To understand how valuable consumer data is for auto repair marketing, let’s look at an example of a big company using data for their marketing.
Did you hear about how Target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did?
Essentially, Target used data about the things she bought and compared that to what their other customers bought. When she started buying products that suggested she might be pregnant (unscented lotion, vitamins, dietary supplements, etc.), Target made a smart prediction and started sending her coupons for baby items. (Read the full Forbes article here.)
While that might sound a little bit like Big Brother (and kind of unrelated to auto repair marketing!), it represents the future of smart, modern marketing. Information is power. Big companies know it and have been using customer data like this to make their marketing more effective for a long time.
This is what smrt™ technology is all about: leveling the playing field and bringing that kind of information and power to you, the small business owner. Information is power, and used properly, it delivers some of the best auto repair marketing.
OK, Robb, I get it. Info is power, blah blah blah. Tell me something I haven’t heard 100 times before. What does it do for me? How does it improve my auto repair marketing?
Glad you asked!
It’s all about three key factors: smrt™ gets the right message in front of the right audience at the right time.
Let’s look at each of these a little more.
This is an example of an ad without smrt™ technology. Without knowing exactly who the audience is and what’s important to them, or whether or not it’s the right time for this message, it’s easy to see how this ad won’t be as relevant to as many people.
Right Message & Right Audience
I’m a middle-aged, married guy with one child. How much sense would it make to advertise lipstick to me? Sure, there’s a chance I could be interested in finding just the right shade to match my eyes…but odds are I’m not going to respond to ads selling lipstick, no matter how enticing they might be. A company sending me an ad for lipstick is getting the wrong message to the wrong audience.
In the auto repair marketing realm, let’s imagine a local auto shop mailing me an ad for their Jeep and four wheel drive specialty shop. I love Jeeps (my dad has an awesome ’55 Willys), but I don’t own a four wheel drive. This shop could offer me the most amazing deal on any kind of service or upgrade…but since I’m not the right audience, there’s little to no chance I’m going to respond to the ad.
This is what smrt™ does for your auto shop marketing, automatically. It gives you the power to customize the content of your email and direct mail marketing to make the offers, creative design, and copy exactly right for each of your current customers, as well as potential new customers.
Notice anything special about this piece? We did the design with a female audience in mind. Based on what we knew about the values of the target audience, we focused the message on what was important to them: values of honesty, integrity, and professionalism.
Right Message & Right Time
How often do you get ads in the mail for something you either just bought recently or probably won’t need to buy for a long time? In my house, that happens all the time. For example, it’s kind of funny, but also kind of sad, to think about the marketing dollars wasted when I get ads for carpet cleaning right after I cleaned my carpet. It doesn’t matter if they offered to clean all my carpet for free…if I just did it, then there’s just no chance that I’m going to respond to their ad.
The same might not be true for things that are not time-sensitive. Pizza, for example. I could eat pizza every night (if my wife would allow it!)…but for anyone marketing a service business (from auto shops to pest control or other home services, to wedding photographers, etc.), your marketing messages have to reach your customers at exactly the right time to be successful.
Seems obvious, right? But how do you keep track of when is the right time to communicate with your customers? Do your customers schedule appointments for their next service? That might make it easier. But how many of your automotive service customers schedule their next visit to your shop? Wouldn’t it be great if you had a system that kept track of which customers needed what service, and when they needed it? And if that system then would automatically remind those customers that the appropriate service was due, plus personalize the message to them based on who they are and what motivates them to buy? That system would be pretty cool. And it would be called smrt™ technology!
Notice how this service reminder has the right message at the right time. It’s personalized to John and clearly indicates what service John needs and what car needs it.
This is how smrt™ supercharges your auto repair marketing. It automatically sends the right message to the right people at the right time, in turn making your shop’s marketing more successful. This is how you get a leg up on your competition, big or small.
You don’t have to take our word for it. We contracted an independent third party data research team at the McClatchy Company to audit more than seven million marketing communications we sent for our customers in 2010. The results surprised even us. Our customers whose auto repair marketing was powered by smrt™ had 4% higher response rates. When most direct marketing response rates are in the single digits, 4% is a huge increase! Even more importantly, marketing powered by smrt™ earned 7% more revenue per dollar spent. Could your business use 7% more revenue coming in from all your marketing?
How smrt™ is your auto repair marketing?
Read more about the value of personalizing your auto shop marketing, or ask us to show you how it works with your own data.
