By
Duane Sprague
It seems that
everybody has the same problem. They can't properly manipulate
or manage their customer data in their existing dealership computer
system. And its true, they can't. Your dealership systems were
designed for accounting and inventory purposes, and are basically
worthless when it comes to database marketing.
For example.
It is a travesty that most systems will automatically delete a
customer from the file if they have not had any activity for a
period of time. And it will delete their previous vehicle from
the record once they purchase a new one. And in some systems,
you cannot even determine the dollar amount that any one customer
has spent with you over the years. With such limitations, it does
make it difficult to conduct proper customer analysis and segmentation.
There is hope however. You can download your customer files onto
a separate computer system, with an external storage device, like
a JAZ or ZIP Drive from Iomega. You now have a permanent record
of your past customers that will be safe from automatic deletion
or overwriting. But don't forget, that this customer list should
be updated once a year by a licensed NCOA vendor from the U.S.
Postal Service, so that it will always remain fresh and usable.
On this separate
computer, which better be a powerful one (Pentium 200 MHZ, 24
MEGs of RAM, and 3 Gigabytes of memory), you can run all sorts
of software that will provide customer contact management capabilities
(Gold Mine or ACT are good), spread sheets, charts and graphs,
mapping to show where your customers live, as well as prospect
identification by providing names and addresses of neighbors,
and on and on. Add new customers as you get them, with additional
information fields for each customer as you collect it.
You will also
want a good page design program to create personalized mail etc.
From this
platform you can build, tailor, and expand your own targeted marketing
capabilities with simple to use, low cost, and very powerful software
right off the shelf. You can improve your computer as needed with
very low cost upgrades from your local computer dealer. And you
can even have custom software written if you have a need that
is not being fulfilled. A super fast, super powerful PC these
days can be had for $3,500. Add a fast Lexmark laser printer ($1,200),
an HP color printer ($400), a color scanner ($1,200) an external
JAZ drive ($400) and a boatload of software, and your into it
for $8,000 or so.
For the same
stand-alone computer, you can plan on spending $1,800 per year
on hardware and software upgrades to keep it as fast and powerful
as it needs to be.
Next you will
need at least two completely different types of people to make
it all work. You will need a very computer savvy operator who
is highly skilled on both the hardware and software sides to program,
download, upload, run and maintain the database and reports, mass
FAX and mass e-mail, etc.
You will also
need the opposite type of person. This person will be the creative
marketing mind that will ask the computer operator to run all
sorts of "what if" scenarios, create models, generate
reports, track responses, overlay the existing data with additional
demographic and psychographic data, create lists, maps, etc. With
all of this data, the marketing person will formulate a marketing
strategy based on data, trends and statistics.
The two must
work as a unit together. Communication and understanding of the
objectives is critical. The purpose of gathering and maintaining
the data is for marketing. If the computer person does not understand
that marketing is driving the process, you will have an uphill
battle getting the reports you want in a timely manner, if at
all.
The third
type of person, is the artistic, creative designer type, who can
take the strategy and ideas from the marketing person, and create
the appropriate looking direct mail piece, in-store displays,
signs, etc.
If you really
want to get serious about having your creative done in-house,
you will also need to spend about $12,000 for a Macintosh computer
system and the peripherals. Although a PC can technically do design
work, they are slower, more cumbersome, and more limited than
a Macintosh based system.
You know have
the core elements to begin your own in-house database marketing
operation.
