Motor Age: Why is Internet marketing key for today's shops?
Sanchez: With the changes in the automotive industry, the old forms of marketing that we've seen for so many years are no longer providing us leads. The Yellow Pages used to be our No. 1 source of generating new customers, both referral and new clients. Those just aren't there anymore. Direct mail still has a good turnout, as long as you're doing some good marketing with it. But that hasn't changed, enhanced and grown. Newspaper has definitely had a drop-off in the type of reach. Internet marketing has certainly grown to be a huge resource for businesses to build a base of new clients. Between websites, local search marketing, social marketing and e-mail marketing, electronic media and Internet-based marketing products are a huge growth opportunity for our industry. It also applies to customer retention and giving your referrals a chance to learn something about this shop before they come in to you.It is so inexpensive to do Internet marketing compared to traditional forms...It's much less expensive, and it can be varied toward the audience you're looking for, and geographically targeted makes it extremely cost effective.
Motor Age: How can shops get started if they don't have an Internet presence?
Sanchez: The best thing to do first is to analyze the competition. Look online and see what competitors in a five- and 10-mile radius have websites, and take a look and see what they've done and how up-to-date they are. How you know what you have to build is by looking at the competitors that you need to push out of the way to get the top spots on Google and get the most traffic. And besides looking and seeing just if they have a website, understand their goals...so you understand where to spend your budget in the race. Understanding your competition is step one. Step two is setting your budget for development and monthly maintenance and marketing. Talk to web professionals to help you understand what good starting budgets may need to be. Find a professional company that can help, one that understands Internet marketing, that understands and can compete in the marketplace and certainly, a little self-serving, but somebody that understands the automotive industry.
Motor Age: Do shops have to spend a lot of money to get their message out?
Sanchez: It depends. The density and competition in the area that they're in is what drives what they need to spend. If they're in a geographic area where they have few competitors, then the less they need to spend in order to get in position and get in front of potential customers. The more metro, the busier the area, the more people that go online, that has to reflect in the amount that they spend to position themselves in content and so people can find them. It really depends on where the shop is at and their competition level.
