Marketing for Independent Auto Repair Shops

Well, we are one day away from partial opening of California. Some client shops are back to normal pace, even though technically speaking San Francisco Bay Area will be under shelter-in-place until end of May. Yes, auto repair shops are exempt, but it didn’t help much at the beginning of April - things were pretty rough for a couple of weeks. Now Bay Area stores are starting to reopen, regardless of the health directives, and the traffic at all auto repair shops is picking up. Surprising amount of walk in traffic - something we normally don’t count on, but these days it’s a nice addition to the marketing and advertising we do. Might have mentioned before - we have been super busy supporting our clients - for the past 7 weeks I have been working full days, 7 days a week. But situation was changing from week to week, so had to keep on top of what was working, what was not. Granted, some things, like SEO, don’t require day-to-day attention, but we run a lot of pay ... read more

Our clients have been under shelter in place since March 16, 2020. Some things we have observed during that time: Week 1: The first week of shelter in place was a shock - but the revenue hit was not significant - most shops were scheduled about a week ahead, so they were able to work with pre-scheduled appointments while scheduling new work for the following week. Week 2: Second week saw significant drop in the effectiveness of pay-per-click advertising, and number of appointments started to fall off. Week 3: Third week pay-per-click advertising was dead - for most clients we turned it down to a bare minimum - we still kept it running though, to keep competitors from having a free pass. Third week was definitely the most difficult so far. Shops turned up marketing to own customer lists since new customers were scarce. Week4: Week four showed major revenue improvements as existing customers took advantage of deals off ... read more

Auto repair shop owners have an abundance of marketing and advertising choices - from Yelp and Google, to industry specific CRM companies like Kukui or Autovitals. Add to the mix Repair Pal, Mechanic Advisor, Open Bay, and the startup of the week ( it sure seems like a new startup in the auto repair marketing industry is launched every week), and just talking to these companies can take up a better part of your week. At Mechanic Grid we save you time and simplify your life - we talk to the vendors - current and new, we manage marketing and advertising campaigns on your behalf, and translate marketing industry gobbledygook into language that we all understand - car count, ARO, efficiency, productivity and sales. This blog will cover what’s happening in the auto repair industry marketing, latest trends, and the newfangled marketing schemes - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Stay tuned