How to Market Your Repair Shop Effectively

New Customer Acquisition & Customer Retention Marketing:
Featuring Guest Blogger Gregg Rainville from Mechanic Advisor

As the Sales Director for Autoshop Solutions, Tony Mercury understands that to keep their bays full, shops need the phone to ring! And marketing is one thing that can make that happen more often. Tony has teamed up with Gregg Rainville from Mechanic Advisor to explain the 2 types of vital marketing campaigns for auto repair shops: new customer acquisition and customer retention. Keep reading to see what they have to say!

Acquisition Marketing

Autoshop Solutions is the leading marketing expert for the automotive industry. They’ve helped hundreds of shops across the country get phone calls from new customers through an effective digital marketing strategy called Really Powerful Marketing. Autoshop Solutions doesn’t want just anyone calling your shop —- they want to help you get more of your ideal repair jobs with your ideal customers.

Acquisition marketing targets new people who haven’t visited your shop before but would be an ideal customer for your services — whether that’s specialized import repair or expert diesel service. They want to connect your shop with customers looking for your services online.

Examples of Acquisition Marketing:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Facebook and Google Ads
• Website
• Word of Mouth

Retention Marketing

Mechanic Advisor specializes in client retention. They help to make sure that your existing customers come back and see you again, and again. Retention marketing is all about turning first-time customers into repeat customers.

There are good and bad ways for shops to implement retention marketing. Mechanic Advisor suggests collecting a new customer’s email, home address, and cell phone number on their first visit. Then, you can follow up with them and send service reminders, specials, and other valuable information.

Mechanic Advisor applies the 80/20 rule to all businesses (80% of revenue comes from 20% of your customer base). The idea behind retention marketing is this: repair shops need to be constantly present in their customer’s minds to build repeat business.

Tips for Getting Started

New customer acquisition and retention marketing are crucial to growing your business. Most shops spend 3-6% of gross revenue on these kinds of marketing. To get the most out of that spending, here’s have a few tips:

1. Develop an extremely targeted customer retention program
2. Set frequent communication intervals that aren’t overwhelming for customers
3. Retention marketing starts when the invoice is paid and the customer drives away

Questions to Consider:

• How do you follow up with a customer after their visit?
• Realistically, when should the customer visit next?
• How do you make sure the customer doesn’t look for another repair shop for their next vehicle service?
• How do you leverage customer feedback to get new customers through your door?

If these questions are challenging or if you don’t have the answers, your customer retention program needs some work. You are missing on monthly and annual growth.