Managing your online presence can seem like a daunting task, especially for a local auto shop, but it doesn’t have to be. With digital marketing constantly expanding, there are an overwhelming amount of tactics available to kickstart your online presence. From social media to email marketing to search engine marketing, each tactic provides a unique benefit to your business’s success. Below are two tactics that can easily jump start your digital marketing and get your online marketing presence up and running in no time.
Reputation Management
The first step any local auto shop should take when starting to wrangle their online presence is to claim their local listings. Local listings consist of review sites such as Yelp, Google My Business, and Angie’s List, and information sites such as Yellow Pages. Claiming these listings will not only give you control of the essential information of your business on these sites but will allow you to control your online reputation. When claiming these listings, you should also ensure that your business’s information such as the address, phone number and hours are accurate and correct any listings with inaccuracies.
Mediocre and negative reviews (2.5 stars or less) is a challenge every local auto shop faces at one time or another, but responding to these reviews is essential to keeping a positive online reputation. When responding to reviews, you should keep in mind that others can see your response and a defensive response could reflect poorly on your business. Instead, first acknowledge the reviewers feeling, and then keeping in mind the public eye, offer to take the conversation offline by asking if the reviewer would like to continue conversation on the phone or in person, in an effort to resolve their concerns. Managing and responding to reviews can be time consuming but will pay off in the end with a positive reputation, and thus, more customers, for your auto shop.
PPC
The next step to managing your online presence is putting your shop front-and-center for users on search engines with paid search. Paid search, or Pay Per Click (PPC), advertising allows small business owners to bid on searches related to their business offering and show up in one of the top 3 spots on search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo. With millions of searches happening every day on search engines, having a presence here is critical to finding new customers, as well as building awareness for your shop. PPC not only allows you to bid on searches containing your shop’s name, but competitors and non-brand searches as well. Non-brand searches such as “auto repair shops near me” or “oil changes in Washington dc” are the best way to attract new customers who may not be aware of your shop or what services you offer. With the right expertise on your side, setting up an account on Google or Bing allows you to get your campaigns up and running in no time.
If you’re thinking of improving your auto shop’s online presence, remember to keep online reputation and PPC on the front burner, and make sure to reach out to Conceptual Minds in order to ensure you have friendly and knowledgeable experts who can help guide you through the process of creating a winning strategy for your unique business.
