Marketing Strategies for Auto Repair Shops: Blogging, Social & Co-Marketing Tips

Hubspot, the two-billion-dollar ‘inbound marketing’ company, recently hosted its massive INBOUND conference here in Boston. We joined, with an eye toward learning some useful marketing strategies for auto repair shops, so we could share with our community of service providers.
The focus of INBOUND was — appropriately —  “inbound” marketing, or creating content — blogs, social media, videos, white papers, newsletters, podcasts — that attracts people who are interested in your business. The better optimized your content, the more potential clients you’ll attract. We joined the conference with our “small business marketing” cap on, looking for nuggets to share with our community of automotive service providers. Here’s hoping these marketing strategies help you to find more in-market customers in your neighborhood.

Content/Blogging Tips

• Do you have a long-form article? Post it on a Monday, when people are more likely to read them, as they settle into work after the weekend.
• Articles about “negative superlatives” tend to do well. Case in point: our “The worst things to say to your mechanic” has generated a bunch of Facebook shares. Positive superlatives do well, too.
• 76% of Hubspot traffic – which is about 24-million unique views per month – comes from about 30 old posts. If your traffic patterns are similar, be sure those high-traffic posts are as engaging as possible, and that your call-to-action is strong.
• Identify your most engaging content and save it to use it later. Consider repurposing a blog into a podcast or a video. Or rewrite it, and add infographics to update it.

Social Media Tips

• 99% of social leads came from content produced in previous months. Don’t be afraid to post older articles on social media, as long as the information is still relevant.
• Post articles on social media twice per month at most, and only if they’re really good.
• Find a blog article that performs well organically, then double down with paid promotion on social media, to amplify it.
• Live Video (such as Facebook Live) works well if it’s really casual. There’s not much prep needed to create it. Just ask the guys at Park Auto Service, who racked up more than 7,000 views on this Facebook video.
• Caution: content should feel unique to each social network. Don’t post the same thing on Twitter as on Facebook and Instagram (Go ahead and check — we’re following our own advice!). If you only have one social-media account, this won’t be a problem for your business.
• Gifs do really well

Check out more social media tips from the experts here. 

Co-Marketing Tips

Another marketing strategy for auto repair shops? Work with others like you, and get in front of audiences you don’t know through co-marketing.
Here’s how (and it’ll explain what co-marketing is!):

• Find a content partner who’s creating something similar to what you do.
• Work together to create an offer, and then promote it separately on social media. Share each other’s posts.
• Consider creating an e-book (like this one from the Car Care Council) together; it’ll take half the time, as the work is divided. Then you and your co-marketing partner will share the piece with each of your social networks and email distribution lists.

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The above info reflects Chelsea Hunerson’s session, “Less is More: How To Do Better Social with Less Content.” Huge thanks to Hubspot and the Hunerson for the info!
If you own or operate an auto-repair shop, here’s one more marketing strategy for auto-repair shops — try Openbay. Openbay is an online marketplace that’s transforming how auto-repair businesses attract and retain local, in-market customers. Check out more info here.