A better user experience can help you generate more leads from your website, and could even make them more profitable.

So many new car websites are focused on price – you have the opportunity to change the agenda by focusing on value.

Here are 6 ideas you can use to make your vehicle data work harder for you.

• Think about questions a salesperson might ask. What are you going to use the car for – commuting, school runs, weekend adventures? Build logic that puts the right cars at the top of the search results.
• Help users understand the costs. How easy do you make it for them to balance competing factors like depreciation, fuel consumption and servicing costs? Or are they going somewhere else for this information?
• Multiple images work really well for used cars. Why not offer the same for new?
• Simple comparisons make things clearer. Give your users the confidence to take the next step with the ability to compare key features side-by-side. It really works.
• Can users configure a car on your website? How much more likely are they to enquire about a vehicle they have built and personalised for themselves?
• Not quite the right car? Give your users the ability to generate a list of similar cars with a single mouse click. Or better still, do it for them and position the list in the sidebar.

We recently added one to our fleet, so last week I finally got the chance.

The Leaf might not be the prettiest car from the outside, but once inside I found the cabin was spacious and extremely well equipped.

The real talking point though is how it drives.

Impressively.

Acceleration is smooth and brisk, with the only noticable difference from a petrol or diesel powered vehicle being the absence of gears and engine noise.

So did people hear me coming?

Well, I’m not sure about the pedestrians, but their canine companions all seemed to register the sound of the Leafs electric motor from an impressive distance.

I think this is a great proposition for anyone who doesn’t need the range of a traditionally powered car, and with the potential to avoid the congestion charge it is perfect for a large city like London.

However, if you live in Battersea ..

Search marketing works by connecting a buyers need with a sellers solution through the medium of keywords. If you are the seller you just need to know which keywords your customers are using, buy the clicks (through PPC or investment in SEO) and if your web pages and prices are any good the new car leads will starting rolling in.

Easy. Or rather too easy.

Too easy for any of your competitors to bid on the same ad position or optimise their site for the same keywords.

Too easy for your customers to search the market for a better deal.

Too easy for margins to be driven downward as suppliers fall over themselves to attract enquiries by offering the lowest price.

“If your business model is based on offering the lowest price or payment, then don’t be suprised if that’s all your customers are interested in”

Franchised dealers know that showroom walk-ins are a better profit opportunity.

Brokers know that existing customer referrals always convert at a higher rate than web leads.

I could go on, but the common denominator here is that these leads aren’t based on price – they are based on service. The peace of mind that you get from the local dealer with the badge above the door or the trusted recommendation of someone you respect.

So why the race to the bottom?

Great service isn’t just about what you do offline. In our market good service begins online, and is concluded with an offline transaction.

In the travel market Expedia does it with a really easy booking tool while Tripadvisor is first and foremost a forum for independent reviews. These sites don’t attract customers by being cheap, they do it by being useful.

Here’s some ideas for useful content for your new car website.

• Create a search that helps users find the right car for their needs - for example a lifestyle search
• Only show offers relevant to the search
• Make it easy to compare cars side-by-side -  and help customers cut through the information to make a decision
• Offer business users advice on whole life costs and company car tax
• Provide motoring advice and car reviews to build trust and increase the chance of generating enquiries

The frequency with which brochure material needs to be reprinted is simply astounding, as the manufacturer marketing teams tweak their offering in response to competitor actions and market forces, with precious few people in the industry able to keep pace.

It’s a challenge that touches every sector of the industry, but perhaps nowhere more so than in the Franchised Dealer network.

With consumers now using the internet for their pre-purchase research, it’s crucial for sales teams to not only keep on top of their own products and pricing, but those of the competition. How else can sales staff be expected to lead with the right product and talk confidently about its advantages?

Dealers operate in a tough market and now more than ever need to maximise their conversion rates.

The emphasis is now on creating a buying environment where customers can satisfy their financial, environmental, lifestyle and specification requirements. To be successful and credible as customer advisors, sales teams need access to accurate information in the right format.

Competitor knowledge provides vital perspective, allowing sales to focus on the points of differentiation.

When accurate information isn’t available downstream of the product planners, the effectiveness of front line sales teams in selling against the competition is substantially reduced.

When it comes to prioritising their marketing spend, dealers need to weigh up the benefits of increasing enquiry volumes with the return from improving conversion across the board.

By Debbie Fox

The fact that last night they chose to dedicate half an hour of prime time viewing to the subject should tell us just how important this issue has become.

Costs of motoring have always been important to consumers, it’s just that the human brain finds it hard to make all the comparisons it needs to.

Why is it so hard?

Well, for a start you need a boat load of data on every product under consideration: list price, depreciation, fuel cost, mpg, servicing costs, repair and tyre costs.

You need information on all the different finance options.

And insurance quotes from all the insurers.

Plus all the available offers and discounts.

The web has made our market more transparent than ever, but still no one source provides everything you need.

And even if someone did manage to collect all that information they’d still need a computer to process it all into a meaningful comparison.

But here’s the real problem.

With hundreds of new models being released and discontinued very month, by the time you finished a good proportion of the information would be out of date anyway, and who’s to say something better isn’t available?

The Forth Bridge springs to mind.

So what do consumers really want?

It can probably be summed up in one word.

Confidence.

Confidence that they are making a sensible purchase. Not one that will drain their wallet over the coming years of ownership.

Programmes like The True Cost of Motoring do one thing very well. They sensationalise the escalating costs of motoring and create an itch for reassurance that the intended vehicle purchase is a sensible one.

Our job and challenge as marketers is to help consumers scratch that itch by providing relevant information that is easy to understand and act upon.

Only when the itch is scratched customers can get on with their job.

Enjoying the process of buying and owning their next car.

The traditional ground for cost comparisons has been monthly payment, but non-finance costs are working their way up the agenda of savvy car buyers.

It’s not hard to see why.

Compare the projected 3 year, 10,000 mile per annum running cost of 55 hatchbacks in the £15-15,500 price bracket, and you’ll see a difference of 47% between the lowest and the highest*.

2011 won’t break any new car sales records, but as more and more buyers get tuned in to running costs, the opportunity to capture and convert their web searches with well presented content may never have been better.

* Source: CarCost 1 April 2011 (depreciation, servicing, maintenance, tyres, fuel, insurance and road tax)

I ought to point out at this stage that he wasn’t using our data, but in truth I don’t think the data was the issue. It was the implementation.

Changing the page layout to put an extra click in the way of customers enquiring usually reduces response, and the new content was embedded in such a way that the expected SEO benefits weren’t realised either.

Sometimes the smallest changes can make big differences in conversion rates. The internet is littered with examples of people who have increased the performance of their paid search adverts by 200-300% just by reversing the order of 2 lines of text.

The reality for this customer is that they will never know (a) how much the conversion rate was lowered by the extra click, and (b) whether the vehicle data contributed positively or negatively.

When you change 2 things at once you understand the true impact of neither.

Making isolated changes and measuring the difference in performance is key to measuring the value of any change to your site, and should be part of a continual optimisation process.

With good implementation advice at the outset you can accelerate your ROI by avoiding the lower reaches of this learning curve.

Our new report revisits some of the fundamentals of vehicle search and landing pages and is available for registered readers to download for free. Click here to get your copy.

A larger marketplace means consumers get more choice, while dealers tap into larger numbers of buyers cheaply and flexibly.

The last 15 years the internet has moved these marketplaces online, and for very good reason, the technology accelerates and amplifies the same fundamental benefits.

So why hasn’t the same thing happened for new car lead generation?

There’s no shortage of people finding new and interesting ways of getting customers to raise their hands and say “yes, I’m interested in buying a new car”, but finding dealers willing to pay for the leads has always been a tougher challenge.

Plenty of dealers complain that these leads are difficult to engage with, hard to convert and produce awful margins. I’m sure there is more than a grain of truth here, yet, from time to time I hear of dealers enjoying conversions better than 1 in 3 from these kind of leads.

So what are they doing differently?

Like it or not, these are price-driven buyers who do not respond well to tactics aimed at margin maximisation. Recognising that, and adapting your tactics accordingly seems to be the only effective answer.

This fascinating forum post from a BMW buyer in the US offers a useful evaluation of some of the sales tactics at your disposal.

I’ll leave it to you to decide what works best.

The client who asks this question is looking for more than a standard product pitch in response.

You aren’t asking for something everyone is using or doing, you’re looking for someone who can add real value.

How suppliers respond will tell you a lot about the kind of relationship you have.

Is it just an opportunity for them to dust off something you haven’t already bought, or does it spark a more meaningful conversation in which they take the time to understand your business objectives and challenges?

Can they add the kind of value that goes beyond product supply?

The best suppliers will recognise this as an opportunity to understand and share your business challenges. They will look forward into their development pipeline and work with you to create new and innovative solutions.

This kind of approach isn’t about following the line of least resistance, and it’s rarely easy work.

But for customers and suppliers who want to lead in their chosen fields this is one question that should never be avoided.