10 Easy Marketing Tips to Increase Your Auto Repair Shop Sales

In today's world every business needs an effective marketing plan in order to succeed. In this article we are going to write down 10 quick and inexpensive marketing tips that will increase the clientele in this upcoming year.

Make sure you take each one at a time and once you have done all of them, please let us know how it has affected your auto repair shop business.

1) Create a blog.

This is the first thing that any business has to have nowadays, and it is extremely easy to create one. You can either create your own blog (which is probably a little bit more complicated, but if you have the know-how, it is probably the best choice) or just get one through wordpress.com, which will only cost you less than $20 a year for the domain and hosting.

The best thing to blog about is to start taking pictures of all the cars that come into your shop and that you fix, and write a summary about what you fixed and how you did it, try to keep short yet informative. With these posts, it will be easy for you to accomplish two things. The first thing is helping you to rank on Google for certain keywords that are related to auto repair and your geographical location. The second thing is that it will allow you to start creating a small following of people in your area because they will see the type of cars that you are fixing and they will gain trust with you.

2) Social media. (Facebook, Twitter, Google)

These are probably the three biggest social media platforms that you should focus on at first because they are the most important ones. So after creating the blog, spend a little bit more time creating a Facebook fan page, a Twitter page and a Google + Business page. These are all extremely easy to create and it would only take about one hour or two create all of them.

Once you have set up your profiles and pages, make sure that you share whatever auto repair post you write on your blog in these three sites that way you can reach even a bigger audience in your area, and also make sure that you interact with people in these three social platforms all the time.

3) Email newsletter.

Create an Aweber.com email newsletter account and link it to your blog and your Facebook Fan Page. The Aweber account will only cost you about $19 a month but it is extremely worth it because email marketing is one of the best ways to market nowadays.

In order for people to sign up, offer something for exchange, like “Sign up to our newsletter and receive a free oil change” or something that will bring people to the door so you can help them out in other areas of their car.

4) Oil change or checkup reminder.

Make sure that you invest in your current customers by emailing them and sending them reminders to get their oil changed or to get their cars checked up. Aweber.com also offers a service which is included in the $19 a month package where you can automatically send your client email every two months or so as a reminders to bring their cars in their shops.

The good news is that you would only have to write these emails once, and once you add a customer’s email. The software will do all the work for you.

5) Online review sites and directories.

Make sure that you remind every customer to leave you a good review. These are valuable priceless reviews that will create a strong buzz and of course will give you a sense of trust for anyone that reads it.

6) Follow up with old clients.

Online marketing is great and it will increase your sales, but you also have to focus on some simple, old school marketing. Any customers, who haven't been around for a while, make sure you give them a call and make sure that everything is fine, and offer them a free checkup next time they come in to your shop.

You can even hire someone to do this. All you would need to do is write a simple pitch for them so they can follow it when calling your clients. Make sure that they read the pitch out loud several times before they even get on the phone so they can be comfortable with what they are saying.

7) Mailing Holiday cards to old clients.

The holiday season is the best time to bring people together and to remind your old customers that you exist and are there to help them out in anything auto repair related. So come up with an interesting and funny holiday card that will put a smile on your customer's faces. You don't even have to give anything away for free here. All it is just a small gesture from your local automotive repair or body shop wishing them Happy Holidays.

8) Network with non-competing businesses.

You will find in the area where you live there are plenty of businesses that can help you market your business and vice versa. There are two great ways to take advantage of this situation. Create a small flyer and ask those businesses if you can leave your flyers there and they can do the same so you can put them in your auto repair shop as well.

You can also do a coupon where if something is bought in the business that you have made a partnership with, they get a discount for something in your shop and you can do the same for them. A great example of this is a tire shop and a car wash place trading flyers so they both can bring business to each other and giving out coupons for each other's business.

9) Local flyers.

Use those same flyers that you are giving to your local businesses and go to a local parking lot and put them on the windshields of all the cars. You probably won't get a big return from this but it is enough to gain a couple of customers for a half an hour of work.

10) Word of mouth.

Make sure that every customer that comes into your shop is completely satisfied and informed about everything in his car. Every customer that leaves your shop satisfied is a potential marketing machine that will tell all of their friends what a great job you did for them and for their car. So go that extra mile because at the end of the day, that extra mile ends up being a lot shorter than you think, and extremely rewarding.

Do you have any other strategies that you use?