My Life as a Second Hand Car Salesman

Ok so that sounds like an unusual title for a post on a blog that generally talks about eCRM  - so bear with me a while

As part of my introduction at the Dutch Dialogue Marketing Associations Sexy Email Event, I gave brief history of how I ended up in eCRM. And naturally my previous incarnations as an Astrophysicist and Second Hand Car Salesman were mentioned

Although my first degree in Astrophysics wasn't exactly the best spring board into the world of marketing it actually has some synergies. It involved actually applying Physics and Data to the study of the universe. And in my eyes eCRM has data at it's core, but more importantly the application of that data to a better understanding of the customer.

Anyway, I digress.

Many moons ago a role in commerce with such a bizarre choice in degree was not that easy. So, looking to make some money I landed a role as a car salesman with Datsun, the predecessor to Nissan

Now it actually turns out that what I used to do in terms of identifying warm prospects and clinching the deal has some resonance with todays smarter use of behaviour based marketing

One of the key skills of any good car salesman the ability to spot a warm prospect and not just a tyre kicker. This was by no means a simple exercise and one that was not really developed without experience ( and in all fairness one skill that I never mastered even if only because I didn't last long in that role)

With time, the really good salesmen could spot the buying signals that the individual on the car lot would display by the amount of time they might spend round a particular model and the questions they would ask to gain more information. Sound like how we might use web data to understand a prospect on line?

Another key skill was the ability to personalise the deal - and I don't mean the free sunroof being offered by my colleague as he walked past the prospect at my desk brandishing a can opener! These days we can even personalise the content of a website without even knowing who the individual is, but just because we know where they came from in terms of search engine and the search terms they used.

Another frequent ploy was the 'my wife/brother drives one of these' comment that acted as a precursor to the recommendation/reviews of today.

Of course not all the tactics were of such a dubious nature. We would often genuinely try and help the prospect buy rather than sell them something by asking key questions about how many miles they would be driving in town or on the motorway, how many people they would carry etc etc. We might even offer to show them the brochure

The level of personalisation of course depended to a certain extent on how much we felt we could stretch the prospects budget. Metallic paint, comfort packs, headlight washers were all on offer and by asking a few questions we could quickly gauge what was appropriate . And of course the option to further cross sell up sell was never missed in particular if we could imply that having gone for the leather seat option the leather care scotch guard treatment was a must. Of course this is now very cleverly done in real time on line by making use of the web analytics available to create unique levels of personalisation for each visitor

And we even had our version of a re-marketing or cart abandonment program. If a customer decided that actually they weren't going to buy, we would give a clear signal to our General Manager who would accidentally bump into the customer as they were about to leave the showroom and either illicit a reason for the lack of a purchase and make an ofer that would counter that or actually just them make them an offer they couldn't refuse

In fact sometimes that offer would take place via follow up telephone call 48 hours later if we felt that worked best. Timing was key

Not all ideas are new. We just get to action them faster these days..and the salesmen are much more like an Algorithm than a Swiss Toni




Image courtesy of The BBC

Understanding = Resonance = Engagement

Twittering all the way to the bank

Despite my earlier protestations that Twitter was for the birds, Dell have kindly put the cat amongst my pigeons.

The recent declaration that their use of Twitter had racked up $2 million from directing customers to its online outlet store, plus a further $1 million generated from sales elsewhere on its site seems to show the way for the use of 140 characters

The tweeting began in June 2007 and has since accumulated over 600,000 followers.

The company uses the social networking to update followers on company news, as well as promoting Twitter-exclusive offers.

Dell claim that "Deal-hunters are especially attracted to Dell's Twitter presence. Dell Outlet sells refurbished Dell products at great prices, but inventories fluctuate, making it difficult to know when products are available or on sale,"

Dell Outlet uses Twitter as a way to communicate coupons, clearance events and new arrival information to those looking for Dell technology at a discounted price.

The growth in followers seems have really taken off recently, with just over a year ago there being less than 12,000 getting regular tweets.

Actually, let me rewind a second

''Dell Outlet uses Twitter as a way to communicate coupons, clearance events and new arrival information to those looking for Dell technology at a discounted price.'' I may sound like I've been around a bit (and obviously I have), but I'm sure that was a role employed by vehicles such as direct mail and door drops. In fact, quite a few of those pieces were delivered by Dell themselves from what I remember.

I must start following the tweets for my local Dominos Pizza!

Jump Starting the Buying Process

It is must difficult to find a B2B sector that is not suffering at the moment. Budgets have been frozen, removed, delayed, put on hold and even where budgets still exist, the decision making process has changed with more and more buying decisions now having to be ratified at a more senior level.

The traditional way of grading leads using some form of Budget, Authority, Need and Timing (BANT) process would now seem to be useless – mainly as the customers process has stalled

One of the key ways to try and Jump start the process is to make the customer realise that the Need they thought they had is still there! One of the ways organisations try and do this is by sending through the ‘ours is cheaper’ message. But is doesn’t matter how cheap it is if they don’t think they Need it!

A smarter way of re-igniting the Interest in the Need, is to take a much more front foot approach about how important the issue is and in fact how it can perhaps drive a customers organisation out of the recession.

Customers are usually driven by one of two factors: Generating Demand and Decreasing Costs.

Surely the former is a much more engaging and attractive conversation?