Tracking Your Marketing

Tracking Your Marketing

You Know Those Numbers Right?

 

This was a question I asked one of my clients the other day, and his answer shocked me, “NO”!!  Let me start a little earlier so that you can understand my shock a little.  The original question was, “which marketing is giving you the best return?”, and the client answered, “I don’t know”.  This is what this article is about, tracking your marketing, should you or shouldn’t you??

The short answer is a resounding, ABSOLUTELY!!  How will you know what worked and what didn’t?  And just for the record just because a lot of vehicles came in off one particular type doesn’t necessarily mean it worked!  You see just getting more people in the door isn’t always the answer.  Sure it may fix what you consider to be a low Car Count (CC) issue, but is that a temporary fix or long term fix.  All questions that need answers to be sure, but before we even go there, you MUST answer this question first, “who am I trying to attract” and “why”??

Let’s start with the last question first because it is one of the most asked questions or misguided statements our clients make, “business is slow so I need a higher CC”!.  Do you?  Have you actually sat down and looked at your CC to see if it is too low, or are the cars we are seeing the wrong ones.  Have too many of those cars already been serviced and repaired to a point where they simply just need an oil change?  More often than not, most clients CC’s are OK.  The clients simply have the wrong cars, or are not checking them out completely resulting in a low Average Repair Order (ARO).  But that is for another article……

Back on track, so you’ve asked, and answered the question, and for now we simply, “need more cars”.  OK, so we’re going to market for more customers and this is where the questions may outweigh the answers for a little while.  “Where do I market, what form of marketing do I do, who am I looking for”??  There is not enough space here to answer these questions, however there is enough space to get you focused on one portion of the biggest question.  How do I track my marketing?

Although everyone has his or her ideas, most successful business people all agree that you MUST track the results or you may end spending money on something that isn’t working.  Our clients are all asked to track their marketing results through a relatively simple program that was custom written for our clients, but you could do something very similar pretty easily.  Some of the elements that MUST be tracked are;

  • The number of people that came in off of each particular piece of marketing.
  • The amount of Money that was brought into the facility through the specific piece.
  • The amount of money that was spent on each piece of marketing.
  • The amount of ARO that each type brought in.

Certainly there are those out there who will track far more numbers than these, but for a simple to read, easy to understand set of results, these are the minimums that are required to determine how effective the marketing is.  Whether or not you build these numbers manually or use a spreadsheet to get them, they need to be looked at and analyzed!!

The last little bit of information I would like to share with you is that once you do get the phone ringing through good, consistent and effective marketing, you need to be able to say “YES” when that potential new or existing customer calls and asks, “can you……..”?  You may be buried when they call, but unless and until you can learn to say “yes” you probably won’t stay buried!!  And IF it is the first time this customer has called and you say “NO” for almost any reason,  that’s what sticks in their minds, forever.  Learn to say yes and watch the results!!

If you need help with your business and want to see and feel the successes you expected when you opened your doors, give us a call at:

 The ACT Group, 805-444-2598 or visit our website for more information www.automotivecoachingandtraining.com

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