[wendydavid]

I agree with Vdepot above.  

Some of my auto repair shop clients have invested with Angie’s List for many years. But starting this year we are stopping.

They did work really well for a transmission shop.  But since they’ve changed their platform, none of my clients have gotten any results at all.  

Angies List historically has not offered any conversion or activity tracking.  Maybe they do now but I have yet to see it.    Angie’s List is a huge thumbs down for auto repair shop marketing until things change. 

If you are investing in online advertising for your auto shop, my recommendations in order of priority are:

Google Adwords

RepairPal

Yelp (it depends).

[wendydavid]

I have clients in Phoenix, Boise, Long Island and New Jersey who have been members of Repairpal for several years. RepairPal consistently brings in clients and is well worth the investment of $199 per month.  In addition you can opt in to the “Tow in” program for a small extra fee and when people break down, they get towed to a repairpal certified shop.   

As far as the estimating widget, we understand that those rates are merely samples and are not indicative of our rates. We’ve never had an issue with clients using the estimator and wanting us to lower our rates. Repairpal does not regulate your rates. 

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with Repairpal other than my clients do  business with them.  In every dealing with repairpal the staff have been professional, responsive, courteous and knowledgeable.  

[wendydavid]

Hi Jeff, here are some tips from my experience in auto repair shop marketing.

3 Marketing Ideas That Will Increase Car Count Immediately

• Send out an email newsletter with a limited time offer. Make it such a great deal that people will run to their phones!
• Because only about 30% of your email list will read their email from you, send out a printed version of the offer to your whole database.
• An alternative is to just mail a great offer to your inactive customer list such as a gift certificate or the “check mailer.”

Plus I would look at investing in Google Adwords, RepairPal and Yelp.com.  Those are the 3 platforms that send the most calls to my auto repair shops. 

All the best,

Read Morehttp://www.23kazoos.com/100-marketing-ideas-for-auto-repair-shops-plus-4-marketing-ideas-that-will-increase-car-count-immediately/

[wendydavid]

I manage Google adwords for several auto repair shops across the US.  I’m Google Adwords certified and an approved Google partner. I specialize in auto repair shop marketing. 

Google adwords delivers one of the highest ROI for my clients and is my top recommendation for most auto repair shops who are looking for business right now.  

Here’s what you need to know:

1.  55% of people use their smart phone as a phone book when they are in need of a product or service right now.

2.  The smart phone has replaced the traditional print phone book.

3.  When people look for something on their phone they usually go to Google first.

4.  When you search for the term “Auto Repair”  in your city on Google, on your phone, in many cases, the first thing you will see is Google ads.  

5.  It doesn’t matter what your search engine ranking is. Google ads show first in competitive industries.

6. 55% of people don’t realize those top listings are Google ads, and call the top listings on their screen.

7.  If you want to show up on the top of the page, adwords will get you there right now.

8.  For those companies that already have page 1 organic rankings, the conversion rate increases 20% when they also use Google adwords.

9.  You can have as little or as high of a budget as you want on Google adwords, but most clients start at $250 per month for 10-20 phone calls per month.   

10.  If you get 10 phone calls from your adwords campaign and you close 3 of the calls at an average RO of $400, you generated $1200 worth of business.  (What’s that 3/1 ROI)

11.  Yes you can do it yourself, but it’s really a science and you need to understand things like quality scores and Target Outranking Share to name a few.

12.  Yes, adwords needs managed on a weekly basis. You can’t just set it and forget it.

13. If your ads are showing up at the bottom of Google, in cities outside of your demographic and under the wrong keywords, your adwords manager is not paying attention. Ads that show up on the bottom don’t convert. 

14.  If your adwords consultant or SEO or website consultant is not sending you monthly reports, they probably don’t want you to know what’s going on.  Or they don’t know themselves.  You can set up your account to show you  the number of telephone calls received, on what day/time from where.

15. Content marketing will get your website up there on Google, but it takes months to move your site up. Adwords works instantly.

Anyway. I love adwords for what it can do for shops. I highly recommend it.

Wendy Kenney