How Automotive Shops Can Benefit from Sensory Marketing

Look around your store. Does what you see reinforce or strengthen your brand?

Everything from the flooring to the furniture to the lighting presents an opportunity to extend your brand within your physical space and create a tangible, immersive brand experience.

Mountain View Tire (MVT), an automotive service company with locations across Southern California, needed help unifying their service centers.

Chris Mitsos, Vice President of MVT, wrote, “We engaged SensoryMax to convert the physical look of all 30 of our stores. They developed a color scheme and changed the signage to make the Mountain View Tire logo dominant, while keeping the Goodyear name visible, too. The results were better than we expected. Despite the architectural differences in our stores, the consistent colors and signage helped all our locations look more alike. You knew you were looking at a Mountain View Tire store.

“SensoryMax did a wonderful job helping us improve our brand image. They were easy to work with, had all the resources they needed at their disposal and delivered stunning results.”

How do customers spend their time in your lobby? Do they stare at their phones? Read magazines?

When your customers are waiting for their vehicles, you can engage them with Digital Signage Solutions to reduce their perceived wait times and strengthen their relationship with your brand.

Video content that’s focused on your company, services and products can educate and entertain customers and could even lead to additional sales.

Click here to read about companies that use video content to connect with their on-site audience.

When customers step into your waiting room, what do they smell? Tires? Motor oil? Chassis grease?

While those are everyday smells for your team, they don’t contribute to a positive encounter for your visitors.

But with Scent Branding, you can treat customers to a thoughtful, more enjoyable experience. We can develop a signature scent for your company that smells great and serves as another brand element.

And since the sense of smell is so closely linked to memories, your customers will remember their visit to your shop each time they smell your branded scent on marketing and promotional materials.

Virginia Tire & Auto wanted to elevate the customer experience in their lobby. President Julie Boncarosky Holmes said, “We have been very pleased with our scent marketing. Numerous customers have commented in written reviews how the smell of our stores has enhanced their vehicle repair experience. One customer even wrote how ‘shocked’ they were by ‘how good it smelled!’ We are always looking for unique ways to deliver on our promise of an exceptional auto repair experience and scent marketing has proved to be one of those avenues.”

If your automotive shop is like most others, the service bays are right next to the lobby. That means there’s a good chance visitors can hear everything in the bays, from impact wrenches and compressors to employee chatter and maybe even music that doesn’t appeal to your customers.

Audio Branding not only creates a more pleasant visit for your customers, but also adds another layer to your brand identity.

Combined with music playlists that appeal to your customer demographic, you can use custom audio messaging to welcome visitors, share car care tips and promote your products and services.

Click here to read best practices for a successful Audio Branding program.

When you’re ready to take the experience you provide to the next level, give us a call at 419.725.9100 or complete this form.

Related Blog Posts

How to Capitalize on Your On-Site Audience

Incorporating Sensory Marketing into Your Marketing Plan

Is Your Competitor Doing It Better?