You’re busy running your shop, keeping your mechanics busy, and answering the phone. You’ve spent the last few years breaking into the digital marketing space, and you deserve an auto repair marketing strategy that works for you.
Enter weather-based marketing. It’s the tool you need to control where and when your ads are served to local customers depending on the weather forecast. For example, you might only run AC unit repair ads on blazing hot days, or you might only show ads when it’s above a certain temperature or when a snowstorm is approaching. Sounds pretty great, right?
Weather-based marketing usually isn’t a priority for shop owners, but you’re going to take a different approach to auto repair marketing. By leveraging weather trends, you can drive more business and build brand awareness—and that can make all the difference for your bottom line.
Ready to take your marketing strategy to the next level? Here’s how to stay top-of-mind by reminding local customers of changing service needs.
Weather is an important (but often overlooked) component of the sales process. It’s a form of programmatic advertising, which uses the real-time buying and selling of ad inventory to create more effective targeting.
Programmatic creates amazing opportunities for auto shops. Think about it: Most prospects use specific search phrases (AKA keywords) on Google to learn more about their options. And when these keywords have high intent, you’ll probably have a hard time reaching Google’s top spot through search engine optimization.
With programmatic advertising, you can start using this search data to your advantage. And when you accelerate your strategy with weather-based marketing, you can tap into weather forecasts and seasonal buying trends to serve ultra-personalized ads to your target audience.
How? Well, weather influences what your customers need. People are going to buy coats in the winter and bathing suits in the summer, so it’s only natural for advertisers to ramp up their ad campaigns when the weather turns.
In the auto repair business, you’ll see more people booking AC tune-ups before the summer heat hits, along with more heater repairs before the winter season. And that’s just the start. By harnessing location data and weather-triggered information, you can create hyper-relevant campaigns to fuel your conversions.
To drive your marketing strategy to the finish line, you need to target the right customers when they need your services. To do that in today’s competitive marketing landscape, you need to get your message in front of people searching for relevant queries and showing intent.
Of course, that’s much easier said than done. How can you reach potential customers when they need your services? How can you get your brand in front of them when they’re preparing for harsh weather? One word: programmatic.
Local customers need your services all year, but hot summers and freezing winters can create urgent issues for car owners. Extreme weather conditions leave vehicles vulnerable to countless problems, so prospects should start preparing for those weather changes as early as possible.
That’s where programmatic can take your marketing strategy to the next level. You need to remind local customers of changing service needs before the weather changes. That means you need to get in front of local customers when they’re preparing for the next snowstorm or heat wave.
The core benefit of programmatic advertising for auto repair shops? It helps you serve the right ads, to the right people, at the right time. Once you’ve captured their attention, your goal is to make them take action, whether that’s scheduling a car inspection, tuning up their vehicle’s AC unit, or fixing their hail-damaged windshield.
Want to convert more leads? Trying to upgrade your ad experiences? Programmatic weather-based advertising can be your marketing MVP.
When you adapt your messaging around the weather forecast, you’ll kick your strategy into high gear with timely communication and hyper-contextual ads. Weather-based campaigns yield higher engagement rates across nearly every industry, and it’s easy to see why.
But the million-dollar question is—how does it work? And what’s the best way to hit the ground running with weather-based marketing? Here’s how to amplify your ROI with programmatic.
If you’re a seasoned business owner, you probably already have loads of customer data at your fingertips. Customer data encompasses everything you need to create personalized ad experiences, from the last time a customer called your business to their last inspection date.
We’ve said it before, but your customer relationship management system (CRM) is one of the most valuable assets in your marketing toolbox. When you leverage customer data to create individualized ads, you’ll drive potential leads further down the sales funnel while building trust in your business.
So, how can you use customer data in weather-based marketing? Once you’ve collected data, you can start segmenting your target audiences based on different demographics, purchasing behaviors, location, and other attributes. Today’s customers expect personalized experiences from your brand, and you need to give them exactly what they want to dominate the competition.
This way, you can serve windshield wiper repair ads to relevant customers before an upcoming rainstorm hits their neighborhood. Or, you can retarget existing customers with reminders to schedule inspections before the next heat wave. Hyper-focused audiences lead to better personalization, so you can send the right message to the right people without missing a beat.
If you’re running multiple auto repair shops, you’ll need to tap into geofencing. And if you’re new to geofencing, don’t worry. It’s not as intimidating as it sounds.
In a nutshell, geofencing is a mobile location-based technology. By using latitude and longitude data, geofencing serves ads to potential customers when they’re in a specific geographic area. Our clients usually apply geofencing through proximity, allowing them to serve ads to specific cities, regions, or ZIP codes to create ultra-personalized ad experiences for local customers.
Geofencing can be a powerful strategy for local businesses, and studies show that locally optimized targeting can even double the performance of traditional mobile ads.
When a customer pulls into a fenced location, you can instantly capture their attention with relevant ad experiences. This way, you’ll give customers exactly what they want when they want it—which isn’t an easy feat to achieve in marketing.
Another geofencing tactic is through “conquesting,” where you can target locations around your competitors. If your competitors are already using weather-based marketing, these ads can be incredibly effective. Just make sure you’re backing up local ads with irresistible ad copy and compelling calls to action.
Trying to make your ads even more relevant? Want to discover how weather influences your target audience? You need to harness the power of contextual targeting to serve ads to qualified leads.
With contextual targeting, you can serve ads to potential buyers based on the content they’ve viewed across the web. For example, if a local customer recently watched a YouTube video on DIY car battery replacement, you can serve impactful ad creatives with relevant promotions for battery replacement services.
Weather directly influences behavior and intent, so you can also use contextual targeting to learn more about customer behaviors surrounding weather patterns. For example, a sunny weather forecast might encourage local customers to take a roadtrip, but they’ll need to tune up their car before hitting the road. That’s where you can swoop in, serve individualized ads for car tune-ups, and capture their attention.
Contextual targeting collects data around the keywords included in content. From there, you can build audiences around those interests to optimize ads. Instead of serving ads to potential customers and hoping for the best, you can reach prospects already interested in your services. Then, you can strike while the iron is hot.
Weather-based marketing can be an effective strategy for your auto repair shop, but you’ll need to do it right. Start by looking at historical weather data and forecasts to identify when the weather will impact your ad campaigns—and when you should shift messaging to align with changing weather.
Before you start creating ads, you’ll want a solid idea of what weather to expect during your new campaign. This way, you can create relevant messaging, digital creatives, and service promos to send the right message at the right time. After all, you don’t want last-minute hailstorms to leave you scrambling for ad creatives.
Have any questions about weather-based marketing? Ready to accelerate your ad strategy with programmatic? Reach out to our team to transform your auto repair business with data-driven solutions.
