How to Market Your Auto Repair Shop and Bring in More Customers

The world today is incredibly competitive, and every business is striving to attract its target audience’s attention. Companies have to implement a multitude of strategies to ensure they’re engaging their audience and converting them into loyal customers.

Auto repair shops struggle with the same challenges and must continually think of creative ways to market their businesses. Luckily, with the advent of digital marketing and its unlimited strategies, you can successfully promote your business by investing time, effort, and money into the right areas.

Here are five ways you can auto repair shop marketing techniques to build your customer base:

Coupon Advertising

Coupons are a great way to encourage your customers to spend and, overall, 90% of all consumers have used coupons in one way or the other. As a marketing strategy, they’re a low-cost, high-exposure way to attract new customers and remind existing ones of the services you can help them with.

Some offers you can consider promoting are:

• A specific dollar amount off a service
• A specific percentage off the overall bill
• 50% off oil change
• Free oil change with any service

The key to ensuring this strategy is effective is to deliver them to the right people. One way to this is to print the coupons on the back of nearby grocery store receipts. It’s a localized way of promoting your business and won’t cost you too much either.

Customer Loyalty Programs

Retaining customers is a critical aspect of running a successful business. Increasing customer retention by just 5% can potentially boost your profits from 25% to 95%. Creating a customer loyalty program that gives customers access to free repair services, like oil changes, is an excellent way to show your customers how much you value them.

How complex you want this program to be depends on you. It can be simple where customers get a free oil change after 5 to 10 services, or you could also have full-fledged points programs where customers can earn a bonus after they spend a certain amount of money. These programs are a great way to incentivize customers to keep visiting your auto repair shop, thereby increasing your revenue in the long run.

Social Media

Social media is a force to reckon with in the modern world. No business can go without having a solid presence on social media platforms, and the same applies to auto repair shops. You should regularly post on platforms like Facebook to keep your audience engaged. You can post several kinds of content, including:

• Customer testimonials
• Promotions
• Advice on maintaining vehicles

This content provides an excellent opportunity for you to build authority and encourage your customers to engage with you. Your audience may even choose to comment on these posts and reach out to you. It would be best if you had someone dedicated to responding and answering queries to ensure your prospects purchase your service as soon as possible.

Blog

Another excellent way to build authority is to run a blog. In fact, small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than businesses that don’t. Additionally, 37% of marketers say that blogs are the most valuable type of content marketing.

By delivering value to your customers in the form of advice, you ensure your audience turns to you any time they need help with their vehicles. You establish yourself as an expert in your field and, thereby, encourage customers to turn to your business for any services they require too.

Apart from this, it would help if you also encouraged your audience to subscribe to your blog, after which you can add them to your email list and inform them of any promotions or new services you’re offering.

Service Reminders

Another excellent tactic that helps with customer retention is reminding customers when it’s time to revisit you. Previously, auto repair shops used to stick stickers on customers’ windshields to remind them when they need to come back. Now, you can use texts, emails, and social media. Additionally, these service reminders can also include coupons, links to your blogs and serve as a way of confirmation without any extra effort.

While this may not seem like an outward marketing tactic, it still ensures you remain at your customer’s top of mind, and they think of you when they need servicing for their vehicles. It’s a subtle nudge that can go a long way in ensuring you are your customers’ first choice.

Final Thoughts

Setting your business apart in a cluttered environment is an incredibly challenging task; there’s no doubt about that. However, having a solid marketing strategy in place can ensure you attract new customers and retain the old ones.

The auto repair shop marketing tactics above can help you get a jumpstart on marketing your auto repair shop. Some techniques will work better than others, so it’s always better to test which ones work best for your business.