Social Media for Driving Schools

If there’s one thing we see come up in local Facebook groups time and time again, it’s people needing recommendations for driving schools and instructors. Do you use social media for your driving school?

While it seems to be common knowledge that younger people especially have less interest in car ownership, the number of people taking and passing the UK standard driving test has remained relatively steady since 2007 – see https://www.statista.com/statistics/301253/number-of-driving-practical-tests-taken-and-passed-in-the-united-kingdom/

Driving is a good skill to learn and learning to drive is still popular. The number of newly registered driving instructors out there shows no signs of slowing – see https://www.statista.com/statistics/301628/number-of-new-monthly-driving-instructor-registrations-in-the-united-kingdom/ 

If you are a driving instructor or you run a driving school, are you using social media?

Here are some tips for you if you are thinking of using social media for your driving school.

1.      Consider your audience

Who are you trying to target? Is it potential students themselves, or maybe their parents? Maybe you want to appeal to older people learning to drive for the first time, or current drivers who want to do their advanced driving test? Is your audience more likely to be male or female, or from a certain geographic area?

Working out who your ideal customer is will help you decide….

• on which networks to concentrate your efforts
• what sort of content you should be creating
• what sort of language you will need to use
• what time of the day you need to be posting

2.      Create appropriate and relevant content

As in any industry, your followers need to know what it is that you do, and what you’re good at. Good content can convey these messages without every post sounding like a sales pitch.

Ideas for content for a driving school include……

• Sharing any special offers you have running
• Pictures of students passing their tests
• Recommendations you have received
• Meet the team posts – share a pic and some information about your driving instructors
• Helpful infographics – help your followers to learn small parts of The Highway Code, for example
• Articles about driving and learning to drive
• Tips and advice for new drivers

We are sure you can think of many more ways you can engage your target audience. Have a look and see what your competitors are doing on social media and emulate what you like (but don’t copy!)

3.      More efficient customer services

Look at social media as a way of enabling current and potential customers to get in touch with you easier. Communicate with them on their platform of choice and you’ve opened up your market to more people. Try not to limit your audience by forcing potentials to only use a landline phone number or only email. Some people much prefer the ease of messaging via social media. And it’s far easier to respond quickly to a message between jobs than it is to have to pay someone to man a phone line for you just in case someone calls.

We remember a time when the only way you could book a course of driving lessons was to pick up the phone during office hours or pop into the driving school’s premises on the local high street. Times have changed, consumer behaviour has changed, and your customer services needs to move too.

4.      Look at social media as an investment

How much is a new customer worth to you?

According to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), on average, it takes around 45 hours of lessons to learn to drive. How much do you charge per lesson?

For 45 lessons at £24 each, for example, each new person you bring on board is worth £1,080 of lessons. Spending a few hours a month on your social media marketing and posting the odd advert for a tenner suddenly seems like a small price to pay.

And what about referrals? If you can keep your existing customers happy and engaged along the way, they’re more likely to recommend you to others. Word of mouth is powerful, and social media networks amplify this. Encourage your happy customers to leave reviews for you online – Facebook and Google My Business are the most popular – and word will spread.

5.      Think beyond customers

A good social media profile can help you not only attract new customers but also qualified instructors. With every piece of content that you post, think hard about what this says about your driving school, both as a place of learning and a place to work. Driving schools can have a hard job attracting and retaining good instructors so give yourself an advantage.

6.      Consider all your assets

Your cars must cover a large volume of miles in your preferred territory on a daily basis. Yes, they carry the requisite ‘L’ plate, and probably the name of your driving school, but what about your phone number? It’s a good idea to have your website details on your fleet, but a better idea to have social media icons and handles. Someone may not have time to note your website address but could see that you’re on their favourite social media network, follow you, and get in touch when they’re ready to start learning to drive. Just a thought!

If you would like to chat further about using social media in your driving school business, get in touch. We have a landline phone, email, and of course, are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!