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Newsflash: Your shop needs customers.
Duh, Dieselmatic, you might be saying. My shop needs customers like a semi needs diesel. Tell me something I don’t know.
Okay, let’s try this on for size. Some of you have plenty of customers—more customers than you know what to do with. But some of you don’t…and we should always be at least looking for new customers, right? One fleet leaves, another takes its place and all that.
ENTER MARKETING!
(Here, the writer dramatically pauses for tepid applause.)
Tough crowd today, huh?
That’s okay. In a past article, we talked about all the things you might do wrong in marketing. Today we’re going to share some small things you can do to help expand your shop’s digital footprint and reach new customers today…all without breaking a sweat.
Well, you might sweat, depending on where you’re located. It’s pretty hot in Arizona right now.
Onward!
1. MAKE SURE YOUR GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE IS ACCURATE
Yeah, yeah, every other blog talks about the all-important Google Biz Profile. That’s because it’s freakin’ important! We really can’t emphasize enough how much impact this seemingly simple feature can have on your shop’s ability to grow.
If you don’t already have a Google Business Profile, stop reading this and go make one now.
If you’ve got one (or you just made one), make sure you keep the following in mind:
- Make sure the name listed on your Google Business Profile is, in fact, your shop’s name (you’d be surprised by how many discrepancies turn up).
- Add your contact information to the profile. That means your shop’s website, phone number, and so on. Again, a shocking number of shops (and other businesses) just…don’t…do this.
- Make sure your shop’s listed hours are accurate. Maybe you’re 9-5 from M through F and that never changes. But maybe you’re in a tourist-heavy area and need to extend your hours. Maybe you’re going to shorten them up during the holidays. The bottom line is, you want people to know when you’re going to be open and when you aren’t.
- Add professional photos of your shop! People want to see what it looks like—and don’t forget to upload at least one clear picture of your exterior so folks know what they’re looking for when they seek you out.
- List your services. This feels obvious, but the fact that we’re bringing it up indicates we keep seeing shops ignoring this advice. Tell people what you can do for them! It’ll spare you and potential customers all sorts of time-consuming fact-finding phone calls (or worse, lost business because a potential customer moved on to another shop that did list their services).
2. OPTIMIZE YOUR KEYWORDS IN GOOGLE ADS
We’ve discussed SEO at length in other articles, so we won’t rehash it too much here. Your SEO encompasses a lot of stuff (particularly for your website), but for this article, we’re zooming in on keywords and location for your Google Ads.
“You can’t always tell what people are going to be searching for when they’re broken down on the side of the road,” says Patti Moore, Operations Manager at Dieselmatic. “Are they searching for a ‘repair shop near me’? Or ‘Peterbilt breakdown’? Being able to optimize and review that and capture what people are actually typing in is really key.”
Reach the right customers by doing the following:
- Setting an appropriate service radius so you aren’t getting requests from a city, county, or state/region you don’t service.
- Choosing keywords that accurately describe the services you offer.
- Choosing negative keywords so customers searching for services you don’t offer don’t trigger your ads.
3. MAKE SURE YOUR STUFF LOADS ON EVERYTHING
Just because your website looks totally sweet on your sick gaming computer doesn’t mean it’s going to look good everywhere. “Most people in this industry aren’t visiting sites on a web browser,” Patti points out. “They’re on a tablet or their phones.”
They’re especially on their phones if they’ve broken down. So yeah, make sure you’ve got a responsive website that can pull its weight across multiple devices.
4. CREATE YOUR BRAND
Okay, admittedly this step might take a little more of your time. But something simple and memorable that you can slap across all your assets—websites, social media, signs, vehicles, and more—can really pay off.
- A clear, easy to read font—don’t make people try to decipher your name.
- Something you can duplicate across a variety of mediums (from giant billboards—if that’s your thing—to business cards and even your shop sign).
- Bonus points if you can work Ranger Rick into your logo.
(Editor’s Note: That is a joke. She was basically dared to add Ranger Rick.)
In short, your branding drives recognition. Think about the Star Wars font. It is absolutely synonymous with Star Wars. Every time you see it, you know you’re looking at a Star Wars product or a Star Wars parody. We don’t even have to put a picture of the text here. You know exactly what it looks like.
Your shop could be the local Star Wars for repair.
Think about that.
5. WORK WITH DIESELMATIC
Hey, you knew this one was coming, right?
We thought about not really writing an article at all and just saying hire Dieselmatic, but we did want to provide some ideas for those of you who aren’t ready to jump into a partnership with us just yet. Here, if you’re super curious, you can see what sets us apart from the competition.
For those of you who are interested…hey, hit us up. We’d love to work with you!
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