It may seem like everything changed with the joys 2020 brought us. However, one thing remains constant. You could almost say it remains . . . fixed.

Okay, I digress.

No one was prepared for a worldwide pandemic to change their day-to-day operations, but despite the challenges, many dealerships adapted quickly.

Sales have been unpredictable, but one thing that has been consistent is fixed ops.

We covered what to do when leads or sales are hard to come by and today, we’ll explain what you should be doing to market your service department to current customers and potential leads.

Market Service All the Time 

All jokes aside, there’s a reason we have the term “fixed ops.”

Cars show up every day needing maintenance, service, repairs, or parts. This is vital for your business.

You can provide these service customers as much value as they provide your dealership by offering one-of-a-kind specials, unique service offerings, and quality customer service.

It’s important to cater to your existing customers while also highlighting your value to potential new customers.

As things begin to level out, it’s important to know how to sustain it with the new normal.

4 Evergreen Marketing Strategies for Service Marketing

The fact is, many customers are getting used to the new procedures and operations, so the new normal is simply going to be normal going forward.

Standard cleaning and sanitizing procedures at your dealership should be well understood at this point. If you don’t already have information available on your website, that should be your first step.

You can also offer your customers and leads incentives or special service offerings. Here’s how one multi-store auto group did just that and saw success with marketing tires.

Success Story

The Strategy

In order to boost fall tire sales, one auto group rolled out an inter-store service competition among its nine stores to increase fixed ops tickets and website traffic on service pages.

The marketing efforts included website optimization, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and email promotion by each individual store to their respective markets. They all included a cohesive message for the entire auto group covering a tri-state area.

The Results

After one month of promotion, all stores showed an increase in service traffic and ROs. One of the lowest ranking stores in the group prior to running this promotion stood out and ranked third overall in sales and fixed ops. They also had the best month of tire sales in store history. 

After the first month of promotion, the page views on the Schedule Service Appointment page increased 12.90% and time on that page increased 15.82%.

Additionally, the New Tire pageviews increased 38.46% and Tire Finder page views increased 2.16% with an average time on page of over two minutes outperforming the automotive benchmark.

This strategy utilized four primary marketing tactics:

1. Send Targeted Emails: As things are ever-changing, it’s important to notify your current customer database and leads collection from your website of new offerings by utilizing email marketing. Targeted emails allow specific messaging to be served to relevant audiences. 
2. Optimize Your Website: Online shopping has become king. Customers expect the information they saw on TV or heard on the radio to be on your website and a seamless experience from an email or Facebook ad. It’s key to highlight specials and incentives through SEO and content creation.
3. Target Facebook Ads: In addition to focusing your messaging on the peace-of-mind your dealership offers to people, you have to show your ads to people who want to see them. Messaging should include highlighting cleaning and sanitization procedures, contactless payment options, or monthly specials.
4. Build Cohesive Messaging: Consistency across all channels is key. A cross-channel marketing strategy has proven successful in the past and should be continued. Utilizing flexibility in messaging can cover all client-bases and where they best receive and interact with information.

Don’t Let Your Efforts Go to Waste

While a pandemic did pose certain challenges for dealerships, we learned adaptation isn’t as overwhelming as you might think.

Ensure you are making the most of your auto advertising by getting a free digital marketing assessment today online. We’ll show you exactly what opportunities you might be missing and what work can be done.

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