Making Your Dealership Recessionproof Dealer Marketing Magazine | July 2008

Everyone is feeling the impact of the economic recession, especially those of  us in the automotive  industry. With tough times all around us, what can you do at your dealership to make sure that you not only survive the recession, but continue to thrive and grow? It all comes down to managing and enhancing relationships.

If “knowledge is power,” your CRM is the starting point. Developing an effective way to manage, communicate, and market to your customers is one of the most important pieces of your day-to-day business puzzle. Here are three simple tips to recession-proof your dealership:

1. Know your present and past prospects and customers. Your database is the key to the success of your dealership. It enables you  to create targeted marketing campaigns. Customers don’t like receiving mass mailings, but they appreciate it when they receive a marketing message meant just for them. Without an accurate database, marketing is ineffective.
   
2. Facilitate the buying process. Don’t sell to people that don’t want to buy—you will reduce gross and drive down CSI scores. Help your salespeople to facilitate the buying process. It starts with the marketing messages and ends with you receiving money. A good CRM will support this buying process and show your people how to stay in alignment with the customer to maximize gross. The residual effect of this is reduced marketing expenses because when you leverage all of the marketing tools embedded in a good CRM to do targeted marketing you reduce wasted marketing dollars.
   
3. Understand marketing effectiveness and value, then intensify your marketing. “We use our marketing budget effectively thanks to our CRM,” says Ruben Muinos of Galpin Motors. “We’re able to target specific customers and prospects in our database and then measure the results.”
   Research predicts less advertising among competitors during a recession, making room for your brand to be very visible with good messaging; and with a good CRM it is not expensive to get the word out.
   To compete, you have to make relationships with your customers that last a lifetime. Your CRM is the most crucial building block in this process. Make sure you can take full advantage of the economic slowdown by using your CRM. This powerful tool will allow you to gain insight into your dealership, your marketing, and your customers. Perhaps it is best summed up by one of our industry’s most successful entrepreneurs Larry Van Tuyl, owner of 68 automotive dealerships—“If you’re not using a comprehensive CRM, you’re not maximizing your people, leads, or marketing dollars.”