Is your message achieving its goal? [VIDEO]

The importance of your outbound messaging practices in the Buy Center is crucial. Effective messaging in communications can lead to opportunities, but ineffective messaging in communications will lead to repeated failure.

In this month’s edition of the VAN University Best Practices and Training Webinar, VAN Founder Tom Gregg addresses the fundamentals of effective messaging in communications across multiple forms and mediums: SMS (or texting), phone conversations, voice messages, and email.

In the Buy Center, when you’re initializing communications with a private seller, your ultimate objective is for the customer to bring in his or her vehicle to facilitate a transaction. Along the way, there are multiple goals or milestones that may need to be achieved. More often than not, one of those is a phone conversation.

Before you can have that phone conversation, you must first establish interest and trust, and normally this is initiated via SMS or email. Regardless of which, your messaging style and approach must be effective, or it will not result in a phone conversation.

With SMS and email, you want your message to be clear and concise. You want the customer to schedule an appointment, but if that can’t be accomplished then you at least want a phone call.

Ultimately, you need to figure out what the customer wants. You need to honor their preferred method of communication.

Targeted Action

All of your messages must have a targeted action, or CTA (Call to Action). This targeted action could be a phone call, or it could be to visit your website. Too many options leads to inaction.

For instance, asking someone if they want pizza for lunch or salad, narrows down the person’s choices, as opposed to asking, “what would you like for lunch?”

Choosing from two or three options is much easier than coming up with your own selection. Asking the seller a question will normally solicit a response, unless it’s open ended.

Use the Phone to Tell Your Story

Everybody likes a good story, and the telephone can be a great tool for telling your story. A good phone conversation can expedite the process, and be a bridge for the customer to come into the dealership. On the phone you want to convey passion and emotion.

Again, you must have a clear and concise message, which is to schedule an appointment.