Auto Repair Advertising

In today’s era of flashy auto repair website design the old marketing debate of "Copy versus Art" rages on. Pretty pictures and flashy designs, or Image Advertising, may initially grab viewer eyeballs, but it is the copy, or written text, that is far more effective at converting viewers into paying customers.

Doug Fentiman, owner of Robert Maxim Website Solutions, was interviewed by Tire Business magazine for the May 10, 2011 issue of their Service Zone eNewsLetter. The article, Experts: Make Facebook work for your service business, is about using social media to promote auto repair and service businesses.

Auto Repair Marketing brings prospective customers to your business. But it is your reputation that converts them into paying customers. Your reputation provides the trust factor required in moving people from prospect to customer. Shoppers use the Internet to investigate your reputation and decide if they want to do business with you. Social Media is quickly becoming the key component of your online identity and the reputation people create for you.

We now recognize that calling our auto repair shop website event calendar a ‘specials’ calendar was a big mistake. In hind sight this powerful auto repair marketing tool should have been called a 'Promotional Calendar'. The emphasis should have been on using it to promote ANY type of daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal, or yearly event and not just discounted services or products. Robert Maxim's auto repair websites event calendar is a very powerful marketing tool and not making full use of it is a serious oversight by auto repair shop owners.

Have you been throwing lots money at auto repair advertising with dismal results? Business growth has stalled? Here are five simple questions you can ask your customers that will save you auto repair shop advertising money and build customer referrals.

The auto repair industry as a whole is fighting a generally accepted bad reputation. Building trust with new customers is tough when the public's poor perception is supported by independent studies. The following three part approach can be very effective in developing your reputation and attracting long term customers: awareness, referrals, and an impeccable track record.

The terms advertising and marketing are often mistakenly interchanged but they have quite different meanings. Understanding their proper definitions can help you define and implement a marketing plan for your auto repair business.

If you think you can ignore social media and ratings and review sites, think again. Check out this short, thought provoking video on the impact of social media on EVERYONE. It asks (and answers) the simple question: Is social media a fad?

Here are some though provoking quotes from the video:

Someone recently asked me to do some auto repair website SEO. I declined. It wasn't that I didn't want to help, but more that no amount of SEO could make their website perform. What was needed was a total rebuild of the website.

Do you dare get your business into the social media arena? Are you afraid you will only expose yourself to complainers? You will be happy to know that by far the greater number of Yelp.com users who post reviews give businesses a thumbs up. While there are no guarantees of five star reviews, the feedback will allow you to improve your service quality. And besides, people are going to talk about you regardless so you might as well participate in the party. Social media may be the best free automobile service marketing idea available.