We are creatures of habit. Unfortunately, the habits of the general population has changed over the last decade to create a separation between where they buy cars and where they have them serviced.

What's more unfortunate is that dealers have really started pushing in the same direction. They have service customers and they have sales customers. They divide them up into two groups and treat them completely differently with their marketing. The assumption that someone will service the car at the place that they buy it has gone to the wayside.

In a post I wrote that asked what happened to calling them 'customers', I laid out our internal perspective:

We have a philosophy here at Visible Customer. We do not believe in "service customers" and "sales customers". We believe in "customers". If they're getting their car serviced at your dealership, they should be buying from you as well. If they're buying cars at your dealership, they should probably be having their cars serviced at your dealership (unless they're simply too far away, but even in that situation there are ways to get them to drive to you for certain services).

You don't need to settle. Your goal should be to make everyone a "true customer", one who does everything automotive-related at your dealership. It's about creating a new habit that your customers adopt to make you their only source of car information and the only place they go to meet their needs.

To do this, dealers must first establish that mentality within the dealership. The service drive walk, for example, isn't just another checkbox item in the sales process. It's not something that should be skipped, nor is it something that they should be performing halfheartedly. The sales process is the ideal time to build value within the dealership itself, to set it apart as being a completely different experience from start to finish.

From there, the marketing message to your database must take both sales and service into account. You shouldn't just be sending your oil change specials to your service customers. In fact, it makes more sense to populate more sales messages to your service customers than just about any dealership is doing right now. Why? Because people who are having their cars serviced at the dealership but who are not buying there are doing it out of convenience. They went to a dealership further away from than you are to buy, but they like the convenience of servicing it closer to home. By letting them reasons to consider you for sales, you're giving your dealership an opportunity to earn the business that should have been yours in the first place.

Building true customers out of service or sales customers is an old school way of thinking, but it still works in the digital age. You just have to keep putting out the right messages to the right people at the right time.

In my travels, I've found that dealers are often complacent about their past customer database marketing. It's usually not a flaw in their strategic thinking. It's confidence that they are treating their customers properly and that they see plenty of return business. I'm not going to argue that point today though I believe I can make a strong argument for the need to be constantly visible to them.

Today, let's talk about new business. Let's talk about the bulk of your marketing and advertising dollars that are being spent on getting people in the market today to come into your dealership. Most importantly, let's talk about the influencing factors that compel new business.

There are plenty of debates raging on the various automotive networks surrounding the effectiveness of influential types of advertising like social media, video pre-roll, and retargeting, but there is never a debate about the importance of good ol' fashioned word of mouth. People still talk to other people they trust when it's time to buy a car.

This is where the appropriate messages can come into play that help you to generate new business. You're already spending money on getting in front of potential new customers, but so is you competitor down the block. You can try to separate yourself with the right message, but who's to say that your competitor isn't putting out a better message or reaching more buyers?

By taking advantage of the influential factors associated with word of mouth, you get a leg up on most of your competitors. This requires the constant communication with your past customers that I talked about before. You aren't just trying to get them to buy their next vehicle from you. You're also trying to make them feel as comfortable as possible recommending you to their friends and family, particularly when they're in the market and asking for advice.

This is, in many ways, an ADHD society with a short memory. They probably remember where they bought their car a couple of years ago and they may remember whether or not it was a good experience, but it might not be enough to get them excited about recommending you when their coworker tells them they're in the market or when their brother's car finally breaks down. By staying in front of them with important and relevant messages across multiple advertising venues, you'll be much more likely to get them to recommend you proactively when the time hits them, even if it has been two or three years.

Staying visible to your past customers is more than just a best practice for grabbing them next time as the low-hanging fruit that they are. It can also benefit you greatly when it comes to getting new business. If you have a message about a $189/mo lease and your competitor is advertising $4500 off, it's hit or miss about which message will resonate more. The one message that gives you the advantage in nearly every circumstance is the personal recommendation that you can garner by keeping your past customers remembering who you are and why they bought their last vehicle from you.

In this industry, every advantage is crucial and can be the difference between success and failure in getting new business.

Repetition can get annoying. When we see the same message over and over again, it has a tendency to get on our nerves. That's not what you're trying to do by putting out consistent messages multiple times through diverse channels. In today's ever-shifting world, it's important to risk repetition for the sake of having them see your message at all.

I originally published this article over at AutomotiveSocial.com but thought it would fit in nicely at DrivingSales:

Customer loyalty is a tough cookie to crack nowadays. It's not like before when things were more predictable, when you could make assumptions about timing and situations. Today, you never know when the situation will change to where someone is in the market to buy a car immediately. The standard buying cycle has been replaced by a chaotic weaving of changes to job, relationships, and circumstance.

Another thing has changed. People are not inherently loyal to any particular dealership. Sure, there are regular customers who will only buy a car from one dealership, but the number of people who self-maintain loyalty is going down. Today, every customer is a free agent waiting to happen and the only way you can keep them from jumping ship is to be in front of them regularly.

The bad news is that there are so many ways for people to communicate today that it's hard to focus on one way or another. There were dealerships that lived off of mailers, for example, and built the company around being in their customers' mailboxes regularly. For others, email has been a golden ticket, but even that ticket has waned in the wake of advanced spam filters that often exclude messages simply because they have the wrong wording. Today, it's important to get in front of your customers with the right message through multiple channels.

Loyalty is a funny thing. Earlier, I noted that people are less likely to be loyal today than before, but that's not just a function of society's shift towards a digital world that gives them more choices than they can handle. It's also a function of dealerships getting complacent with their messaging and either not sending them out enough or doing so with inferior techniques in an effort to simply "check the box" on having a database marketing plan. If it's not a good plan, you're often better off not trying at all. With spam filters the way they are today, it's possible to do damage to your database by using amateur techniques while trying to reach people.

One of the reasons that I joined Visible Customer in the first place was because they had the right plan. Dealers can apply this plan to multiple portions of their marketing beyond loyalty and conquest. They can take advantage of the concepts of analytics and intelligence marketing, proper dealership management, and building loyalty through referrals and sharing of their positive experiences to better position the rest of their marketing efforts. Whether it's social media, website presence, television ads, or just about anything else they're doing with their marketing, knowing how to engage your customers (past, present, and future) can be the difference between succeeding and failing.

With everything that you're doing, don't assume that any one channel is enough to make it work. You can get great results from this, that, or the other, but when you start combining the different channels to put the messages out there in front of the right people. you can dramatically improve the way that the messages are getting through. You can send messages to people or you can reach people. There's a difference. It's all about strategy.

The market is thriving. Some dealerships are taking advantage of these times. Others are simply reaping some of the benefits without aggressively moving forward.

It's hard to run a successful dealership in the 21st century. Things aren't as simple as they used to be, but there's one major advantage that we didn't have a couple of decades ago. The trend data when it comes to sales, customer interaction, and advertising choices is far beyond anything we've had in the past.

This strength can turn into a weakness. We see it every day when dealers make decisions about trends they see in their numbers or information they receive from vendors, OEMs, and the huge number of "expert" sources out there that often contradict. When do we make the jump and when is it better to avoid the precipice altogether?

A good example of this stems from the data that dealers get from the various sources that point to sales trends for different areas. While it's important to stay on top of these trends and allocate your advertising dollars in the areas with the greatest potential, it's equally important to position the messages the right ways and at the right times.

Let's say that your data tells you that mid-sized sedans are selling like hotcakes in a particular zip code. Conventional wisdom would say that you should position your pay-per-click, television, radio, direct mail, and email marketing in that area with a message about the type of vehicle that matches the sales trends. However, it goes much deeper than that. A properly researched strategy might call for a strategy that isn't simply, "fire all weapons at the target!"

A proper strategy might include staggering the message, testing one advertising venue before trying another, or hitting your customer database first before going for conquest sales. These are decisions that can be made based upon a combination of the data and some sound market research to help you formulate a plan to hit the targets rather than blasting the zip code with everything you've got all at once.

It's a subtle distinction but one that can make a world of difference when it comes to the success of the initiative.

In the situation above, the combination of the data plus a little market research could reveal that an email and direct mail blast should go out initially to get the awareness rolling. That research could then reveal that television is not as effective for reaching the target audience, so rather than a costly television commercial, you could follow it up with a newspaper campaign that coincides with a temporary boost to your pay-per-click campaign. Lastly, you shoot out one more email blast with a more urgent message and the result is a sustained grouping of mid-sized sedan sales from that zip code as well as the nice carryover of used car sales that would be generated as a result.

It's more complicated than a paragraph, but I think you get the picture. There's nothing wrong with making leaps and getting aggressive, but don't let the raw trend data guide your actions. Make it work by examining the data and devising a proper strategy.

Labor Day. Memorial Day. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Some of the best sales days of the year in the car business happen on national holidays when people are off from work and ready to buy cars.

Many dealerships put a great deal of their advertising and marketing budgets towards promoting their various sales. The OEMs normally have something going on for these types of holidays and the combined advertising efforts makes for some amazing exposure. It's easy to ride the wave and assume that your customers know you're participating, but you can't take that for granted. Even more important is that these holidays are a great time to prompt people into car buying mode.

Let's take a look at these two important components of holiday advertising so you can look at hitting your customer database in a different light.

Ride the Wave with Familiarity

Even in today's ultra-informed consumer world, there are still many people who cannot discern between factory, regional, and individual dealership incentives. It's common for them to see an ad where the dealership is simply promoting the manufacturer's incentive, but they conclude that the dealership itself is the one having the special.

Even the national and regional advertising can put a little doubt in their mind. The ads often use phrases like "participating Ford dealers" or "Connecticut Acura dealerships" that can get them wondering whether or not their normal dealership is involved. Then, when they see a competitor's ad reiterating the sale, they contact them instead because it's confirmed that they are part of the program.

Letting your past customers know that you're part of the event keeps them from migrating to a competitor who is more aligned with the ad they saw. For example, it's not uncommon for someone in Connecticut to buy their Acura in New York, but the way that the manufacturer or regional ad is worded could make them think they need to stay in their own state instead of going back to you.

Use the Holiday Prompt

Your customers are your customers if you're treating them right and staying visible to them at all times. They are more likely to open your direct mail, emails, or other forms of communication than they are to open the advertising from a competitor. They should also trust your message more than a competitor's.

Holidays are often a time for people to get together with friends and family that they don't always see. We all know what happens when Uncle Greg rolls up in his new ride: vehicular envy. There isn't a better time to bring your past customers into the market than before and during holidays.

Take advantage of this through advertising designed to pull people forward into the market ahead of time by letting them know about what you have going on at the dealership. Too often I see dealers focus on the barbeque pit and bouncy ball house in their holiday advertising events while missing out on utilizing their customer database for intelligent pre-event marketing.

As you plan out your holiday advertising, don't forget to put the right amount of effort and budget towards the low hanging fruit that your past customers represent.

Anyone who has sold cars in their life has come across the customer that forgot them. They sold someone a car, then they see them a year later in finance after buying another one from a different salesperson. You gave them your card. You called them to check on things and to prep them for their CSI call. Why didn't they come straight to you this time? They liked you, right?

The same thing happens at the dealership level all the time. They bought a car at your dealership, then they went to a different dealership to buy another one later.

It's not that people are trying to screw us over. It's because you gave them no reason to remember you. Just because you delivered a great experience and gave them a great deal is no guaranty that they'll come back to you next time they're in the market. People forget. Many of them also believe that a Nissan dealer is a Nissan dealer and it doesn't matter where you buy.

You can change this perception. You can be different. You can make an impact. You simply have to constantly remind them that you are their dealership and they should always be doing business with you.

This isn't about dropping them in an automated database and spamming them with generic emails once a month. It takes strategy. It requires diligence. It takes a specialized view on the mentality of modern car buyers and a willingness to be aggressive without being annoying.

Today, there are plenty of services available to car dealers that help them to stay in front of their customers, but the majority of these are not doing it the right way. As we describe on our website, you must:

• Design and tailor offers and messages relevant to each customer's needs and position in their ownership lifecycle
• Implement the relevant and value-driven messages via its strategic multi-channel approach
• Deliver to the customer's preferred method of communication first and complement it with other channels as appropriate dependent on the message

Maintaining loyal customers isn't hard. It's a process, but it's worth the effort. It's easier to bring past customers back to the dealership next time they're in the market than to focus on getting new customers. That's not to say that you shouldn't get new ones. You just shouldn't ignore the old ones.

Make your dealership memorable. Your past customers are the low hanging fruit on the tree of success.

The automotive industry has always been one that focuses on volume. Even those who do not consider themselves to be "volume dealers" still perform better when they are increasing the total number of units sold and service customers hitting the racks. We've grown accustomed to the concept of "bigger is better".

In today's competitive automotive advertising and marketing arena, the dealers who are finding the most success are doing so by being smart with their targeting data. The free-for-all days of the past that used bulk-strategies have been replaced by hyper-targeting, improved data, and the type of business intelligence that can only come through careful examination rather than hitting it with a sledge hammer.

Today, dealers need to be selective. You customers are selective. You need to be as well.

What I'm talking about specifically is the trend of blasting out marketing and advertising messages where size matters more than targeting. This is a mistake. You can actually do more damage than good by using the shotgun approach to advertising.

Why You Need to Be Selective

Take, for example, direct mail. The old way of thinking had dealers or their vendors buying cheap lists of names and addresses and sending out as many sales event mailers as possible. It was more cost-effective to hit a larger, unfiltered list than it was to try to parse out the list for smarter targeting. The technology wasn't there to help you differentiate between likely buyers and non-buyers. More importantly, the data wasn't there to guide you through what to target where and when.

Today, we have that data.

An even better example is in email marketing. Thanks to improvements in spam filtering and the ability for people to report emails that shouldn't be targeting them, it's imperative for dealers to be much more selective with the type, format, and frequency of their email marketing. One bad "bulk blast" can be enough to do real damage to your future efforts. In other words, you can get blacklisted much more easily than ever before, essentially eliminating your dealership's ability to take advantage of the wonders of email marketing.

Customer data isn't just about getting more of it. It's about getting better data. It's about taking that data, parsing it out properly, appending it with the most current information, and selecting the targeting appropriately so that the right people are getting the right message at the right time.

Why Your Vendors Aren't Telling You This

Here's a dirty little secret about automotive marketing and advertising vendors and agencies. They usually shoot for the path of least resistence. This isn't universal - there are some honorable and ethical companies out there in this arena - but it's exceptionally wide-spread.

Most vendors, particularly those in direct mail, email, and location-based targeted advertising, utililze techniques to get around the filters and avoid the problems that can come from the shotgun approach... for a while. These techniques are not sustainable. By using these techniques over time, the ROI on the direct mail pieces will diminish, the ability for your emails to get through the filters will disappear, and the location-based targeting will cease to present its data. These "bandaid techniques" will keep the ball rolling for long enough for them to make their money and either move on when the campaigns stop working or continue to bill and make excuses for their lack of success.

If all of this is inevitable, why do they continue down this road? The answer is simple. It's more profitable and most dealers aren't paying enough attention to hold them accountable. The effort, research, and investment necessary to build a sustainable and effective advertising and marketing solution is great, but it's totally worth it for the dealers. As odd as it may sound, vendors who are using the bulk approach rely on dealers staying in the dark.

Turn on the Lights!

It isn't just about vendor profits. There's another more important reason why you should be more selective with your advertising. The pinpoint nature of modern targeting allows you to get the message in front of the right people.

Let's say that you have a great email list of past customers and you want to give them an oil change special to bring them back in and get them used to going to your service department. If you stay in the dark and let an inefficient vendor blast it out to the whole list, you'll likely be targeting quite a few people that are over 50 miles away. It can be hard to get people to drive 10 miles for an oil change, let alone 50. You could be burning your email list due to irrelevance by targeting the wrong people with the wrong message.

Now, let's look at the same scenario but with a tire special that includes a $25 gas card. In that scenario, you'll want to target people further away rather than close by because the message matches their interests and gives you a greater opportunity to get bigger ROs out of the visit.

These are simpe examples but they demonstrate the point. You should not allow your database marketing to stay in the dark. By getting more specific with your targeting and using a combination of the data that's available and the common sense that you already have in order to position your marketing appropriately, you can improve your ROI on campaigns and prevent damage from being done for future initiatives. This is often the difference between sustainable success and eventual failure.