Whether you’re the Service Director or the GM, you know how vital the service department can be to the overall health to your dealership. The service department is often the largest source of revenue for a dealership, and yet, it often falls by the wayside when it comes to advertising. If that’s true for you, or if you need to build your service department, you’re in the right place. At D2D, we know how important fixed ops is, and we have some tips for a service department advertising strategy.

Service BDC

If you can, it’s a great idea to enlist the services of a service only BDC. Now, this might sound like a lot, and chances are your resources are limited, but this doesn’t need to be a whole department. Often one person can do the trick. You’ll want this person to be reaching out to customers in your CRM to schedule appointments and fill your bays! Which brings me to the next tip…

Utilizing your Service CRM

If you have a designated person to work the service department CRM, that is great! You’ll want to make sure they are calling and emailing to schedule appointments with anyone due for service or sold but never serviced. If your automotive advertising agency offers Database Marketing, get your service emails int the mix. Customers love professional emails with timely offers that give them a reason to come in to your shop. It’s also a great idea to implement some conquest email marketing to capture potential service customers. We can talk more about that one later.

Don’t Be Afraid to Advertise

As I mentioned earlier, service department advertising so often goes under the radar if at all. It’s time to add it to the marketing mix! A good service advertising plan can help fill your shop during slow times and keep new customers coming in all year. Some effective ways to advertise your service department include mailers, conquest emails, service search retargeting, and social media.

Strategize

As with any dealership advertising, it’s important to strategize. The GM, Service Director/Manager should sit down every month and determine what the plan will be for the following month. Will you run a new special? Will you send out some emails regarding winter car maintenance? Dealers spend a great deal of time strategizing car sales, so the same should be spent on service. At D2D, we meet with service managers all the time to determine specials and tactics each month.

Be Prepared

Ideally, you want to make sure you have the right amount of techs available to handle the business you have or the business you’re looking for. This can be tricky for some dealerships depending on brand and location. Start the hiring process early, so you’re prepared! This can help promote a good customer experience, and lead to more repeat business.

Collect your Stars

On Google, that is. Good service reviews are vital for any dealership’s shop. Encourage happy customers to leave reviews. Those who have been coming since they first purchased their vehicle, or even five vehicles ago, are your ticket! Don’t be afraid to ask for a review. Of course, as with any service department, there will always be negative reviews. Make sure you address them online and take care of the customer in any way you can. Often, the customer just wants to be heard. They might still come back if they see you took the time to help them out. It also helps when potential customers see you care by responding online.

Don’t let your service department go unmarketed anymore! The beginning of the year is a great time to start ramping of your service department to get those customers coming back all year. So, call your agency and start strategizing! For help with your service department, give us a call today at 877-958-4524 or contact us today.

Like it or not, 2019 is coming to a close. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably in the automotive industry which means that’s good news. It’s good news because year-end sales can be a huge boost for overall annual sales goals and mean a big finish for car dealerships. If you’re looking for ways to help make sure your dealership has a big close this year, here are some tips for year-end auto sales.

Strategy, Strategy, Strategy

You can’t expect to have a huge boost in sales if you don’t do anything to get there. Now is the time to sit down with your automotive marketing agency and your dealership team and make a plan. Set up a calendar so you know everything that’s happening between now and the end of the year with your advertising. When planning, make sure you have the following:

• • An aggressive plan
  • Coordinated timing
  • A cohesive marketing message
  • A good year-end budget
  • A good marketing mix

Sic ‘em!

Okay, maybe you don’t actually want to attack, but you do want be aggressive with your year-end marketing strategy. Think about all of the dealerships and general marketing out there at this time of the year. You want to stand out, you want to be consistent, and you want them to choose you. Be sure your pricing is as competitive as it can be. Consider offering an additional incentive like extra money off a purchase, a holiday cash card with purchase, or even complimentary gift wrapping while they shop. People are multitasking at the holidays, and if you can give them an added bonus, it will help!

Time it Just Right

When sitting down to plan, it’s a great idea to have a calendar with you. Map out the end of the year with intentional boosts at the time it’s likely to have the most impact. For instance, the week before the holidays, your message is likely to get lost in a flurry of to-do lists and travel. Don’t waste too much effort during this time. Instead focus on the days leading up to that point and immediately after. Don’t stick too many messages out there at once and then go light on other times. Make sure to spread your marketing and budget out somewhat evenly during those effective times.

Get it Together!

Now is the time to get it together – your creative that is. You want to be sure all your marketing messages are consistent. There are 24 touch-points before a person buys a vehicle. If the marketing message is scattered with different creative and offers, those touch-points take a lot longer because it doesn’t resonate with the user. Most manufacturers advertise some of holiday or year-end savings. You’ll want to mirror that with a local and personal touch of your own for an even more consistent message.

Put your Money Where your Mouth is

Here is the part no one likes to talk about – the money. If you have a strong advertising presence already, you shouldn’t need to allocate much more for year-end sales. However, in the automotive digital marketing space, competition increases starting in November through the end of the year. That means it takes a little bit more budget to hit your targets. We recommend allocating some extra dollars for year-end marketing. Depending on our store size, anywhere from $500 – $3000 should do the trick. If you’re selling less than 75 cars per month, $500 is probably a good amount. If you’re selling 200+ cars per month, you’ll be at the $3,000 level.

Mix it up!

The holidays stirs everything up a little, and you’ll want to do the same with your marketing. When we say mix it up, we don’t mean change everything you’re doing. Definitely don’t do that – especially with what’s working and bringing you leads! You do, however, want to make sure you have a good marketing mix. A strong digital presence is a good idea all year, but during this peak time, consider adding some tools you don’t always use. If you’ve been doing social media and PPC, consider adding a targeted display campaign or conquest emails. The holidays are a good time to throw in some traditional as well. Consider some targeted postal mailers to your database as well as conquest customers. Just remember to make sure your marketing is consistent! For a little help on how to blend your traditional and digital together, download our Bridging the Gap guide.

This year, the year-end sales window is slightly shorter with a late Thanksgiving, so you’ll want to get started right away. If you need help developing your strategy, reach out to us today. We are happy to help your dealership get that big close!

Advertising for your service center can be one of the trickiest campaigns to pull off successfully. Service customers usually have fewer indicators that they’re in market than car buyers as the purchase window for a service is considerably shorter than it is for a new or used vehicle. In addition to that, dealerships must deal with big name service centers and auto parts chains aggressively marketing in their back yard. These stores focus exclusively on service and are typically backed by a national advertising presence, with high dollar budgets and expansive campaigns.

So how is a local dealership to compete? Search Retargeting is a successful, economical solution to bring service customers through your doors and retain them after they leave.

Due to the aggressive advertising of national service and parts chains, Automotive Search Engine Marketing is getting consistently more expensive in many regions across the country particularly for service department advertising. Since these chains do such a large volume of services, their larger margins allow them to absorb higher costs per click and still be profitable. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t have service as a component of your SEM advertising campaign (there’s still plenty of clicks to be had at reasonable prices), but it shouldn’t be the only part of your service advertising endeavors.

Why Search Retargeting?

Search Retargeting is a great supplement to your SEM efforts and can help you cover ground like the big guys at an economical price point. It works based off the same searches that major advertisers are paying up to $20 or more per click for and targets those searchers with display ads as they browse the web. Typically clicks are much cheaper than SEM based campaigns, and you reach the same core group of people clicking on the SEM advertisements at a fraction of the cost.

Search Retargeting also caters very well to the cyclical nature of service customer’s purchase cycle. Although the purchase window for a service purchase is much shorter than that of a car buyer, the cycle comes back around on a much quicker basis. That service customer who needs an oil change now and starts searching will need one again in a couple of months too, and your oil change special advertisement will be there for them to see. The customer who has been putting off winterizing their vehicle may be prompted to do it by your advertisement.

By establishing an audience of people who own the particular make of vehicle that you service and has searched for service-related queries, you can be sure your display ads promoting fresh and relevant specials are in front of them when the time comes for them to pull the trigger. It’s a textbook example of the benefits of promoting brand awareness. In addition to specific specials and offers getting in front of potential customers, a properly set up Service Search Retargeting campaign can serve hundreds of thousands of impressions to qualified customers in your area per month, exponentially increasing awareness of your brand and keeping you in the purchase decision conversation.

These users can then click through the ad to your service specials page or appointment page leading them directly to a conversion that can all be tracked in your Google Analytics. For more information and to learn the difference between website retargeting and Search Retargeting, click over to our Search Retargeting blog. For more service marketing tips, check out our Service Database Marketing blog.

If your dealership is struggling to keep your service bays full or you’re tired of paying exorbitant prices for service related SEM clicks, a comprehensive Search Retargeting campaign may be what it takes to jump start your service department again and cover more ground with your automotive digital advertising budget.

As you may know, Black Friday is known as one of, if not, THE biggest retail sales days of the year. When consumers see those two words, they immediately connect them with huge savings. Companies like Walmart, Target, and Macy’s, for example, over-saturate the media with their sales messages to ensure people will line up at the late hours of the night outside their doors. Lucky for you, you don’t need to open your doors at 5AM or bombard customers to sell cars. So, how do you get heavy foot traffic through your dealership’s doors for Black Friday? D2D has a few tips on how to accomplish this.

1. Have a plan with everyone on board

When your team is prepping for November advertising, your agency should remind you that planning for Black Friday car sales should also be on the drawing board. Decide when you want to start advertising your Black Friday messaging. All month long? All week long? Just that weekend? Keep in mind that customers who are seriously interested in buying a car have already been doing research and shopping around – so, the earlier the better. Since Black Friday lands on the last Friday of the month, it would be beneficial to advertise your savings either the entire month of November, or the entire week leading up to Black Friday. Plus, people want to hit the snooze button the day after Thanksgiving or relax with family, so it’s best to give them more time to get into your dealership by making your Black Friday savings available ahead of time.

In order to have a successful campaign, it’s important to get your whole team on board with what you plan on promoting. Make sure your sales team, BDC department, and advertising agency are all on the same page. Inform your team of any extra incentives or vehicles you want to push. This information should be included on your ads.

2. Be consistent and have powerful CTAs

The best way to ensure someone will click on your email, digital banner, or SEM ad is to have an enticing message. It’s also important to remain consistent through each advertising platform. Your website, Google Business page, and social media pages should also include the same messages. Include pop-up banners, slideshow banners, a countdown clock and anything else to help grab a potential customer’s attention. All advertisements going out in that timeframe should include consistent sales messages, strong call to actions and a sense of urgency, like:

• • Limited Time Only!
  • This Week Only!
  • Only XX Days to Save!
  • Save an Additional $XXX

3. Set aside additional money to help boost your sales

You don’t have to break the bank to get results. Some dealers make the mistake of spending exuberant amounts of advertising dollars during holidays and may not achieve the results they anticipated. Make sure you’re putting that extra money toward something that brings in qualified leads and customers. Once you have a timeline finalized on when you’ll be starting your Black Friday ads, your agency should give you recommendations on how to optimize your digital campaigns.

At Digital to Dealer, we will never just “set it and forget it”. The best thing about digital advertising is the flexibility you have in being able switch up your marketing tactics on the dime. If needed, we will always look for ways to tweak any campaigns we run to ensure the best results possible. And, more importantly, that every cent you’re spending is being utilized properly.

4. Decide where you’re going to put that extra money

Once you have your Black Friday budget down, decide where you want that extra money to be spent for that timeframe. As explained in our previous blog, ‘Does Email Marketing Still Work?’, a great perk of an email campaign is that it can sit in the customer’s inbox so they can go back and shop your email at any point. Sending out 2-3 emails during the month is a nice reminder for your target audience that you’re offering Black Friday specials.

Not a big fan of email blasts? We also recommend other digital strategies such as Search Engine Marketing, Facebook Lead Ads and Search Retargeting. These are other great tactics to get potential customers to visit your website over your competitor’s. You’ll be able to target people who are in your dealership’s area and in the market for a vehicle. And more importantly, your message will get across to them. Your automotive advertising agency should be able to help guide you in the right direction to put your spend towards the most effective area.

Review all your advertising efforts

Once November is in full swing, your agency should provide feedback on how well your campaigns are performing. Luckily, not everything has to be set and stone when it comes to digital advertising – you can adjust as needed. If one of your digital campaigns isn’t performing as strong as you hoped for, you can move the remainder of that budget into a different digital strategy. Or, you can adjust your geography and targets. Campaigns can work for differently for dealerships depending on the brand, area and budget. It is also important to pay attention to the pricing and incentives your competitors are advertising. Just like how you can adjust your digital campaigns, you can always re-adjust your advertisements to be more competitive.

If you’re interested in Black Friday advertising and what we can do for you to help boost your sales, please give us a call at 877-958-4524 or email us at info@digital2dealer.com.

Reputation plays a huge role in the success of your dealership. Now, more than ever, potential customers are considering the experiences of their peers before deciding where to buy a car. Whether new or used, customers are referring to reviews on Google, DealerRater, and Facebook to help steer them in the right direction.

According to ReviewTrackers.com, 68% of shoppers who were surveyed reported that they rely on reviews before making a decision. That means that just about 7 out of every 10 potential shoppers will check your reviews before coming in. What are they seeing when they search for you?

The good news is that you probably already know this, so it’s not a surprise. However, have you put a plan in pace to generate positive reviews for your dealership? Many dealership managers know it’s important but aren’t quite sure how to go about it or simply don’t have the bandwidth to make it happen. Here a few quick tips to increase your online reputation.

Give ‘em a Reason!

Your sales staff has a lot do from taking an up, to test drives, to follow up, to CRM data entry, to paperwork. With all of that going on, they might be inclined to add reviews to their plate. However, just like they are incentivized to sell a call, they should be incentivized to sell the dealership which is exactly what reviews do. Offer your sales staff a small bonus or incentive for getting reviews. Of course, you’ll want to emphasize that the reviews must be legitimate. The user must have purchased a vehicle from your dealership. It’s perfectly fine for them to reach out to past customers as long as they’re real customers!

How am I Doing?

Get your sales staff to get personal reviews. This way when they try to make an appointment or follow up with a potential customer or a “Be Back” they can reference their excellent reputation as a sales -person. How powerful would it be for the sales person to say “Don’t take my word for it. Google me!” If you missed our blog regarding customer experience, there’s more information on what individual sales reps can do here. A little bit of personality and trust will go a long way with customers.

Reputation Revival

If you have a serious lack of reviews or a low rating that needs some help, our Reputation Revival program could help you. Everyone needs a little boost now and then, and that’s exactly what this program does. There are two different phases. The first phase helps you generate more reviews. It helps instantly post the positive reviews, and helps you address any negative reviews right away. This not only helps your reputation online, but also the customer experience and the community’s perception of your dealership.

The second phase helps promote your positive reputation to users who are currently in the market shopping for your vehicles. Ads are delivered to these users in real-time highlighting REAL reviews that you’ve generated. Since we know 68% of shoppers rely on these reviews, it’s a powerful message shown at the right time.

Automotive Reputation Management is a necessity, but not always an easy task with busy schedules and a tough industry. These three tips can have you on your way to a better reputation and a better customer experience. Remember – don’t be afraid to ask for a review and don’t let your sales staff be afraid either. Give them something great to write about!

In today’s advertising, you may be asking yourself, “Is traditional advertising still effective?” We’re here to tell you it is and that traditional and digital advertising can be friends, even teammates! Read on for a few tips on how to make conventional media work for dealership and how to tie it into your existing digital marketing efforts.

What Works

Before the world of Facebook advertising and email marketing there were TV commercials, print ads, billboards, radio and postal mailers (just to name a few). We’re here to tell you that these methods are still effective and how!

⇒ Print

Newspaper ads can offer a high reach, for a low cost, and allows for immediate delivery of a message, whether it’s advertising for new and used vehicles or service specials, it’s a quick way to show what your dealership has to offer. Newspaper can also be a great way of reaching an older demographic that may not be involved in the digital world.

⇒ Television

Television also allows advertisers to reach large audience groups. The advantage to television is that it’s highly visual and can offer a high impact on a potential customer. This is great for both branding and special offers. Since television advertising has developed from what it once was, it’s now possible to be more selective in who sees a particular message using streaming devices or pre-roll advertising

⇒ Billboards

Billboards probably see the most traffic , especially if they are strategically placed. Today’s technology has also evolved the billboard, from what once had to be a message that would last as long as a vinyl, to now have the option of a digital billboard where messages can be changed on a regular basis. Digital billboards now enable you to instantly put up an offer and change it the next day, if need be.

⇒ Radio

Radio can be very useful when working with a tight budget. With its selective format, you can target a specific audience based on making a buy on particular stations.

⇒ Direct Mail

Direct mail is probably the method that can reach the most specific targeted audience based on lists from your CRM or conquest lists you can purchase. Choose which group of customers should receive this information and when they should receive it. You can also follow up direct mail pieces, to the same database, with an email that reiterates information in your mailer

Be Consistent In Your Messages

While you can do branding pieces with conventional media, you still want to tie ALL of your advertising together and make sure that you are putting out a consistent message. Whatever campaign creative you decide on for your digital creative, you’ll want to be sure that it also appears on your conventional media. Consistent messaging creates familiarity for a potential customer which can lead to more sales and you can see that traditional advertising is still effective.

Once your messaging is in place, you can add a method of tracking to your traditional campaigns as well. To learn more about tracking traditional and bridging the gap between traditional and digital advertising, download our guide. We hope that after reading this, you’ll be ready to create a more synchronized marketing approach with your traditional and digital advertising.