We’ve all been advertising for years. You used to put an ad in the paper or the phone book and people would come to buy cars from you.

Then the internet arrived. The local paper disappeared. The phone book disappeared. We were left with Google and social media. 

The amazing part of the new technologies and advertising outlets is they can pinpoint buyers with incredible accuracy. 

Using the systems in Facebook, Instagram, Google, and many more, you can target exactly the right people at the right time. 

Following Up on Leads

At SimpSocial, we deliver leads. Often, we deliver more leads than a sales team easily handle. 

That’s where text messaging and AI come in. Using these two tools combined, we’re able to engage with your clients for months, keeping their interest without overwhelming them.

Using AI, we’re able to target your customers, answer their questions, and even walk them through inventory. What makes it most effective is that there is rarely any human interaction.

Why AI and text messaging

Writing a text message to every lead is time consuming. It takes hours to send out messages to each person. It’s even more time-consuming when you’re sending them messages that correspond to where they’re at in the sales cycle and based on their last messages to you. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is designed to do that thinking for you. Working together, we set up a system of predefined steps that your customers can go through. The AI will recognize questions about financing, inventory, availability, appointments, and more without any input from your team.

So why text messages?

The answer is in the numbers. Over 95% of text messages are read by the recipient. In most cases, our phones will hold a text message on the screen until we read it or dismiss it. 

Compare that to emails which are read less that 50% of the time and phone calls that are answered less than 10% of the time. With text messaging, you’re getting the lead to read what you wrote (or what the AI wrote). Even if they don’t respond, you’ve made another impression and you’ve reminded them they need a car.

The CRM Connection

When this is integrated with your CRM, it can provide you with a lot of information and some very warm leads. 

The AI will even inviten the lead to the showroom, find out what vehicles they’re interested in and tee it all up for you. All you have to do is make the sale.

Sure, there will still be some phone calls and emails coming in, but anyone that opts in for text messages will have your message right in front of them anywhere.

All of this can be connected to your CRM and deliver detailed information. Every question in the lead asks, every time they clicked a link, even the inventory they looked at will all be listed in your CRM. You’ll know what the customer wants, even if they’re not sure yet.

Can we live without text messaging?

No. If you want to reach younger car buyers, you need to start using text messages. The average Millennial doesn’t use their phone to make phone calls.

“A poll by Gallup also confirmed that text messaging outranks phone calls as the dominant form of communication among millennials, with 68 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds saying they texted “a lot” the previous day. In the last couple of years, monthly texting among this age group has more than doubled.” – https://www.eztexting.com/blog/why-millennials-are-so-keen-text

The same report from EZTexting also notes that 76% of Millennials would rather lose the ability to make calls than the ability to text.

The future is in text messages and the ease and convenience of sending written messages. Texting will only get easier as voice recognition improves and we can speak our messages. 

Text Messages and AI: The Fastest Way to Fill the Pipeline

Using social media advertising to capture leads, a CRM to track them, and text messages and AI to follow up on them, the average dealership can fill their sales pipeline in about a week. 

It requires some expertise and planning, but it’s easy to do with the right help.

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