How to Do Research the Fast and Easy Way
“The more information you have, the more creative you can be”… “There’s no such thing as too much information. It leads to more ideas, more relevant ideas, more selling concepts, and a more persuasive selling message”… “You must— repeat, must—use research to stay ahead of the curve”… “For research to be outstanding, it’s got to be usable. And not just to the research people, but the entire company”… “It’s time for the marketing manager to admit that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
These are quotes from The Little Blue Book of Advertising, by Steve Lance and Jeff Woll, former executives at advertising agencies in New York. Even if you’re not personally involved in your dealership’s advertising activities, their book is recommended reading if you’re looking for ways to increase sales and profits. (And who isn’t these days?)
What they wrote about consumer research was aimed at ad agency creative people, but it could apply to Powersports dealers, too.
Those who are now using Ideal’s Motorcycle/Powersports Dealer Management Software know firsthand how valuable it can be for consumer research purposes—but they may not be taking advantage of all of its features.
Those dealers who are not using Ideal’s software program probably have little or no knowledge of its many features that can quickly and easily provide the consumer research data they need to make intelligent decisions in regard to marketing, purchasing, turnover, pricing, repair/maintenance services, etc.
For example, let’s say you’d like to send direct mail pieces, announcing a new product demo, only to those customers who own a certain make and model of snowmobile—one they purchased from you and/or had serviced by you. By simply pressing a few keys on your computer, you can quickly create a file and produce a printout of the appropriate customers, complete with name, street address, e-mail address, and details on each customer’s snowmobile.
And let’s say you’d also like to send the announcement to those who have expressed an interest in snowmobiles, but have not purchased one from you (or, hopefully, from anyone else). If your salespeople obtained their contact information when they were in your dealership and entered it into your dealer management software program under “Snowmobile Prospects” (or whatever other heading you prefer through the use of custom fields), it would take only a few minutes to create a file on these prime prospects, too. Then you could quickly and easily send them mailings, inviting them to the demo.
Years ago, without such software, locating specific prospects and contacting them was a long, tedious and expensive process. Today, with Powersports Dealer Management Software from Ideal, it’s fast and easy!
powersports software | 
January 15, 2010 5:00 pm
