The automotive industry is fast paced and highly competitive. As a business owner you have many priorities and attracting and retaining customers is key. As well as this, it’s crucial to offer a great service and have a process to measure this with.
SMS marketing can help you to:
- Create a simple campaign to acquire new customers
- Target offers to retain your existing client base and grow sales during quiet periods in the business
- Provide better service by text messaging hints and tips on car care and maintenance, aswell as reminders for MOT tests and services.
- Provide a substantial return on investment compared to traditional forms of marketing – email, newspaper ads or radio.
SMS marketing is great for busy business owners to target their busy customers. A short and ‘to the point’ message takes seconds to read and can generate a response just as quickly, whereas traditional means of marketing communications; emails and newspaper advertising, even a telephone campaign, take a great deal of time to organise and can be costly too.
From around 4p per message, texting is also by far the cheapest means of communicating with your new or old customers. Take email for example. It will take someone time to create a great email marketing campaign. Unfortunately acquistion emails have an average open rate of less than 11%.
As well as generating more customers, you can also use the 2Ergo Broadcast system to manage your appointments, such as services, MOTs etc. The benefits of this are that it looks very professional, and you can reduce the number of costly no-shows to your business. You can also remind customers of when their next service or MOT is due, ensuring you retain business from your customers.
Is texting right for my business?
The simple answer is that SMS/text marketing can be beneficial to any garage. The real advantage of SMS marketing is that it’s cheap and scalable; anyone can do it and to any number of contacts so it really doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, texting can benefit you.
Acquire more business
- SMS your old customers, offering a free tyre check when they pass by
- Offer extra incentives for referrals – 10% off your next service when you refer a friend
- 10% off all new tyres when you book a tyre check
- Remind your lost customers to return for an MOT and get £10 off the cost of a service
Improve your customer service
- SMS reminders for appointments to reduce no-shows
- Generate feedback and measure service – give your members the opportunity to fill out a feedback card and leave their mobile number. This will help you measure service and you could then offer 10% off the next visit for those who participate via text
- send occasional messages to warn of weather conditions that may affect vehicle performance
Knowing what to write
Text messages can only be 160 characters (including spaces) long, so there’s no room for waffling. It’s important that you get to the point quickly and that the client understands exactly what you’re offering them. As a rule, you should make sure that once you have created your message, it answers these three key questions;
1) Why you are contacting them – e.g. what offer are you making?
2) When should they act? – e.g. is there a closing date for your offer or promotion?
3) What do they need to do next? e.g. call or visit your garage
It’s important to keep the style of your messages friendly and chatty but at the same time, your message is clear and concise. Here are a few examples;
Example booking reminder/up-sell message;
Hi Dave, you have a service booked with us
Tuesday 11 Dec 11am. If you require a courtesy car
For only £20, call us on 01234 567 890
Smith Road Garage
Example hints/tips message
Prepare your car this winter! Ensure you add
Anti-freeze to your windscreen wash. To book
Your car for a free winter check, call us on
01234 567 890. BlueBell Service Centre
Once you have decided on how you want to use texting in your garage, and the content of your texts, you can determine how often you will need to contact customers and what your average usage of text messaging will be.
To learn more about how mobile marketing can help your business, visit our website http://www.crowd-connect.co.uk and lets talk!
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