The UK market for automotive maintenance and repair is fiercely competitive. With an ever-increasing number of garages and mobile mechanics competing against one another in local areas, getting new customers through the door and securing the loyalty of existing customers is crucial. In the digital age, effectively marketing your garage services is as important as other business fundamentals such as taking out motor trade insurance or managing your finances. Let’s explore some of the ways you can get more customers for your garage.

Provide a quality service

Everything should start with your customer experience. Ensuring that your existing customers are satisfied is the best way to secure repeat sales and encourage loyalty. Furthermore, happy customers are more likely to spread the word about your garage – increasing your brand exposure (and hopefully sales) through referrals. A customer having a negative experience is likely to have a damning impact on your potential for growth, so avoid this at all costs.

Create or upgrade your website

Traditional or well-established local garages may be reluctant to develop any sort of online presence. However, more business is being carried out online than ever before – particularly when it comes to browsing and booking vehicle maintenance. Creating a website and adding a business listing on Google will allow people to find you online from your local area and beyond. If you already have a website, upgrade it to show customer reviews, offer more payment methods or add trust signals such as Trust Pilot scores and payment badges – these all help to reinforce trust in your website which can help to up your conversion rates.

Improve your SEO

Having a quality website is one thing, but investing time and effort into search engine optimisation (SEO) is another. SEO is important because a large proportion of online traffic comes from organic Google searches, meaning that the more optimised your website is in Google’s algorithms, the higher you will rank for certain keywords and the more traffic you will generate for your site. There are a few areas to focus on in SEO, such as content quality, technical elements and website authority – but you may not have time to commit to all of them. Perhaps the next point may be of interest to you.

Hire a marketing specialist

If you own a garage and spend the majority of your time getting hands on as a mechanic, perhaps you would benefit from hiring a marketing specialist to assist you in gaining more customers. Recruiting a marketing manager could be a worthwhile investment to drive growth for your garage over several years, through developing your traditional and digital marketing strategies.

Invest in local advertising

A large proportion of a garage’s revenue comes from the immediate area surrounding the premises. Therefore, investing in local advertising could be an effective way to boost your sales from locals and capitalise on local demand. You could consider mailbox marketing, billboard or local radio advertising to target potential customers in the surrounding region.