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SOUTHFIELD, Mich. and MARINA DEL REY, Calif. — R. L. Polk & Co. believes a major shift is taking place in how dealers generate and utilize leads. The company contends the greatest importance no longer should be placed on traditional lead scoring.

Instead, Polk executives emphasized that the priority should be moved over to lead marketing. Mike Spadafore, Polk's manager of consumer and commercial marketing, recently discussed these points during the sixth Automotive Customer Centricity Summit.

Spadafore explained how lead marketing encompasses real-time analytics and actionable lead segmentation. As a result of proper execution, he insists enhanced lead marketing can allow dealers to close sales more quickly, spend less per lead for each sale, earn sales from competitors and invigorate a store's Internet sales team.

"We are in a time in the industry when lead marketing initiatives should be the number one priority for automotive OEMs, dealers and CRM providers," Spadafore stressed.

"The difference between those that use lead marketing to its fullest and those that have not yet embraced it will be evident moving forward in this tough sales climate," he went on to say.

Another Polk executive also used the event platform to reinforce the importance of lead marketing. Pat Reininger is Polk's vice president for sales and client services in the Pacific region and chaired the summit.

"The pace of change and the explosion of consumer data available to the market make this an exciting time to be in the business," Reininger highlighted.

"Lead scoring has matured into full-service lead marketing driven by increasingly sophisticated data and service integration and real-time analytics," he added.

Polk reiterated that it offers services to harness lead marketing better. The company maintains its lead marketing solutions have expanded from lead scoring to include a suite of services.

Executives emphasized the suite can provide users with greater market intelligence to optimize follow-up with prospects and increase vehicle sales. They added lead validation, reporting, deactivation, segmentation, enhancement and incentives are all aspects of Polk's solution.