Yes and No.
Yes, less demand for your brand means less of your brand might be sold in relationship to other brands in your market area. That's a given. However, the demand for your brand does not have to limit your individual dealership’s performance.
Your dealership can increase market share even when demand for your brand is down in a couple ways:
- Gaining a bigger share of your brand against same brand dealers in your area
- Gaining used car share: Your competitors here are more than just same brand competition, it's all brands and Independents as well.
- Converting shoppers who normally would buy other brands to yours.
Doing all three of these can help you increase your market share and in-turn increase revenue.
A good way to think of this is that the demand for your brand is a pie and you want your slice of it. How big of a slice do you want? While the size of the pie may be somewhat limited to certain constraints (brand demand), this doesn’t mean that you should be getting less or settling for an equal share. And the used cars? Well, the used cars are ice-cream that can either round off your month and make it that much better, or supplement where the pie is lacking.
In addition to those two factors, data now suggests that car shoppers are more able to be influenced than ever before as only one in three know what car they are going to purchase when they being shopping.
This means that you now have a greater chance than ever before to convert other competitive brand owners.
So how do you increase your sales both of your brand owners and competitive brand owners? You can give cars away at below market value prices, but let's not go down that road.
The better approach is to systematically keep your marketing in front of the ever-changing list of people most likely to buy.
Well, you have to know who those people are first and since that list of people keeps changing that can be a little tough. The good news is that we know who those people are, and would like to introduce you to them.
Will they all buy from you? No. Will every single one of them end up buying a car? No, interest in buying does not always ensure a purchase. However, knowing those "most likely to buy" helps you to constantly keep your offers in front of them to influence their decision, and makes it a lot cheaper than simply serving ads to everyone who happens to live near your dealership.
Let’s be candid. Marketing doesn't necessarily cause people to buy. However, continuous targeted direct marketing acts as a 'tipping point' by the cumulative effect of multiple exposures at opportune times. Keeping your dealership in front of the buyer as much as possible produces gains in your market share: More 'tipping points'.
Picking up 8, 10, 14 or 20 additional sales each month with this approach makes all the difference, especially if demand for your brand is down. If demand for your brand is up, then the same principle applies: you can increase your share against same brand dealers in your area.
All of this equates to one thing: a bigger slice of the pie.
If you'd like to find out about all the current shoppers in your market and much more, click the blue button below to receive a free market study.
