The Power of Visually Mapping Your Sales

Dealerships have a lot of data on their sales — the sales month, profitability, salesperson, lead source, you name it. But one thing I think a lot of dealers overlook is the physical location of their buyers. And this is especially key for marketers. 

If you’re interested in trying it, here’s what you do: 

First, you pull a list of each unit sold and the zip code of the buyer. Your data should cover a long enough period of time to have a good data set — let’s say six months to one year. Note: You may want to pull two lists if there has been a major shift, pre-change, and post-change. Major shifts could include a new competitor moving into the area or major changes to your marketing strategy, like hiring a new marketing partner, changing your geo-targeting, or increasing your budget significantly. 

Then, import the data into software that can display it as a map. There are lots of tools that can do this, even including Excel. 

Next, review. You are looking to see what the results tell you about your audience. Based on your knowledge of the area, what does it tell you? 

• Are you getting sales from farther away than you expected? 
• Are your sales more concentrated than you’d expect based on where you are spending?
• Are there obvious geographic lines that pop out? For example, is it clear that people just aren’t driving across that bridge? 
• If you ran two reports, has your change in strategy affected where your sales are coming from? 

Lastly, share your findings with your team and marketing partners. They should use this information to improve the efficiency of your marketing. This may include:

• Increasing your geo-targeting. If you don’t have good coverage in an area where you’re already seeing solid sales performance, advertising there will be highly effective.
• Reducing your geo-targeting. If you’re spending heavily in areas that aren’t productive, it sounds like inefficient spending. 
• Shifting your geo-targeting. You may find that your sales aren’t equally distributed 360 degrees around your dealership. The sales-by-zip visualization may help you determine how to “shift” your geo-targeting strategy.
• Changing your tactics. You may find that some marketing tactics, especially traditional tactics like broadcast TV, radio, and print, don’t allow you to target as granularly as your sales results imply that you should. 
• Changing your budget allocation. Even if you don’t want to walk away from any tactic entirely, it may make sense to dedicate more dollars to neglected or highly productive areas that aren’t fully saturated.

If you’re curious about visually mapping your sales but want expert advice, get in touch. My team would be happy to create a sales by zip map for any dealership. We can then talk with you about what we believe the results indicate for your marketing. All completely free, with no strings attached. Drop us a line if we can help.