Your Guide to Auto Shop Marketing
Are you looking for new ways to bring in more business and increase your sales? Maybe you should be considering your auto repair marketing plan. Even if marketing may not be your primary area of expertise, it is easier than you think. Whether partnering with Mitchell 1’s SocialCRM or mastering your own marketing plan, here are six areas of business to focus on to help drive customers to your automotive repair shop.
To dig deeper into the concepts, see the descriptions below the graphic.
Email had a median ROI of 122% – more than four times higher than other marketing formats.
Email is one of the best ways to communicate. It allows you to customize and direct specific messages to targeted customers, making it highly effective. This sounds simple enough. Write an email, address it and send it to that customer. But could you be missing out on opportunities to create effective communications? Here are some tactics to consider.
Send smart emails to bring in business and build customer relationships.
Because your auto shop business is affected by customer service just as much as the quality of your repair, it is important to take the time to create the best experience possible by showing your customers you are in tune with their needs. This means sending smart emails — timely vehicle maintenance reminders based on projected mileage.
Acquire more customer email addresses.
What good are all those amazing emails you write if you have nowhere to send them? Collecting email addresses is essential, and there are a lot of ways to do it. SocialCRM’s email matching service helps you get missing email addresses from existing customers, adds them to your database and sends a “Welcome” email automatically.
Use high-level targeting and strategic delivery.
Creating a targeted email campaign can help you hone in on the customers who are ready for that particular message. This high-level targeting has the potential to generate a tremendous increase in sales.
Website
75% of people never scroll past the first page provided by search engines.
Build highly optimized, full featured automotive specific websites.
When building your website, it’s important to ensure it is mobile responsive. Changes to the Google algorithm now give websites that are mobile-optimized a boost in their rankings.
Leverage reviews for positive search results using monitoring, solicitation and syndication.
Reviews don’t have to be intimidating; rather, they can be a huge advantage if they are monitored, managed and deployed to sites where prospective customers and search engines can find them.
Utilize Google+ Local and Google Reviews for visibility and improved search.
Ensure that your auto repair shop shows up when people are looking for “auto repair near me.” Google Local allows people to see your shop is nearby when they need it most.
Social Media
71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others.
Create a customized, auto shop-focused Facebook page.
Social media is a powerful marketing tool if done right, and Facebook is by far still the biggest. Making your presence known online grabs the attention of customers, making it easier for you to generate content that proves you are an authority and allows you to market your services and events.
Boost engagement with consistent and automated Facebook content.
There’s no point in having a Facebook page if you never use it. Consistent updates are necessary to keep your customers engaged and your shop top of mind. Don’t make yourself out of sight and out of mind by ignoring your Facebook page and followers.
Amplify social reach through syndication.
Extend your reach to new customers by sharing content through syndication. This is a fancy way of saying repurpose content from others on your own social media, like sharing a peer’s article, or sharing your own content to be displayed on other sites. This puts your brand name in front of new potential customers.
Customer Insights
89% of customers get frustrated because they need to repeat their issues to multiple representatives.
Integrate your auto shop management system with your CRM system (Manager SE and SocialCRM) to build a seamless connection that helps you provide a great customer experience.
Integrating a social CRM application with your management system allows you to automatically send out emails and other communications when the time is right. Not to mention, it offers all of their service notes, so you can customize your marketing efforts to show you are paying attention. Mitchell 1 SocialCRM is seamlessly integrated with Manager™ SE to do exactly that.
Get review alerts to see feedback from your customers in real time.
Find out what customers are saying about you immediately. This gives you the opportunity to respond quickly to reviews before new eyes see them. Every time a new review appears, you can receive a notification right inside the shop management system.
Mobile
79% of the mobile users use their mobile devices to read emails. Finding ways to properly communicate with these users is now a priority.
Create responsive, mobile enhanced emails for maximum readability and effectiveness.
Ensuring that your emails can properly be read on mobile devices makes it more likely that your customers will engage and respond to them.
Refer customers to a mobile-friendly “Request Appointment” page via email.
This allows your customers to quickly and conveniently set up their next appointment with you no matter where they are when they read your email.
Word of Mouth
According to Entrepreneur, 90 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.
Verify and leverage reviews for online visibility.
Each positive review you receive is just another glimmer of search engine optimization gold. Leveraging your reviews and making them visible on various sites can improve where your shop comes up when someone is searching the web for automotive repairs.
Collect phone reviews from customers without an offered email address.
If you know a customer was absolutely delighted with your service but you don’t have an email address, it’s okay to give them a call and ask them to write a review. This also gives you the opportunity to grab that oh-so-important email for later communications.
Receive and quickly respond to low review score alerts to maintain a positive reputation.
Find a way to alert yourself of reviews. If for some reason a customer is dissatisfied with your shop, be the first to know and correct the issue so that customer —other potential customers — can see you care and are responsive to their needs.
Take advantage of ReScore opportunities to increase review ratings.
If you took the time to resolve an issue with a dissatisfied customer who wrote a poor review, it is okay to ask them to modify their score. This raises your rating and shows you are concerned with providing good customer service.
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