Automotive repair is and always will be in high demand. So if you’re in the business, you’ve made a smart choice. Of course, it must be said that there is an incalculable amount of competition in the automotive repair industry. That means your marketing strategies have to be laser-focused, aggressive, and on point in order to reach and convert your target audience.
The good news is that what works is well understood. To that end, here are 5 automotive repair marketing strategies you should be engaged in.
5 Key Automotive Repair Marketing Strategies for 2023
As the needs of the consumer, the economy, and automotive technology change, so do the optimal marketing strategies. That means you need to switch gears and apply the right outreach processes at the right time. According to our marketing experts, these are the most critical marketing tactics this year.
5. Physical Print Marketing
People still check physical listings for things like automotive sales and repair services. You want your ads and your offerings to be available in those locations because those shoppers are an important part of your core audience.
Sure, appointments can be set online and shoppers can order parts on your website. But the actual work of automotive repair is a local-level, in-person thing. This means your presence needs to be focused on your local community.
For this reason, you also want to increase visibility by being involved in local activities. Advertise at the local little league game with banners. Have fliers and business cards at the locations of partner businesses around town. Have an ad in the phone book. Also, don’t forget about curb appeal when it comes to your brick-and-mortar location.
4. Local Review Curation
Look for local review sites in your area. According to the Pew Research Center, 50% of people look for reviews online before they will go to a merchant location. This is especially true of automotive repair. People know they need to find a mechanic they can trust, making online reviews more important than ever.
You can develop a relationship with local reviewers by offering them discounts and products to try. You have to understand that you can’t buy a good review, not if you want the review to be worth anything. So, make sure your products and services are top-notch, and extend them to a reviewer.
If you play your cards right, you’ll get some terrific market exposure out of it.
3. Content Marketing
There is a slew of cliches about content marketing and you have surely heard them. This is because developing quality content is the only way to answer certain kinds of concerns that people have before they buy.
People want to know what problems you can solve, what kinds of unique value propositions you can offer, and of course, why they should choose you over the other guy. By curating quality content, you can knock down barriers to sales systematically.
Most importantly, quality content answers the questions of the best-informed customers. These are the people whose word-of-mouth advertising you want most. If you can convince a lifetime car guy that you’re the best choice, you can convince anyone.
2. PPC Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising is a great way to spread the word about your services. It’s also a great way to build partnerships with other local businesses.
When you have your ad hosted by a partner’s website, they get a little bit of passive income every time someone clicks on your ad. You get the conversion for pennies, and your partner gets some passive income.
If you do ad partnering with companies they supply you or that you supply, then what you pay for the clicks comes back to you in the form of business. It can be a very synergistic process.
1. Web Branding & SEO
Of course, every business needs a website that looks slick, works smoothly, and that makes you look professional and trustworthy. When potential customers see those local reviews, chances are they will look for your website before they come to your physical location.
Branding is extremely important. These days, people expect a business to have a personality and for interactions with its team to feel a certain way. Branding is how you communicate this. Think of branding as the personality your business would have if it were a person.
Ask yourself what that person is like and arrange your brand image accordingly. Further, your content marketing efforts are going to be a big part of this, as will your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts.
If you are not doing so already, you need to work key search words and phrases into your written online content. These keywords are research-based terms people tend to type when they look for your business or a business like yours.
The better your SEO, the more people searching for automotive repair will find you, so it’s pretty important. But SEO can be a double-edged sword. Make sure your content still reads well with those keywords sprinkled in there. Otherwise, your branding personality can come off badly.
Conclusion
While we have ranked these automotive marketing strategies from one to five, in reality, they are all indispensable. The good news is that in the automotive repair business, these techniques are pretty stable year after year. So, if you put the effort and resources into these strategies, not only will they pay off, but you probably won’t have to shift gears every other quarter.
