The Complete Guide to Auto Shop Marketing

By Hibu | May 01, 2024

Whether your shop thrives on new business or repeat customers, auto shop marketing is the key to reaching local people looking for service, maintenance, and repair. With the right digital marketing plan in place, you reach your customers when they need you most — and on their favorite sites and devices.

Here’s our complete guide to auto shop marketing, whether you work in auto repair, auto body, auto parts, or another specialty.

Tip: Take advantage of our free auto shop marketing tools anytime.

The Benefits of Auto Repair Shop Marketing Strategies

Having a solid marketing strategy to promote your auto repair shop is vital to generating leads, boosting sales, and spreading brand awareness.

The greatest benefit you’ll see from an auto service marketing campaign is an increase in car counts. Your investment in developing stronger connections with the people you serve makes it happen!

The same applies if your offerings include maintenance, servicing, auto body work, parts, paint, detailing, or another process.

Auto Shop Target Market and Audience

It’s important to identify a specific target market when creating a marketing strategy for your auto shop, repair or otherwise.

You’ll want to do some research before creating your marketing plan to determine who your potential customers are. This informs the type of content you create and share — and practically all your other auto service marketing strategies.

These are some sample target audiences:

Luxury car owners
New car owners
Lifetime car owners
Sports car owners

Consider the range of differences between these audiences!

For example, luxury car owners are more likely to have mechanics inspect and repair their car where they bought it. Meanwhile, lifetime owners with older cars are more likely to go to general auto repair shops.

Let’s say your auto shop specializes in maintaining and repairing sports cars. You’ll want to make that clear in your automotive repair marketing plan so you attract the right clients.

You’ll also want to research and establish your customer demographics, then look for patterns.

Do you tend to service a certain age group or income level? Asking yourself these questions helps you corner your target market and audience.

Automotive Service Marketing Strategies

Consider these avenues when creating your auto service marketing strategy.

Website Branding

Your auto and car repair marketing activities should have a primary hub — your website. That’s why it needs to be in shape, remain up to date, and leave a lasting impression.

Here are some places to market your automotive business that will point back to your website:

Social media profiles — part of social media marketing, including social ads
Google Business Profile — part of listings management and review management
Emails and text messages — part of marketing automation, including email marketing

Creating a website that works for your auto shop is no small feat. It’s a task best left to the pros when you want it to truly bring in more leads and revenue.

Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Compatible

Mobile search accounts for over half of all online searches. Desktops take most of the other half, while tablet search makes up the rest.

Because it’s so widespread, mobile search means your business needs to have a user-friendly, mobile-compatible site. If you don’t, you’ll miss a stunning number of calls, clicks, and visits.

Use Web Design Best Practices on Your Site

When it comes to your automotive website, looks do matter.

And while what looks “professional” can be subjective, your custom site should follow some standard design conventions. Those elements make sure its visual design helps your customers find what they need.

Make sure your automotive website design includes these core aspects:

Plenty of white space — so your customers easily scan and find what they’re looking for
Design elements your customers associate with your shop — your logo, your brand colors, and “trust icons” like any professional certifications or associations (including name-brand suppliers and product logos)
Interactive content, especially customer reviews — so your website stays current, builds trust and encourages your customers to stay on your site longer

Incorporate Engaging and Digestible Content

Too many words overwhelm for website visitors.

If you end up needing a lot of text on your site, break it into one- to three-sentence chunks. Large blocks of text are difficult to digest, look cluttered, and rob your site of space that it could use for other reasons, like videos and customer reviews.

For example, people seeking information about auto repair shops may be stressed. They want to scan your site as quickly as possible for services, costs, and time.

Three types of text make your auto shop appear more professional and efficient:

A concise description of who you are
Lists of what key mechanic services you provide, with pricing a plus
The clear value you have that sets you apart

That said, your website content should always focus on your customer and stay consistent.

Any text on your site must center around your customers’ needs and how you can meet those needs — as well as how they’ll benefit from choosing you instead of your competitors.

Tip. If you have mobile mechanics, ask your web designers to note that plainly! They’re increasingly in demand among automotive industry customers.

Feature Positive Customer Reviews

Incorporating positive customer reviews into your website is critical.

When a potential customer visits your site and reads about how other people enjoyed their experience with your business, they’re more likely to choose you.

Never forget the force online reviews exert on your auto shop marketing.

Search Marketing (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search marketing, aka pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO) both help drive traffic from search engines.

PPC involves paying per click, while SEO clicks are free. The two are similar, but they’re not competitors.

Search Marketing/PPC

The most common platforms for PPC are Google and Bing. Creating ads that center on those platforms can help generate site traffic and customer leads.

Here are the ad formats you can use on major search engines:

Search ads
Shopping ads
Display ads
Video ads
Gmail ads
Amazon ads

And when it comes to digital marketing, place targeted ads everywhere you can.

SEO

Meanwhile, SEO services boost your ranking in search engine results, to put it as simply as possible.

And we can’t overstate its importance — SEO runs through every part of your automotive service marketing.

It’s a key ingredient in your marketing mix, but it’s a complex task. It’s best to leave it to the pros, who know the precise complexities of keywords, schema, and site audits.

Social Media Advertising

Social media offers a million ways to reach your customers, so it certainly belongs in your auto shop marketing mix.

Hiring a digital marketing team, like us at Hibu, to create social ads and run campaigns for your auto shop is the smartest route. But you’ll need to track which social media platforms work best for your auto service marketing.

We create ads and have a specialty in social marketing on two of the most popular social media platforms — Facebook and Instagram (now Meta). Other social media options include YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter (now X).

Each social media platform has preferences for the ad types that work best on it.

Here’s what you should consider in terms of ads and content before marketing on each social media platform.

Facebook

Facebook posts are fantastic for sharing business updates and service promotions.

Maybe your auto shop wants to promote oil changes before the start of the summer — Facebook is a natural avenue for sharing seasonal sales updates.

You can hold contests, introduce your team, and much, much more.

Instagram

Instagram is a more visual platform that shows little text unless a visitor reads captions or clicks a link in your business bio.

Posting photos of your shop, mechanics, and staff gives people a look into your company culture. Ideally, it inspires them to hire you if they like what they see.

Posting auto projects’ before-and-after photos is a smart option, too. It lets Instagram users imagine what their car might look like after you and your staff do the hard work.

YouTube

Most of us know YouTube is all about video content. You don’t usually visit it to read text.

YouTube is a clear outlet to post videos of technicians, mechanics, and specialists in action. Maybe they’re making auto repairs, explaining car maintenance, offering cleaning tips, or consulting with other mechanics.

How-to videos are natural choices for ideas and processes that you can most easily explain — and visitors can most clearly understand — on video.

As a business- and employment-centric platform, LinkedIn is the ideal outlet for sharing business updates.

Maybe your shop moved to a new location or brought on a new expert auto mechanic. Sharing those updates on LinkedIn keeps your audience up to date with your business’s goings-on.

Twitter/X

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is ideal for generating traction on website content.

Take full advantage of hashtags related to vehicles, auto maintenance, parts, repairs, painting, body work, and more. If it applies to your auto shop, use those matching hashtags.

You can also share links to your website content and related articles from businesses you support or partner with. Try to write engaging, organic posts (aka tweets) that reflect your target audience’s interests.

Marketing Automation

Targeted email and text messaging, aka marketing automation or email marketing, lets you promote your auto shop’s products and services.

Those timed, targeted messages also help keep your customers aware of what your business is up to. They’re particularly powerful when using automation tools like Hibu Assistant.

You can approach marketing automation in multiple ways:

Sharing new services, upcoming promotions and money-saving discounts
Requesting reviews from recent customers
Reaching out to previous customers to encourage repeat business

Review Management

Don’t let it slip under your radar — review management is one of the most important tasks in auto and car repair marketing.

If someone recommends your shop to a family or friend, that person is more likely to contact you. Customers trust other customers. The accompanying word-of-mouth marketing is powerful.

But even a single negative review can turn away prospective customers. Wherever your reviews are displayed, respond quickly and professionally to negative reviews.

It makes a world of difference when an unsatisfied customer knows you listen to and respect their concerns. That unhappy customer might even have a change of heart and reconsider enlisting your shop!

It’s equally important to encourage more positive reviews if any negative ones appear on your site.

A potential customer scanning through a review page only reads so many. Positive reviews from happy customers eventually push down and hide negative ones.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a smart way to generate leads and build trust with new and existing customers.

You have many content types and many ways to use them:

Blogs — creating content like a blog post about your business (and others on related topics) using SEO is a trusted way to generate website traffic
Webinars — creating webinar invites helps connect your auto shop with your target audience, develop relationships, and foster a following
Infographics — creating colorful and engaging infographics with solid statistics from credible sources engages and informs your audience
Videos — creating informative videos for clients who may need auto repair or maintenance (most people can’t service their vehicles alone) helps lead them to your shop

So alongside digital marketing specialists, craft and post content whenever you can. It bolsters your website, social presence and overall auto service marketing strategy.

Retargeting and Remarketing Campaign

It’s almost always cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to find and work with a new one!

A retargeting program can help you with crucial matters:

Reaching your existing automotive customers
Turning them into repeat customers
Keeping a steady stream of jobs, even if new customers aren’t coming through the door right now

You have two main ways to retarget and reengage your existing automotive customers:

Retarget people who visited your website with paid search ads, display ads, and social media ads
Remarket to your existing customers with emails and/or text/SMS messages

With retargeting, most people who visit your site won’t call or schedule service right away. You need to stay in front of them as they continue to browse online.

The same goes for your existing customers. By retargeting ads on the sites and apps they use, you can make sure they see your ads the next time they need auto services. And that means you have higher visibility.

With remarketing, you remind customers of your stellar services with helpful messages. An email or SMS text message is a great way to re-engage your customers and encourage repeat business:

Timely messages (“It’s been 6 months — time for an oil change!”)
Milestone reminders (“Thanks for a year of your business — here’s 10% off your wheel alignment!”)
Seasonal offers
Auto care tips
New shop and product updates

Here’s the bottom line:

Staying top of mind with your customers makes your auto repair shop (or any automotive shop) stand above your competition. Customers choose your shop over another for clear reasons.

Print and Offline Marketing Campaign

While print and offline marketing might seem too traditional or even old-school, it’s still a viable way to market your business.

You can pursue print and offline marketing in multiple ways:

Business cards that include your website URL
Postcards with discount offers sent to homes around your business
Flyers at local companies that agree to post them
Branded materials (like pens or totes) at local events

Digital marketing delivers peak effectiveness, but traditional marketing can certainly work its way into marketing for mechanics, automotive shops, and more.

Start Your Digital Auto Service Marketing

Contact Hibu if you’re interested in a custom digital marketing solution for your auto repair, auto parts, or auto body shop!

We will build you a smart website, create focused and targeted Instagram and Facebook ads — and craft a comprehensive strategy that leads to exceptional results.

Plus, we tailor your digital marketing strategies to the automotive industry. Our clients know our auto shop marketing solutions lead to business growth and success.

Call us at 877-237-6120 or fill out our Get Started form for a no-obligation, no-cost consultation.