How to Safeguard Your Car Garage Against Recessions

A combination of rising interest rates, inflation and higher costs for raw materials, energy and logistics could lead the car industry towards a crash.

Many automotive manufacturers like Volkswagen and Continental are expecting earnings to decline, with the latter forecasting that it has to shoulder some 3.5 billion pounds in additional costs for raw materials, energy and logistics.

Auto supplier Aptive predicts vehicle production will slump 5% in Europe this year.

Many economists foresee a recession as the cost-of-living crisis deepens.

How can we navigate these factors? The past has shown that even though new car sales decrease during a recession, the rate at which cars require maintenance increases. Google ad trends seem to back this up; While general automotive PPC conversion rates have decreased by 30%, conversion rates for vehicle repair and maintenance have increased by 44%.

SURVIVING A RECESSION IS ALL ABOUT EVALUATION AND REFINEMENT:

Think about how a recession will affect your target audience.

Take this into consideration when deciding how to communicate with your audience. If you think that they’d skip out on essential maintenance because money is tight, educate them on how important maintenance is to their road safety and offer loyalty incentives such as value packages.

Take a look at marketing data and trim down any ineffective marketing channels.

Consider which marketing channels generate the highest ROI for your auto shop while being the most cost-effective.

Consider using technology to automate certain aspects of your business.

This will keep costs down. Marketing automation, for example, can run in the background and consistently boost your shop’s brand awareness.

Add an online store to your website.

E-commerce opens up doors for growth.

Communicate effectively with your customers.

In times of uncertainty, people look for guidance and assurance. Keep your customers up to date on any updates and changes to your business that they might need to know of. Make sure that all communication is transparent and reliable.