Dealerships put a lot of effort into driving traffic to their websites, but getting someone there is only half the job. Nearly 30% of dealership website visitors are looking for service-related content. That’s a significant portion of your existing audience arriving with some level of service intent. The bigger question is what they find when they get there.
You Already Have Their Attention
Russell Hill, Co-Founder of FixedOPS Marketing, sees a common problem across dealership websites: plenty of customers are looking for service information, but the digital experience doesn’t always give them much to work with. They may find no current specials, static coupon images, offers with little explanation, or pages without a clear next step. As Russell explains, “Almost 30 percent of visitors to dealership websites are looking for service-related content, yet they find static images, no real calls to action, or worse, no offers at all.”
That changes the conversation about dealership website traffic. If the customers are already there, generating more traffic isn’t necessarily the first problem to solve. There’s an opportunity to do more with the people who are already visiting your website and actively looking for service.
A Website Visit Should Tell You Something
Consider a customer who visits your website because they need brakes. They look at a brake service page, check an offer and leave. If there was no meaningful way for that customer to engage, the dealership may never know who they were, what interested them or whether they ultimately scheduled service somewhere else.
That’s where interactive service content becomes much more valuable than simply posting a coupon. Russell describes capturing clean, real-time information that shows who engaged, when the interaction happened, which offer generated interest and even which page the customer was visiting.
Over time, that information gives dealerships a much clearer picture of what customers are actually responding to instead of relying on assumptions.
Your Service Specials Can Do More
A service special shouldn’t just fill space on a webpage. It can help a customer understand a service, give them a reason to choose your dealership and create a measurable next step. The engagement behind those offers can also answer useful questions: Which services are getting attention? What offers are generating action? What are customers researching? Which pages are helping move people toward an appointment?
There’s also an educational component that’s easy to overlook. Dealership employees spend every day around vehicles, but customers don’t. Something as routine as choosing between conventional, semi-synthetic and full synthetic oil can be confusing to someone who only thinks about maintenance a few times a year.
Good service marketing can close that gap by explaining what customers need, why it matters and what they should do next. Instead of simply promoting a price, the dealership has an opportunity to help customers make a more informed decision.
The Service Department Shouldn’t Have to Manage It
Of course, none of this works particularly well if it creates another daily task for the service department. Service managers already have advisors, technicians, customers, schedules, equipment and a long list of operational responsibilities competing for their attention. As Russell puts it, “Dealers don’t need another task.”
That’s why automation matters. Service offers, educational content, lead capture and reporting can work in the background without asking the service manager to become the dealership’s digital marketer. The goal is to give the dealership better visibility into customer behavior while giving customers a better online experience and to do it without creating more work for the people running the drive.
What Are Your Customers Finding?
If nearly 30% of dealership website visitors are looking for service-related content, those pages deserve more attention than a few static coupons. They represent customers who are already raising their hands and telling you what they’re interested in.
Take a look at your website from their perspective. Can they easily find relevant service information? Do your offers help them understand what they need? Is there a clear reason to take the next step? And if they engage with your content, can you actually see what happened?
Getting customers to your website matters. What happens after they arrive matters even more. Ask us how we can help.
