Should you be incorporating digital into your auto service marketing strategy? All signs point to yes--here’s what you need to know:
Making the Transition to Digital Auto Service Marketing
How Digital Marketing Changes the Game
Gone are the hey days of print, radio, and television marketing---while those things have not become entirely irrelevant (and in fact, we’d argue, are still important tools in your marketing arsenal), there has been a major shift in recent years towards digital-forward marketing strategies. It makes sense: as a society, we are driven by digital technology. Digital marketing, therefore, has an incredible influence on how we interact with brands and make purchasing decisions.
The auto service industry is among the last to adopt to a digital marketing strategy, but that doesn’t mean that digital is not an important element in your auto service marketing plan. In fact, the opposite is true. Digital has totally changed the auto service marketing world by creating more customer-forward, relationship-minded marketing and connecting shop owners and technicians directly to the communities that they are serving.
Reasons to Go Digital
Digital marketing is a great opportunity to engage your audience outside of the shop atmosphere. If you’re considering making the transition from traditional marketing to a more multifaceted, digital-friendly strategy, here are a few great pros of digital marketing campaigns:
- You can geo-target and behavior-target to reach the right people, wherever they happen to be spending their time online
- Social media marketing is a great opportunity to give voice to your shop’s values, your brand, and your team.
- Inbound marketing allows you to create relevant and helpful content that attracts potential customers at every stage in their purchase journey
Studies show that digital marketing is crucial for the auto service industry. In fact, digital marketing for automotives is estimated to create more profit than all traditional advertising channels combined.
Not to mention, of course, that 67% of the auto customer’s journey is now completed digitally. So if you aren’t capitalizing on that by getting your name out there, then you are missing a huge opportunity to bring in new business!
Making the Transition
If you are ready to start embracing the power of digital auto service marketing, here are 5 strategies to consider at the very beginning:
- Search - your online presence is a huge factor in determining success at the beginning of a purchase journey, so a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy will ensure that customers can find your auto shop in search results.
- Online Reviews - in the auto industry, a huge percentage of buyers turn to online reviews before making a purchase decision (an estimated 70% of consumers!)
- Mobile - If your website, content, and marketing messages aren’t optimized for mobile, you are missing out on the huge portion of customers who do all of their digital research from their phones.
- Email - when done properly, email marketing is a highly effective channel for auto shops.
- Social - 1 in 4 car buyers talk about buying a new car on social media, which means that they are also checking social media for referrals, recommendations, and to get a sense of the brand who may service those cars in the future. Social media is hugely important for the auto industry because it allows you to connect with new customers and maintain relationships with your loyal base.
BAYiQ is committed to helping your auto shop succeed. Schedule a BAYiQ demo today to see how we can help you take your business to the next level.
