How Dealers United Is Using WordPress to Run A Multi-Million Dollar Online Business

WordPress Wednesday is sponsored by zoing.ly

In this episode we interview Pete Petersen, the CEO of Dealers United.

We dive deep into the details of how they use WordPress to manage their multi-million dollar operation and intricately explore the inner workings of their entire online marketing strategy.

We explore the mechanics of inbound marketing, break down the components of the sales funnel at a high level, and get into the nitty gritty of generating, qualifying, and converting online leads.

Dealers United provides auto dealers with quality products, services and online support, at a discount by leveraging the collective buying power of their growing dealer network.

If you are in Sarasota, you can attend these Interviews in person. Learn more on our MeetUp page.

Show Notes

1:14 – Meet Pete

Learn about Pete’s Background, and why he is qualified to be the CEO of a Multi-Million dollar software startup. Pete also describes the basics of Dealers United, and how they help auto dealerships sell more cars.

2:48 – Why WordPress

Pete explains why he chose to switch the DU website over to WordPress when he took over as CEO.

“I realized real quick that we had to switch to a platform that would allow us to generate more inbound leads, and allow our sales team to have more conversations with our customers about the problems they were solving.”

5:16 – Educating the consumer

I ask Pete how WordPress allows them to use education as a sales tool, how they approach inbound marketing, and why it’s so important to take the time to create quality online content .

8:25 – Introducing the sales funnel

Get the specifics of their top-of-funnel conversion tactics and how Dealers United attracts new leads.

12:28 – How to transition from educating to selling a prospect

Pete explains that to get people further down the sales funnel and explains how they use webinars to take their prospects from marketing qualified lead, to sales qualified lead.

14:40 – The value of evergreen content

We discuss the specifics of how Dealers United sets their content strategy, how they track their leads through the sales funnel, and why evergreen content is so important to all of it.

16:40 – “I’m trying to build a relationship”

How answering questions helps you build relationships with your customers and why relationships are vital to making online sales.

19:31 – The bottom of the funnel

How do you track and measure performance online?

“The number one thing we do is set goals!” – Pete talks about how they use Google Analytics to create online goals so that they can accurately track a user’s progress through their website.

23:48 – What tools do you use? 

Learn what plugins Dealers United uses on their WordPress install.

Hint:

• Yoast SEO
• HubSpot
• Gravity Forms
• and more…

29:00 – WordPress is a tool

Pete still hacks his way through WordPress once in awhile, and I take some time to point out that this is one of the reasons I love WordPress so much. Because it allows non-developers like myself, to go in and manipulate the web, and as a marketer, that becomes a very powerful sales tool.

This is a good section to listen in on if you are using WordPress and wondering whether or not you are using it right. And as we explain in the interview, there is really no wrong way to use WordPress as long as you are not modifying its core functionality.

32:00 – What I think is beautiful about WordPress

Pete specifically describes how much he appreciates the ease at which you can find people who are proficient in WordPress, and how much that helps them when it comes to outsourcing parts of their operation and managing their content marketing strategy.

33:08 – Q&A

Pete sticks around to answer questions about how they pick the content they create, gets deeper into the meaning of Evergreen content and fields other questions from the crowd about how WordPress helps them kick ass online.

41:14 – Is blogging dead?

Someone from the crowd asks if we think that blogging is dead and both Pete and I chime in on this topic. What do you think? is blogging dead?

Leave your thoughts in the comment below, and if you got any value out of this video, feel free to share it with a friend. It’s the best compliment you could ever give me.