Text Message Marketing - Tire Review Magazine

Text Message Marketing

Boost your shop's car count, efficiency and customer service with a text message program.

A funny thing happened to me recently. I was a featured speaker on mobile marketing solutions at a session by an association of shop owners. Before I started my presentation, several members came up to me and told me they felt that mobile marketing was only for teens and those 30 and under.
Among the ways to profit from text messaging is using the technology for service and appointment reminders.
But right in the middle of my presentation, almost on cue (and quite rudely) I started seeing these shop owners on their phones, typing away or reading the responses they were getting. I have to give them credit since none took any actual phone calls.

I stopped my presentation mid-sentence and asked everyone to look around at each other. No, I wasn’t angry. I was actually thrilled: They had just made my point without me needing to say another word.

And, yes, while texting is popular among teens and young adults, aren’t those folks among your key target markets for tires and auto services?

So just what are text messages? Generally, they are short, quick notes – sometimes with photos or oth­er images included. These aren’t Tweets and are not restricted by word or character counts, but clearly you don’t want to send a 100-word text.

You send and receive them on your cell phones, but it’s important to point out that you don’t need to have a smartphone to send and receive text messages. 

With those basics out of the way, I want to spend the rest of this article explaining the importance of text messaging and how it can help make your shop more efficient and, more importantly, how you can use it to generate more business and increase car counts.

The top premise here is that complete contact information for each of your customers – including, and especially, e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers – is vital. If you’re not effectively collecting and managing that information, you certainly need to start.

When it comes to a text messaging campaign, the most important contact information you can get is actually the customers’ cell phone numbers. During these trying economic times, many people are now using their cell phones as their only means of communicating and are disconnecting their home phone numbers.

The most important fact to keep in mind is that your customers’ cell phone numbers are likely to be with them for years to come. Recent provider changes now allow you to keep your cell phone number even when you change carriers.

Interesting Statistics
I recently read a report for the Direct Marketing Association that shows the “open rates” for various media. Open rates represent the percentage of digital messages that are opened vs. the total number sent. So if you send 100 e-mails, for instance, and 25 get opened by the recipients, your message’s open rate is 25%.

In traditional snail mail direct mail, a 2% open rate is considered a success. With e-mail campaigns, the open rate is generally between 12%-15%, primarily because of the use of spam filters that can trip up even the best campaigns before they even reach a customer’s inbox.

But text messages are opened 96% of the time and are acted upon quickly, typically within four minutes, according to the DMA.

We know that getting your information is important, so let’s discuss cost. Typical text messages range in cost from 1 cent to 10 cents per message sent. That’s 1,000 messages for between $10 and $100, far less expensive than traditional direct mail. It’s less expensive than many e-mail programs, and certainly less than reminder stickers.

I want to clarify one important point before we continue. I am not suggesting that you only use text messaging. You need to use all of the media available to you to reach your customers. The more media you use in your marketing, the more successful it will be. My hope is that you will capture your clients’ cell phone numbers (the most important piece of contact information) and start using text messages to increase your car counts.

Real Life Example
About three weeks ago, the message center on my car dashboard came on, letting me know that I was due for service. It had been about 4,300 miles since my last oil change, and as it happened I was having some problems with the steering system. Every time I hit the brakes, my steering wheel would shake. 

So I took my car in for service early in the morning and since I had three meetings scheduled for the day with clients, I arranged for a loaner. During those meetings I noticed a few calls from the shop, but wasn’t able to return the calls quickly. During a short lunch break, I did try to call the shop but was told that my service advisor was out to lunch and to call back, which, of course, I couldn’t do.

At 4:30 p.m., I drove back to the service center to pick up my car. The manager came out and told me that he had rotated my tires and had changed the oil. Then he went on to tell me that he had tried contacting me several times to tell me that the reason for the shaking was that I needed new brake pads.

He then asked if I could leave the car overnight so they could take care of it the next day. My answer was a very quick NO! In my mind, I could just bring it back a few days or weeks later when my schedule was less crowded, and that it would be no big deal.

A week later, the shaking was too much to ignore and I had my brakes fixed at the service station next to my office since it was so close and I would not have to get a loaner.

When you think about the story, two things should be easily understood. First, the shop and I played an unnecessary game of phone tag. That was a waste of time for them and for me. Secondly, in the end I took my car to a different shop to be fixed because of convenience, not competence.

Had the first shop sent me a text message instead of trying to call me, I could have just responded and they would have had a sale and been more efficient. A simple text message could have said: “Oil change done – noticed brake pads needed-139.00. Do you want us to replace them? Send back a yes or no.”

They would also now have had a record of the conversation and a $139 transaction.

Another Way to Profit
Another way for your shop to profit from text messaging is to use it as an appointment reminder service. Here’s how that works.

As I am leaving your shop, you would simply have the counter person type in my cell phone and click on a date three months from now to send me a pre-programmed reminder message. It could be a simple “Time for your next oil change” or “Time to rotate” or some other service message, and it could even include a coupon or coupon code as an incentive.

If you are in an area with significant seasonal changes – like Minnesota or Pennsylvania – you could send a text message to customers offering a free vehicle checkup or tires for the upcoming season.

Start using text messaging in your marketing efforts and you quickly will see your shop become more efficient, your car counts increase, sales go up and your bottom line improve.


Brian Sacks is a mobile marketing expert with more than 26 years of direct response marketing experience. He is co-founder of Trackable Response Inc., a mobile marketing provider to the tire and auto service industries, based in Catonsville, Md. Brian can be reached at [email protected] or 410-747-1100.

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