Every auto body shop needs effective marketing to run a successful business. The right marketing plan helps get your business noticed. Your advertisements engage your existing customers and draw in new clients so you can increase your revenue.
A successful marketing campaign doesn’t have to break your small business’ budget. Cost-effective marketing ideas for auto body repair shops include using social media, creating customer rewards programs, and sending out service reminders.
What is Auto Repair Shop Marketing?
Marketing helps your business create a brand identity by promoting your business and the services or products you offer to your target audience. Body shop marketing allows your company to stand out from your competitors and show off your value.
Increasing your brand awareness helps get potential customers in your door and maintains a relationship with existing patrons so your auto repair store can make more sales.
Marketing involves planning your campaign and the advertisements used to market your business. An auto body shop marketing guide can help you identify your brand’s attributes and understand what marketing tools you can work with on a budget.
Marketing Tools for Auto Body Shops
Marketing requires the right tools for the job, just like auto repair. Your business will need to gather information so you can produce marketing materials for your campaigns. You’ll need to create your business logo and branding images to use consistently throughout your marketing materials. Your auto repair shop will also need to put together a marketing plan and budget every year.
Your business may want to produce a promotional booklet to use for marketing campaigns. This booklet will contain important information about your business along with photos of your team and auto body shop. It’s also smart to include before-and-after shots of repaired cars to advertise your services.
Benefits of Marketing for Auto Repair Shops
Growth in sales:
The sole purpose of any auto repair shop is to increase sales, and every marketing effort deployed by a business is aimed toward this ultimate goal. Auto repair shop marketing helps you attract customers interested in the products and services your business specializes in, which in turn helps improve sales. However, here you must remember that marketing is not only for new customers but also to retain existing customers.
Many people have a misconception that marketing efforts only target new customers. However, remember that a well-designed auto body shop marketing strategy is both for old and new customers. When you constantly advertise your business’s significant milestones or new services that have been introduced recently, you stay on top of your old customer’s minds, preventing them from going to your competitors. The core aim of your strategy must be to provide a memorable experience to your new customers and existing customers.
Helps manage your reputation:
In this fast-paced auto repair industry, having a positive reputation is a critical factor that differentiates you from your competitors. Your marketing efforts are crucial to maintaining a positive image for your business. In your marketing efforts, you must focus on portraying an image of trust, credibility, and authority to ensure that your target customers look at you in a positive light.
Today’s customers pay a lot of attention to the values and principles that a brand practices before choosing to use their products or services. Hence, before availing of your services, your potential customers are most likely to conduct thorough research on your core values and competencies. Therefore, since your reputation is more crucial than ever, it is important that you have a robust marketing plan in place that helps build a strong and positive image of your business.
Helps enhance your local reach:
As a business owner, it is important that the local community is well aware of your business. As a business in this niche, you want to target customers who will be interested in visiting your offline store. Therefore, you need to strategize a plan that focuses on bringing foot traffic to the shop.
Online marketing efforts such as local search engine optimization help enhance your local reach and make the residents aware of your products and services. It is a major component of your digital marketing efforts, which helps you appear in the local search results of your target audience by focusing on geo-targeting and aiming to rank for local keywords.
Local SEO is important for businesses that aim to bring more customers to the offline store. Hence, as an auto repair shop, this tactic will help you spread local awareness and attract customers.
Effective Targeting:
Some marketing efforts, like digital marketing, help you extract data about your target audience, which in turn helps you tailor an effective strategy that precisely targets a particular demography, location, or interest. Moreover, these marketing efforts also help you analyze the changing customer behavior and adapt your marketing tactics accordingly. The ability to understand what your customers desire and change your business traits accordingly is a sign of a successful business.
Helps you find new audiences:
With all the data gathered through your marketing efforts, you can also find a new audience base for your business. As an auto repair business, you must constantly look for new audiences to be at the top of this competitive world. Your marketing efforts help you reach a new audience and stay ahead of other local businesses. It helps make more and more people aware of your business and enhances its global reach.
Budget-Friendly Marketing Ideas
There are plenty of low-cost marketing ideas for body shops to implement as part of their strategy. These methods allow you to stay in touch with existing customers and help attract new clients to your business.
Service reminders
It’s easy to lose out on business because customers forget they need their car serviced. Sending out service reminders by mail, email, or text lets your customers know you’re still interested in providing care for their vehicle.
You can use these same methods to remind your customers about upcoming appointments or send notices about repairs for new car recalls.
Rewards program
Reward your customers for their loyalty. Offer discounted or free collision repair services to loyal clients as a way to show your appreciation for their business. This could be in the form of a punch card, earning rewards after a certain number of visits, or after receiving specific services.
Offering discounted services won’t hurt your bottom line if the promotion generates more sales, and you’ll add value to your customer’s experience so they’ll come back in the future. People love being rewarded, and it encourages them to be repeat customers.
Ask for reviews
Body shop businesses rely on referrals and reviews to bring in consistent work. Ask your customers to give a review after their service is complete to instill confidence in new clients who are considering your business. You can have them fill out a short survey in person or online to rate their experience.
You can also ask satisfied customers if they’re willing to write a testimonial about your business. Encouraging your customers to refer your business to their friends, family, and coworkers helps bring in new clientele by word of mouth.
Contribute to your community
Getting involved in community events is another low-cost marketing idea for auto body shops. Your business can help host or sponsor car-related events like safety demonstrations or workshops for new drivers.
These programs are affordable to host and get your business noticed. Handing out flyers, brochures, or offering specials during these events shows people why they should choose your auto shop.
Run specials
Send out coupons or offer limited-time specials to encourage your customers to make service appointments. Coupons and specials can be mailed or emailed to existing customers and advertised locally to help bring in new business. People are more likely to book service when they feel like they’re getting a deal.
Provide good customer service
Treating your customers well and providing excellent service is a free way to market your business and build trust. Customers will appreciate you solving their problems in an efficient and friendly manner.
Their positive experience will keep them coming back for other services and make them more likely to refer your business to others. Impress your clients with quality service and a professional, friendly attitude. A happy customer is a customer for life.
Postcards
Postcards may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about marketing tactics. However, it is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing that helps you enhance your local community reach. Postcard marketing is high-performing and enables you to target specific audience groups without having to break your band. It helps you market a new service or product or a special offer that your store is running without having to spend a lot of money.
Moreover, it is simple and helps you cut through the clutter of the digital marketing world. With this highly cluttered digital space, you need something more to stand out, which is why postcard marketing is so popular among successful businesses.
Apart from this, another advantage of this marketing effort is that it helps you accurately track the success of your plan. As a business owner, you can measure how many postcards have been sent and how many inquiries have been received.
Develop a press book
In this world of social media advertising, developing a press book for your auto repair shop business helps you build credibility in the eyes of potential customers, partners, and the media.
Moreover, it gives you instant exposure by showcasing your achievements and milestones and making it easier for your target audience to learn about your business. Additionally, apart from building credibility for your business, developing a press book also helps you stay in the public eye, which in turn leads to an increase in sales.
In this competitive space, where you have a lot of worthy competitors, the more you are seen, the better it is for your business. Publishing about every new event that is worthy of a press release will help you stay at the top of your target audience’s mind and help increase sales and revenue for your business.
Use social media
Use social media sites like Facebook to advertise your auto shop. The average adult spends about 2.5 hours per day on social media sites and apps. People use social media to contact loved ones and keep up-to-date with their favorite businesses and groups. Creating a social media account for your business is an easy way to tap into your audience for free.
Business Pages on Facebook allow you to post important information about your business, including your hours of operation and the services you provide. They’re also a great way to interact with your customers. You can advertise your services and specials for free on your Facebook page or pay for a more targeted approach using Facebook Ads.
Local Marketing With IndoorMedia
Local advertising and marketing strategies are perfect for small businesses like yours. Hyperlocal advertising in grocery stores and on bus benches represents a few types of local advertising for auto shops.
IndoorMedia has over 30 years of experience helping small businesses plan and carry out local marketing plans. Our auto shop advertising campaigns focus on budget-friendly techniques like using grocery store ads and creating promotional coupons.
Contact us today for assistance with your auto shop’s marketing needs.
By IndoorMedia Marketing
