Because critical analysis of marketing efforts is new to many owners, some prefer to make decisions based on their gut feelings rather than through quantitative data. Sometimes owners get lucky— their market is small, their presence large, and they experience an uptick in car count and AROs for a few months. Most shops, however, do not enjoy that luxury.
Circle back to your marketing strategy and original goals and the metrics you set for success. Using those as a guide to analyze your overall efforts will give you a clear picture of where your business stands. And to truly understand the effectiveness of your individual marketing efforts, paying attention to customer data will help inform future marketing plans. Once you know what you are looking for, collecting and analyzing data will undoubtedly help you find new customers, retain existing ones and win back lost ones, all while saving money.
Clever data analysis gives you answers specific to your shop and local market. Check out your website analytics, customer database, work order systems and even who’s commenting on your social media pages—these are all clues to help discover higher profits. There are several shop metrics that may also indicate your marketing is working:
• Higher average weekly or monthly car counts
• Increased technician productivity and/or efficiency
• Higher CSI scores
• Increased ARO
• Increased web traffic
• Higher social media engagement
DEVELOP A TRACKING SYSTEM
Track your efforts using a spreadsheet or your shop’s management software (many systems have built-in programs for this effort). Do what works for you—if a dedicated legal pad and some Saturday inventory and light math is your style, by all means do that. Tracking your spend is key to tweaking it, as you may be able to save money in one area when you need to bolster another.
Begin by tracking these items:
· Campaign type/medium (including ad, social media, and email efforts)
· Frequency of output
· Length of time since campaign start
· Estimated engagements/responses
· Cost versus ROI
In other words, if you don’t track where your darts hit the board, how will you keep score? Your indicators should directly connect to your marketing goals. Now that you’ve executed your marketing plan, you can assess your labor rates, stay competitive and continue to turn toward increased profitability.
GET TIME ON YOUR SIDE
The shop that continues to analyze its marketing habits is the shop making the most of its acquired data over time. Comparing past and present data will offer a glimpse of where to go (and what to spend) in the future. When you have analyzed your endeavors and the responses from your customers, you might find a specific marketing campaign has provided you with more new customers now than it has in the past. Without comparing data over time, however, you can’t evaluate how your changes affected your visibility, business and revenue.
Don’t get tunnel vision on any specific campaign or data set; if you focus too much on the here and now, you could end up making the same mistakes you’ve made in the past. If you focus too much on the past, you could miss new opportunities. Balance how you consider past and present data, and remember that “everything in moderation” applies to your marketing efforts because there are several different levers that can be adjusted within your marketing machine, and it is important to understand which actions drive certain changes for your business and how that moves customers into—or away from—your shop.
Any shop that uses direct marketing has all sorts of data waiting to be mined for future profits. Even the smallest taconite pebble must be refined to become the steel that holds your business together, and so it is with data; it’s just a matter of being aware of it, taking responsibility for it and using it in the right way. Sound marketing analysis will help you uncover new opportunities, increase car count, improve customer satisfaction and look forward to a more profitable future.
TAKE ACTION
Use the following checklist to analyze and learn from your marketing efforts.
__ Create a “Marketing Analysis” spreadsheet using a computer program or pen and paper.
__ Create rows and columns for ALL your marketing efforts.
__ Create rows and/or columns for medium, spend, messaging, word count, campaign length, and estimated ROI.
__ Update this spreadsheet every week for three months.
