Dave Bloom is the Director of Digital Marketing for Axis Local, a Digital Marketing Agency.
Do you know what the primary driver of phone calls is most oil change and auto repair shops? The phone book? Of course not, although true at one time. Their website? Closer, but not anymore. The primary driver of calls for most shops is their Google-My-Business (GMB) listing. Most listings exist whether they are claimed by the owner or not. Unclaimed listings appear much more infrequently, offering a significant opportunity of not being shown to a searcher by Google if there is a competitive listing near the searcher that is claimed. Once more, unclaimed listings often have incorrect information such as the phone number since the information isn't controlled and is generated by Google users or scraped by Google from other sources. In this case study, we examine the GMB listing portion of Axis Local's omni-channel digital marketing strategy for oil change and auto repair clients as it pertains to a client with ~300 oil change and automotive repair shops.
The Opportunity
Our client owns a series of brands that comprises ~ 300 total oil change and auto repair shops. Their listings were unclaimed and unmanaged. There was a tremendous opportunity to grow business through the GMB listings by appearing more in search to those searching for oil change services, and appearing with accurate contact information. The listings offer a button to go to the shop's website, call the shop, or get GPS directions to the shop. We sought to grow business by growing those actions.
The Solution
Axis Local implemented the GMB Managed listings wing of our omni-channel digital marketing strategy for oil change and auto repair clients which began with claiming/creating and verifying all of the Google-My-Business listings. Following the verification of all listings, we completed them with proper information. This included contact information such as the business name, address, phone number, website, but also included proper categorization information such as description, services, products, category, etc.
Once all data was set up properly, we began posting to the listing through our automation software. Our software pulls a brand's facebook posts into their GMB profiles and posts them there automatically. We also began sourcing reviews to our client's GMB listings (a major ranking factor).
The results: In 2021, Axis Local drove almost 38,000,000 views of the Google listings on search, which resulted in contact-intent actions being taken on those listings. There were 317,887 website visits, 457,606 phone calls, and 354,767 directions requests in 2021. These figures were up YOY on a per-store basis 27%, 10% and 42% respectively.
To learn more about our omni-channel digital marketing strategy for oil change and auto repair clients click here.