In marketing collision repair, the bad news is body shops are only in one place, and other locations could be better. The good news is it’s truly your place and you can build from it.
Smaller solo shops, independents and rural operators can come to the promotions game with built-in benefits to exploit for results with marketing that wouldn’t make sense for dense urban areas and larger repair centers, while also doing the basics with the occasional creative flourish. Meanwhile, there are ways to stand out in competitively crowded fields and MSOs can give guidance, if one watches.
Start with why; here’s the how.
Google First
Google, Google, Google.
“It’s the three biggest ways we’re seeing to ‘increase cars in your drive,’” said Micki Woods, a former shop owner and marketing director with 20 years of industry experience, a podcast and Micki Woods Marketing.
Micki Woods.
The three: Google (paid) ads, a shop’s Google profile, and organic (unpaid) SEO -- search engine optimization.
Woods cited a study of 1.1 million small business leads from marketing-call tracking software maker CallRail showing “80% of inbound conversations across industries” came from those sources.
“They are the top marketing channels. We are living in Google’s world,” Woods said.
Buy ads, called “pay-to-play.” Maximize the free listing Google generates with a map, to the right of search results, and ask customers to review the shop. Fill the shop’s dedicated website with keyword-based new content.
All the time.
A shop owner should start before they need it and be consistent, said Daniel Burkholder, who ran his family’s body shop in British Columbia for eight years before opening Oklahoma-based BodyShop Marketing.
“[Customers] only need us when they need us,” Burkholder said, citing the oft-noted seven to eight years between wrecks. But the shop must be ready -- and it’s not the whole story: “People have nephews and they have neighbors,” he said.
A shop’s profile and website “need to be producing optimized content, reviews, new photos, Q&As,” he said, “a lot of activity, generating ‘signals’ -- telling Google to move you up in rankings. Having a website does very little good” without timely content.
Find What Works in Your Market
No news is definitely bad news.
Victor Botnari runs Universal Motorcars. Its second and latest location opened in February in 19,000 square feet, with ADAS calibration, digital welders and dedicated space for aluminum work.
Daniel Burkholder.
“There was pretty much no business” at the first shop, which Botnari bought several years ago. He rents vehicles too, and at the new site, “I’m going to be selling cars.”
Botnari has been quoted by local TV news and morning talk shows on common consumer concerns: how paint can be damaged, driving in bad weather, and spiking theft rates of catalytic converters or fuel.
He worked with three local channels and did little to push himself. Opening the new shop, he had less time and now works his new hustle: a promotional car wrap on a Tesla Cybertruck.
Botnari employs a dedicated marketer to handle Google SEO and social media, including Yelp, and is big on Instagram, with 6,000 followers and 1,200 posts. Owners must pivot if an approach dries up or takes too long.
Clayton Millsap’s rural southern Illinois shop recently held its first “ladies’ night” and “we will do it again.”
The event drew 25 people to The Damage Co., including a mom who “brought her 15-year-old daughter who’s learning to drive.” Millsap invited a tire tech and an insurance agent -- both women, both local -- to talk cars: changing oil or choosing tires, and what to do after an accident.
Women influence body shop selection, choosing for themselves or with others. Millsap promoted the night on social media and in the shop, integrating it with a curious and clever small-town focus: asking a pizza place to tape fliers to carry-out and delivery orders.
Cooperation like that is “what’s nice about small communities,” Millsap said. “If Caliber asks ‘Can I advertise on your pizza box?’ the answer will be ‘Not without paying.’”
Millsap talked with Burkholder about marketing, and learned Google strategies weren’t needed. But in a shop owner’s local area, he said, “You go to church with your customers, you support local youth sports.” Get to the soccer picnics and Little League games, and get the shop name on those banners.
“I have a client with billboards and bus-wraps in a small town,” Woods said. “In most markets it’s not going to work well, but he’s in a small area. It’s a great little thing for him.”
Woods likes radio for smaller communities as well, but not for most.
And it’s OK to be creative.
For MSOs and Some Markets, It’s Not All About You
That is, marketing doesn’t have to be slick.
Script Google ads and sow website seeds, but earnest and honest beats smooth and shiny; you don’t even have to talk about you.
Texas MSO Quality Collision Group social media posts highlight its shops. These don’t talk directly of QCG, but kinda do, as shops get some love. Independent shops can shout out to staff, clients and businesses: pizza, anyone?
In the Southeast, Better Collision Centers blogs roughly weekly. It doesn’t always get a ton of views, but new Google content and material can be used everywhere -- which Woods wants from all content.
Mike Hritzak.
Tennessee-based Brightpoint Auto Body Repair sometimes doesn’t talk about shops at all.
“We buy a lot of local shops with strong names,” said Mike Hritzak, director of operations. The money can be deployed elsewhere, as in targeted marketing for Dent Master Collision in Utah, which offers RV repair.
“Pre- and post-RV season, we will ‘geo-fence’ an area for owners or near an RV park,” Hritzak said. “We drill down.”
A shop might vaguely know it needs to contact insurance companies, but how? “If you’re Baby Boomers or older, you’re calling your agent. Your relationship is with the guy -- you didn’t buy [your insurance policy] from a website. A lot of people miss that, because they don’t chase it; we’ve done it forever.”
Even with shops tops in their markets, “we highlight our surveys,” Hritzak said. “Valet Autobody,” also in Utah, “has 1,000 five-star reviews.”
Burkholder said shops should spend 5% of revenue on marketing, and view it as an investment.
But why do it at all?
“If people just call their insurance company” after a crash, Woods mused, why Google at all?
The answer’s easier than the question.
“Because it works.”
Paul Hughes