TOMA: DO YOU HAVE IT? WHY YOUR SHOP NEEDS A CUSTOMER NEWSLETTER!
Does your shop have TOMA? Top Of Mind Awareness means your customers think of you whenever they have an auto repair question or concern…and it can lead to your best customers coming back more times each year!
David Rogers explains why customer newsletters are so important and what every newsletter SHOULD and SHOULD NOT have- check it out below!
A customer newsletter isn’t a magic bullet. It doesn’t solve all of your shop’s marketing ills and won’t blow up your car count…but it is an INDISPENSABLE part of any marketing budget.
Why?
Newsletters are perfect for Top Of Mind Awareness (TOMA)! A well done customer newsletter keeps your shop in front of your customers all month long, so that whenever they think of oil changes or maintenance questions or the check engine light comes on, that customer immediately thinks of you.
It doesn’t blow up car counts, but it does do something almost as important: it increases the number of visits in a year from your best customers.
How much would it mean to your bottom line if your best customers came back two more times each year?
Like I said, though: it has to be DONE WELL. If your newsletter reads like a Technical Service Bulletin because it’s packed with so much information about vehicles and auto repair, it will never get read. If it looks like your 12-year-old nephew put it together because he did, it won’t get read or remembered.
If it’s full of jokes you got in your email (and that everyone else got in their email in 2003), you won’t come off as the expert, and again, the newsletter won’t get read or remembered.
So what are the keys to getting your newsletter read and remembered?
Get the Feel Right
Job one when creating your newsletter needs to be to get the “feel” right. If the newsletter doesn’t look and sound like it’s coming from a friendly neighborhood repair shop, and doesn’t sound like the family business they’ve come to trust over the years, it’s going to set off warning bells:
“This shop is buying their newsletter from some slick company…and that means they don’t care about me.”
(Does that mean buying a newsletter is a bad idea? Of course not! But I’m getting ahead of myself. More on that in a moment.)
So avoid glossy paper and expensive-looking graphics. Not only are these things a waste of money, they defeat the purpose of a friendly customer newsletter.
If it looks like just another marketing piece, it will probably wind up in the trash.
Also, whether your write them yourselves or get them from somebody else, make sure your articles are reader-friendly.
Journalists are told to write at a fifth grade level so that everyone can understand them…the same should go for the articles in your newsletter. This brings me to the second key…
Don’t “Automotive” Them to Sleep
Like I just said, all of the articles should be on their level, including articles about automotive related topics.
It’s no different than at the front counter: if the customer can’t understand why it’s important to get a coolant flush because they can’t understand the technical explanation you gave them, it’s doing more harm than good.
That being said, there should only be ONE automotive article in your newsletter. Total. Any more than that, and their eyes will glaze over and your newsletter will wind up in the trash.
The point is to engage them, to get them interested and to have them hold on to the newsletter, not to bombard them with your automotive knowledge.
Pick one automotive topic, speak at their level of understanding, and make it brief.
So what should the rest of the newsletter be about?
Stay tuned for next time when I cover what else makes sure a customer newsletter gets read…along with the rest of my tips for making your newsletter a success!