By Gary Nixon for Dealer Marketing Magazine
Embrace a dealership-wide marketing approach that meets your customers’ needs and allows you to reap the maximum profit from every part of your business.
We all know the current market situation. A decline in consumer confidence, along with high fuel prices, and the worry that the weakened market could turn into a full blown recession has hit the automotive industry hard.
According to Reuters, auto sales dropped 12 percent in March alone and predictions are that they will continue to decline through the second quarter of this year. Experts counsel that a strong focus on promoting your parts and service business is the way to keep your profits up during this down time. I’d like to offer a different perspective to ensure you focus on your entire dealership.
Although individual promotions for parts and services, vehicles sales, or any other aspect of your dealership are an integral part of your marketing plan, sending communications that promote specific departments to the exclusion of others sets you up for a roller coaster ride. For example, a marketing promotion that only touts a $9.99 oil change may make your service business rise briefly, but it may soon go right back down again, leaving you in a constant state of peaks and valleys, scrambling to come up with even better promotions.
Instead, focus on promoting your entire dealership. This approach gives you room to highlight a particular department, for instance your service department, while still tying in all the services and products you offer that meet the full gamut of customer needs. Marketing your dealership as a whole sets you up for a steady stream of revenue, so your business remains strong even during the most difficult economic conditions.
To see what this type of communication would look like, let’s take the example of a service special. A dealership creates a June promotional email offering half off of a spring vehicle tune-up. Most dealerships would throw this offer into their basic dealership communication template (i.e. mailer, phone, email, text, etc.) and shoot it off to their entire customer database. They would get some business and then as that drops off, go to work brainstorming a new offer.
Using a dealership-wide approach, you would send the service offer above via email, but would also include direct links to ‘new vehicle promotions,’ ‘accessorize your vehicle,’ ‘schedule service,’ and all the other departments of you dealership. Suddenly your communication go from attracting one business stream of revenue—service—to more than three. This type of approach allows your customers and prospects to view all aspects of your dealership and easily access the information they need at that time…not just the specific item you are promoting.
Let’s look at another example. You send a ‘thank you’ or ‘congratulations’ email to new vehicle owners with details about your service department, such as hours and contact information. This is a missed opportunity! Instead, this email should include not only the ‘thank you’ message, but an introduction to your service department with staff photos, a personalized message and Website link, and a link to your parts and accessories department. Now the customer can get complete service information with one click, and explore a full list of accessories for their new vehicle. There are even on-demand communication systems in the space that allow customers to log in and then accessorize an interactive image of their vehicle, change their communications method, view their vehicle history, and more. Adding these links for one-click access to your complete dealership is an easy and effective way to boost your business.
With any type of marketing plan it is imperative that you reach your customers in the way they want to be reached. This means asking customers if they prefer phone, email, or text message contact, and then communicating with them through their preferred channel. Just as important is making it easy for them to access the information they want and need. If you are only sending one-off promotions for individual dealership departments, you may be cheating yourself out of a lot of business. By adding information about your entire dealership in every message, you are embracing a dealership-wide marketing approach that meets your customers’ needs and allows you to reap the maximum profit from every part of your business, in all market conditions.
Gary Nixon is president and CEO of CIMA Systems, a Customer Interactive Management Application that helps serve as a 24-hour, automated BDC for dealerships. He can be reached at 925-461-4600 or email gnixon@cimasystems.net
