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Whether you’ve owned your diesel shop for a short while or decades, one thing’s for sure: not many companies, especially marketing agencies, understand you.
Even mechanics that work on passenger cars often feel that marketing agencies don’t understand them and their brand. They don’t know how to start truck repair shop, much less market them.
On the other end of the spectrum, fleet vehicle repair shops have a business model that few agencies know how to sell.
Owners of diesel vehicles, whether individuals or corporations, have different needs from everyone else. And so do their mechanics.
In this article, we’ll show you what it takes to effectively market a truck repair shop. At the same time, we’ll let you know how much each of these services cost when purchased separately.
Finally, we’ll discuss how Dieselmatic is different from the competition, and how it saves you money.
Marketing your diesel shop
Like most businesses, diesel truck shops need to be marketed if they want to grow. But marketing is more than just putting ads in the newspaper and making truck operators aware of your qualifications. Marketing requires a comprehensive set of brand assets and name recognition building.
Want to grow? You need a website.
No matter what kind of trucks you fix, your shop needs a website. It’s easy to ask why, if you fix Duramax and other light engines, you need a site. After all, most of your customers are probably local landscapers, construction companies, and couriers.
Most of these vehicles stay in the area most of the time. And for this customer base, it’s easy to think that word of mouth marketing is enough to grow, right?
Not necessarily. There are light engines that are driven regionally. Sometimes smaller trucks are driven longer distances for a variety of reasons. If the truck breaks down in your territory, wouldn’t it be better if the driver could find your shop on his smartphone, while the tow truck is still coming? Or short of that, know where to drop in and get that engine knock checked out?
Of course, having a website is even more important for heavy-duty shops. Large trucks are driven across the country, and drivers may need a repair anywhere. These customers are just as valuable for your business as the locally-based trucker or small fleet.
For most people, a quick internet search is how they’ll find a truck repair shop. By marketing your truck repair shop with a website, you’ll let these customers find you. And, they’ll be able to see that you’re qualified.
At Dieselmatic, we offer “premium website” building services. Sites are custom-designed just for your shop, and site building is included in all of our service plans.
Sold separately, the average cost of website design is between $1,500 and $5,000 for ten pages.
Prices are highest in the United States.
Simply having a website isn’t enough. You need Managed SEO.
There’s little point in having a website if it isn’t going to get found by potential customers. For customers to find you, it’s important to be on the first page of Google results. Experts know that these pages get 92% of search-related site visits. And if owners visit your website, there’s a much higher chance that they’ll bring you their truck for repair.
How do you get a website to be on the first page of Google?
The main way is by using Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The process of SEO adds content and keywords to your website, which Google and other search engines use to find, index, and rank your website.
Marketing truck repair shop means ensuring that when people look for a shop in the area, they’ll find yours.
When you build your website using SEO techniques, it’s usually best to have managed services. That’s because experts will find the right keywords for your site and build them in, saving you time.
This involves content, landing pages, and other techniques. However, managed SEO services can be expensive.
According to one survey taken last year, the average monthly cost for Managed SEO is between $2,500 and $5,000 per month.
Dieselmatic customers receive SEO services at a level determined by their service plan, and it’s included in the price.
You can also buy search engine advertising (Managed SEM).
Another highly effective technique for marketing truck repair shops is search engine advertising.
If you’ve seen the “ad” results at the top of many Google pages, or the text ads on the side, that’s what we’re talking about.
In most cases, you pay for these ads by the click: every time someone clicks through the ad, you pay the search engine. Advertisers purchase space for advertising based on the targeted keyword in an auction.
For example, if a customer needs to find somewhere to have their Kenworth truck aligned, they’ll search something like “Kenworth alignment shop near me”.
Once again, Having someone manage your search engine marketing is the way to go.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a complex area of marketing strategy that many business owners don’t have time to master. Especially if you start a truck repair shop, your time is best spent on fixing trucks and building customer relationships.
With that said, SEM is one of the smarter ways to spur growth: in our experience, shop owners get 15 new customers on average per month using this technique.
As with SEO, it can be expensive to do search engine marketing.
Industry experts contend it costs between $2,000 and $5,000 to conduct a top-quality local SEM campaign each month.
Social media marketing helps augment your website.
Even a well-marketed website and top-quality search engine marketing sometimes falls short. That’s why you need social media marketing.
This technique involves placing sponsored advertising on social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram.
Done well, it should include retargeting efforts: using social media ads to try and get past website visitors to come back to your site and bring their truck in. By staying top of mind, your shop will quickly become the go-to place for regular maintenance and emergency repairs.
As essential as social media marketing can be, it also costs money.
According to WebFX, the average monthly costs for two networks is about $4,000.
For a small shop, this cost adds up quickly. But for Dieselmatic customers, it’s included in some of our service plans at a much lower cost.
Content marketing enhances your website and increases domain authority.
Domain authority is the degree to which your site is considered a “go to” destination for people searching particular keywords.
By writing and posting industry-specific articles, you can increase the traffic for people who want to learn about the topic.
For example, let’s say you specialize in Peterbilt rigs. Content marketing efforts could include an article on fixing Peterbilt carburetors or when the turbo might need attention. This will draw potential customers and other mechanics alike to your website. Over time, it will raise your domain authority.
In addition, content enhances your website. Not only does it tell people what kinds of engines you fix, and that you’re an expert, but it also contributes to SEO. Well-crafted content on a website causes the site to perform much better than competing sites.
Content creation services for a small shop, purchased separately, often run at least $5,000 per month.
Marketing is like a vehicle: it needs a dashboard
Finally, you’ll want to keep track of your marketing progress using analytics.
These are indicators of your success, such as how often people visit your site in response to an advertisement. You can use this information to double down on what works, and eliminate poorly performing strategies.
In the marketing world, most agencies provide a dashboard to their clients.
At Dieselmatic, we call it the Dieselmatic Dashboard. It’s a part of our service for everyone who works with us, and it makes life easier.
Service levels for Dieselmatic
Since one size never fits all, at Dieselmatic we have different service levels. Each of these was carefully designed to help your business grow at the right pace, and at a price you can afford. All our plans include a dashboard and premium website, which lets you see what we’re doing for your business and how well it’s performing. You can also make changes to your services from your dashboard.
Start Plan
Our Start Plan is the most basic service level. It includes:
- Premium website: smoke the competition with a custom-built website for your business.
- Basic SEO: Ensure your website can be found when it matters most.
- Monthly reporting: See how well your marketing spend is performing
- Customer support
- Top-notch website security.
Here, the monthly value of services purchased separately is $4,000-$5,000 per month. At Dieselmatic, we charge a fraction of this price. And, we’re industry experts.
Grow Plan
Next up is our Grow Plan, which goes beyond the basics. It includes everything in Start, plus these premium services:
- Managed SEM and SEO: customized for better results and responsive adjustments.
- SEO Boost: Ever more advanced SEO
- DieselDocs: Our version of content marketing for the diesel industry
- Quarterly account reviews: See if you have the right level of services every quarter.
- Dedicated account manager: Someone who gets to know your business so you can grow your business.
The approximate market value of the services in our Grow Plan is around $14,500.
But, by getting our Grow Plan, you can hope to spend less than 90% of the cost. You can realize significant savings while growing your shop.
Turbo Plan
This is our most comprehensive service plan. It includes “the works” to make your business thrive in no time. As with Grow, these features build on the next level down:
- SEO Beast: the ultimate in SEO.
- Social media marketing: Keep your business top of mind.
- Lead conversion pages: Let someone make an appointment online or get a repair estimate through optimized conversion pages.
- Google Ads specialist: Someone who’s an expert at maximizing visibility on Google, while getting the most out of your ad spend.
Using the top end of the industry average for everything, the Turbo Plan is worth around $24,000 per month if you buy the services separately, and about half that for the low end. Our fees represent a savings of between 80 and 90% off of retail — and we’re diesel repair industry experts.
Why Dieselmatic is better than a marketing agency
Here’s the thing: for most shop owners, hiring marketing professionals is the best way to grow their business. After all, marketing agencies let an owner collaborate with specialists, then spend more time running their business. Meanwhile, marketing people bring in the customers. It’s often a great tradeoff.
There are two main reasons why you should hire us. The first, as mentioned above, is our incredible value over buying services elsewhere or, even more costly, individually. The second is that we know the diesel industry. With our specialized knowledge, our efforts will often be more effective for less money than our competition.
What are you waiting for? Schedule a call and let us show you how Dieselmatic can work for you.
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