Why Geofencing Is Essential for Your Auto Body Shop’s Marketing Plan

How does geofencing work, and how can it benefit your auto body shop?

Geofencing is drawing a virtual boundary around a specific service location and targeting potential customers within that boundary. When people enter the geofenced area, they will receive push notifications about the local business on their mobile devices.

It’s easy to see how valuable geofencing can be for location-centric businesses like auto body shops. Independent and family-owned auto body shops usually have limited digital marketing budgets, and it’s important to make sure every campaign focuses on people with the highest possible conversion potential.

Virtually all automotive businesses already use location-based advertising, but geofencing goes a step further: it zooms into a small, clearly defined area and reaches out to potential customers in real-time. Geofencing allows auto body shops to target the right people at the right place and the right time, just when they’re likeliest to become paying customers.

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How Does Geofencing Work?

Geofencing technology uses GPS, WiFi, cellular data, or RFID tagging to track a device within a defined area. Once a user enters the geofenced area, they will start getting served ads to their device.

Digital marketers typically set a geofence boundary via applications that use Google Maps, Google Earth, or latitude and longitude definitions. The virtual boundary of geofencing can be as small or large as the business owner desires. For auto body shops, a neighborhood or the few streets in the shop’s area are usually the most practical choice.

Three common approaches to creating geofences are:

• Centroid radius. In this simple geofencing method, the marketer selects a central location (like the auto body shop) and sets a specific radius for notifications around that point. The ad will show up on mobile devices of users within the pre-defined radius.
• Drive or walk time (isochrone). This method calculates how long it would take people to reach the auto body shop by driving or walking. Only users within a specific driving or walking time will receive the ad. This type of geofencing allows more precise targeting than a basic radius since it’s based on available routes.  
• Building footprints. Using this method, polygons define the precise boundaries of the auto body shop’s premises, and the business notifications only go out to people who are within the premises. This is a highly targeted approach directed at potential clients with a strong likelihood of converting.

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Geofencing and Time

Time is another key element in answering, “How does geofencing work?” To use geofencing successfully, auto body shops need to send out notifications at appropriate times. It’s also possible to analyze consumer behavior and send out notifications at days and hours when customers are likeliest to seek auto body shop services.

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Targeting Competitor Businesses

When planning a geofencing campaign, an auto body shop owner will often select their own business location as the center for push notifications. Another effective strategy is placing the “fence” around a competing local auto body shop.

This is how it works: Auto Body Shop A competes with Auto Body Shop B, located two streets away. The owner of Body Shop A selects their competitor’s business as the geofencing target. Potential customers on the way to Body Shop B get a message about a lucrative deal they can get at Body Shop A and decide to drive over to Body Shop A instead.

Of course, using this approach involves some in-depth competitor research to decide on the most effective strategy of “hijacking” customers.

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Why Geofencing Is a Smart Marketing Strategy for Auto Body Shops

As local businesses with clearly defined service areas, auto body shops can reap major rewards when using geofencing the right way. Geofencing ads are:

• Instant. With geofencing, potential customers start getting ads as soon as they cross the geofence. Unlike other marketing channels, a geofencing ad reaches people just when they’re likeliest to visit the auto body shop.
• Specific. Geofencing ads cover narrow and carefully-chosen geographic locations. Thanks to this precise targeting, it’s much easier to reach potential clients interested in the auto body shop’s services.
• Cost-effective. Unlike mass advertising, geofencing goes for concentrated rather than broad exposure. This way, limited marketing resources flow toward the people who are most likely to become customers.
• Flexible. Geofencing offers endless possibilities. It’s possible to set up a geofence around the auto body shop’s neighborhood, the business premises, or a competitor’s service area.

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How a Professional Digital Agency Can Help With a Geofencing Campaign

Working with a competent digital agency will help channel the advertising budget toward the right prospective clients. BodyShop Marketing, an agency working exclusively with auto body shops and collision repair centers, offers unique value thanks to its deep expertise in auto service marketing. Daniel Burkholder, the founder of BodyShop Marketing, has years of hands-on experience managing his own family’s auto body shop and knows exactly what automotive businesses need to thrive.

BodyShop Marketing provides efficient geofencing for auto body shops, including:

• Innovative geofencing strategies uniquely tailored to the automotive service industry
• A custom geofencing plan targeting the business goals of each auto body shop
• Easily trackable real-time and past data to estimate the conversion rates of geofencing campaigns
• Wide access to customers across multiple devices and apps
• An exclusive commitment to one auto body shop per service area – no working with competitors

For questions beyond, “How does geofencing work?” and more information about BodyShop Marketing’s targeted digital services for auto body shops, call (855) 667-9648, email hello@bodyshopmarketing.io, or schedule a free consultation online.

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