10. Mistaking a list for a database. A marketing database is so much more than a list of customers. Obviously it should include customer contact information for marketing communications, but should also include every contact that the dealership has with each customer. For example, the purchase date, purchase amount, financing income, gross and net revenues, year, make, model & VIN of new & used car sales; the dates and types of service performed, etc. By linking customer contact and transactional information, a dealership will be able to rate customers by profitability, frequency of purchases, etc. All customers do not treat you the same way, therefore, you should not treat them all the same way.

9. Using your operational (e.g. ADP or Reynolds & Reynolds) system as your marketing database. Although these system may be great to run your business, they're not structured for real database marketing activities.

8. Using a proprietary or technologically closed system. Relational databases are flexible and allow you to add or remove fields as needed. In addition, most proprietary systems need special programming to interact with your other systems while relational databases do not. And proprietary systems usually mean the only way to make changes is to go back to the software developing company at a steep cost per request.

7. The monster project. Creating your marketing database should be an incremental process. Build it to meet a small and reasonable number of business objectives and add-on over time. Avoid the monster project that will take any more than six months.

6. Dictated by your computer person/people. A marketing database must make money for your dealership, or why bother. If the technical people lead the project, you run the risk of having a very expensive system that runs great, but doesn't meet your business objectives. Sales & Marketing should always lead a project to build a marketing database.

5. Bad data. Realize that data stored in operational systems always (yes, always) needs to be cleansed before loaded to a marketing database. At a minimum, processing will include address standardization, deduplication, and National Change of Address (20% of Americans move annually).

4. No corporate continuity. Analyzing your customer to, for example, identify and communicate with your "best" customer segment is wonderful. But, if you send a communications piece telling a customer they're one of the "best" and valued by the dealership and that is not followed through in future contacts, your strategy for doing this in the first place can backfire. Database marketing should not be relegated to the marketing department, but rather every customer contact point should have access to the analysis results and past historical information.

3. Company, not customer, focused. You already have operational systems to assist you in running your dealership. A successful marketing database system must reflecting the entire customer relationship and thereby be customer focused.

2. No tracking or testing. A marketing database system allows you the ability to understand every contact and communication the dealership has with a customer or customer segment. This includes full profit and loss tracking and reporting. By tracking each campaign for response and subsequent sales (or service), you'll be able to see how much you spent and how much you've made on every single database marketing campaign. Using these results to refine the marketing communications process can represent a significant return on your marketing database investment.

1. Not fueled by real, documented marketing strategies. A marketing database alone will not make money for your business. The business functional requirements must be well thought-out and documented as to how you're going to make money once the marketing database system becomes available to the dealership. Do the homework and make projections for each functional area within the dealership such as new and used car sales, service, parts, body shop and finance. How can each of these business areas increase revenues with a marketing database system? Not only will this help to insure that you're not just building a marketing database for the sake of having one, it will also garner support of the project from management by very clearly being able to see the benefits.

Ariss Kahan Database Marketing Group, Inc. assists clients build customer relationships through proven and innovative database marketing techniques and marketing database technologies. They specialize in customer acquisition, retention, cross-sell and up-sell initiatives and can be reached at (303) 368-9800 or via e-mail at rkahan@dbmktg.com.