Did you know the average person spends 3 hours a day on their phone?! Without a doubt, your potential customers are spending their time online. Invade their space, capture their attention, and generate new sales by investing a little time and money into digital marketing for auto repair shops.
Worried about complicated and expensive channels? Don’t sweat; we’ll show you digital marketing ideas that don’t require a ton of cash or expertise.
What is the Best Digital Marketing for Auto Repair Shops?
- Local Listings
- Website
- Online Reputation
- Organic Social Media
- Paid Social Media
- Email Marketing
- SMS Marketing
1. Local Listings
Don’t zoom past this section! While you’ve probably heard this advice over and over again, we feel it’s worth repeating. Local listings are the building block to your digital marketing efforts.
Listing your business on Google Maps, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and the like, helps prospects transform into customers. Local listings put your auto repair shop front and center during a maps or online search, engaging prospects who are looking for a solution to their problem.
Taking just a few minutes to create and claim your auto repair local listings is well worth the visibility you gain. Plus, optimizing your local listings has a significant impact on your Local SEO. If you want to climb to the top of the search results and capture customers, you must include local listings as part of your digital marketing strategy.
Find Out More: Improve Your Auto Repair Local Listings in One Week
2. Website
After you’ve laid the foundation, you need to build your home.
Websites help potential customers build trust with your business (before entering your shop) by acting as a virtual, 24-hour salesperson. While creating a website might sound overwhelming, there are plenty of tools out there to make the process simple and easy.
Find Out More: A Simple Checklist for Creating an Auto Shop Website
3. Online Reputation
You already know that the reputation of your auto repair shop can have a direct impact on sales. But, did you know that 88% of people use online reviews as a reference before making decisions regarding business transactions?
That’s why building and maintaining an online reputation is crucial. Verified local listings on places like Yelp and Angie’s List are necessary to show customers that you’re a real, reputable business with happy customers.
Although there’s no secret sauce to generating positive reviews, ask your customers outright for feedback on your performance. This is a genuine, direct way to build your online reputation.
Find Out More: Why Your Auto Shop’s Online Reputation Matters
4. Organic Social Media
Posting content to your social media profiles is a great way to use digital marketing for your auto repair shop when you don’t have a big budget for advertising.
Getting started with social media takes just a few minutes.
- Sign up for your free Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account
- Add branding to your profiles
- Post content consistently
Hopping on the organic social media train doesn’t require lots of money or skill, but it does require time. Posting frequently and interacting with customers is mandatory. After all, it’s not anti-social media.
Creating a schedule of when to post is a great way to start a routine and boost your social media presence. To devise engaging content, take a look at other local auto repair shops and copy use their feeds for inspiration!
Find Out More: 4 Auto Repair Social Media Posts that Build Trust with Followers
5. Paid Social Media
Facebook is used by 1 billion people for over 2 hours a day. So, it’s safe to say that paid Facebook advertising has great potential to reach your prospective customers.
The best way to get an ROI from Facebook Ads is to RATE your advertising campaign. Focus on:
- Repetition – reach the same prospect 2-4 times during the campaign.
- Appeal – offer an oil change coupon that prospects can’t refuse.
- Targeting – get hyperlocal; target within 1-2 miles of your auto repair shop.
- Exposure – use video to demonstrate your expertise and slash through the noise on your prospect’s feed.
Facebook’s ad platform is fairly easy to use, but you may want to consider forking over a few extra hundred bucks for an expert to run your campaign. When it comes to paid social media, budgets can escalate fast. If you don’t have the time to actively manage your ads, you could accidently overspend.
Find Out More: How to Advertise Your Auto Shop Using Facebook
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing gives you direct access to your customer’s inbox. So unlike paid social media, you don’t have to worry about algorithms choosing when to show your content. This can be an extremely profitable form of digital marketing for auto repair shops because emails are targeted, remind drivers when it’s time for service, and are a trusted form of communication.
Streamline your email marketing services by signing up for a service like MailChimp, or a shop management software that includes email capabilities. Either way, targeting your customers with the right email message or offer will resonate with them and give them an incentive to visit your auto shop.
Find Out More: How to Use Auto Repair Email Marketing to Increase Your Shop’s Profits
7. SMS Marketing
Out of all the auto repair digital marketing ideas we’ve listed, none are as instantaneous as text messaging. Making SMS Marketing one of the best mediums to engage customers.
With the click of a button, you can touch base with your customers. 90% of people read a text message within the first 3 minutes, so you can be confident that your message will be seen. Text messaging is preferred by customers as a way to communicate with businesses because it’s fast and convenient. It’s a great tool to reach your customers where they are and should be integrated into your digital marketing strategy.
Find Out More: What is SMS Marketing? How Can I Use It For My Auto Shop?
What is the Most Effective Digital Marketing for Auto Repair Shops?
While each digital marketing tactic has its place, you should start by:
- Building a foundation through local listings.
- Creating a home for all your potential customers by building a simple website.
- Making sure your online reputation is working for you, not against you.
These three things will lay a solid foundation for your digital marketing efforts. Then, you can confidently invest in more invasive and direct channels, like email and SMS marketing, to transform prospects into customers.
This post was updated on October 30, 2020.
By IndoorMedia Marketing
By Talitha Turkin
