Slay the Holidays with 5 Marketing Strategies for Your Service Centers
Published by
RICH JAKUBOWSKI
on
With low inventories, no used-car inventory, and more, it’s a great time to focus on your service centers and drive more traffic through the doors of your dealership. Use these 5 service center marketing strategies to beat holiday profit averages this year and stay ahead of the competition!
1) Boost Appointments
Create a sense of urgency for customers. Let them know they should be ensuring their vehicle is in tip-top shape to make all of those friend-and-family holiday visits. Whether you are offering end-of-year service discounts or incentives to get customers in before year’s end, make it clear that these offers will expire by a specific date—and to service their sleigh in time to spread holiday cheer.
Try to get repeat customers early, but don’t forget about new customers. Offer gift cards or special discounts to new customers who bring their vehicle in before year’s end, too. Consider holding raffles and sweepstakes. Customers can get in early and be excited about having their car serviced before they miss out on some free money and special offers—and that’s money and referrals you didn’t have before!
2) Use a Holiday Event Hashtag
It’s no secret that social media is key to growing your business. It gives you a platform to interact with current and potential customers, and it provides valuable data for measuring your holiday marketing efforts. An easy way to take advantage of social media during an event is by setting up a hashtag. And don’t forget: If you plan on creating a holiday hashtag for your service center, be sure you use it on all of your promotional materials. For instance, #HappyServiceDays or #ServiceHolidayDaze. Create your own spin on your dealership’s name and the holiday season to generate a hashtag that is both catchy and unique.
If you want to add even more incentives to share, give away free merchandise or services when customers use a specific hashtag and tag your dealership in their posts. This only helps drive more digital traffic to your service site.
3) Holiday-ify Your Marketing Language and Design Wreaths, Snowflakes, and Lights. These aren’t just for decorating your front entry area! Put these visuals to work in your marketing language and design.
The critical thing to remember here is that your ad impressions will most likely experience a 50% increase during the holiday season, i.e. your ads will be seen more due to the surge in online shopping. It would be a waste to not include holiday imagery and language that will appeal to your audience at large.
The holidays are meant to be jolly, after all! So, put on your Santa hat and deck those ads with holiday cheer. Use clever sayings and descriptions in bold holiday colors to make your ads stand out from others.
4) Target Ads
Using language such as 12 Days of Christmas, Cyber Week, Super Saturday, End of Year Sale, and Christmas Day Sale is a perfect way to grab some serious attention. Targeted ads on social media sites, like Facebook and Instagram, will quickly spread the word about your sales. Consider that a record 60% of shoppers are planning on doing their holiday shopping online this year. That, coupled with the fact that 79% of US adults use social media daily, shows you how integral it is to appeal to the online shopper this year.
However, if you choose to leverage targeted ads, make sure that they align with consumer needs and expectations. If you can communicate effectively through your ads (and your website) what you provide and how it benefits consumers, then you’ll be well on your way to success!
5) Leverage a Strategic Email Campaign
You already know who your customers are and how they need to be serviced. Your dealership with Edifice Powered By Elevation can easily create a list of loyal customers and connect with them through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even text messaging. It’s important to personalize each message and make it relevant—after all, these emails should lead to actual service appointments.
This also gives your dealership opportunities to cross-sell products and services. However, it’s essential to keep in mind that you’re not selling these things because they’re necessarily connected; you’re offering them as solutions to customers’ problems. For example, if a customer asks about rotating their tires, but needs an oil change, offer both services at a discount.
Final Thoughts Wrapped in a Bow
This year has been especially hard for everyone, so implementing successful auto service marketing strategies this holiday season should be the goal—not only for the benefit of your dealership, but to serve your community at large with savings and overall good cheer.
Ready to close out 2021 and begin the new year strong?
Edifice Automotive helps dealerships thrive through listing and reputation management, automotive marketing campaigns, and more.