Although we may find ourselves reviewing 2020 and wondering in amazement how we’ve made it through, it’s time to prepare your marketing strategy for the new normal.
Marketing collision repair has always been a challenge. Face it, you sell a product that no one wants to buy. And now you’re also dealing with more digitally savvy customers with higher expectations, a reduced claim volume, and possibly fewer DRPs.
The landscape has changed; it’s time to leverage those changes and build up your shop’s marketing potential.
How’s Your Website?
In case you haven’t noticed, thanks to Covid, the world has come to rely on the Internet more than ever. No matter the size of your business, shops can no longer afford to fall behind when it comes to their digital presence, starting with your website. If your website looks outdated, the links on your site are broken, or the content hasn’t changed in years, it needs attention, and it needs attention now.
What should you do?
- Optimization is critical, but it takes more than just using a few keywords to have an optimized site. Keyword ranking, along with customer behavior, changes frequently. Ongoing research is required to ensure your site ranks for the fluctuations occurring in your market.
- The technical structure of your site is also something not to be ignored. Load speed, for instance, can cost you visitors without you even knowing it. Does your site include schema (do you even know what it is?) to improve the way search engines see you? Does all your information load correctly on multiple mobile devices? Do you know what your site score is? How about from your customer’s perspective? Do the navigational elements include clearly defined titles and subsections? Can visitors find what they’re looking for in less than 2 clicks? Websites can no longer be built and forgotten about, they need to be monitored, measured and nurtured. If you don’t know the answer to any of these questions, it’s time to talk to someone who can answer them for you and guide you to the solutions you need.
With poor site structure and navigational elements the user will have a hard time navigating to their desired page or information.
This shops poor site structure played a role in the large drop in new users to the site. It should be noted this shop was also running Google Ads during this time.
Manage all your business listings online
Providing accurate and up to date information about your business online is as important as unlocking the front door and answering the phone when it rings. Yet many shops don’t bother to ensure the listing information about their business is accurate across the Internet. Your customers don’t like finding confusing, inaccurate or missing information when they search for you, and guess what, neither does Google.
Taking a casual approach to your online listings with outdated, inaccurate and missing information will cost you sales opportunities, period. When someone searches for information, they need to find it quickly and concisely, and it needs to be accurate and consistent everywhere they look.
What should you do?
- A business’s online listing can change hundreds of times throughout the year, often without them knowing about it. For example, PSG stopped over 25,000 changes last year for shops whose digital presence we help manage. Unless you want to spend your days searching your business on the Internet, you need to take ownership of the “A” record and overrule any changes before they happen.
- Whether it’s due to the Christmas holidays or a global pandemic, if your hours change, even for one day, your business listings need to reflect those changes – and you need to update them as often as necessary.
- Have you opened an additional location? Your customers will want to know, so you need to create and update your listings across all business directories.
- Have you moved to a new location that once belonged to someone else? Remember that address, and possibly phone number, are still associated with that business in places you’re not even aware of. Again, take control of the information so any duplicate or inaccurate information can be suppressed before it affects your searchability and ranking.
Managing your marketing moving forward
Whether it’s your website or business listings, if your shop doesn’t have these elements updated and under control, you know where to focus your marketing efforts this year. These are business basics; marketing 101. Every business needs them to survive in today’s world. Can you afford to put them off any longer?
If you don’t have the time, or the interest, to learn everything you need to know about web design, site architecture, or managing business listings, the good news is, we do. PSG can develop a tailor-made digital management strategy for your body shop, so that your business will stay relevant in 2021 and beyond.
