Episode 9

New High Gear Auto Repair Marketing Conference set to transform marketing for auto repair shop owners

ATLANTA, GA—The first-of-its-kind High Gear Auto Repair Marketing Conference, presented by Leads Near Me ®, gets underway November 29 through December 1, 2023, at the Atlanta Airport Marriott.

“Repair shops will be marketing for their share of $58.7 billion in repair industry revenue in 2024,” says Ryan Burton, owner of Leads Near Me ®. “Getting customers, getting cars into shops is the most important thing any repair shop does, which makes marketing the most important part of your business.”

“Owners often don’t spend enough time on marketing or understand how to do it properly,” Burton adds. “We are going to do this conference over two or three days, digging into this, to help auto repair shop owners better understand, make decisions with their chosen marketing company, and help them better execute their current marketing efforts.”

The conference focuses on everything from Google to direct mail, to television and radio advertising, customer relationship management, networking, social media marketing— everything that affects an auto repair shop’s marketing, including marketing to up-and-coming EV owners, and using tech like AI as a marketing tool.

“Marketing is the most important thing you can do for your business. Without customers you have nothing. So, marketing effectively is critical. This conference is the first of its kind to arm repair shops with a clear plan of how to specifically market in 2024 and beyond.”

The High Gear Auto Repair Marketing Conference will dive deeply into every aspect of auto repair marketing, explain succinctly how it is done, and how to look at success metrics.

Auto repair shops plan their marketing late each year for the following year. The High Gear conference’s media experts will walk attendees through how to grow their business into a high- trust, high-visibility local brand.

“At the end of the day, it’s about how you can spend half the money and get twice the results,” Burton says.

“We want repair shops to learn how to truly qualify where their leads come from,” says Burton. “It’s not enough to be operationally sound, have manicured grounds and a nice building. If you can’t convert leads into customers, you waste valuable marketing budget.”

Conference attendees will range from mom-and-pop shops with limited marketing resources to multi-shop owners with larger marketing budgets who want to get the highest ROI for their dollars in both market knowledge and in finding and keeping customers.

“John Wanamaker once said, “‘Half my advertising spend is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.’” That was true then; it’s just as true now, says Burton. In fact, some experts tout it as being worse—that 63 percent of advertising spend is wasted. Either way, the issue of wasted money is there.”

The High Gear conference will synergistically teach auto shop owners how to get the most out of their marketing efforts and their budgets, covering all intersections of business, branding and marketing in the auto repair shop niche. That intersection is success.

“This event will be like nothing you’ve seen before,” Burton adds. “It will be only marketing and we will finally demystify it. It takes knowledge, creativity, and discipline to make it work. I’ve been in the business 32 years and my team is top tier in their respective fields. The dissemination of the collective knowledge we’ve gathered over the years as well as of the High Gear speakers will give auto repair shops practical marketing knowledge to successfully increase car counts and their revenue for 2024.”

Registration will open soon for the High Gear Auto Repair Marketing Conference. Tickets and special room rates will be released soon. Get updates at highgearconference.com

About Leads Near Me:

Leads Near Me, a 2023 Google Premier Partner, is a digital marketing agency for Auto Repair Shops. They have become known for their ability to Effortlessly Increase Car Count (TM). Leads Near Me combines many years of experience, proprietary Google Ads software and a thirst for getting better every day to help auto repair companies grow their shops. With hundreds of shops in 43 states and Canada, Leads Near Me is uniquely qualified to help shop owners dramatically grow their revenue. Leads Near Me manages $10M+ annually in Google ad revenue for auto repair shops and has become one of the fastest growing marketing companies for auto repair.

About the Podcast

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Near Me Radio
Conversations to inspire leaders in the automotive industry

About your host

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Ryan Burton

Ryan Burton is the Founder & Owner of Leads Near Me a Digital Marketing Company for Auto Repair Shops. Ryan has spent the last 20+ years in marketing including 8 years on air as a radio announcer. Near Me Radio was born from thousands of conversations with Repair Shop owners & realizing we have a unique voice that needs to be shared. The podcast has a "radio feel" paying tribute to Ryan's days on the radio.