Who doesn’t want the perfect magic formula to market an auto repair shop? And the best auto repair marketing strategies hold the power to make your auto repair shop grow beyond your existing customers.
So if you’re looking for auto repair marketing ideas that actually work and will help you stand out in the auto repair industry, you have come to the right place!
This guide will present you with the top 6 auto repair marketing ideas that you can use to make your auto repair successful!
So without further ado, let’s get started.
Do You Need Marketing Ideas For Auto Repair Shops?
It’s not uncommon to think of auto repair shops as a business operating on the side of the road and getting walk-in customers based on their locality.
While that’s true to a certain extent, auto repair shop marketing is a powerful tool that can help you expand your auto repair shop beyond a certain locality.
Like any other business, an auto repair business thrives on growing a customer base. Moreover, auto repair shops over the globe are facing unprecedented competition from other local businesses.
In such a situation, it only makes sense to draft a metric-driven auto repair marketing strategy for your auto repair shop.
Let’s go into a brief overview of why you need to channel stronger marketing efforts for your auto repair shop:
- To expand beyond a certain geographical area and tap into a new market for new customers
- To increase the footprint of your auto repair shop and grow beyond local customers
- Leverage modern marketing strategies and platforms like social media to build a digital presence
- To grow your business profits and encourage customers to pay a higher hourly rate for your auto repair services, owing to improved brand equity
As a business owner, you would know that an auto repair marketing plan is the need of the hour to stay ahead of the curve.
There are many markets you can tap into along with a wide range of marketing ideas you can put to test to get new customers for your auto repair shop.
How to Make An Auto Repair Shop Marketing Plan?
At this point, it’s pretty obvious that you need a solid auto repair shop marketing plan to get the ball rolling.
The auto repair business is getting more competitive by the day and effective marketing tips can go a long way in creating marketing strategies that work.
But first thing’s first, you need to draft an auto repair shop marketing strategy that will help you stand out in the auto repair industry.
Here’s how you can get started:
Define your marketing goals
Marketing strategies should not be a shot in the dark. As a business owner of an auto repair shop, at this point, you would know exactly what you need for your auto shop to grow.
So the first step is to identify your marketing goals. A few examples of what marketing goals look like are:
- A weekly target of 100 customers visiting your website or calling your auto shop for appointments
- A conversion rate of let’s say, 2% of the onsite and online traffic
- Amount of recommendations and word of mouth referrals received from existing customers
These are just a few examples of what your marketing plan goals can look like for your auto repair business.
However, you can also set competitive goals that identify how much market share you would like to acquire from other local businesses in the auto repair industry.
Identify your auto repair shop’s mission, vision, and values
Along with setting goals for your auto repair shops, you need to formulate a mission, vision, and values to guide your marketing efforts.
Revisiting the mission, vision, and values of your auto repair shops will help you in understanding what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
Adding this to your auto repair marketing strategy will also help your employees in understanding how your auto repair shop is different from other local businesses.
Identify the competition for your auto repair shop
When it comes to competition for an auto repair shop, you can find one in every nook and cranny!
Auto repair shops have seen a surge in growth globally and locally. And each auto repair shop is investing in auto repair shop marketing strategies to stay ahead of the curve.
Once you study the competition in the auto repair industry, you can do a SWOT analysis to check the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your auto repair shop.
Identifying the strengths of your auto repair shop can help you in enacting unique selling points of your auto repair business in the industry.
You can also use search engine optimization tools like Ahrefs to analyze the digital competition in the auto repair space. You can also check who the existing customers of your competitors are and see if you can tap them with your repair marketing strategies.
Define your target customer
Your target customer including your existing customers and the new customers that you want to acquire should be front and center of your auto service shop marketing plan.
If you have been running an auto shop, you would know the traits of customers including the new customers that you want to acquire.
Having tailored ideas for auto repair customers will help you in reaching them more effectively. For example, you can check which platforms your target customers usually use.
Social media platforms are extremely common nowadays, even for customers of auto shops. Targeting platforms like social media will help you grow your reach beyond just local customers as well.
Finalize your auto shop marketing strategy
Once you have set clear goals for your auto shop and defined the demographics of your customers, mission, vision, and values, it’s time to make everything come together.
Now you will know what you need to do for your auto shop and how exactly you can achieve the goals. An auto shop tailored strategy will encourage customers to become loyal customers of your auto repair shop.
Your auto repair marketing plan should also include the channels you plan on targeting along with a budget.
You can split the budget between different channels like social media marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization, and traditional marketing like hosting events.
Now that you know how to make a marketing strategy for your auto shop, it’s time to head towards the top marketing ideas for your auto shop!
The Top 6 Marketing Ideas for Auto Repair Shops
Nobody said that running an auto shop is easy. But having the best marketing ideas for your auto shop will go a long way in making your business stand out in the auto repair space.
Use our top 6 marketing ideas for auto repair shops to get started today!
Set up Your Website
Yes, traditional marketing methods have worked for a long period of time, but no one can ignore the importance of digital marketing in today’s day and age.
Your website is going to serve as a digital storefront. It should be designed effectively to encourage customers to explore your services.
A business page on the website that showcases your services will also help in expanding your auto body shop’s digital footprint.
Developing an online presence and business page that is easy to navigate should be your priority. An easy-to-navigate website or business page can lead to a greater chance of people being drawn to the auto repair shop.
This is because they may have a friend or family member who was able to find the shop and purchase repairs easily. And if they were referred by a friend or family member, they are very likely to google the business page or website of your auto body shop.
Your website should also feature a catchy logo and tagline. Additionally, make sure you feature contact details on the website and your social media handles should be linked to the website as well.
Send Frequent Email Newsletters to Customers
Email marketing remains to date, one of the easiest and most effective ways to communicate marketing messages. Through email marketing, you can tap a wide base of customers and go beyond local customers as well.
Email newsletters work because they remind customers of who you are, why they should choose you over others, and how they can connect with you on a regular basis.
It is also a good tool for content marketing and for selling to customers in their direct mail without actually selling! Direct mail and email marketing will always remain effective tools to reach customers.
Through newsletters, consumers find custom content which can be a great tool to reach potential customers indirectly.
Send Thank You Emails to Customers
If you have any local customers or repeat customers, it’s best to stay in touch with them via direct mail. Always be sure to stay in touch and drop them a thank you email every time they visit or use your repair services.
Better yet, ask them to leave a review of your repair services on their social media or review sites.
Be Active on Social Media
We live in an age where the majority of businesses are now relying on social media and online marketing to spread their message and grow their footprint beyond local customers.
With this strategy, the social media community can spread the message about your business, which will drive potential customers to your shop. This will in turn increase your sales, making it a win-win situation for both parties.
Social media can be a very effective tool in getting people interested in what your business has to offer. It’s also a great tool to stay in touch with your current customers.
People love checking Facebook when they visit a physical location.
By being a featured seller, you will have increased brand recognition. Your name will be seen in a number of places, helping your business get more exposure.
Visitors can also share your business in their own posts. If a friend asks for a repair shop recommendation on Facebook, customers can recommend your repair shop and post it on your wall.
Get Reviewed on Review Sites
It’s very important to focus on customer engagement for your existing customer base. One way to do this is to get your present customers to leave a review for your auto repair shop every time they visit.
A Google search, a Yelp review, or a Facebook comment is better than no reviews at all. Even if a person has an unfavorable review, it’s still better than no reviews at all. Reviews showing up on search engines can be quite helpful.
You can also have a loyalty program for existing customers or look into community marketing. Community marketing is also helpful too.
Invest in Seach Engine Optimization
SEO is a powerful tool for any business. By optimizing your site for the keywords your potential customers are using to find your business account or website, you’ll be found by more people and receive more clicks on your ad.
You can also run advertisements on search engines as part of your other marketing efforts.
There are several ways you can optimize your site for
Wrapping it Up
To wrap it up, focusing your marketing efforts on your existing customer base is a great way for car repair shops to increase their word-of-mouth business.
You can pay a lot of money on things like TV commercials, radio spots, and direct mail campaigns, but you may be targeting the wrong audiences. This is why it is important to have a solid marketing strategy that covers all campaigns you will be running.
You can also target new customers using a social media platform and even direct mail works.
Getting your product, service, or brand in front of more people is one of the quickest ways to make a quick buck, so make sure you invest in both online and on-site marketing!
