Marketing to your existing customer base is critical in today’s shrinking auto industry where new customers are few and far between.  Unfortunately, the auto industry has a well deserved reputation earned over many years by fast talking car salespeople who relied on buy or die selling systems that ignored the importance of relationship based transparent negotiations to earn - and keep - a customer.  Experience has proven that if you make a friend you are more likely to make a sale.  More relevantly to this post, if you plan to market to your existing customer base it is critical that they are more than customers.  If you hope to earn their future business in sales and service they must be friends, not just previously sold leads.  After all, what are friends for!

Human nature drives every aspect of our lives - especially when buying a car - so it always amazes me when auto dealers implement a selling system or design an automotive advertising plan that doesn’t consider it.  This post will provide some insights from the customer’s perspective that must be addressed before you can presume to market to them as a long term customer vs. only a single sale.

Simply put, people like to do business with people that they like.  Based on that observed fact, you must do business with your friends because your enemies and strangers are less likely to accept your call! If your only goal is selling cars with no regard to building a customer base for future sales and service opportunities then that business plan will fail.  It may work for the short term, but in today’s market service and parts income is the key to long term survival.  Selling a car is easy if you only have to do it once.  It’s the second and third sale coupled with the ongoing service business that must include making a friend as well as a sale to build a customer base.   

The Internet has allowed the car buying public looking for new cars or used cars to bypass car dealerships by visiting dealer websites or third party auto inventory based websites like EveryCarListed.Com.  EveryCarListed has millions of used trucks and Certified Pre-Owned Cars listed for sale with no sales hype - only competitive comparisons of every make and model that a customer may be considering.  Modern Internet based applications provided on dealer websites and Every Car Listed also provide auto financing information, payment calculators and appraisal tools without a car salesperson in sight.  If the online customer never meets a salesperson it is difficult to make a friend vs. a sale - but not impossible.

Replicating real world selling systems with Internet based processes that provide transparency without any sales hype will build the relationship between the dealer and the customer by providing the information that the customer needs to make a buying decision.  That confidence can then be transferred to the salesperson to close the sale and move the relationship forward to keep the door open for future sales and service. 

For example, Everycarlisted recently expanded their basic marketing packages to include video which provides detailed information for site visitors to buy used cars with enough information to narrow down their search.  Selling used cars is much easier if the customer starts the negotiation on the vehicle that best fits their needs.  To that end, a well constructed video builds on the philosophy that a picture is worth a thousand words and therefore a video is worth a million.  As a result, a video provides a clearer picture for the online car buyer to make a decision.

Now that the basic building block of a relationship has been applied to the initial selling process in both the real and the virtual world the ability to develop future marketing opportunities to your customer base becomes self evident.  You don’t only call your friends when you need something.  More importantly, if you do they won’t be your friends for long!  That same wisdom can now be applied to marketing to your customer base.

The following processes can be applied to keep in touch with your friends, (customers), so that when they need another vehicle or they have to service their present one they will consider you;

• Capture an email address during the selling process to facilitate future communications
• Introduce your customers to key managers and support staff in all departments - not just sales - to promote future parts, service and sales opportunities
• Update your data base regularly with appending services and ongoing communications
• Create a user generated content section - blog - on your virtual showroom to capture comments and feedback for referrals and to surface and fix problems as they develop
• Create a regular email newsletter with relevant information sent to your customers beyond just sales and service messages - such as seasonal advice or industry news
• Offer V.I.P. offerings to previous customers in sales, parts and service before, during and after the sale or service
• Develop business to business shared marketing venues to/for your existing vendors as well as neighboring business to promote each other’s products and services
• Consider your community’s needs and interact with your customers outside of your dealership to mature your relationships beyond just business
• Support your staff to develop their own social networking communities to extend your dealership beyond its own network of previous customers and business relationships

The bottom line is that you must build your customer base on a good foundation that will survive in a shrinking economy.  Ongoing marketing efforts must contain messages focused on your customer’s needs over your own with the confidence that when they intersect you will have earned their trust and their business - in that order.  After all, what are friends for!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 10:34 am and is filed under Hot Topics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.