Show Notes
On today's episode we're going to talk about Four (4) Local Marketing Tactics For Your Auto Repair Shops. And we're switching it up in this podcast. Christian and I are trying something completely different. You're going to want to listen to this episode.
Here are some key points to this episode:
- Reputation in this industry is key. Chances are you are going to make the bulk of your money for the year when a storm hits and consumers are going to shop. What are they looking for? Reviews and other people who have tried you out! The best approach is to be omnipresent and get reviews on Facebook, Google, Yelp, etc.
- Join the local chamber of commerce. Nothing gives you the seal of approval like a local business owner shouting you out on their Facebook page or NextDoor.
- Facebook lead ads! You should be offering a no deductible, no out of pocket, and a free rental car to incentivize people, but to reach people, using Facebook ads would be an effective way to gather information and generate leads. Bonus if you use messenger.
- The post-it note on the windshield - yes we all hate that, but if done tactfully it could really work. You should not just go out doing this aimlessly. But keep them with you and if you see a car with hail damage, put it on the car. It should say hey, can you give me a call? With your number. Then when they call, apologize if they thought you hit their car and explain and how you would like to help.
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Transcript
Aaron [00:00:00] We're going to talk about four local marketing tactics for your Auto Repair Shops. And we're switching it up in this podcast Christian and I are trying something completely different. You're going to want to listen to this episode. All right.
Christian [00:00:25] We're going to try to love something a little bit different on this episode and we're just testing it out. We don't know if it's going to work or not. We haven't really practiced anything. We, I just told Aaron that I had an epiphany that it might be better for us to I don't know bounce ideas off each other when we're talking about these and I guess challenge each other. Maybe I have challenges. I don't. I don't know exactly how this is going to work really but yeah we're gonna try to I guess talk to each other instead of just relaying this information to you guys or our listeners. We do appreciate you listening and hopefully you enjoy this episode. We don't know if it's gonna work but you will go well.
Aaron [00:01:07] And regardless of that whether we're talking back and forth or not we're still gonna deliver the same answers you're still gonna get the four local marketing tactics for auto repair shops.
Christian [00:01:17] Yes. Got it. Absolutely. So just to be complete transparent actually Aaron came up with all these right. Yeah. Take a lead. Yeah. You came over with the ad. Yeah. Yeah. We have that ad in the middle. OK. Let's go to this first one reputation in this industry is key.
Aaron [00:01:40] OK what do you think that so reputation is key. I believe in it. My experience is from like with the chamber all the business owners is like a lot of them are very sly in the sense that they'll come in after a storm. They'll come in after when it's convenient for them.
Christian [00:01:55] They don't necessarily build their relationships that they need to go now.
Aaron [00:01:59] They're like going in there and they're like hey look we know you had hail damage come in which is completely fine. But it's like a storm hits January 1st. They're in there January 2nd. You know you can see them drooling basically to like hey come over come over. I want your business business. Yeah. Similar to like roofing too I think. So that's why. And I think that's also why the reputation is key is to build the relationship before the storm and after the storm so that you can continue like you know storms are probably going to happen at least in the DFW area. They're going to happen again specially in the McKinney area. Holy cow. When you when we can you when that big storm hit.
Christian [00:02:37] I was driving towards it and we had no idea that you're talking about that one though. It looked like. No. Yes. I was unaware like ruined telephone poles. Yeah. So we were just driving from Megan's parents house which is in sexy north on 75. We had no idea that there was a storm. Nothing. All of a sudden we just see cars underneath the bridge. What's going on. We drive past the village and there's just snow. Like wait there's snow. And then we figured out there was hail so we weren't there we were maybe I don't know five minutes late. It was insane.
Aaron [00:03:09] Yes. I remember Catherine Brennan and she's over authority roofing and she sent out a picture and I was like it literally looked like the middle of January like after a snowstorm. It was like March or April.
Christian [00:03:21] Yes. Yeah it was pretty crazy. So OK going back to your reputation you talked more about the offline reputation now obviously online reputation is important as well.
Aaron [00:03:32] Right. Well I was talking about specifically for the chamber which will get into a little bit later but yes online is absolutely important. Like if your car gets hit you got these for the people who are going to go out and get reviews are going to go and get their car fixed immediately they're like well I can't deal with my car having it dent. I got to go do it. So they're going to Google they're going to Facebook and they're like asking their friends or they're going to next door and be like Hey who did you have to fix your car or who would you recommend if you just start the business or you don't have reviews there's no way you're going to get recommendations and there sure as heck no way going to go to somebody who has five reviews and they're all three stars did you. No way. So you have to build that over time the more reviews the more frequent the better.
Christian [00:04:12] Yeah. I think we talked about this on the last episode about concentrating maybe on Google and Facebook because they're just the two main players when it comes to reviews and what people are actually searching for. And we talked a little bit about Yelp but yellow is more for restaurants and things like that.
Aaron [00:04:26] But it does show up on searches though. Yeah.
Aaron [00:04:28] It's like if you search for something like a business if you search for big branding on whatever platform like one or two of them will show up and I'll be like Yelp which I don't think we have a Yelp review going to Yelp that happened to us one time where there was a business owner that may remember we actually did business with them but we did it was a very big project actually. Okay. Okay. Yeah I think I right.
Christian [00:04:51] But there was one other thing like Oh well you don't have any Yelp reviews. Yeah well we have 20 google reviews and 10 Facebook like and they're all like five stars you have still you don't have any Yelp reviews. It was very weird.
Aaron [00:05:04] Very quick. Older guy. Nothing against that but I think that's why he was like I go to Yelp for all my food to why is it my marketing company. All right. Number two join the local Chamber of Commerce. We kind of alluded to this earlier and it's kind of the it's the same thing as the reputation. But I guess whenever I wrote this always saying. Think of it as it's not. There's no better endorsement than somebody who knows that you like. Own a business. Say for example I'm a you're an auto repair guy and you go to the chamber and I use you and then I recommend you. But people know that I own a business so I owe this guy owns a business for whatever reason there's perceived value there. Sort of like oh yeah Aaron used Christian for his auto repair. You know I may give you five more referrals versus just somebody over here named Stephanie who you know you've heard of her one time you talked to her since high school. Like that's just the perception is just a lot higher there and join in the chamber.
Christian [00:05:59] You know you're not just saying join the chamber. I mean obviously the networking and creating other leadership is very important right. But on top of that getting those reviews from those business owners just holds a higher standard or you know or wait to just like you said someone else's. Yeah that's very true.
Aaron [00:06:18] I mean think about it this way. I mean if we had actually had dudes look at that because most of the people I ask who I want advice from or people who are asking for recommendations are business owners I'm going to trust them a lot more than somebody else that's just yeah.
Christian [00:06:32] I think whenever you need something you usually go to there's a private group for Chamber members. And I think that's the first place that you probably go to. You get a good local sense of you know who are the top players and whatever you're asking you know if it's a auto repair or whatever. So yeah absolutely. Join the local chamber interact cradles relationships and I think like Aaron does with Lincoln you know you leave accommodations for other people. You shouldn't do the same thing. Yeah. Not just on LinkedIn but again join those private groups and talk about other members and or how good of an experience you had with X Y and Z. That would just help you and your reputation.
Aaron [00:07:13] One thing about insurance agents too like you can refer those insurance agents you know that those people work so closely together.
Aaron [00:07:24] We haven't changed anything. Not yet. We say we're going to we are going to but we recording news about the same time.
Christian [00:07:31] OK. So today I really just want to talk to you about local marketing academies since we're talking about local marketing tactics and the local marketing Academy is a group that we started along with Abbie alter from Plano moms and it's essentially a monthly membership group both online and offline. The offline workshops you attend every last Wednesday. Correct. That last Wednesday of every month. And we usually talk about marketing social media business that buys the top latest trends news and everything. We also record all of our workshops so you get a. Recap recap last night word where they get a recap of everything you get to slide shows. So it's very very much information packed and a lot of how tos. We also do deep does into your social media account so we can tell you what you're doing good or you're doing bad. We can prove essentially the local marketing Academy just has a different range and gamut of business owners locally here who are wanting to get better marketing or social media. So if you're interested in joining this group you can go to local marketing dot Academy so as not dot com or dot co you just go local marketing dot Academy and I believe I don't know if at the time that this podcast episode goes out it will have it open but we really open registrations from a certain time period. If it's not open you can still put your name and e-mail in there so you join our list. Our wait list and once we open we definitely reach out to you to make sure that you're a good fit for the Academy.
Aaron [00:09:24] All right. Yes. We'd love to see you there. Or join us virtually. So love a local marketing Academy a great plug for them. All right. Number three here is Facebook lead ads.
Christian [00:09:38] Houses are different than regular and then OK.
Aaron [00:09:41] So lead ads and Facebook ads. They're the same. You use Facebook. Absolutely. But like a lead ad is. You don't need your own landing page or like a single Web site to collect the information Facebook provides that for you. So think of it as like it's easier much easier for the business owner. Absolutely. They can go in there. They create a form on there to get the information that they need. And it's submitted via Facebook and they don't have to create like a landing page. They don't have to create a bunch of stuff. It's like here's my ad. Here's the lead form and then they get the information from Facebook.
Christian [00:10:16] Gotcha. So is that something that I guess you would recommend just everyone to start with or now.
Aaron [00:10:25] I think it's to start with. And I think that one of the things we talked about on here is like a bonus like it's definitely the easiest and most effective way for you to start if you don't know what you're doing necessarily on the ads because you got to figure out the ads and you got to figure out landing page and you got to figure out all this other stuff. But a lead form just makes it a lot easier and you just want to make sure you gathered the right information and if you're just like a new auto repair shop you obviously know that you need to qualify these people to leave ads since it is so easy. Like you mentioned a lot of people will auto fill this information in. So that's why you really want to ask like hey what year is your car. When was it damaged. You know what your deductible or things like that so that you have to actually fill it out so that it qualifies a person a little bit more.
Christian [00:11:09] Got. And you're talking about here. They should be offering a no deductible or no out-of-pocket or a free rental car to incentivize people think that these ads.
Aaron [00:11:22] Yeah I think at this point that's like the even playing field if you ever. I was hoping my car gets a little hail image and it didn't get totaled because it was competing too.
Aaron/Christian [00:11:32] Yeah. The training offer better things. Right. I'm going to get a massage. Yes I know.
Aaron [00:11:37] I'm going to get one person's giving away not only two hundred fifty dollars deductible waived but free car rental. And there was something else but they also get free tenting for their car windows. I'm Mike please.
Aaron [00:11:54] Come on. Hey look just like I just need like little things like if it's from a storm you're your insurance doesn't go up you don't have to pay anything out of pocket you probably get a sweet rental car and then you get your windows tinted from a storm like this is the best day ever.
Christian [00:12:09] That's funny. You know I think I have debt in my car but I never bothered to get them fixed or anything. Yeah now you're saying all the things like that might make sense.
Aaron [00:12:20] Well if you have two years I think to to file a claim. So it didn't happen in March.
Christian [00:12:25] Yeah yeah. I don't know.
Aaron [00:12:29] But yeah you check it out. I mean I know a guy from the team actually multiple people but you just search online. That's like they're giving away one guy specifically pretending. So that being said Facebook lead ads allows you to get in front of a large amount of people without having to go to. I mean the chamber Vince gonna be good but you're gonna be in front of 100 people whereas Facebook lead ads you could be in front of thousands.
Christian [00:12:51] Yeah. Do we. Do we have anything written maybe a blog post or a video on doing a simple lead ad campaign.
Aaron [00:12:59] No prior to that. Yeah. Or tutorial I need new tutorials so I think that would be a good good tutorial if you guys think done me a good tutorial to do or you're interested in that doesn't have to be auto repair and you want us to do a video on that go to Instagram at that branding shoot as a team and be like Hey do that all her pale or do the hair pale auto know do that lead lead ad for Facebook and we can walk it through step by step and then send it out to you guys.
Christian [00:13:27] All right then the last one that we have here as far as local marketing tactics will be the posted note on the windshield. I've gotten a lot of those actually.
Aaron [00:13:36] Yes but OK so the tactic here as I didn't put it in unsealing the notes though is going to surprise you with saying like OK so you've gotten that stuff on the windshield right. It's very annoying. But have you got to post it now before.
Christian [00:13:47] Oh OK. No not really.
Aaron [00:13:50] So my tactic that I heard this last week is they don't do that stupid crap that gets stuck in a window and you look at it and you throw it on the ground hurt the environment actually.
Christian [00:13:59] I had one that got stuck. They got wet. It rained and then I just left it there for a long time. I got baked into the sun. And then when I was like Okay I'm ready to take this out the flyer was like stuck to my windshield. It was insane. Okay.
Aaron [00:14:15] Sounds like I could have been enjoying a DVD like I'm getting rid of it in 2019. You should probably. Oh my gosh. Megan if you listen to this. So please help. Chris I don't know what happened. It was so hot like I left it there for three weeks and it's like today's the day I'm going to do it it's a Saturday I feel good I'm going to take it I'll take it up and then it wouldn't come off OK.
Aaron [00:14:39] So the post it note strategy is to put a pink post it note with a handwritten message typically from a girl a girl's handwriting anyway because good right.
Aaron/Christian [00:14:50] Yeah exactly. That's a sexist. Well. I mean kinda. But it's almost always true. Yeah very true.
Aaron [00:14:57] But so a girl thinks that it's getting a message from a girl and guy thinks is getting message from a is like hey I would you know call me and that's all it says. And then when they call him it's like hey you used to call you like Hey sorry I didn't mean to alarm you I didn't mean to do anything to upset you or anything I just noticed that you had hail damage and you know we offer all of this for free. I don't want you to be out but I saw that you know you had a little bit of help hail damage and I'd love to help you. Here's all the things raw from this is where we're at like you know I can easily send information on I'm trying to bombard you if you don't want anything I'll hang up. And by that point they're like oh OK I thought something was wrong with my car or something that was you know an issue and nine times out of ten at that point there are really like Oh cool well yeah I've been trying to get the healed image fixed but I just you know had to go through all that hassle and you basically told me like I get it waived I get the free rental car Yeah I get all the information right there.
Christian [00:15:48] The other thing about this tactic is you can't go to for example an apartment complex that literally put the same posted on 10 cars in a row. It had to be more of a strategic you know placement to make sure that the people are not to see hundreds of post it notes on every single car.
Aaron [00:16:07] Yeah I think this is one it's like you do the Facebook lead and you go to the chamber. This is one of those ones where you just have them in your wallet all the time. And when you go to like the mall or you're going to places like that and you're like oh like this car looks like it has held image Oh God let me pull that one and put it here and so maybe you place three a day max but that's I guess it's pretty good margins for this company because if you did good three a day or two people to call you of the three then it's pretty good. And the guy that I talked to who said like he thought of this anyway is say if you end if you put out 10 of them within hours he'll get a call from half of those people and within a day or so he'll have 80 percent of those people call him day.
Christian [00:16:49] So now did he tell you how much business he gets out of that.
Aaron [00:16:53] So if they qualify they close it every time. I mean like that's what he said. So you know let's take that with a grain of salt let's say it's like 80 percent of the time but still if you send out ten eight of them call you. And then just even five of them actually become clients and then a little piece of paper is pretty good our. Yeah.
Christian [00:17:11] Is there a posted no strategy for Web sites.
Aaron [00:17:15] I don't think we should go in.
Aaron [00:17:20] Mm hmm. That's excellent. We should we should think of something pretty unique or cool for the four to get websites like that like hey look your Web site are like we put like a 2000 sticker like hey you know thanks for chillin in the 2000s cool things that were cool Shanaya between whatever else your Web site sucks now or something.
Christian [00:17:41] I'm not saying things like the other I can think of is an email and then we just have to write it really good and include gifts and all that to really make it not to sell singles.
Aaron [00:17:55] So whether you're an auto repair shop repair shop or another business you could use something like what Christian was talking about with the postage strategy and I think that's what would be pretty cool is using that strategy for ourselves but also other businesses too because it's just trying to be creative with the ways that you're reaching out to people instead of the same old things that everybody else's.
Christian [00:18:17] Yep absolutely. I really want to write that is four things four things.
Aaron [00:18:23] All right. So as Christian mentioned earlier this is a completely different style of episode. We wanted to talk more to each other and have you guys listen in on what we talk about. Sometimes it goes a little off the rails but we really want to hear your feedback on this episode. You don't have to leave it honest reading and review that be great bonus. But if you could go over to Instagram or leave us a D and be like Hey look I normally listen to the episodes all your other episodes where fire but this one was like three fire emojis and or not let us know and we'll switch back. We just wanna make sure that the show is good for you guys. But we think that switch will be really helpful for you.
Christian [00:19:00] Yeah I think so too I think. How do you how did you feel about.
Aaron [00:19:04] I felt good. I was like insert we're answering questions to help people vs. just talking at people and like you know not everybody gets all of the information they need tactics now me. I'm like OK that's great. I can get these tactics and use them but it's more conversational in the sense that people are. SHELLY Oh yeah. Like the stumps that we go off the rails about maybe relatable to other people that like oh yeah. Do the postage strategy or something. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you guys for listening and we will talk to you next week.
