Data Driven Dealerships – Sell More VehiclesIn dealerships today, we have more stored data than ever before, the issue is that dealers do not know what to do with this information or even realize the value of this data.

So, data is only information gathered over the years through sales and service right? No way, data that is held in your DMS system is the brain of the dealership, it helps every part function and streamlines processes and makes the body run smoothly.

Your data is the DNA of your dealership, it is fundamental and has distinct characteristics of your processes and the type

and demographics of your customer base, which is relative to the area your store is based in. The quality of your data is

the legacy or the pedigree of your business.

Unfortunately, dealers use only 20 percent of the data, and most of the time it is used for daily routine or maintenance

campaigning, which fails on every level. Using intelligent software dealers can run the dealership smoothly plus improve

sales and service by 50%. All facets of the dealership, including, sales, service and customer relations can be taken to the

next level with the right data systems company to help.

The data that is collected daily, is the stock of the company, it holds the ladders of success within the confines of the

system. A good dealership is appraised according to the integrity of the data held.

Good data is an issue for each and every dealership, and purifying that data should be of high importance to the decision

maker at the dealership. This is called Data Integrity, there are only a handful of companies that can help dealers with

this issue, and most of them are expensive.

Most manager or owners, are afraid of the data and aren’t sure how to process or fix what seems to be broken. Good

data mining companies, can wake up the sleepy buyers in your database and prompt them to come to the store through

clear, time sensitive messages. There are many buyers living inside the DMS that have a high statistical probability of

buying or servicing with your dealership.

We call those people the “perfect prospects”, they are the easiest, least expensive, organic lead that you can harvest. No

third party or pre-paid lead prospect has a higher closing percentage than the family that resides in your won DMS.

Most dealers have daily routine emails or letters that are generated and mailed out each day, without a clear idea of

what the ROI really is. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on mainstream advertising, forgetting about all the

unsold, in equity, or conquest prospects, that will visit another dealer, if they are not reached in a timely manner.

Many of the DMS companies, sell their product with a built in Data mining plug in, unfortunately this requires the dealer

to manage and supervise the process.

Many managers quickly realize that there is a huge learning curve when it comes to how to implement a data campaign.

The campaigns should include:

Intelligent database clean up and repair. Service and sales campaigns. Targeted email and direct mail. Campaign-based landing pages. Customer and prospect eNewsletters.

The targeted campaigns require catchy templates, which should be personalized with each consumer’s name. The integrity of the data will fail at this level, data must be appended, by outside sources, such as POLK, USPS, or national do not call registries. Leaving the dealer with an extreme handicap of resources or personnel to accomplish the cleanup and repair of data that is either old, incomplete or false.

Data integrity is the key to running campaigns, and secret weapon of some of the largest dealer groups in the US. Being able to engage your own customers and encourage loyalty, is the first rung in the ladder of increased sales and service.

It must start with Data hygiene, a complete over haul and repair of the old, dusty records that have been collected and ignored over the years. Once this is complete it turns your DMS database into a clean marketing engine with verified and appended household data from numerous sources, including Polk, USPS, VIN Title Transfer, Conquest lists and your OEM.

Segmenting and house holding your data to help ensure consumers are getting the right message, at the right time, to the right person, via the right channel will drive extreme traffic to all departments of your dealership.

When “Internet marketing” was a new idea, many dealerships went away from traditional marketing to Digital Marketing, they would say… print is the medium of the past. Those people have spent more money trying to capture their portion of online shoppers, than if they would have used a hybrid model which included a rare breed of targeted marketing using all different channels.

With the enormous amount of data that is available, in and out of the dealership, the combination and hybrid recipe makes more sense than ever.

We look at advertising not by a certain channel anymore, but more refined, by either targeted (using existing variable data), or non-targeted (using variable data pulled from outside sources).

We can use targeted direct mail, to drive online traffic, and use that online traffic to tell how to retarget and redefine our mail campaign, this reduces waste by confirming the habits and desires of customers, and allows direct mail to deliver a higher quality piece, which is more relevant by tracking their online shopping behavior.

The best part of this type of advertising, is that the dealer can import all of the information that was captured and add it to the existing database of customers, to help future marketing efforts, and making your DMS database into a superior marketing engine, instead of old insufficient records, that fail every time.

The way of dealership marketing is taking on a whole new look and feel, dealerships will start marketing smarter because of Big Data. We know more about an internet customer than ever before, we have behavioral targeting and agencies providing insight to an online shopper’s behavior. Big Data can now relate dealers DMS data to social sites as well. With the immersion of Facebook ads we are able to market dealers existing customers according to the vehicle they own, on social sites!

There is more data out there than any one dealership can handle, finding the right company to put an engine to that data is the key.

Most dealers think that is the job of the CRM. But in actuality, the CRM is a relationship manager, it makes sure that your dealership keep in touch with your existing customers, it works off of a calendar. One thing it cannot do, is work from the online behavior your customer is exhibiting. A partner who can help drive campaigns based on customer behavior rather than on a calendar is a diamond in the midst of all the garbage companies that promise results, but never deliver.

Multi-channel marketing is the driver behind most of the large group dealership success, it is their secret weapon. They understand that closing the deal, relies on the customers relevant message that is delivered. The more times a customer see your message, the closer they are to buying a new vehicle.

Auto dealers need to realize the value in your stored data, partner with a company that can take you to the next level of digital marketing. The life blood of your dealership is running through your daily data, use it to your advantage!