An Auto Repair Shop Marketing Customer Buyer Personas, that is, a model of a customer that illustrates the core psychological, demographic and behavioral attributes of your key buyers, helps you communicate effectively with your target customers, and expand your market to similar individuals. Using buyer personas in your marketing can truly be successful because you will know how to engaged with your prospective customers, what appeals to them, what they need, and how they choose to purchase a product or service.
If you are an Owner/Operator, or manage the marketing for a car repair shop, you probably have a good understanding of who your best customers are. Use this knowledge to develop two or more distinct personalities that your marketing will target.
The buyer persona creation process is valuable for both online and traditional marketing. Understanding who your customers are, their habits, likes and dislikes, allows you to develop many long tail keywords-- phrases that your target customer base will search for online, but also associate with your business across marketing platforms. A consistent brand image and message, that incorporates the phrases into traditional media (direct mail postcards, radio, newspaper and TV), as well as your digital marketing hubs, resonates with customers. The process of understanding your customers’ habits and needs, and integrating this information into your marketing strategy, can uncover many new opportunities to build online traffic and leads.
The Seven Key Points to a Developed Auto Repair Shop Marketing Buyer Persona:
Demographic information includes geographic location, household income, marital status, age, male/female. The data allows you to paint a basic, fact based, picture of the customer.
What they do for a living helps you further develop your picture of the target customer. Doctors, lawyers, and business executives interact in ways that are different from retired people, homemakers, or shift workers. Each group will respond to specific methods of communication, and have different expectations. For instance, turn around time might be crucial the the executive, whereas price may be an issue for a retired person.
A picture of a day in their life can be added at this point, to fill in vital details. What is their commute like? If they have long drives each day, they may be in fuel efficient vehicles. So, if your car repair shop specializes in more than one brand or type of car, such as the Toyota Prius, identify those so that you can match your specialty to your potential customers. Check the radio dial of your current customers. See if they pick up the remote, a newspaper, a magazine or ask for the wifi password. Communicating with a customer who has a high end stereo system and a smart phone will play out differently than one who doesn’t listen to the radio, and reads a newspaper.
Your auto repair shop solves a problem for each buyer persona. Identify the frustrations and pain points for each persona. For a stay at home mom, getting the car to your shop may be a problem. Offering Valet service to save her from loading kids into the car could be a very valuable service. For a business person, fast drop off and pick-up and accommodating hours may make you more convenient.
Find what each persona values most. Is it convenience? Good customer service? Warranties and guarantees? As important is understanding what the persona doesn’t care about. Value added services, such as a cup of coffee or wifi, may keep your customers coming back. But, if they’re too busy to hang around while their car is service, it may not interest them. Knowing what is smart, good, value added services is the icing on the cake at car repair shops.
Understanding where the persona consumes information. A radio station is a great start. Is it news, classic rock, classical or country? Even if it is a CD put the artisit name in your Shop Management System. It is gold.
Each customer expects a different experience at the service counter. Identify their persona and update yours. Some want detailed explanation about their car’s problems, other just trust you to fix it. Some customers do not want to be sold anything, yet you and your service advisors must find a way to present relevant goods and services. Your website, blog and social media must talk to all of them.
What are the most common objections from each persona? What is the common objection from your first time car repair customers? Price, time, value-- or is it trust? How can you start building trust, and overcoming price concerns, through your marketing? Turn that the first time customer becomes a repeat customer!
Finally, how will you identify each persona? Through this exercise you can develop a name and a face for each persona. Give each persona a name like “Joe BMW Business Man”. Have a meeting with your service staff and and discuss the personas so your marketing voice matches your customer interaction voice. “Joe” may want fast, professional, accurate information, both on line and at the counter. Use this information so that you can build a relationship with all the “Joe” personas that come through the shop, or check you out on line.
Utilizing buyer personas in your auto repair shop marketing plan is key to understanding who your target customers are, and how to reach them.
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