They say that when times get tough, the tough get going. But it’s when times are good that some dealers get complacent and smart dealers go for that extra bonus, the bonus achieved through conquest sales. These are times to expand one’s market share at the expense of competitors who sit back in satisfaction when sales are up.
In order to conquest customers from competitors, dealers need to know and understand their marketplace as well as their current market share. They can then see where opportunities exist for expansion and conquest. That involves digging for data.
The search for data begins with a dealer’s own database utilizing the DMS and/or CRM software to locate zip codes and inventory sales that provide their customer base. But that only provides a partial examination of the data available for truly understanding the marketplace.
Dealers can take a deep dive into data such as web statistics, vendor statistics, registration data from Polk, demand data from Dataium, as well as market demographic data. Such information can show a dealer what models to acquire and market, where to market them and how to market them. In other words, where to conquest.
For most dealers, this may sound intimidating and they may not know how to gather all of that data and how to aggregate it in order to make good use of it. That’s where new software advances such as Business Management Systems have entered the picture.
These business systems such as String Automotive’s Dealer Positioning System (DPS) will automatically pull data from all the pertinent outside sources and aggregate it with the dealer’s in-house data. It will provide a graphical and easy to understand representation of the dealer’s place in the market and where that dealer is best positioned for conquest. It will also offer an analysis as to the dealer’s inventory and what will be necessary in order to expand.
Business Management Systems are more than just information for growing market share, they actually can assist every manager in the dealership with making decisions daily about vendor performance, inventory, targeted marketing, sales trends, historical data and much more. With better data and information, dealers can better manage their entire operations.
Many dealers become complacent when sales are good because they’re not sure where or how to properly conquest new customers. Dealers who utilize data efficiently using Business Management Systems can focus their marketing on areas of opportunity to grow their market share at the expense of their competitors. That’s called Conquest!
