Marketing can be difficult, complex, and tedious at times. With so many different channels to choose from and most of them critical to your auto repair shop business, can you be sure that you have dedicated enough time to each? How are you measuring the results? What is your budget? With that said, as challenging as marketing is there are ways of simplifying the journey.
Are you overcomplicating your marketing efforts and losing value along the way? Here’s how to know.
You’re Developing a Loyalty Program from Scratch
You're on the right track— loyalty programs are a great addition to any business. In fact, loyal customers spend nearly 33% more than new clientele. Additionally, long-term customers are a great source of free advertising as word-of-mouth is still highly regarded when people are seeking out new businesses.
But alas, developing a program can be very laborious if you don't know what you're doing. If you find yourself printing stamp cards, trying to track new members in an excel spreadsheet, or hired an expensive developer to create a custom loyalty program, you’re making it too hard. There is a way for you to expedite this process by using platforms such as BayIQ that have pre-built loyalty programs tailored specifically for auto shop businesses with features like:
- Offering rewards based on customer loyalty
- Automated bonuses and promotions
- Customer portal to access transaction history
Automating your loyalty program allows you to focus more on bringing those long-term customers back and less on paperwork.
You Manually Post to Multiple Social Media Platforms Every Day
Social media is one of the best avenues for marketing, with 49% of the world’s population on it. Facebook, which alone has over 2.74 billion active users. With so many platforms out there, you can easily spend hours manually creating posts for each one. Plus, it’s nearly impossible to navigate the best times to be active for every one of them. The reality is, if you’re effectively posting the way marketing best practices calls for– it’s taking you a very long time.
Consider utilizing platforms like Buffer, Later, or Hootsuite. They enable you to manage all of your social media accounts in one place so you can plan and schedule posts and even track each account in one place.
You Personally Email Each Customer to Ask for a Review
Getting feedback from customers is important for any business that wants to stay ahead of their competitors. But that doesn’t mean you should be contacting customers individually and then monitoring multiple review sites (like Google and Yelp). Instead, automate your reviews.
Platforms, like BayIQ, automatically send an email after a customer leaves your shop asking for a review then posts it to Facebook and Google for you. This allows you to continuously garner reviews and manage them in one easy-to-use system– taking a multi-step task and making it a once a day check-in.
You’re Trying to Set Up SMS Text Marketing
One of the most surefire ways of reaching customers is through SMS text marketing with a 98% open rate. This can be a great for small businesses who don’t have large advertising budgets to directly reach customers. But setting up a successful text marketing operation can be a complicated process. In fact, there several common mistakes you should try to avoid.
- Sending unsolicited texts- Make sure you have permission before sending out texts to avoid garnering a bad reputation and or even breaching state or federal regulations.
- Texting invalid numbers- While it may be appealing to buy a contact list, these can sometimes be full of fake numbers. It will be better for your business if you grow your list organically, as you’ll know that those texts are reaching people who are already open to what you're selling.
- Sending too many messages- Less is more! Try not to spam your customers with every deal, promotion, or change going on in your business, as this runs the risk of irritating them. Instead, try to regulate the frequency at which you send texts and make sure the messages are short, sweet, and to the point.
- Lacking a call to action- Each text should have actionable steps. This will encourage customers to actively engage with your promotions.
Don’t reinvent the wheel when there are platforms that automate the process for you. BayIQ, for example, can help you automate not only SMS text marketing, but is also set up for automated emails.
It Feels Like an Uphill Battle
We understand— marketing is hard. But once a strategy is in place, it shouldn’t feel like you’re constantly running uphill. In fact, the result should be the opposite. You should feel as though you’ve built a machine— working to earn you more business with some minor tweaks here and there.
You might need a Marketing Director. OR you could invest in a platform built specifically for auto repair shops that seamlessly integrates into your current system and eliminates the daily management and heavy demands that come with marketing a small business. If you’re someone who is determined to make a success out of your business and reap more from your marketing efforts, BayIQ can help you do just that.
A built-in loyalty rewards program, email and text marketing, online review soliciting, and a host of other features makes BayIQ a one-stop solution to marketing your business and increasing your car count.
