Digital marketing is a cornerstone marketing strategy for nearly all businesses, and auto repair is no exception. Unlike traditional marketing tactics like print, radio, and TV, digital marketing lets you reach your potential customers through channels directly on their phones or computers. Not only is your target audience more accessible, but digital marketing is easier to measure and more affordable to execute than the aforementioned traditional tactics.
Digital marketing is a broad topic with tons of nuance depending on the industry. To provide you, the shop owner, with the most relevant information about digital marketing, this article will look at the tactics that matter most for auto repair shops. This article from Adobe provides a highly detailed and complete look at this topic, if you are looking for more information.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a group of strategies leveraging digital channels to get your repair shop in front of more eyeballs with the goal of improving brand awareness, driving more traffic to your business, and improving sales. Basically, any presence your shop has on the internet can be improved and optimized through digital marketing.
Digital Marketing Channels
A marketing channel is a platform or medium used to engage with an audience. Digital marketing also has its own channels. Here are some examples:
- Search Engines and Directories (Google Business Profile)
- Website
- Email and Text
- Social media
- Paid Advertising (Google, Meta, etc.)
Digital Marketing Tactics
There are a range of tactics that can be employed to get the most return on your digital marketing channels. Here are some of the most prominent and effective digital marketing tactics for the auto repair industry.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO, in a nutshell, is optimizing your auto repair shop’s website and content to appear higher in search engine results. SEO techniques have changed a lot over the years, but one thing is still true: following best practices and adhering to search engine guidelines gives you the best chance of success.
SEO is an umbrella that captures a lot underneath it, including some other digital marketing channels (like content marketing). SEO takes place both on your website (content, site structure), and off-site (Google Business Profile, Yelp, backlink outreach).
You can do SEO yourself, but it can be complicated and time-consuming to do correctly. Some SEO tasks are relatively straightforward (like adding meta descriptions to pages and alt tags to images), while others require advanced technical knowledge (improving site speed and auditing backlink quality).
The advent of AI has brought about another branch of SEO, Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO), which follows similar practices with an emphasis on accessibility for AI models. LLMO is very new and will evolve alongside traditional SEO.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is the creation of high-quality written content and publishing it on your website. Content marketing has a few purposes. It helps you connect with your target audience and build authority, and helps with SEO by improving the likelihood of your website ranking for specific keywords related to the services your repair shop provides.
Social Media Marketing
Building a following and engaging with followers on social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram is a great channel for auto repair shops. Organic (not paid) social media marketing for auto repair is most effective when you engage with your community, use photos and visual assets of your business, and post consistently.
Social Media Ads
Running paid ads on social media is a great way to boost engagement and push discounts, tire rebates, and other promotions with more control and targeting than organic posting.
Paid Ads
Paid ads, sometimes called pay-per-click (PPC) or Google Ads (within Google’s ecosystem), are one of the cornerstone tactics of digital marketing. Paid ads get your shop shown to more people fast.
Unlike SEO, you are not relying on an algorithm to rank your business. Your ads get seen much faster and are limited only by your budget. Budget is also the biggest downside of paid ads. You pay for every click.
Google Local Service Ads
Google Local Service Ads operate differently from standard Google Ads. Instead of paying per click, auto repair shops pay per lead, meaning you only pay when a potential customer contacts your business directly through the ad. Check out our article here to learn more about Local Service Ads.
Email and Text Marketing
Text and email marketing is a great way to engage with your existing customers through your CRM system. You can send follow-ups after appointments, time- or mileage-based appointment reminders, request reviews, blast promotions, and more. Marketing to your existing customers should be a core part of your overall strategy.
Should I Do Digital Marketing For My Auto Repair Shop?
Nearly every person has a smartphone in their pocket, and not engaging with your potential and existing customers through digital marketing is like passing on print or radio ads 50 years ago. Digital marketing has some unique benefits we will cover in the next section.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
The most obvious benefit to building a digital marketing plan is growing your customers and sales, but there are a few points that make it stand out from traditional marketing
Cost-Effective
Unlike pricey TV ads, mailers, and radio spots, the financial barrier to entry for digital marketing is very low. Many of the tactics discussed above like SEO, social media, and email or text marketing are free to do, or in the case of text and email included in the campaign tool of your CRM system.
This isn’t to say digital marketing is always cheap. SEO can be incredibly time-consuming to do yourself, and costs a lot to outsource. Paid ad expenses can balloon to very high monthly management and budget costs as well.
Easy(ish) to Measure
User behavior in digital spaces is far more trackable than in other marketing channels like TV, radio, and print. It’s significantly easier to see the direct impact of your ad spend, and the amount of traffic driven to your site through SEO. While tracking results isn’t an exact science, you will have more insight into the impact of your digital marketing efforts.
Leverage Your Expertise
Content marketing, SEO, and social media are all channels you can do yourself by leveraging your automotive expertise. Articles about common problems you see day-to-day in your shop and maintenance guides are easy ways to start engaging in content marketing, and pictures of your team, cool projects, and your shop make great content for social media. If you have someone managing your website, talk to them about the process of getting your written content posted.
How Do I Start?
It might seem a little overwhelming, but you don’t have to leverage every single channel all the time. There are certain tactics that are easier to do in-house, and others that might benefit from outsourcing.
Pick one channel and tactic that sounds the most manageable to you or someone on your team and dedicate a little bit of time to it every month. Maybe write a monthly blog article or make a goal to post on social media once or twice a week. Getting started with digital marketing doesn’t need to disrupt your shop’s workflow.
Auto Repair Shop Marketing and CRM Software from HiBeam CRM
Integrating digital marketing into your shop’s overall marketing strategy should be a priority for you as an owner. Make sure you have the right CRM software to bolster your marketing efforts. Schedule a demo and learn how HiBeam CRM can help you attract more customers, build better relationships, and get higher sales!
