In a world filled with companies vying for consumer attention, many marketing agencies advise that making more noise is an efficient strategy. Think about many dealerships’ sales strategies in handling customers who have actually expressed interest in a vehicle. Many dealerships employ templates and strategies designed to bombard consumers for the first week or so with a continuous flow of phone calls and e-mails hoping to beat their competitors to the punch. The problem is that, in many cases, the messages they are delivering have no useful information. There is no difference in a digital marketing strategy.

To achieve success in digital marketing, a business must be sending relevant and targeted messages to groups of people most likely to be interested in the offer. To do that, a dealership needs to take advantage of their database – whether it’s the DMS or CRM – and actually analyze the data, and drill down to the customers that are most likely to convert.

The problem is that many dealers don’t take the time to make sure that the data in their system is actually good. As we work with clients, we see databases so mired in useless or outdated information that simply taking the database and using it in a raw format to market not only wastes money but it’s also ineffective. Duplicated records are being created at many touch points – in sales, service and parts. People move. Their phone numbers change. They change employers that could affect their e-mail addresses. Perhaps a husband and wife both exist with the same contact information.  Many vendors, however, simply take your list and send your message – whether that’s via e-mail or direct mail – to the contact information you provide. The real problem lies in the fact that not only is this costing you money; in many cases it never reaches the customer. In addition, it could be serving to actually annoy your customers by delivering the same message multiple times.

Many dealerships employ policies of non-duplication and collecting full and complete information from customers, but not many enforce it. They rely on their CRM to catch the duplication and prevent it. It’s much too easy, however, for a salesperson to bypass this duplication by simply entering different information – whether it’s intentional or not. Multiple customer IDs for the same person in a DMS are not uncommon. There are many opportunities in which duplicated or erroneous information can be introduced into a dealer’s database yet there isn’t typically anybody at the dealership with the time and skillset to analyze and prevent this. How many times have you seen a sold vehicle RDR’d with a fake e-mail address simply because nobody bothered to collect the information?

Whether you are doing your own digital marketing or partnering with a vendor, it’s imperative that the information you are using is accurate. Sending your message to tens of thousands of people in an e-mail or direct mail campaign to bad email or physical addresses accomplishes nothing but costing you more money and setting your campaign up for failure.

Dealers should make sure that their CRMs are current with the most up-to-date information possible and avoid duplication. By doing this, they will see reduced marketing expenses and higher conversions. Accompanied by highly targeted campaigns, not only will dealers see higher conversions and more ROI from their marketing efforts but they will also be able to ensure that their message is being delivered to the right people at the right time.

Simply thinking about achieving this goal may deter dealers from tackling it but I assure you that it will cost dealers more money to not do it then they realize. That one mailer that didn’t get delivered could cost you a sale. How many of those do you want to miss?

In our 15 years of consulting on this topic, we’ve stressed the importance of data cleansing and hygiene many times. Our industry, however, is continuously seeing changes as a younger generation begins to take the reins at many dealerships. While this generational shift is seeing an increase in leaders who recognize the importance of digital marketing in their growth strategies, it’s important they recognize that, not unlike a house, their digital marketing is only as strong as the foundation it is built upon.