Advertising ideas for little to no money

[carbtech72]

our fall downturn has reared its ugly head and we've had a pretty rough summer as well. Losing a lot of the general repair/maintenance/gravy work to mobile mechanics and their traveling side shows. So our bank account took a huge kick to the bag and we need to do a little more advertising. We gone the Craigslist route, a customer referral program and well made postcards that we place everywhere that they will let us. Anyone else have any ideas when you are operating on a shoestring budget but need to advertise

[weighit]

To gain attention I used to park a bare metal car that we stripped out by the road to show what we did at that shop. We removed paint and rust with low pressure blasting. When I had a body shop we parked the wrecks by the street to show what we fixed. When I ran a service shop we parked cars out by the street with the hoods up. All of these little visual things gave folks driving by a view of what we were doing behind the fence. Adding a banner of what you want to say will add to the visual of a car or truck in some state of repair of non repair.You need folks to notice you or your shop and get an understanding of what you do. Very low cost for all of these things. Most of the time a banner removed daily will not require some city permit as it is not a permanent sign if it is hung on a car/truck. Just a thought

[andybizub]

Have you claimed your Google+ page for your business yet? Google+ has been a huge help in getting us up in the online search rankings, and it costs nothing but time to do. There's several hours over several days at first, but once you establish your Google+ page, it only takes 15-30 minutes a day to put content on it. It's not going to result in an overnight flood of customers, but in time, people will start finding you

 

Check out my shops page to see what I'm talking about: https://plus.google.com/u/1/+MidwestPerformanceCarsChicago/posts

[UsedTireShop]

I think that if your are losing your customers to a mobile tech then you have not built a very good relationship with your customers. Our shops goal is to find 1,200 customers who spend $900 a year on their vehicle. That would be a MILLION DOLLAR business.

Once we find these (preferred) customers we give them the white glove treatment.

 

This week we had a customer who was flying out of our local airport on Wednesday. She was going to have a friend get up at 4 am to give her a ride. I recommended that she let her friend sleep in and that I will go pick up the car from short term parking at 8am when I get to the shop. On Friday I washed her car, vacuumed it and added an air freshener. We then picked her up at 1pm on Friday. (total cost to the shop $21)

 

She has spent over $900 this year with me so far. We call this "CUSTOMERS FOR LIFE!"

 

Do you think some other shop or a mobile tech can take her from me? I think NOT!

 

Find the GOOD ones and give them the WHITE GLOVE treatment. Plow their driveways, cut their grass, wash their cars. Whatever it takes. Find 1,200 keepers and you will be good.

[carbtech72]

we do everything to establish a good relationship. Shuttle rides to and from work, always courteous, our prices are very affordable. Everything we do to the vehicle is explained very carefully and even the old parts are saved and shown. We do a callback 2-3 days after the vehicle is picked up to make sure that everything is good and the customer was happy with their experience and we always get a positive feedback, very happy. Generally we do a follow up callback 2-3 months afterwards on other repairs that we had found and explained to them. Most of the time its "i had so and so come out and do it because they only charged me X amount" That seems to be the biggest factor anymore is price. And its a price that I just cant do. Sorry brakes installed for 40 including parts isn't going to put food on the table or keep my lights on. But the good ones are out there, just need to find them

[mspecperformance]

A big mistake many businesses tend to make is that when business is good then tend to pull back on marketing because they have all that they can handle and... when business is bad they tend to pull back on marketing because they don't think they can't afford it... moral of the story is ALWAYS MARKET. The other piece of the puzzle is marketing is a relatively slow process at least in relation to our ever changing fast pace of life. Marketing campaigns you enact now you will probably not see a result from for several months at the very least. To establish a strong web presence and online reputation takes a lot of time (months sometimes a year or more), direct mail requires several mailings for you to see a return (generally a fraction of a percentage of responses), etc.

 

In regards to losing customers to mobile techs etc you are having either 1 of 2 problems. First being your customers are just not the right kind of customers. There are some people that truly only care about getting bottom dollar pricing. I am not sure what the percentage is but this segment of the population is fairly low meaning that most likely this is not the majority of the problem you are seeing. The second problem is exactly what usedtireshop pointed out which is maybe you aren't doing all you can to keep a customer happy. Whenever I lose a customer I always put it on myself and my staff to find out what we did wrong. 99% of the time we could have done more, a better job, something that would be make the client impressed and happy with us. When I look internally at myself and my company I can normally find a lot of possible causes to a retention problem. Since being conscious of this, we have had less and less problems retaining our clients.

 

 

 

Just my 2c

[Jeff]

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[jeffa1958]

The name of your shop sticks out to me. Does anyone know what a carburator is? In the cars for oil changes we put a thank you card with a little bag of runts on it. Our oil change service includes free tire pressure check and fluid top off for as long as the sticker is valid. We have an ultra clean and plush waiting area. We have a full candy dish with the best assortment. Less than one percent don't touch it. Popcorn, coffee, water, soda, hot chocolate, etc.The outside of the building is ultra clean. We sweep the gutter and the sidewalks. We plant $1000.00 of flowers in spring. I have plywood hearts for valentines day, jack o lanterns, pumpkins, corn stalks, etc. I have people stop and thank me for the appearance and the decoration. I have had many new customers that only tried us because of sweeping the gutter and the appearance of the shop.Our customers are referrerd to as guests.No one wants to come to our shop. Make the visit as pleasant as possible. Everything we do is to engage the people in conversation. People don't buy things, they buy relationships. Look at other businesses and take there ideas.

[PAPShop]

We are members of BNI (Business Networking International). See if there is a group in your area and if they need someone in the auto repair/auto services slot. We have every member of the group sending referrals to us, besides the members themselves coming to us.

[ajnealey]

What PAPShop said, I plan on joining a local BNI group as well. Auto repair shops are barely represented and would be a huge networking opportunity.

 

AJ

[meowpox]

Hello all!

 

New to the forum but would like to chime in. Our shop has only been open for a year but we do alright. Here is my advice on what I am finding to be the most important, most of which are marketing (an aspect most shops neglect):

 

1) Logo and Branding - our logo was professionally designed to look modern yet sophisticated and will stick longer in a person's head. Our shop walls also match the color and all of our documents have our logo. We were lucky that my cousin is a graphic designer so didn't spend much on this but I know there are a lot of reasonably priced designers out there. We get so many compliments on our logo/branding....which means so many customers want stickers, windshield banners, shirts, etc...its all advertisement and then people will start to hear about your shop from random places and remember seeing that logo.

 

2) Updated Website - I see a lot of auto shops that have very outdated looking websites. However, websites are usually the 2nd thing new customers will look at when they find you on yelp or Facebook first. We use our website to showcase our shop, lobby/office, let customers request appointments and quotes. We get most of our appointment requests via our website, which is awesome because it gives us time to come up with accurate quotes. Also use our website to show what events we're going to, post blogs of photos of past events, show all of our pricing, show our bios and photos of us. I find that people like transparency....there are reasonably priced sites that have beautiful templates: Wix, Squarespace, Shopify.

 

3) Clean & organized shop - First thing new customers say when they walk in is wow, your shop is clean. We make sure we set time each day to clean and organize. Our clean floors make any photo of our shop look great. Customers think if we take care of our space like this, we take care of the cars as well. Also our office is modern with plants, TV with Roku, Wifi, coffee machine, free snacks, car books to read, phone charging station, we bought a cheap counter top and brackets from IKEA to put by the window so that customers can work on their laptop while look into the shop.

 

4) Social Media - we are very active in social media and we dont spend a dime on it. Instagram: great for photos, and tagging...just had a new customer come in today and said he found out about us on Instagram (tagging works!) Facebook: we get a lot of engagement here. Post photos of cars we're working on, blog entries that link to our website, events that we are going to, we message customers here if they do that to us first. We tend to get a lot more likes when we are more personable, show them that we are humans

 

5) Network like crazy - we go to a lot of events, and we host a lot of events/BBQs as well. We work on a lot of track cars, so we go to the track a lot. We paid about $1k for a canopy, large flag, and tablecloth with our logo on it. That was kinda pricey but it made its money back. A lot of people say they knew about us first because they saw us at the track. Some people walk up to us just to ask what we do. So even though we're there to have fun and track our cars, we are still advertising. If not track, we go to meets, drives, car shows.

 

6) Treat everyone (including vendors and other shops) with respect, regardless of the car they drive or how much money they spend at your shop. One customer said he comes back because he gets better vibes from us than any other shop. Another customer tried to tell us we should try to takeover another shop's customer base and we replied that we're not about that, and we are all just car enthusiasts trying to make a living--there are enough cars to go around--that customer replied well, thats why i love coming to you guys. Always stay humble, never bad-mouth anyone and people will always remember that.

 

Hope that helps!

[mspecperformance]

Hello all!

 

New to the forum but would like to chime in. Our shop has only been open for a year but we do alright. Here is my advice on what I am finding to be the most important, most of which are marketing (an aspect most shops neglect):

 

1) Logo and Branding - our logo was professionally designed to look modern yet sophisticated and will stick longer in a person's head. Our shop walls also match the color and all of our documents have our logo. We were lucky that my cousin is a graphic designer so didn't spend much on this but I know there are a lot of reasonably priced designers out there. We get so many compliments on our logo/branding....which means so many customers want stickers, windshield banners, shirts, etc...its all advertisement and then people will start to hear about your shop from random places and remember seeing that logo.

 

2) Updated Website - I see a lot of auto shops that have very outdated looking websites. However, websites are usually the 2nd thing new customers will look at when they find you on yelp or Facebook first. We use our website to showcase our shop, lobby/office, let customers request appointments and quotes. We get most of our appointment requests via our website, which is awesome because it gives us time to come up with accurate quotes. Also use our website to show what events we're going to, post blogs of photos of past events, show all of our pricing, show our bios and photos of us. I find that people like transparency....there are reasonably priced sites that have beautiful templates: Wix, Squarespace, Shopify.

 

3) Clean & organized shop - First thing new customers say when they walk in is wow, your shop is clean. We make sure we set time each day to clean and organize. Our clean floors make any photo of our shop look great. Customers think if we take care of our space like this, we take care of the cars as well. Also our office is modern with plants, TV with Roku, Wifi, coffee machine, free snacks, car books to read, phone charging station, we bought a cheap counter top and brackets from IKEA to put by the window so that customers can work on their laptop while look into the shop.

 

4) Social Media - we are very active in social media and we dont spend a dime on it. Instagram: great for photos, and tagging...just had a new customer come in today and said he found out about us on Instagram (tagging works!) Facebook: we get a lot of engagement here. Post photos of cars we're working on, blog entries that link to our website, events that we are going to, we message customers here if they do that to us first. We tend to get a lot more likes when we are more personable, show them that we are humans

 

5) Network like crazy - we go to a lot of events, and we host a lot of events/BBQs as well. We work on a lot of track cars, so we go to the track a lot. We paid about $1k for a canopy, large flag, and tablecloth with our logo on it. That was kinda pricey but it made its money back. A lot of people say they knew about us first because they saw us at the track. Some people walk up to us just to ask what we do. So even though we're there to have fun and track our cars, we are still advertising. If not track, we go to meets, drives, car shows.

 

6) Treat everyone (including vendors and other shops) with respect, regardless of the car they drive or how much money they spend at your shop. One customer said he comes back because he gets better vibes from us than any other shop. Another customer tried to tell us we should try to takeover another shop's customer base and we replied that we're not about that, and we are all just car enthusiasts trying to make a living--there are enough cars to go around--that customer replied well, thats why i love coming to you guys. Always stay humble, never bad-mouth anyone and people will always remember that.

 

Hope that helps!

 

 

Some sound "millennial" advice!

[meowpox]

 

 

Some sound "millennial" advice!

thanks!

[PAPShop]

 

 

Some sound "millennial" advice!

We also have a logo and have branded our shop very much the same as Trackspec, our logo is compliments of a brother that is a graphic artist.

 

Another place to find someone to design a logo for you at a reasonable price is an art school or tech school with a graphic design department.

[meowpox]

We also have a logo and have branded our shop very much the same as Trackspec, our logo is compliments of a brother that is a graphic artist.

 

Another place to find someone to design a logo for you at a reasonable price is an art school or tech school with a graphic design department.

 

Great idea! Newly graduated students just starting their careers usually need to build their portfolios, so are willing to do a lot of work for free or cheaper

[GTS_Services]

Hello all!

 

New to the forum but would like to chime in. Our shop has only been open for a year but we do alright. Here is my advice on what I am finding to be the most important, most of which are marketing (an aspect most shops neglect):

 

Good ideas... don't forget about reviews, I feel like people underestimate these.

 

For review sites and other social media: Add pics of your shop, customize about pages and respond to reviews (good & bad). Maintaining visibility and consistently interacting are important with social media, if you are not doing that it can hurt you. (Think about going to a facebook page that hasn't been updated in 6 mos+. Do you trust that business?) Also, if you use more than one social media site try to make sure your profile pic and background images match that way customers will recognize you across platforms.

 

There are some decent ideas in these articles as well.

 

http://gtsservices.com/news/4-lessons-for-advertising-your-glass-shop-on-social-media/

http://www.shopownermag.com/best-kept-secret-generating-referrals/

http://www.23kazoos.com/100-marketing-ideas-for-auto-repair-shops-plus-4-marketing-ideas-that-will-increase-car-count-immediately/

[Garage40]

I would add in:

 

- Local SEO/directory submissions and citations. Go through and claim all of your listings in local online directories and fill them in with consistent information and photos for your business. You can do this yourself if you know what you're doing. The main goal here is to show up in Google maps results when people search for services you provide in your area. Part of this work will include soliciting online reviews from your customers - the more reviews the better.

 

- General SEO and keyword research for your website. Once you identify the bread and butter keyword terms that locals are looking for, start writing some articles on those topics and post them on your website. Write a few more related articles and ask other industry websites/blogs to post them on their site, giving you credit. There are a few more ways to generate some backlinks but it's not really free.

 

- Social media is having more of an impact for local shops. It takes more effort than some realize, but it can certainly have solid ROI if you put together an effective strategy and remain consistent. And if you do it yourself, it will only cost you your time. Don't expect quick gains though. I always like pointing people to this article:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-case-study-victory-auto/

 

- Familiarize yourself with online marketing strategies and how they can result in a positive ROI for your business. This will help you decide what makes sense for you.

 

Once you can afford it, get the help of a professional to help take your shop to the next level so you don't end up in this position again. As mspecperformance said above, you should always be marketing. You shouldn't just look into doing it when times are bad, as chances are, anything you start today won't show you ROI for months anyway. Don't be reactionary.