Marketing for Independent Auto Repair Shops

We finished ninth week of shelter in place with steady phone calls and solid numbers. Technically speaking, San Francisco Bay Area is only in stage 2 of reopening, but auto repair is back in demand again. Traffic jams are back on some of the freeways, and repair shops are busy. Marketing budgets are almost back to normal, with leading shops increasing marketing and advertising by 10%-20% over comparable time last year - while most shops are still shell shocked, we are taking market share

Even though Bay Area counties have not loosened up restrictions, citizens decided they’ve had it with bureaucrats controlling their lives. People are walking, jogging in much larger numbers. Stores are busier. Friends are visiting friends. Auto repair shops are busy. Revenue for most of our clients is back to normal, some are posting numbers better than they did in May last year. For the first 2 weeks of May, our worst performing shop is down 22% compared to the first 2 weeks of May 2019 - but in 2019 that shop was up 31% over 2018 ( y-o-y), so in the grand scheme of things, it’s not as bad as it may seem - and the shop is still running at 1/2 of the normal marketing budget. Best performing shop is up 20% over the first 2 weeks in May 2019.Over 80% of our clients are even or up compared to the first 2 weeks of May 2019 - despite their counties still being under Shelter in Place. Naturally we monitor things on daily basis, and run weekly numbers to make sure shops hit their ... read more

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