Best Practices for Marketing F&I Products

Finance & Insurance (F&I) products are a critical profit center for automotive dealerships, yet they are often overlooked, or poorly marketed. However, CDK Global notes that during volatile times in the automotive industry as a whole, finance and insurance (F&I) products can be a major driver of revenue:

Even with recent headwinds — and perhaps because of them — the F&I office remains one of a dealership’s most profitable areas as buyers look to protect large investments. While overall profit per vehicles has declined, F&I gross-profit-per-vehicle is still hovering near record highs and is up versus 2024.

Dealerships must move beyond traditional sales tactics and adopt smarter, more customer-centric marketing strategies to effectively promote F&I offerings. Even so, learning how to walk the tightrope of marketing F&I products to customers can be tricky. This is why it is always wise to have some best practices for doing so in your back pocket. Today, we take a moment to review what some of those tricks and tips are so that you may use them to bolster your F&I department.

Shift from Selling to Educating

“I’m not interested.”

These are the 3 words that ring like a death rattle to anyone trying to close a sale, and yet, they are often heard. This is because the modern consumer doesn’t want to be sold, they want to be educated about a product and then make an informed decision for themselves. This is why the entire F&I department at any successful dealership must move from a sales perspective to an educational one. It is the only way that they can meet today’s customers where they are.

Focus on providing actionable information about F&I products, and always leave the final decision in the hands of the customer.

Personalize the Message Using Data

marketing F&I

Data is a big deal these days, and it creates a very convincing argument to buy any given product. Many customers are swayed about the value of a product based on hard data that they can see for themselves. As such, the F&I department should push out personalized messages about the virtues and values of their products based on data that matters to each individual customer.

Introduce F&I Products Earlier (Or Later) in the Buying Journey

Many dealerships don’t talk about F&I products until the end of the sales process. The danger of this is that customers may be completely worn out and are no longer truly listening to more sales tactics.

Instead, the introduction of F&I products should come far earlier in the sales journey. You can begin to slide in information about these products along the way as you are walking customers through the vehicle options that are available to them. Continue that process through the entire sales journey to convince more customers of the value of these products. Post-sale, many F&I products can be marketed even more successfully. Vehicle service contracts and mechanical plans are perfect examples of products that can be sold later and will lengthen customer retention.

Use Clear, Transparent Language

Any pitch involving an F&I products needs to be transparent and customer friendly. Make it completely clear what a customer will get if he or she chooses to purchase your F&I products. Also, try to answer any questions that a prospective customer might have about your products in the most direct way possible.

Some of the following tools may be helpful:

Visual Aids – Everyone likes to see a visual cue that they can relate to
Charts – Presenting data is often best done via chart because it displays the data and creates a visual representation of what it all means at the same time.
Real-Life Scenarios – Present scenarios that have or could take place to make it easier for customers to understand what they are getting involved with.

Train Staff to Be Product Experts

When a customer has a question about an F&I product, your staff should have the answer immediately at the ready. If they are stumbling over their answers, customers will naturally assume that they don’t know much about the product. If the salesperson doesn’t know anything about the product, then why would a customer bother to buy anything from them?

Leverage Digital and Omnichannel Marketing

Open multiple avenues through which you can reach your customers. You never know where they might encounter your information, and it is vital to keep all doors open to them. Examples of different marketing channels that are worthy of your exploration include:

Social media
E-mail marketing
Digital marketing
Traditional mailers
In-store displays

Any one of these things could be the tipping point that gets a customer to ask about your products, so make certain you work on leveraging all of them.

Highlight Long-Term Value, Not Just Monthly Cost

To the best of your ability, you and your staff should steer the conversation away from the monthly cost of F&I products and back towards the long-term benefits that these products provide. It is truthful information that they should consider when evaluating if a product is right for them, and it is the kind of information that you would rather them focus on instead of the immediate financial cost.

Measure Performance and Optimize Continuously

Finally, the most successful F&I marketing campaigns are those that continue to develop and blossom over time. Those in charge of these types of campaigns should do everything in their power to continuously optimize their F&I marketing and track the performance of all of their efforts. With that information in hand, an auto dealership can easily begin to reshape the way that it does F&I marketing and see greater results.

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