Marketing
Strategies
The way auto repair shops conduct business is changing because of a
dramatically changing marketplace. You can’t take business for granted anymore;
there are far too many competitors for the same dollar!
M
arketing—defined as
the process of buy-
ing and selling in a
market—includes al-
most every aspect of
your business, from
how your facility looks to the customer to
the appearance of your final invoice. Your
survival and prosperity depend on your
customers’ overall perception of how it
was to do business with you. Unfortunate-
ly, being the best is not as important as
being perceived to be the best.
Today, marketing should be at the top
of a repair shop owner’s to-do list. A pro-
gressive shop owner must realize that cus-
tomers expect technical competence, and
that superior technical knowledge and
skills won’t necessarily guarantee business
BY BOB O’CONNOR
success. In a nutshell, you have to provide
customers with more than they expect.
A well-thought-out marketing plan can
www.rloconnor.com give you the ability to exploit your com-
800-755-0988 petitors’ weaknesses, adjust to any new
competition, expand your service capabili-
ties, strengthen customer relationships
and minimize sales volume fluctuations. It
will also help eliminate unproductive pro-
motions and enable you to create and con-
trol the specific image you want to project.
To start formulating a marketing plan,
you and your staff must resolve to discard
old ways of doing business. This can be
accomplished through strong commit-
ment, along with an investment in any
necessary training. Beyond that, every as-
pect of the business will need complete
scrutiny and perhaps total redevelopment.
A formal marketing plan will take time
to formulate and involve a significant num-
ber of processes. Following are eight high-
ly effective strategies to get you started:
1 Create a company vision. Customers
come to your shop based on their per-
ceptions of your facility, your staff, the
products and services you offer and a host
of other considerations. Get together with
March 2000 71
your staff to try to answer the ques-
tion, How do I want my shop to be
perceived by my customers?
Surely you want your mechanics to
be technically competent, but how
would you price your services—bar-
hours are convenient, as well?
Organize these various elements into
some sort of cohesive vision, or state-
ment of purpose, and put it into writing.
Display it prominently so it can be con-
stantly viewed by you and your staff.
pair would be an improvement. It
would be distinctive and describe what
Fred’s business is all about—repairing
autos. Now, if Fred’s Auto Repair was
located downtown, it could be named
Fred’s Downtown Auto Repair. Not

Reception & Waiting Area Checklist

The following checklist should help you make sure your shop’s
reception and waiting areas are customer-friendly.

❑ Is the entry door glass clean?

❑ Does the area convey a feeling of openness?
❑ Does the interior decor make both men and women feel “at home” (warm
colors, plants, background music, etc.)?
❑ Is the area (including restroom) spotlessly clean?
❑ Are current awards/certificates and/or photos of customers with testimonials
displayed?
❑ Are educational items posted?
❑ Do you display “trust” credentials and memberships (e.g., AAA, ASA, ASE, BBB)?
❑ Are your shop’s payment options and terms clearly displayed, along with
business hours?
❑ Is the furniture clean and comfortable?
❑ Do you provide meaningful amenities (business area, children’s area,
refreshments, reading materials, etc.)?
❑ Is the area free from excessive noise, employee traffic and other distractions?

gain-priced, at the high end or some-

where in between? Do you want your
shop to be seen as a “nice” place to
do business, with a caring, friendly
and honest staff? Do you want to be
thought of as a general repair shop or
a specialty shop? How do you let cus-
tomers know that you’ve got state-of-
the-art equipment and use only pre-
mium-quality products? How would
you promote the fact that your shop
is conveniently located, and that your
2 Evaluate your business name
and logo. Look at your business
name. Is it distinctive? Does it de-
scribe what you do? How does it sound
when you say it? Let’s look at an exam-
ple—say, Fred’s Automotive. Is this
name distinctive? The name Fred’s is
distinctive. But what does Automotive
mean? It could be perceived to mean
auto sales, parts sales, auto repair or
something else auto-related.
Perhaps the name Fred’s Auto Re-
only is this name distinctive and de-
scriptive, it also mentions the location.
When evaluating a business name,
say it out loud to see how easy it is to
say, and how it would sound over the
phone. A good business name must
be able to be spoken without difficul-
ty. If it is hard to say, come up with
something better.
When developing a logo, consider
how the colors will complement the
exterior of your building and your

72 March 2000
shop vehicle, and how it will look on
business cards, lube stickers, state-
ments and invoices, in the telephone
book and any other place you may
choose to use it. When you choose the
style of lettering, go for readability.
lio of samples of their work. Also, ask
for references and check them out!
3 Examine the appearance of the
exterior and interior of your fa-
cility. Take a hard look at the appear-
Since some of your customers will
likely spend a fair amount of time on
the premises when they bring their
cars in for service, make sure the re-
ception and waiting areas are cus-
tomer-friendly. Use a checklist like

Determining Your Advertising Budget

T
he example below demonstrates establishing a budget in the seventh month of the year. If to-
tal year-to-date sales were $330,000, then average monthly sales volume is $47,143 (line 1). To
annualize the sales, multiply the average monthly sales figure by 12, which in this example
comes to $565,716 (line 2).
Once you have established the annual sales estimate based on current performance, multiply that
figure by the budget allocation, in a percentage—3% in this example (line 3). The resulting figure—
$16,971—represents the estimated full-year advertising budget. To determine the monthly ad bud-
get, simply divide the full-year total by 12 (months). In this example, the monthly budget becomes
$1414 (line 4).
Now let’s assume that this shop has spent $6231 on advertising during the first seven months of
the year. To determine the percentage of sales spent, divide $6231 by the seven-month sales of
$330,000 (line 5). Here, the percentage spent year-to-date is 1.89%, or slightly over half of what
should be budgeted.

Line 1: . . . . . $330,000 . . . . .  . . . . . . . 7 . . . . . . . . . . . = . . . . . .$47,143

Line 2: . . . . . . $47,143 . . . . .  . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . = . . . . .$565,716
Line 3: . . . . . $565,716 . . . . .  . . . . . . . 3% . . . . . . . . . = . . . . . .$16,971
Line 4: . . . . . . $16,971 . . . . .  . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . = . . . . . . .$1414
Line 5: . . . . . . . . $6231 . . . . .  . . . . . . . $330,000 . . . . = . . . . . . .1.89%

Also, select appropriate sizes for use
on various printed materials and signs.
The most successful way to develop
a logo is to engage a graphic artist.
Quite often you can source a student
enrolled in a graphics program at your
local community college to create a lo-
go for you as a project for credit. In
these instances, you usually have to
pay only for the materials. If you go
with an established graphics company
to create your logo, ask to see a portfo-
ance of your building—both inside
and out. Look at the arrangement of
vehicles on the lot, the cleanliness of
the grounds and building, signage,
colors, landscaping, fencing and com-
pany vehicles.
Checklists can help organize your
thoughts in this area. Visit MOTOR’s
website at www.motor.com and pe-
ruse the checklists on “Facility Exte-
rior & Lot” and “Work Areas, Com-
pany Vehicle & Staff” for some ideas.
the one shown on the opposite page
as a starting point.
4 Evaluate your customer data-
base. Your customer database is
one of your most valuable assets. If
the customer and vehicle information
has been accumulated and entered
correctly, your database should yield
valuable information regarding your
customers’ driving habits and their
vehicles, plus other useful informa-

March 2000 73
tion. Properly evaluated, it should
provide you with answers to the fol-
lowing important questions:
•How many customers—active and
inactive—do I have?
•How many vehicles per year does
each customer bring in, on average?
•How many visits to the shop does
each customer make per year, on av-
erage?
•How much money does each cus-
tomer spend each visit and annually,
on average?
•What zip codes are my existing
customers coming from? What about
new customers?
•Which are my busiest months?
•What is the distribution of vehicle
makes of my customers?
•Which types of vehicles (cars,
pickups, SUVs, etc.) am I servicing?
What is the percentage of each?
Having the answers to these ques-
tions will give you enough informa-
tion to move forward with setting ob-
jectives for your advertising cam-
paigns.
5 Establish advertising objec-
tives. A major part of your mar-
keting plan should involve advertising.
Therefore, it’s essential to establish ob-
jectives for all your advertising efforts.
For example, you may wish to focus
on increasing your repeat business,
reaching new customers or getting
back ones that left. You may want to
target female customers, or those new
to the area. Or you may decide to pro-
mote the types of service your shop
offers or the types of vehicles you spe-
cialize in. You may want to look to in-
crease business during traditionally
slow periods. The point is, you can
target your advertising better if you
have clear-cut objectives.
Having determined what you want
your advertising to accomplish, you’ll
need to establish a budget.
74 March 2000
6 Creating an advertising bud-
get. Because it’s easy to spend a
fortune in a very short period of time,
you must decide on a predetermined
spending limit for your advertising
campaign. The general rule is 3% to
6% of your annual gross sales, not in-
cluding available co-op funds.
The example on page 73 shows one
method of calculating your advertis-
ing budget in dollars and as a per-
centage of total sales.
7 Choose advertising methods/
media carefully. Select those
you feel will provide you with the
greatest return on your investment.
Conventional wisdom holds that you
advertise heavily to your existing
database before doing bulk mailings
to secure new customers.
There are a fairly large number of
advertising avenues that might work
for you, for example:
•Car care clinics—target women
with a “Powder Puff” session, or new
drivers; speak to drivers’ ed classes.
•Direct mail—send out monthly
service reminders; produce a
newsletter; follow up service with
thank you letters; publish image-
building brochures; etc.
•Local events—sponsor Car Care
Month and various community activi-
ties; hold customer appreciation days;
host fund-raisers for a local charity.
•Printing—custom-design your
business cards and stationery; order
custom Christmas cards; hand out
taxi and rental car coupons.
•Mailing lists—target new home-
owners and vehicle registrations.
•Movie theaters—create an on-
screen advertising message for view-
ing between feature showings.
•Publications—run ads in local
newspapers, magazines and newslet-
ters.
•Telephone—obtain a Yellow Pages
listing; create Hold and after-hours
messages.
•Radio—get booked on local talk
shows.
•Specialty advertising—buy space
on billboards; create an Internet web-
site; get your name on bus shelters
and in sports arenas.
•Specialty items—start a giveaway
program, with license plate frames,
roadside emergency kits, pens, hats,
coffee mugs, T-shirts, key chains, etc.
•Television—create a local cable
TV spot.
8 Track the results of all your
marketing efforts. There’s a
saying that if you don’t measure it,
you can’t manage it. Therefore, it’s
imperative that you create scorecards
for each of the measurable marketing
efforts you implement. Once you ob-
tain the results, match them with
your objectives to determine which
efforts are working and which aren’t.
Once you’ve implemented these
eight marketing strategies, you’ll have
a better understanding of your busi-
ness processes, your customers’
needs and wants and your shop’s ob-
jectives, all of which will lead to a
greatly improved bottom line.
Robert “Bob” O’Connor is President
of R.L. O’Connor & Associates, Inc.,
a Seattle-based automotive operations
and management training and con-
sulting firm. He is best known in the
U.S. and Canada for his automotive
management training workshops and
his continuous improvement Bottom-
Line Impact Groups. Bob is also an
ASAMI-approved instructor.
For a free copy of this
article, write to: Fulfillment Dept.,
MOTOR Magazine, 5600 Crooks
Rd., Troy, MI 48098. Additional
copies are $2 each. Send check
or money order.