Fixed Ops Journal - April 2022 - F9

" It makes direct mail seem archaic by comparison. "
Measurable
results
In addition, the results are very measurable;
dealers can quickly determine what works
and what doesn't. Moreover, digital marketing
is less than half as expensive as traditional
marketing, Leader says.
" Our dollars go a lot further, " he reports. " And
with digital advertising, we can quickly change
the dollar amounts, depending on the results. "
Digital Air Strike's Venneri says streaming
ads are much more cost-eff ective than traditional
TV advertising.
" What you might spend on a media buy for a
week on broadcast or cable television would
last you a month with streaming, " she says.
" Plus, there are more customization and targeting
capabilities. "
Leader says a particularly benefi cial streaming
ad campaign involved running 15- and
30-second " Sell to Sands " spots aimed at acquiring
more vehicles to replenish low inventories.
Th e ads run on video streaming platforms
and social media outlets such as Facebook.
Reasons
to embrace
in-house digital ads
How do digital ads stack up against
conventional in-house advertising
tactics? Studies show they:
 Capture 400% more customer views
than static displays
 Provide an 83% recall rate
 Boost customer retention by 30%
 Increase average purchases by nearly
30%
 Increase customer satisfaction by 46%
 Generate almost 33% growth in repeat
buyers
 Encourage customers to stay in stores
30% longer
 Reduce perceived wait times by as
much as 35%
 Motivate 59% of customers to want to
learn more about an advertised item
Source: Research studies and surveys
" We used to buy fi ve or 10 cars per rooftop
per month, " he says. " Now it's 25 to 30, and
we're pushing to grow that further. It helps out
our service departments because those cars
need service. "
Convenience for customers
Using texts for fi xed ops marketing is inTh
e results? Dramatic increases in customer-pay
repair orders and gross profi ts, says
Josh Leader, Internet sales director for the
Chevrolet dealerships .
For example, in 2021, customer-pay repair
orders at the Chevrolet store in Surprise rose
to 23,294, roughly an 18 percent increase
compared with 2018, the year before the store
fully embraced digital marketing. At the Chevrolet
store in Glendale, repair orders climbed
nearly 17 percent during the same period.
In terms of customer-pay gross profi t comparisons
from 2018 to 2021, the Surprise dealership
posted a nearly 33 percent jump, and
the Glendale store recorded an almost 35 percent
increase .
Leader attributes the increases to one of digital
advertising's chief advantages: the ability
to fi nitely target audiences.
" Before, we used to do a lot of mailers - a
spray-and-pray approach, " he explains. " But
most of it never gets opened ... you're just
burning money.
" But digital marketing gives us a way to select
and home in on the exact consumers
we're looking for on a consistent basis, " he
continues. " It's marketing in a very segmented
way. We can even market to specifi c geographic
areas.
McClinton Auto Group began using textbased
marketing campaigns last fall.
creasingly popular for both dealers and customers.
A Digital Air Strike survey released in
March of 2,046 car buyers and 2,784 service
customers who purchased or serviced a vehicle
within the previous year showed that 60
percent of respondents prefer online/text
communications, up from 47 percent a year
earlier.
McClinton Auto Group, a fourth-generation
business that owns Mitsubishi and a Chevrolet
dealerships in Parkersburg, W.Va., has
been using text-based marketing campaigns
since last fall, says dealer principal Ginny
Bowden .
In one such campaign, the group sent 2,188
texts promoting cabin-fi lter replacements and
a disinfectant cleaning service. During the
next two months, customer-pay repair orders
rose 5 percent for both stores, which share a
service department, she reports.
In a much smaller campaign, just 264 texts
generated 36 service appointments - at a
cost of only 5 cents per text, she says.
" Th at's a pretty good number for that small
of a batch, especially considering the price of
the program, " she says.
Moreover, customer-pay revenue has slowly
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