The value of knowing your market

This article was originally published in the Autofile Magazine - June 2016 issue. 

Understanding your market is a game changer

Pick a vehicle on your dealership right now. Describe in your mind the person you expect to walk in and purchase that vehicle. Thinking about that description, where is that person most likely to be right now, tonight, this weekend?

Are they young, old, have a family, sporty, male, female? Now try this same exercise with another vehicle on your dealership right now. Is the exact same person going to buy that vehicle? Chances are they aren’t – and that’s why there are huge benefits to identifying who the most likely person is to purchase any given vehicle on your dealership.

Using insights for targeting

This information, or insights as I like to refer to it, is highly valuable and very important for any successful vehicle dealership business. The more you know about who buys your vehicles, the more you can specifically target the right demographics and get the best return for your advertising dollar and marketing efforts. 

Craft vehicle descriptions around the likely buyer - Once you understand who purchases your vehicles and why, then you can take any identifiable trends even further with creative descriptions and images that best suit the needs of the most likely buyers.

Start with existing stock - It’s all too easy to take such a blanket approach across all vehicles and not really put any thought into how or where you would advertise, who the target market is, and also what you’d say about the cars. The sheer size of this task, starting with existing stock, has most rolling their eyeballs and saying it’s all too hard. Yes, it will take effort, but targeting a vehicle at a specific market will generate results.

Stand out - I think most would agree that it makes sense to ensure you stand out where you can. Standing out and being relevant, especially from the private seller, is easier when using information that they don’t have. Use the insight you have to actually sell the vehicle effectively in an online space, to influence an enquiry, an appointment and then the all-important sale.

Focus on the data

You need to understand your data, then leverage the information to be effective – this starts with what you have available.

This information needs to come to the surface of your Dealer Management System (DMS) and each vehicle should tell you who the most likely buyer is from the data it can leverage off.

Knowing what advertising medium the customer came from also allows you to understand how different vehicles and customer demographics perform in relation to the advertising method. The data is further enriched if your website is linked to your DMS, allowing the combination of real time and looking-forward analytics.

Once you start understanding your customers and your vehicles on a data-driven level, you will be empowered to make even smarter decisions for your business. You will be able to ensure your return on investment is maximised and that you are placing the right vehicles in front of the right customer’s eyes.

The old shotgun approach has its place, and you hope a pellet or two sticks, but the sniper rifle approach is very effective in targeting the people that are the most likely buyers for your vehicles. 

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Disclaimer:
The Motorcentral blog is intended for educational purposes only. All writers opinions are their own and nothing published on this blog should be interpreted as a recommendation or advice in any way. Motorcentral is also not responsible for and does not verify accuracy of any of the information contained within this blog.
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