Top Auto Repair Marketing Strategies To Retain Customers

If you have a repair shop competing in the automotive industry, you must be looking for ways to grow your business. This sector grows competitive by the minute and with the advent of technology, the pressure to do better has increased even more. 

Effective marketing strategies for auto repair shops can fuel growth of your auto repair shop and expand your customer base. With targeted and output-oriented marketing strategies, you can also really grow the footprint of your auto repair shop. 

Today, we discuss the top 5 auto repair shop marketing strategies to retain your existing customers and grow your business, simultaneously.

How To Draft an Auto Repair Marketing Plan for Auto Repair Shops? 

Before we can enlighten you with some of the top marketing strategies that can catapult auto repair shops in success, how do you draft a plan that works? 

1. Identify your marketing goals. In this case, we are aiming to retain existing customers of your auto repair shop and also acquire more leads. 
2. Specify your marketing budget. Marketing is an investment that reaps benefits over time, you need to set out a specific budget for all of your marketing activities for your auto repair shop.
3. Identify your target audience. As a business owner, it’s important to know, understand and explore your target audience for the marketing campaigns.
4. Setting up a reporting mechanism. The last but most critical step is to always track your marketing efforts and strategies so you can evaluate the effectiveness of each. 

The Top 5 Marketing Strategies to Retain Customers

Now that you have a fair blueprint of how to get started on your marketing efforts for your auto repair shop, let’s look at the top ten marketing strategies you should invest in today to retain customers for your auto repair business.

As a business owner of an auto shop, make sure you are ready to take the plunge and get started with marketing your auto repair business.

Set up and Brand Your Website

Having a digital presence in today’s day and age is a necessity of an auto repair shop. If you don’t already, it’s time to invest in a new website that goes over your auto repair shop’s DNA. 

The website should be set up and launched in a way that it attracts and engages your customers. Here are a few things you can do to set up a website that will actually help in scaling your automotive business. 

1. Choose a domain name that best reflects your business. A small, catchy and easy to remember domain name works best. 
2. Set up a user-friendly design and interface of the website. Don’t opt for the fancy things, a well-structured and laid out website always helps customers more. 
3. Make sure all the relevant and necessary information is readily available on the website. You want to list down your core services, business model, customer reviews and contact details in easy to spot places. 
4. Opt for a safe and secure internet protocol like HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure).

This is also a great way to stand out from other local businesses in the auto repair sector and channel your loyal customers to your business page and social media. Make sure you list down all your auto repair offers, discounts and details of the auto repair shop on the website.

Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you are looking to receive customer leads and conversion through Google, search engine optimization is going to be your best friend. As per Google, 28% of the searches for something nearby result in a purchase. This also holds true for auto repair shops. 

Before someone steps into an auto repair shop looking for vehicle maintenance, it’s very likely they do a Google search first. 

This means that if your auto repair shop shows up in Google results when a customer types a related keyword, you can acquire new customers and compete with local businesses! So then, search engine optimization sounds like a great tool to invest in.

But how does one rank an auto repair shop in Google results using search engine optimization? 

1. Add a blog to your website and optimize the content using high search volume keywords. 
2. You need to internally link your website as that helps with SEO. 
3. Using popular keywords on other websites your auto repair shop is linked to including review sites also helps. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. SEO is a whole new terrain and can really impact your customer acquisition. You should invest in a website designer and SEO expert who can make your auto shop’s website SEO friendly. 

This is also a great way to reach local customers. Sometimes, social media and search engine can really help tap potential customers through auto repair marketing.

Track how many leads you receive through Google to check your ROI on SEO practices. Always evaluate all your efforts under auto repair shop marketing and see which one is working the best for you.

Email Marketing

As the owner of an auto repair business who invests in email marketing, it’s likely you will see boosted sales and profitability. Email marketing and direct mail are great tools to use to stay connected with existing customers of an auto repair shop and send marketing messages.

Email drives the highest ROI out of all B2B marketing strategies, statistics have shown. On average, for every dollar invested in email marketing, businesses can earn $44.

So how can you use email marketing as a tool to retain customers of an auto repair shop and possibly, acquire more? 

First of all, you need to set your email list with the permission of your clients. This will help you in keeping your clients aware of your latest campaigns. 

Secondly, you can get your hands on any email marketing platform that allows you to send emails in bulk. Most of these platforms like MailChimp, are free, which means a great ROI!

Through emails you can apprise your customers of: 

• A nice and warm welcome to customers
• Sending your customers service reminders for repairs and vehicle testing 
• Your latest services and deals including seasonal discounts and service bundles
• Blog and other value added content that you create for the industry
• Share customer reviews and testimonials

Again, make sure you are tracking your email efforts and other marketing ideas to see if it’s resulting in conversions and leads at your auto repair shop.

One can be innovative and experiment with many marketing ideas for an auto repair shop, but only actual results will help you see if your auto repair marketing is working.

Build a strong presence of your auto repair shop on review sites

There is no marketing strategy out there, quite like word of mouth! And the modern day iteration of word of mouth marketing is customer reviews. If you want to drive traffic from customers who are actually interested in your services at the auto shop, you need to set up a strong presence of your auto repair shop on review sites.

Testimonials on social media and review sites will encourage customers to visit your business page and social media handles. It can help in building credibility for your auto shop and also showcase testimonials of your auto repair services for new customers.

This is an excellent way to make your auto shop stand out from other local businesses as part of an effective auto repair shop marketing campaign.

You can start by signing up on the following websites and making signing up your auto shop profile here:

• Google Local Search that is linked with your business listing of auto shop on Google 
• Yelp is a popular review site with millions of customers available on the platform 
• Yellowpages.com is the online version of the classic business directory book 
• Make sure you have a social media presence where customers can engage with the content and add their reviews

To make your presence even stronger, make sure you are: 

• Dropping the links of the review sites you are on, on your website to showcase your auto repair service experience of customers
• Share these links of your auto shops on review sites in your email marketing campaigns as well
• Telling your customers that you are now available on review sites and would love their feedback on your auto repair services. The more reviews you get on the sites, the better it is going to be for your business. 

Once you have built your presence on review sites, make sure you also go through the reviews and see how you can improve. It’s possible that someone has a bad experience at your auto shop. It’s important that you address that as well. 

Every review is an opportunity to retain your customer! Use it wisely. 

Utilize Physical Marketing Ideas & Strategies 

While digital marketing ideas and strategies have surely made their mark in the auto repair industry, let’s not forget our good old physical marketing strategies! This also depends on your target audience. 

If you want to offer a personalized auto repair shop marketing campaign to new customers in your community, opt for some traditional marketing strategies with a modern, digital twist.

• Add digital screens to your auto repair shop that showcases your services helpful videos on car repairs and video testimonials of your customers. 

You can also post before and after repair photos of cars that your auto shop has serviced. Feel free to showcase some other information on your auto shop along with creative marketing ideas on the digital screens too.

• Set up effective community marketing campaigns where you can invite your customers to engage with social media of your auto shop. 

Hosting seminars, webinars and open house discussions on vehicle maintenance is also a great way to build brand awareness.

• Sponsoring auto events is also a great way to build the footprint of your auto shop. 

You can collaborate with more up and coming brands in the auto sector.

• Set up a referral program with your current customers. 

Referral rewards are a great way to put your customers to work and get more clients onboard for auto repair services! 

Let’s face it, no one wants to do anything for free nowadays, let alone promote your auto repair services for free. So if you’re looking to make most of your current customers and auto repair shop marketing strategies, offer service discounts to your customers for getting more new customers on board. This is a great way to promote your auto repair services and get loyal customers.

In addition to these marketing ideas, depending on your community, it wouldn’t be too crazy to drop down some flyers of your auto repair shop at various places as part of a great auto repair marketing plan. 

If you have the money on you, you can always set up advertisements on billboards to see if traditional marketing works for your auto service shop. You can see if your community responds to these marketing tactics and discern the return on investment. 

However, it’s safer to stick to digital marketing strategies.

The Bottom Line 

Running an automotive business is no easy task; the competition is growing and so is the customer’s need for quality. If you own or manage an auto repair business, it’s probably the right time to start investing in marketing strategies. 

There are various strategies that you can use to enhance your auto repair shop’s footprint. Among the top five strategies include, setting up a strong digital and online presence, social media marketing, customer reviews and content marketing. These are great ways to get more customers onboard. 

You can also still opt for traditional marketing methods and see if that works for your business.