One way to drive business results for your auto shop is to provide customers with incentives that keep them coming back. This creates a positive feedback loop that not only entices new customers to come and try your services, but also motivates existing consumers to stay on board. 

A great way to achieve such a cycle is through promotions. These incentive-driven programs offer your auto shop a powerful marketing outlet that generates sales. The only problem is: what kind of promotions should you run? Not to worry! In this article, we’re going to explore 4 promotion ideas that you can implement at your auto shop. Let’s get started!

1. Refer a Friend

The first type of promotion that you can run at your auto shop is a refer a friend program. This promotion brings a wide variety of benefits to your business.

Benefits

• Increased Conversions- Implementing an incentive-based referral program directly serves your shop by enhancing the likelihood that someone does business with you. In fact, recent consumer polls indicate that people are four times more likely to convert to a customer when they’ve been referred by a friend. 
• Increased Lifetime Value (LTV)- LTV simply refers to how much monetary value a customer will generate for your business throughout their lifespan as a customer. On average, referred customers have a 25% higher lifetime value than that of regular customers; this is because they fundamentally trust your business.

How It Works

The refer a friend program can be designed in a number of ways to align with your shop’s goals. For instance, you can offer up a 15% discount for both the referrer and referee on their next car repair. The key is to keep it simple.The customer should immediately be able to see what value they’ll reap by referring a friend. 

Further, make it easy for them to do it. Give each customer a referral card when they’re checking out of your shop. All they have to do is write their name on it, and give it to a friend. When the friend makes a purchase, they simply hand over the card and you log the rewards for both parties!

2. Buy Three, Get One

This is another incentive-based promotion that has grown in popularity amongst auto shops. Essentially, when a consumer buys three tires, they get the next one free. It’s an effective strategy because it plays on a core buying behavior: savings. Every customer is always looking out for savings. 

While this promotion can be run at any time throughout the year, it’s most likely to yield maximum results during the winter. This is when customers are out shopping for winter tires, hence it aligns consumer expectations with the promotion.

3. Charity Partnership

Charitable partnerships directly boost brand awareness and reputation. In fact, 81% of millennials say they want to support brands that have a proven corporate citizenship. A prime example of such a charitable partnership is Subaru’s Share the Love event. 

Over the last 14 years, Subaru has managed to donate over $200 million to charities of all sizes. Their monumental success not only improves the brand’s image in the eyes of its consumers, but it further boosts consumer loyalty and satisfaction.

How It Works

Once you’ve identified the local charity you’d like to partner with, determine the percentage of sales you’ll donate. Then all that’s left is promoting it! 

Go big on social media and your website. Consider building out a dedicated donation page that tracks your overall progress and shows what kind of impact it’s having. Also aim to send out a big announcement at the end of the promotion telling customers how their business helped. 

4. Classic Giveaway

The primary benefit of a classic giveaway is that you control the barriers to entry. That means you can strategically align your auto shop’s goals with the giveaway to directly drive certain results. If you want to increase engagement in your loyalty program, for example, make that the entry qualification. If you’re looking to boost SMS marketing results, ask consumers to sign up in order to receive the incentive. All you’re doing is aligning what you want with what the customer wants.

There are a variety of ways you can approach this promotion. The goal is to make the incentive attractive enough to motivate the consumer. You could offer a free servicet: an oil change, a t-shirt, or tire rotation. Or, you can opt for a spin-the-wheel structure, with a number of benefits all available for the customer to win.

Make It Simple

While each and every one of these promotion ideas holds massive potential to drive results for your auto shop, the bottom line is reach. Customers need to know about these promotions to be able to take part in them, so it’s your job to get the word out. Not just once on a single touchpoint, but continuously across several channels. That’s where BayIQ comes in.

As former auto shop owners, we saw that marketing efforts were taking away from our ability to manage our shop. That’s why we decided to solve that problem! We created an industry-level software that streamlines a variety of marketing endeavors—from loyalty programs, SMS and email campaigns, digital marketing, and promotions. It integrates directly into your current system to efficiently and effectively track data and monitor progress. Make your promotions successful and growth easy with BayIQ.