The new year is all about resolutions. Losing extra weight. Breaking bad habits. Saving more money. It’s the perfect time to evaluate your life and look for changes you want to make — and that includes changes and improvements in your business.
One of the most important things to take stock of in the new year, says Daniel Burkholder, owner of BodyShop Marketing, is your digital marketing strategy. Few things in your business have the kind of far-reaching ripple effects on your profitability and growth potential, he says, and there’s no better time to start than now.
As told to Lindsey Gainer
Define Your Goals
The first thing to consider is where you are and where you'd like to go over the next 12-24 months. We’re talking things like revenue, car count, the value of your average RO, efficiencies, sales closing ratios, customer experience, capture rate…everything.
In addition to thinking about your goals, ask yourself questions like:
- Who is my biggest competition? How are they marketing?
- What sort of population am I working with? Is my shop in a small or large market?
- Where does my workflow come from? What percentage are DRPs? Fleet? Referral? Independent?
- Do I need more work immediately? Or is slow growth an option for me?
- Can my shop support growth? Are my facility and staff equipped for more volume?
Thinking through the answers to these questions is important to find a starting point for your digital marketing plan. A great marketing strategy takes time to build… six to 12 months, on average, so the sooner you start, the better.
If you’re plenty busy at the moment — say, for example, 90% of your work comes from DRPs and that’s the way you like it — you might not have much need for new business right this second. In that case, you may want to focus on building your shop’s brand recognition through social media and local SEO efforts — things that take time to build, but are hugely important in the long run.
An independent shop that needs more customers immediately, on the other hand, might want to consider paid advertising, which puts you front and center with potential customers actively searching for a repair shop now.
Consider Your Options
You’ve completed a thorough evaluation…now it’s time to plan. There are plenty of “tools in the digital marketing toolbox,” so to speak, and the ones that can bring you the best return are largely dependent on your unique goals and budget.
Here’s a high-level overview of different digital marketing options, and who they might work well for:
- Social media: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and X are all examples. This orks great for brand building and maintaining a presence in the community. Every shop, regardless of their marketing goals, should be active on social media.
- Local SEO: Optimizing your website and digital business listings and gathering online reviews will help your shop rank organically for keyword phrases that people are searching for in your city. This is a long-term strategy that, again, is important for all shops.
- Geofencing: Allows you to target ads to customers in a specific geographic area — for example, when someone is near your competitors’ shops, or they’re within a several mile radius of your shop. It’s great for businesses who want to target their marketing dollars in a very specific way.
- Social media paid ads: Ads on social media platforms can keep your shop top of mind where people spend a significant amount of time online.
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: Paying for an ad through a search engine — a Google ad, for example — is considered PPC. PPC ads are highly effective because people see them in the exact moment they’re performing a search for an auto body shop — you’re meeting them in their exact moment of need. This is great for shops who need business quickly while they wait for long-game efforts (like social media and local SEO) to gain traction.
A shop with ambitious sales goals, for example, would likely want to utilize a combination of local SEO, PPC, and geofencing to reach as many people as possible. A shop that’s well-established and busy may just want to focus on one effort — like building their local SEO — to keep their shop ranking well in search.
And now for the question on everyone’s mind…how much will this cost you? Generally speaking, a shop’s recommended marketing budget can often be determined based on growth goals and a percentage of annual revenue:
- 5% – maintain market share
Anywhere between $2K-$5K per month is a reasonable estimate — but this all depends on your goals, size, competition, and many other variables.
A Step-By-Step Guide to Get Started
Depending on how much you want to do, digital marketing efforts can take up quite a bit of your valuable time. Many shops turn to professional services to help manage their marketing plans. But if you’re more of a DIYer, there are plenty of things you can do on your own, especially in the beginning as you get started.
- First, determine your goals.
- Next, dive into research. Figure out what people around you are searching for online when they’re looking for a shop, and how many of those searchers are finding you. Google has a free tool called Keyword Planner you can use to get started and track popular searches. To see your website statistics and learn how many visitors you’re getting each month and where they’re coming from, you can monitor your site with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, which again are free tools that you can access with a quick Google search. Keep this information top of mind as you move through the next steps.
- Start posting on Facebook consistently at least three times per week.
- Leverage your shop's Google Business Profile (GBP) — that’s the profile that pops up on a search results page when someone searches for your shop — to its max.
- Request 5-star reviews from EVERY happy customer, and then be sure to reply to every review.
- Post updates to your GBP a few times a week, and include a photo and a paragraph that includes keyword phrases (the ones you researched above).
- Use the Q&A section to ask and answer questions relevant to the collision industry.
- Upload new photos of your shop, work, employees, and customers a few times per month.
5. Build a simple website — preferably on WordPress — and optimize it for your keyword phrases.
6. Get your shop's info onto as many free online directories as possible (making sure your name, address, and phone number are correct) — places like BBB, Yelp, Google, Apple maps, and YP (Yellow Pages). This helps with your local SEO strategy.
Finally, make sure all of this hard work is paying off by following up with every new lead and closing the sale. And don't give up too quickly; you’ll need to stick with these efforts long term to see results!
Evaluating Effectiveness
With consistent effort and a solid plan, you should gain traction and really start to see your efforts paying off in around six to 12 months. You should see more traffic to your website, and more sales and new customers coming into the shop. Be sure to track where every job comes from — ask all your customers how they’re finding you and make decisions on how to adjust your efforts based on their answers.
