A concentration on sales and marketing to larger fleets is creating diminishing returns for fleet suppliers, says MIB Data Solutions.

The company, which supplies a wide range of data about UK fleets to motor manufacturers, leasing companies and others in the fleet sector, says that small fleets are being neglected in favour of the above 50 plus vehicle sector.

Nick Boddington, managing director, explained: “In difficult economic conditions, suppliers want to give themselves the best possible chance of achieving worthwhile results, so they have tended in recent years to concentrate on larger fleets, reasoning that if they win a deal, it will be really worthwhile.

“However, they have been following this policy for some time and as a result larger fleets are becoming more and more resistant to sales and marketing approaches. There are only a relatively small number of fleets with more than, say, 250 cars and vans, and they are being pursued by a large number of suppliers.”

Boddington claims a much more effective strategy at this point in time is to target a mix of fleets of all sizes with messages and offers appropriate to the size and type of company.

He said: “We are seeing some of our more progressive clients starting to undertake properly targeted campaigns aiming at fleets in the five to 50 vehicle sector. These are still worthwhile accounts to win but are more open to dialogue than larger fleets.

“Over the last few months, we have been updating our data for fleets of this size and the quality of information now available is excellent, so we are starting to see some suppliers produce good results from it.”