Auto Repair Business Marketing Challenges In 2018 Part 2

Twenty years ago, the local Yellow Pages drummed up business… the landscape has evolved to a plethora of “Yellow Pages”.

In part 1 of this article, we discussed the basics that every auto repair facility needs to thrive.  Among the list, we left marketing, advertising, and software for this article.  We felt they warranted a much more informative approach.  We thought we were going to be able to curtail this to a 2 part series, but I think we will need to break this down further to provide our readers with something they can actually use.  We start part 2 with marketing, as this is usually a job within itself that medium sized firms must hire or outsource someone for.  A smaller auto repair business might not be able to afford a marketing person and needs a plan in place to be noticed.

The most effective definition of marketing is simply, “Marketing is the process of teaching consumers why they should choose your product or service over your competitors. “.1 The only way to teach consumers why they should choose your product is by having a good website, an active social media presence, a good process for your customers (ie; good auto repair software like CAR), and an advertising channel that brings it all home. Advertising is covered in part 3.

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Having a good web team is a lot like finding a good mechanic, hard to come by and the best usually comes from referrals. But all of them are relative to price, much like the rest of the world. However, you don’t need a crazy expensive website to draw people in. Your website needs the basics. A legible, clean and clear main page that should highlight what your auto business is about. Things like your phone number(s), address, services, and customer testimonials (if you have any) are a great start. Refer to this template for starters. Don’t be daunted by all the things there, cut out all the noise.

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When you first start you need the basics! The basics all revolve around these questions:

  • Where am I located?
  • What is my phone number?
  • Do you want people to be able to email you from your website? (PS, it’s highly recommended that they can contact you. It’s a trust thing even though you won’t get many requests from there at first.)
  • What kind of vehicles do I want customers to know I work on or specialize in?
  • What services do I perform on those vehicles?
  • What are my hours of operation?
  • What social media profiles do I want to let people know I actively participate in? ( Personally, we only recommend starting with Facebook, Google Business and Yext.)
    • Website Options (Cost $ to $$$$):
    You can create your own website yourself at Wix. While it’s a little harder to get yourself noticed through those platforms, it provides a medium that nearly anyone can use to create some simple websites to answer all of those questions at a very low price in comparison to a web developer. If you have more of a budget and are short on time, you can use services like Fiverr to put you together with entrepreneurs who build websites for lots of clients everyday.  We mention Fiverr because we were pleasantly surprised with how seamless it’s process is, there are other services that can be used.

    Follow along with this 4 part series, where we pass on lessons about our experiences running a business in 2018. This is focused on the auto repair industry, but there is plenty here that can be applied forward to help other businesses get off the ground and noticed locally.  Even though the businesses may differ significantly, the challenges of getting noticed and operating efficiently are similar.

    Using CAR's auto repair software is a natural transition to the digital age.

    Our auto repair software is so easy to use, we explain CAR through tutorial videos that are almost all 2 minutes or less each. 

    Contact us for a demo and find out why we are the "Process that leads to Profits!"