Why do you think dealer service departments have so little focus on a digital / online marketing strategy?
Even though this question was asked 3 years ago it is still a valid question today. It stems from a lack of understanding of digital marketing as a whole, and to be successful on the fix ops side is a significant increase in dealer engagement as it is a much more complex market. That combine with many dealers dependency on their digital ad providers who's primary focus is not the fixed ops side.
Why does the service department only get on average 2 dedicated pages on the dealers website?
I believe that much of this is due to cost, and the time associated to do the research. The industry as a whole spends an exorbitant amount of money researching what customers do when purchasing a vehicle. There are many big players that have a stake in the success of a vehicle sale to support that research.
Think about the difference between the average GP on a vehicle sale versus the average CP RO? As complex as the fixed ops side can get is the industry really going to spend the money to figure it out? From an ROI perspective it doesn't make a lot of sense to some of the major stake holders who are driving automotive research. I'm not saying it's right, it's just my opinion on why there isn't better base material readily available from website providers.
Why doesn't the dealership do it themselves? See my answer to the first question.
Better yet - What are YOU or what's your dealership doing to push the boundaries of Service Technology and Marketing?
As I previously stated in my answers above depending on what you want to accomplish it can be a very long and expensive road to success and many dealers just don't have the vision or patience for it.
Parts:
When I started an independently branded nationwide parts website 4 or 5 years ago I did it knowing it would probably take a year to become profitable. How many GM's or DP's do you know that would be willing to venture down a road that will take over a year before it makes money? Knowing what I know now could I do it in less time? Yes but it will still take a lot of time.
I started with Revolution Parts as others have mentioned at the time it was a superior platform for many reasons. Once live I personally built the adwords account, campaigns, etc. I did not involve our digital marketing provider. I started with 1 campaign for each brand and only a few keywords. Over time I moved the account to a provider who's primary customers were online retailers in other verticals.
We started with 10 different OEM's and ended up with 1. There was an OEM that was doing well over $100k in sales per month but couldn't get the people, process, and comp together to make it successful. There was an OEM that refused to sell larger items like bumpers, sheet metal, etc. A store needs those bigger ticket items. When I left the group the one remaining OEM was averaging a bit over $30k in monthly sales while spending only $1300 a month in advertising.
In order of importance key items to focus on if planning to get into online parts sales.
1. Patience. You must look at this as a 1 year test to profitability. If have you to be profitable right away this isn't for you.
2. Shipping provider rates. You need to make sure you have options and you are able to get the lowest possible rates.
3. People and process. You need to keep your comp at a minimum.
4. Updating website shipping information. There are times when the shipping charged will be less than actual cost you need to update to make sure it doesn't happen again.
5. Make sure you are competitively priced for the internet. This isn't counter sales, pricing the same will ultimately fail. Look at what other online retailers are charging. The last time I checked it was around cost + 15%.
6. Know you ROI percentages. From my experience you need generating at least 15 times what you spend in revenue in order to be net profitable.
Service:
Service can be easier or more difficult than parts depending on the OEM or what you want to accomplish.
An easy way market fixed ops if you provider has the ability would be to take a list of customers who bought and never serviced, have not serviced in X time, etc, export the data and target them on facebook with an ad to to bring them in.
From a PPC perspective some OEM's have an advantage. If my memory serves me correctly OEM's like Honda, and Acura has specific service codes that are displayed to the driver like A1 or B2 service. My suggestion would be to work with your service manager and figure out which 2 codes are most frequently seen in the drive. From there build pages on the website that details what that service is with an ability to set a service appointment from that page. Buy the keywords, create the ad copy, and test.
My suggestion for other OEM's to do this would be to figure with your service manager what are the most frequent highest grossing CP RO's. Next figure out which 2 or 3 are being most searched and related keywords or phrases. From there build pages on the website that details what that service is with an ability to set a service appointment from that page. Buy the keywords, create the ad copy, and test.
In general fixed ops digital marketing can be an even bigger pitfall than pre-owned. It can get very expensive very quickly if you do not take the time to start small then expend.
