Car Count Daily | Edition #80

Hey shop owners, welcome to this edition of Car Count Daily. My name’s Ron Ipach, but you can call me Captain Car Count, because that’s all I’ve done over the past 20 years, is help thousands of auto repair shop owners, just like you, to get and then keep all the top-quality customers that their shops can handle.

Shotgun Marketing Vs. Target Marketing

Today I want to talk about the two types of auto repair marketing, the two ways to market your business. I think it’s important that you have a little bit of a grounding as we go forward in these videos and posts so you understand the difference between the types of auto repair marketing and what each type is designed to do. The two types of marketing that I’m talking about are shotgun marketing, the other is target marketing. Let me explain the difference real quick between those two.

Shotgun Marketing

Typically what you’re doing to market to attract new people to your shop. The reason why it’s called shotgun marketing, is because it’s like loading a shotgun, cocking it, pointing it straight up in the air, and pulling the trigger. Provided there’s people in the area, somebody’s going to get hit with the fallout. You’re bound to hit somebody. It’s not a targeted market, so literally it’s the spray and pray type of marketing. You’re just pulling the trigger and hoping somebody gets hit.

Now, I don’t have a problem with that, other than you’ve got to look at who you’re attracting to your shop. The problem with shotgun marketing is you’re marketing to everybody with a pulse and a set of car keys. There’s really no demographics involved, there’s no psychographics involved, there’s nothing involved other than they just happen to be in the area that you are marketing your services to.

The problem is we don’t know anything about them. We don’t know what their spending habits are, we don’t know if they have money, and we don’t know if they take care of their vehicles. It’s just, hey, they just happened to be in the area and they got hit by one of the pellets in the shotgun. That’s what shotgun marketing is. It’s not targeted, it’s just the spray and pray, just get the message out there and hope anybody comes to your shop. If that’s fine with you, that’s fine with you. I have no problem with that.

Targeted Marketing

You know exactly who’s getting your message. In other words, you know something about them. You know the area they live in, you know their income, you know what kind of cars they’re driving, or maybe they’re your current clientele so you know a lot about them. They’ve been in your shop before, you know how much they spend, you know they’re not somebody that’s always looking for the cheapest deal and never being up-sold. You know more information about those people, and you’re marketing specifically to them.

If we’re talking direct mail, let’s say for an example … that’s probably the best example here. An example of shotgun marketing is mailing out 5000 postcards to your entire zip code, or to a portion of your zip code, and that’s just a lot of bodies that you’re sending it out to because somebody’s going to see that message. Targeted marketing says, okay, in those 5000 people, I know who I want to market to. You don’t have 5000 people that are perfect clients to come to you. Out of those 5000 people, chances are there’s probably 500-1000 of them that you really want to have in your shop. Targeted marketing requires a little bit more work because you have to do some homework, you have to do some more demographic work, and you have to take your offer and tailor it specifically to that group of people you’re marketing to. There’s a little bit of time and effort up front, but there’s a lot less expense on the back end because you’re marketing to maybe 10% or 20% of the giant shotgun marketing.

There are two types of marketing. One is a lot more convenient, but more expensive. The other is less expensive and less convenient, because you have to do a little bit more work. Either way, you’ve got to keep a track on your expenses. If you’re only spending 20% of the money you would spend on shotgun marketing, well, you’re way ahead of the game, right? You’re not spending a whole lot more money. The cost of attracting that person to your shop is a whole lot less. You’re ahead of the game, plus you’ve targeted your message to exactly who you want in the shop, so chances are more likely that they’re going to be a much better client coming in because you targeted your message specifically to them.

There are a lot of advantages to doing the target marketing, but, shop owners don’t have a lot of time to be running all these demographics. In any case, just get your auto repair marketing out there. If it costs you more to attract somebody to your shop, then spend the money. If you need the people in your shop, get it done. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on marketing and you have a little bit of time to do a little homework in advance so you know exactly who you want to attract, then it’s not going to cost you as much money.