Dealerships cannot remain successful if they are not staying informed on their competition. By utilizing price comparison platforms and inventory tracking software, dealerships can gain actionable insights to optimize pricing strategies for competitiveness and profitability, adapt inventory mix to meet current market demand, and identify and capitalize on opportunities to gain a competitive edge.
It’s not enough to understand and market to customers; dealers must be tuned into and observe their competition. By utilizing tools and strategies to monitor car dealership competition, dealers can look through a multifaceted window and gain real-time data on competitor pricing and inventory levels. This valuable information empowers dealers to refine their strategies, effectively attract the target audience, and identify areas where the dealership can excel.
A dealer must determine first how they define success themselves by establishing clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) tailored to objectives. Beyond just sales figure, dealers should track a variety of metrics that are key to overall success, things like sales goals, customer satisfaction, and employee retention. Regularly reviewing KPIs helps identify areas needing improvement. Once KPIs are established, dealers need to be sure they are aligned with the dealership's mission and goals. Dealerships can then determine which aspects of competitors to track, such as pricing, inventory, marketing strategies, and customer reviews, and defining how success against the competing dealers will be measured, whether it's improving conversion rates or increasing website traffic from competitor sources.
Once these metrics are established, dealerships can move on to selecting the appropriate tools like dealer management systems, customer relationship management, and an adequate sales platforms. These tools help to measure success against competition, and dealerships need both tools and solutions tailored to provide market insights and shape their strategies.
Regularly gathering and analyzing data from these tools allows for identifying trends, opportunities, and weaknesses among dealership competition. These insights can then be translated into action using competitive intelligence to inform pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, and inventory management. With joint efforts of both clear goals and tactics and powerful tools, dealerships can utilize competitor information to optimize their pricing strategies, inventory, and marketing strategies and adapt their inventory mix to surpass competition.
While many dealer competitor monitoring tools can offer valuable insights, they often lack the comprehensiveness dealerships need. ZeroSum's MarketAI unlocks a deep understanding of customer preferences, competitor strategies, and market trends. MarketAI provides dealerships with real-time information on supply and demand down to the individual vehicle (VIN) level. This empowers dealerships to understand which models are in high demand, allowing them to strategically price and stock their inventory. But MarketAI goes beyond just data by offering targeted social media ads, Google vehicle ads, SEO Marketing, and more, all dynamically adjusted based on a dealer’s stock and wanted ad spend. ZeroSum provides tailored marketing solutions that leverage granular customer data and intelligence, ensuring dealerships reach the right customers with the right message at the right time, ultimately driving higher-quality leads, improved conversions, and accelerated sales growth. For dealerships seeking more than just information, ZeroSum is an essential partner.