Month–to–Month is Killing Dealers' Market Performance

The car business is unlike any market in the world.  You are in a business where you sell something people want and need.  The potential for big success is highly probable, unlike a lot of businesses that have a low probability for success (restaurants for example). That being said, car dealerships will not run themselves and most assuredly can fail. There are many reasons that dealerships fail, but almost all of them can be narrowed down to one issue: a lack of planning and the ability to pivot as the market's demands shift.

I’ve been told there are dealers who get their marketing budget on the 4th of the month based on volume from the previous month... This means that they’re budgeting for the current month 13% of the way through the month!!!!

Pardon me while I gulp.  This is incredibly poor planning and a wonderful way to either spiral into oblivion or, at best, use inferior methods and pay too much for them as your market share shrinks or stagnates. 

How, you might ask? Let me count the ways:

1. Elevated Cost: Everything costs more when you do it on the fly.  And, a couple of weeks to do the things you want in marketing is… on the fly.
2. No Systematic Approach: Taking pot shots is not systematic. It is the opposite.
3. No Consistency: Marketing is consistent exposure to the right people. The only thing consistent about getting your budget halfway through the first week and trying to deploy over the next 3 is consistently poor planning.
4. No Efficiency: Intelligent direct marketing can’t be launched in a couple of weeks. You’ll have to settle for the least scientific methods, but hey, you will also have to pay more for them.
5. Dwindling Market Performance: If your volume goes up and down with the market, you’re treading water.  If you want to grow you have to out-perform the market, not out-perform yourself.

Month to month planning is not planning at all. Why do you think major companies do their reporting by quarters?  That’s 3 times the amount of time that you use.  Because they know something you don’t know? No. They set up their marketing on an annual basis and then review it on a quarterly basis because they have the foresight to do so. This is something you can easily implement yourself and will have the added bonus of not always feeling like you are running down to the wire.

All this being said, we know why and how it happens and really do understand. This is just one of many things on your plate, but if you can manage to take a little bit of time to prepare and get out ahead of it, you'll find that a lot of other stuff will fall into place and become a lot easier.

Trust us, we've been there before too.

Is this something you need help with? Edifice can take a lot of this load off you and provide you with marketing insight and management tips. We allow dealers to choose a more hands on approach, or to leave it to us for turnkey solutions. Either way is better than not planning, because we all know if you fail to plan, you had better plan to fail.