Billboards- Have You Used Them?

[Chuy Reyna]

One of my goals this year is to "Brand" the shop and really push my marketing! One of the local attorneys in town is using a billboard and he said it's the best move he's made for marketing.

 

My shop is In a small town of about 25k population. There is about 5 large "poster" boards around town, Once you pull into town about 1 mile before our shop there's a billboard, Our shop is on one of the main streets in town behind a gas station(hidden) The land lord will not let me put up a big sign on the road. So the alternative, is billboards??

 

My question is, has anyone ever used one?? If so, do they work?

 

It's pretty expensive, 800 a month.

[Elon Block]

Chuya,

 

You have a lot of things going for you. Let's look at your demographics.

Even though your landlord won't permit a sign on the main road, your

shop is highly visible to everyone coming in to get their gas.

 

The gas station is located on a dual highway with lots of traffic and

shopping centers close by. You're surrounded by neighborhoods

with tons of potential.

 

You said the population is 25k. You only need 1305 loyal customers

spending all of their repair and maintenance dollars with your shop,

to hit a million dollars per year in sales. (It would be twice that, if

your goal is two million dollars per year.)

 

Here's a report on where those numbers come from:
http://sellmoreautoservice.com/whats-your-magic-number/

So, I don't think you have a traffic problem that branding and

marketing would solve. Here's where I would look instead:

 

1) How many calls per day are you getting from potential

customers?

2) How many people are stopping in?

 

3) What is the conversion rate to appointments?

 

4) How many loyal customers are in your database? You can

run a report and see how many repeat customers you have.

 

That number is feedback as to how well you're communicating

what sets you apart from all of the other shops your customers

have to choose from.

 

By the way, I briefly looked at your website and saw you have

coupons that are for new customers only. We've interviewed

lots of customers and one of the biggest pet peeves loyal

customers have is when shops offer discounts to new customers

while they, as loyal customers, have to pay full boat.

 

Just something to think about.

[HarrytheCarGeek]

Elon, what a great post, really good points!

 

I was thinking that $800 x 12 = $9,600 per year.

 

$9,600 / 25,000 = $0.384 per every man, woman, and child in town, per year.

 

If your ad budget for this bb is 7% of your revenue, $9,600 / .07 = $137,142.86.

 

You will have to sell at least $137.2K to pay for this bb.

 

Being conservative if the household size is about 4, 25000/4=6250, let say, of those only 65 percent are viable costumers 6250*.65 =4062.5 hh

 

$137,143 /4062=$33.76 per every viable hh in town. If you have 20% of the market 4062*.2=812 hh for you $137,143/812 about $169 per sale. Or about $11,435 additional per month, or $2,858 per week in needed revenue.

 

Make a spreadsheet and play with the numbers.

 

 

edit: PS thanks for posting the question, got me thinking about Adwords budget.

Edited March 16, 2016 by HarrytheCarGeek

[HarrytheCarGeek]

You know Chuy, a 3 month campaign may pay off with a unique message ad before it would grow stale. Play with your numbers, also some EDDM post cards to selected routes may increase your brand.

 

Something like, if I wanted to be known for brakes, I would learn everything about brakes, materials, bonding, specs, performance, etc. Then would run a board: https://flic.kr/p/FdrhgA

 

 

 

in conjunction with other collateral like stickers, pens, and post card, etc.