What boxer would step into the ring without having studied his opponent? What coach would take his team onto the field without have watched game films of their competitor? One of the key differences between being a champion or an “also-ran” is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your rival. The same is true in business. The ability to scout your opponent and then use this information to design and implement a solid game plan is critical to your dealership’s success. As a professional, you owe it to yourself and your team to provide them the best opportunity to win.

When scouting your competition, what is your goal? The primary intent should be to gather as much useful information as possible, so that you can come up with a tactical plan to use which will give you the best possible chance of not only maintaining, but capturing a bigger share of your market.

First, you need to determine what competitors most affect your business. Is it the competing brand dealer next door? Or, is it the dealer selling your brand just a few miles away? Then, what are the key indicators of processes, people, marketing and systems that can most affect success?

In digital marketing, this is fairly clear cut. You have to ask, “Who is saying what and how are they saying it to my customer”? With a study of your competitors you can determine many things: Do they have a BDC or a dedicated internet department? How fast do they respond? Do they have a follow-up process? What kind of CRM do they use? Are they using newsletters? Do they send videos? Are they using 3^rd-party vendors to communicate with the customer? And on and on. Keep in mind that quite often you are both communicating with the same customer. So, how do they answer the same questions that you are asked?

To gather this information requires behaving as a customer would—by going into your competitors’ websites and requesting a response, collecting all of the responses and then correlating the information into a coherent format. It’s not enough that you shop just your competitors. You also have to examine yourself fairly to get a true benchmark of how you compare to your competition. This is not information that you can produce once a year or even once a quarter and gain the advantage you are looking for. This exercise should happen at least on a monthly basis to effectively monitor your changing market place.

Many of you have heard of the mystery shopping concept before. Some of you have even taken the time to conduct your own mystery shop. OEMs will also provide some mystery shopping data. Unfortunately, it normally only provides grades and none of the actual results that you need to best formulate changes in strategy. Many of these are like getting the score of the game, but none of the player stats.

With the rapidly changing environment of Automotive Digital Marketing, which requires active study of changing systems, practices, customer behavior and market, there is less and less time to focus on the most important responsibility of all, which is to sell cars. The practice of studying your competition is much too important for inconsistent attention. With more to do and less time to do it, it is to your advantage to find a partner that can facilitate this study on a regular basis. They must provide reliable data that is readily accessible and easy to understand.

Don’t go into the game without knowing your opponent. Your success depends on it!