Online Advertising

[KMS]

I have been thinking of doing some advertising online? Anyone else have any thoughts of this? I have found some places, but they all seem like stationary websites. They don't actually advertise for you. (Example: www.bimmershops.com). Sorry, I accidentally posted this in the wrong section previously.

 

 

[FROGFINDER]

Always give your customers something good to say on social media.

[KMS]

Is it mainly social media these days? What about service shop locator websites?

[PetH]

I think yelp is good to give adv

[KMS]

What about this site www.godocauto.com ?

[GermanCArDEpot.com]

I have been thinking of doing some advertising online? Anyone else have any thoughts of this? I have found some places, but they all seem like stationary websites. They don't actually advertise for you. (Example: www.bimmershops.com). Sorry, I accidentally posted this in the wrong section previously.

 

 

www.bimmershops.com and all of i85media.com/directories seo the unreal the best online money can buy positive ROI.

[KMS]

www.bimmershops.com and all of i85media.com/directories seo the unreal the best online money can buy positive ROI.

 

We are already pay to be on those websites, and only get a few customers a year from them, so we still pay thousands of dollars a year in different advertising.

[Garage40]

KMS, do you do any forum marketing in markets you target? I only ask because I'm a forum owner (for an old Mitsubishi platform) and I know performance shops tend to do pretty well when they target forums.

 

If you have any questions on the best ways to market in forums, feel free to ask. I have a pretty unique perspective on that obviously, having watched shops do it right and do it wrong over the past 15 years of managing forums. Social media marketing has cast a shadow over forums recently but there is still plenty of opportunity for using forums to generate business, grow your audience, and improve branding.

[mspecperformance]

KMS, do you do any forum marketing in markets you target? I only ask because I'm a forum owner (for an old Mitsubishi platform) and I know performance shops tend to do pretty well when they target forums.

 

If you have any questions on the best ways to market in forums, feel free to ask. I have a pretty unique perspective on that obviously, having watched shops do it right and do it wrong over the past 15 years of managing forums. Social media marketing has cast a shadow over forums recently but there is still plenty of opportunity for using forums to generate business, grow your audience, and improve branding.

 

 

Garage40,

 

My experience with forums is that you can get a lot of exposure especially if you get several fan boys to endorse your business. I have found however that most of the fanfare you get from forums can go south pretty quickly. Forum goers are VERY opinionated and even more so that people who just post reviews. They have no problem breaking you down in a heartbeat if they feel slighted. That alone is not the main problem IMO but rather because forum members generally are DIYers and are very very quick to call out shops on being "rip offs" aka charging too much money. There will always be a guy in his garage, a dealer tech that works on the weekends, or a start up shop that undercuts everyone to be competitive. Basically I find that it attracts the wrong type of customer. Do you attract lurkers that are normal people looking to make an informed decision on a shop? Absolutely. I just don't know if its worth the headache of dealing with the rest of the bunch.

 

I have personally avoided forums for a long long time, any tips otherwise?

[lmcca]

kms, werent you promoting that website in another post and the moderators told you to stop. Do you have a vested interest in that website? If memory serves me right, your shop is located in the same town, a few streets away, from the websites owner, coincidence?

[KMS]

kms, werent you promoting that website in another post and the moderators told you to stop. Do you have a vested interest in that website? If memory serves me right, your shop is located in the same town, a few streets away, from the websites owner, coincidence?

I don't have any vested interest in it, but yes, I do know who owns it. We have had many discussions about advertising costs and review websites, and he decided to build that website to help all of us save some money. I think the only way it is going to work as designed is it needs more members. We have received some good reviews and got a couple new customers from it. It is worth a try, especially because it is free to join now.

[lmcca]

it should be promoted that way then. People would follow what you submit more so than the person that owns the site because you are a shop owner on a site with other shop owners and managers. If you know the guy im sure your friends and you should state that instead of coming in with a "hey i found this site, and i am using it" as it misleads people that read it, almost like you didnt want them to know that you knew the owner of the site.

 

cheers.

[KMS]

it should be promoted that way then. People would follow what you submit more so than the person that owns the site because you are a shop owner on a site with other shop owners and managers. If you know the guy im sure your friends and you should state that instead of coming in with a "hey i found this site, and i am using it" as it misleads people that read it, almost like you didnt want them to know that you knew the owner of the site.

 

cheers.

 

It wasn't meant to mislead. i just didn't want anyone to think I had any interest in the site. I was trying to separate myself from it. Sorry, it was perceived that way. Thanks for your comment. Do you have any thoughts on it?

[Garage40]

 

 

Garage40,

 

My experience with forums is that you can get a lot of exposure especially if you get several fan boys to endorse your business. I have found however that most of the fanfare you get from forums can go south pretty quickly. Forum goers are VERY opinionated and even more so that people who just post reviews. They have no problem breaking you down in a heartbeat if they feel slighted. That alone is not the main problem IMO but rather because forum members generally are DIYers and are very very quick to call out shops on being "rip offs" aka charging too much money. There will always be a guy in his garage, a dealer tech that works on the weekends, or a start up shop that undercuts everyone to be competitive. Basically I find that it attracts the wrong type of customer. Do you attract lurkers that are normal people looking to make an informed decision on a shop? Absolutely. I just don't know if its worth the headache of dealing with the rest of the bunch.

sh

I have personally avoided forums for a long long time, any tips otherwise?

I've found that forums are very much like Yelp - you can avoid them if you want to but the people you mention who will tear your name down will do so even if you're not there to defend yourself. That is the nature of any online community, whether it be a forum or a FB group, or any review directory, it doesn't matter. If you try to steer clear of the places where negative situations will come up, you wouldn't be posting online at all. And all you end up doing is ignoring the problem and letting it fester. It's better to address it and use it as an opportunity to win other customers over.

 

In my experience the potential upside easily outweighs the potential negatives. The trick is to not engage publicly those who are trying to tear you down:

http://www.garage40.com/dealing-with-forum-complaints/

 

Spend more time and energy engaging the people in the forums who are working on builds and are in the part of the buying process where it makes sense for you to interact with them (they've already done their research and know what they need). It's good to post some "how-to" articles every now and then too to help those who need help in the research phase but don't spend too much time trying to answer tech questions - you can do that all day every day and it won't always result in business.The people who are working on builds tend to be more in the buying phase.

 

If your business is centered around local service, then look for the forums that have geographic sub-forums - FB groups are becoming popular for this too. The bigger opportunity in forums is going to be for non-local businesses.

 

Should you advertise in the forums? Maybe. It depends on the market and the rules of the forums that are popular in your target market. I have some forums where you cannot say anything that will let people know you're a business. Others don't mind so long as you're not pushing products.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Garage40

[jinjabred]

We haven't paid for online advertising. I have people call all the time asking to do our social media starting around 250-300 per month. I usually keep a notepad hand while talking to them because I usually learn a little something :-) The last girl that contacted me reguarding this said our stuff looked good, but we just needed to keep it fresh. I'm reading a book right now that I would recommend called, "likeable social media" by Dave Derpen. So far I've got some pretty good ideas from it.

 

Also want to say we had a hard time with Yelp as well. It took me forever go get our info straightened out through them. And it almost seems that they try and tear your business down if you don't pay them.