What Are Marketing Strategies That Bring in More Auto Repair Customers?

When you started your shop, you probably had to get the word out there. Maybe you passed out cards at your gym or got your family to tell all their friends about your new business.

Today, you likely have a loyal customer base. Your regulars drop by whenever they need repairs, and they probably also recommend your shop to their friends and family. That word-of-mouth marketing is immensely valuable. After all, new folks can’t come to your shop if they don’t know about it!

But even with loyal customers who spread the good word about your shop, you’ll eventually hit a plateau. People don’t have an endless number of friends and family in the area that they can keep referring your shop to.

Plus, think about all the places people get their information from these days. There are so many different outlets: TV stations, newspapers, local magazines, social media, online publications…

By-and-large, not all people get their information from the same places. Half of your potential customers might be on Facebook, and the other half might be on Twitter. There might even be some who prefer learning about things offline by picking up the newspaper. You have to be able to reach people across multiple channels.

Even then, people can be fickle. A new customer that one of your regulars referred your shop to might visit your shop once but then decide to check out a shop that’s closer to them, even though they really enjoyed the service your team gave. These are just a few reasons why, as nice as word-of-mouth marketing is, it shouldn’t be the only marketing strategy you rely on.

You can cast a wider net and reach more potential customers by combining word-of-mouth marketing with other marketing strategies. Here’s how to find the right mix of marketing strategies to maximize the number of customers who will stop by your shop and generate more profits.

Auto Repair Shop Marketing Strategies to Retain Existing Customers

Think about your own experiences as a customer. Maybe you have a favorite Italian restaurant in town. There are various reasons why you might keep frequenting that restaurant instead of seeking out a new one. Maybe that Italian restaurant has your favorite spaghetti carbonara and they always bring you a free cup of your favorite soda whenever you stop by.

The restaurant owner knows you're a regular, but also likely understands that your future business isn’t guaranteed. Your friend might introduce you to a new Italian restaurant or you might just quit eating out altogether, for instance. Knowing that losing your business is a possibility, the restaurant owner might implement different strategies to encourage you to come again. Perhaps they give you a 10% discount after every five visits, or they give you free dessert every once in a while.

Auto repair shops and Italian restaurants are very different places, and the strategies that’ll work to get customers to come again will vary. Like that hypothetical Italian restaurant owner, you can roll out certain marketing strategies for your existing customers to increase the likelihood that they’ll stop by again and become loyal customers—and ardent promoters.

Any time they need a repair, they’ll come to you. And any time someone they know needs a repair, they recommend your shop, just like you recommend that Italian restaurant to anyone looking for a good place to grab a bite.

You might be able to start some of these auto repair shop marketing strategies today, while others may take some more planning.

1. Sell Declined Jobs

The easiest way to get more business from existing customers is for one of your service advisors to look at the proposed repairs they declined during their previous visits, and call up the customers to check in with them and remind them of repairs and maintenance work that may be needed soon.

Maybe a customer came to your shop a month ago with an engine problem. But while inspecting the vehicle, a technician found that the brake pads were starting to wear thin. At the time, the issue wasn’t severe enough to warrant a brake pad replacement then and there, but the technician noted that it would need to get resolved in about a month or so.

If a service advisor calls up that customer to ask if their brakes are making noise, or how their brakes are holding up, there’s a very high chance that the customer will say, “Yeah, I’ve noticed they’ve been acting up,” and your service advisor can get them on the shop’s schedule.

You already have an “in” with that customer; they’ll probably want to finish the repair where they started the repair, rather than hunting around town for a new shop. Plus, the customer will appreciate your team’s attentiveness and diligence by reminding them about their repair.

They’ll think something along the lines of, “Wow, that team really paid attention to me, remembered me, and cares about my wellbeing.” That positive impression will then increase the likelihood that the customer will come back again and again in the future whenever their vehicle needs work.

2. Give Them Something to Take Home Each Visit

If you can give customers a little something to take home during visits, like a flyer on “Engine Maintenance Best Practices” or a pamphlet that details “What to do When You Have a Flat Tire,” your customers will have a useful resource they can refer to at home.

Whenever they do, they’ll remember that you went above and beyond to give them a great repair experience—and they’ll also see your name and logo. It’s a win-win.

The goal of brand marketing is to stick in the heads of consumers. You want to be the first company customers think of when they think about auto repair. So if they end up having a flat tire down the line and pull out your pamphlet to figure out what to do in the interim, they’ll likely think, “I should give them a call and take my car in.”

3. Send Holiday Gifts or Other Timely Gifts

Giving small gifts to your customers during the holidays or during other times of the year is a great way to show them that you appreciate their business.

Some ideas for when to time your gifts include sending gifts to celebrate:

• ​The holidays
• ​Birthdays
• ​Special occasions (like wedding anniversaries)

As for what you should gift, some ideas include:

• ​Tire pressure gauges
• ​Sunglasses
• ​Glove-compartment friendly first aid kit
• ​T-Shirts
• ​Pens
• ​Keychains
• ​Coffee mugs

You’ll want to be mindful of costs. One way to ensure that you’re making the best return on promotional investments is to decide when to give certain gifts to certain customers, and measure the impact they have on shop profits. For customers you know especially well, you might want to get something a bit more customized, like a gift card to their favorite restaurant or ice cream parlor.

If you do decide to give customers gifts to other local businesses (like a pizza joint or your favorite Italian place), see if the business would be open to partnering with you. The partnership could be as simple as them allowing you to leave business cards at their hosts’ greeting area so that their customers can see your card, in exchange for you giving them business by passing out their gift cards to your customers.

4. Create a Loyalty Program

By starting a loyalty program, you can increase the chances that your customers will return. Some perks you can add include discounted oil changes, roadside pickup or a free annual tire rotation.

A simple way to determine which customers would be great to pitch your loyalty program to is by looking at each customer’s Lifetime Visits and Lifetime Spend with your shop. Customers who visit more often and spend more money might be more interested in the benefits that a loyalty program has to offer.

5. Create a Referral Challenge or Program

One of the best ways to give and receive is to create a referral challenge or program where you incentivize your existing customers to refer people to your shop for a reward.

For example, during a particular time range (like during summer months), you can run a referral challenge where for every three new customers an existing customer brings in during that time range, the customer who made the referrals gets a gift card or a certain percentage off of their next repair.

Or you can create a referral program instead, where existing customers can get rewarded year-round for meeting your shop’s referral program criteria.

Whether you go the challenge route or the program route, you should have a system in place that makes it easy to track who referred new customers. The easiest way to track customer referrals is to train your service advisors to outright ask each new customer who walks in if anyone referred them to the shop, and if so, who. That way, you can easily track which of your existing customers need to get their rewards.

6. Give Customers More Ways to Engage With You Online

Creating engaging online content that customers can interact with might be the most complex of the auto repair shop marketing strategies. It requires carefully deliberating factors like what kind of content you want to put out there, which platforms you want to put that content on, and who will create that content.

Some content ideas include:

• ​Running social media highlights featuring testimonials from current customers
• ​Sending marketing emails that give your customers relevant updates on your shop, information on repairs, fun facts, and more
• ​Putting together short videos of daily life at your shop
• ​Getting technicians to give some basic “repair-how-tos” in front of the camera, and posting those short videos on social media
• ​Creating short “fun fact” videos or articles about vehicles

One of the best ways to increase engagement on your website is by offering an online scheduling option.

"We're seeing a massive shift in consumer behavior. Consumers are used to making restaurant reservations, doctors appointments, and everything else online, so naturally they will gravitate towards a shop that provides a familiar experience. Over 71% of consumers in 2024 expect to book an appointment online"

—Kieran O'Brien, Co-Founder & CEO of Shopgenie

Auto Repair Shop Marketing Strategies to Attract New Customers

Some of the tips for retaining existing customers can also apply to attracting new customers (such as creating a referral program and giving customers more ways to engage with you online). But you should still consider implementing specific strategies to attract new customers in particular.

While walk-ins are certainly a thing, you shouldn’t depend on them as your sole way of getting new customers. Instead, here are some approaches you can take to gain a steady stream of new customers coming through your doors.

1. Get Involved In Your Community

One of the most fulfilling, fun ways to attract new customers is to get involved in your local community. Think about all the various events that happen in your neighborhood, town, or city during a given month: school fundraisers, networking hours, football games, animal shelter adoption showcases, cook-offs, and more.

For example, you can partner up with a local high school and sponsor their football team. From there, you can market your business in various ways, like getting your logo on their helmets and handing out special coupons to the players and their families.

If you want to give back even more, you can partner with a nonprofit to raise money for their cause, or help them raise money for a cause (like hosting a parade, a cookout, or a carshow).

The best part of getting involved in your local area is helping people, in turn strengthening your community. When you do good things, good things will come back around to you.

2. Run Special Promotions For First-Time Customers

You can run special promotions for new customers, such as offering a certain percentage off on their first repair, or running an oil change special for them.

However, if you run special promotions for new customers, be sure to run similar promotions for your existing customers. You don’t want your existing customers to feel left out and like you’re only interested in getting new business as opposed to keeping their business. You don’t necessarily have to run the special promotions for both groups at the same time, but it’s a consideration worth making.

If you set up a loyalty program alongside special promotions for new customers, you may also find it easier to turn some of those new customers into lifelong customers as well.

Also, make sure that the discounts you offer don’t cut into your margins. Carefully evaluate how much you want to discount certain services.

3. Partner Up With An Adjacent Local Business Like a Body Shop

One of the most effective ways to generate new customers is to partner up with another local business, ideally one that offers an adjacent service to your shop like an auto body shop or collision repair shop.

For example, you can set up an arrangement where if a customer who goes to the body shop needs repair work, the body shop refers your shop to them. And if a customer at your shop needs work done on the body of their car, you can refer them to that body shop. Both businesses benefit.

However, before you enter any business partnership, do your due diligence to get a good feel for the other business and the team that runs it. You don’t want to refer your customers to a body shop with tons of bad reviews and complaints about unpleasant customer service. The reality is that when you refer someone to a less-than-stellar business, it reflects poorly on you.

Additionally, be sure to reach a mutual agreement with the other business owner about ground rules. For instance, you might want to specify to the body shop owner that you don’t work on certain types of vehicles so that they know not to refer those owners to you. You should also weigh other factors, like what your time and resource commitment will have to be, and if your partner will genuinely be invested in your success before you make the leap.

Don’t be afraid to think outside the box, either. While it might make more sense to partner with a business focused on another aspect of auto repair, you don’t have to stick within the industry. You could partner with a pizza shop and display their business cards at your shop’s front desk (and conversely, they can display your shop’s business cards at their checkout area). And of course, you can have more than one partnership. Just be sure you think carefully and evaluate your options before you move forward with any business partnership.

4. Advertise Locally

Advertising locally is one of the most effective auto repair shop marketing strategies to draw new customers into your shop. After all, if they don’t know about your shop, how will they know to come to you for repairs?

Think about all of the local avenues you can advertise in or at: the local paper, small magazines, school mailers, networking events, poolside cook-offs, and sporting games are just a few!

If you decide to advertise in a publication, like a newspaper or a magazine, research rates to determine what size ad makes the most sense. Also, if the publication doesn’t already provide it, you can ask them about the size of their readership to get a sense of how many people your ad might reach. As for advertising at local events, just be sure to follow any and all guidelines, and use your best judgment.

You might even decide to send out mailers of your own, like those local ads you get in your own mailbox. Again, research the costs and go with the provider that makes the most sense for your finances.