in-house state this
5 100 words (or more) saying what makes your site an Eward winner. Think about what
you considered before building the website and the reasons for adding its functions.
If you’ve entered before that doesn’t mean you can’t enter, but you will need to send us details of your website again. We will also consider nominations made by other parties and our judges will get to nominate some of their favourites too.
