Let's talk Marketing, what works what doesn't?

[99StockGT]

So I'm aiming to make this an open ended conversation with obviously some self interest in the topic but in short..

 

Where to spend time/energy/money marketing that will see a measurable return on capital investment? In short, where will you get the most business or at least potential business, for the least amount of effort. Hopefully that doesn't come off as odd as it seems to be in writing.

 

Business is good. Business is very good. We have all bays full every day and a backlog of projects into August at this point. There is still enough time on the schedule to squeeze in day to day work and small-medium jobs throughout as well. However what medium do people see as quality ways to reach out to new customers? Also, what age group do you reach that will go from being "viewers" to "spenders"?

 

Facebook : Essentially without paid advertising your content is seldom viewed in the feeds of "new" people, and rarely even for those who "like" the page. Unless they actively search for your page and the analytics decide to place us in your view. "Reached" and "Viewed" numbers mean nothing if there is no meaningful interaction or potential business interaction.

 

Instagram : Very time sensitive to posting, which their software does a reasonable job of identifying peek times for reactions. Growing your "Follower" base seems to be hit and miss, unless you are picked up and reposted by a page with a big base. The vast majority of traffic seems to be for beautiful half naked women (not judging!) or celebrities, rarely something like a feed from a shop about actual work. Tags are HUGELY important however just added 20 tags to a photo doesn't make the best sense, also you may pick up a "Follower" but they may or may not actually be human.

 

DriveTribe : Great platform to produce and publish content, not very widely used still at this point and extremely hard to get your "Tribe" exposure. Unless you again get reposted by one of the big names, or someone is explicitly looking for your Tribe they will likely as not never see your photos/videos/articles. Free to use at this point, and the requirement to link to Facebook is gone... time will tell where this platform goes.

 

Google : Making your business easily searchable is important, good review base is also highly important. Positive reviews are great, but even negative reviews that have a solid thoughtful response can also be turned into an informative event.

 

Yelp : Does anyone really care? Their analytics for what reviews they post and don't post is mildly terrible. Interaction with business owners is almost nil and no way to actively market through them.

 

Mailbox Mailers : Old school flyers. Those things that show up in your box at home/office that often as not get thrown directly in the trash. Are they effective? In the past 6 months how much business have you given to someone you got a flyer in the mail from?

 

Events/Shows : Physically being present at a car show or event, wearing recognizable company garb with or without a vehicle present. There's a fine line between being there representing a company and actually "working" an event as a vendor. Events such as IFO and GoodGuys offer a few vendor booth options however general car shows such as Wholly Joes, Cars and Coffee, casual Friday QSL meets don't typically like people hawking services.

 

As we constantly tweak our business to cater to our customers and what they need from us these are the questions that we must tackle. Always appreciate the varied and sometimes educated input from the CR brethren.

[BStowers023]

Honestly, Austin I would tell you kinda what we talked about a few weeks ago. Good business practice = referrals = more referrals and so and so on. If you're doing well now without doing a ton of marketing, then you're doing it the right way by doing good work. I know that's probably not the answer you were looking for, but I'd say just keep doing what you're doing if you aren't hurting.

[Mitch]

I drive by your shop daily. I would have no idea you were there or what services you do if it weren't for knowing you on here. The name on the awning doesn't stand out. I did notice you got the logo painted on a garage door there, recently. It looks good. You're on a moderately traveled road, are you zoned so that you can't have a bigger sign advertising oil change specials or the like?

[verse]

Our business is in ecommerce, http://www.mypetrolbox.com, so the normal marketing venues work the best.

 

Facebook ads are great for us and drive a lot of traffic to our website. I would think targeted ads for people in the Columbus area, would at least get your name out there.

 

Instagram is great for interacting with our target market.

 

I've tried small sample sizes with Reddit and Google ads and didn't really have the impact that I was looking for. If you need to get to the top of search pages, Google ads will definitely help you, but we are already at the top of pages for any google searches for our niche which helps.

 

IMO, the best marketing out there is with YouTube influencers. I'm constantly working to try and find new and upcoming influencers. Some of the already established people can charge outrageous amounts. I don't know any locally unfortunately or I'd send them your way.

 

We also love to get booths at car shows to interact with people and let people know about us first hand. That may work for you locally.

[99StockGT]

I drive by your shop daily. I would have no idea you were there or what services you do if it weren't for knowing you on here. The name on the awning doesn't stand out. I did notice you got the logo painted on a garage door there, recently. It looks good. You're on a moderately traveled road, are you zoned so that you can't have a bigger sign advertising oil change specials or the like?

 

Unfortunately zoning around here has been a ROYAL pain up until very recently, no signage in the yard or marketing on the external walls of the building. We see a TON of traffic up and down Industrial on a daily basis but that doesn't always translate into business. We have some ideas on signage and stuff to do but that's a little bit of a different marketing stream.

 

If you don't mind me asking, without you knowing me on here just from driving by what would you think we do? Always nice to know what an honest unbiased opinion is.

[99StockGT]

Our business is in ecommerce, http://www.mypetrolbox.com, so the normal marketing venues work the best.

 

Facebook ads are great for us and drive a lot of traffic to our website. I would think targeted ads for people in the Columbus area, would at least get your name out there.

 

Instagram is great for interacting with our target market.

 

I've tried small sample sizes with Reddit and Google ads and didn't really have the impact that I was looking for. If you need to get to the top of search pages, Google ads will definitely help you, but we are already at the top of pages for any google searches for our niche which helps.

 

IMO, the best marketing out there is with YouTube influencers. I'm constantly working to try and find new and upcoming influencers. Some of the already established people can charge outrageous amounts. I don't know any locally unfortunately or I'd send them your way.

 

We also love to get booths at car shows to interact with people and let people know about us first hand. That may work for you locally.

 

Great to hear Facebook is being a good marketing tool for you, do your analytics on the page show a large amount of page clicks to your site from Facebook? What I find interesting is how few posts have any likes/comments/interactions versus personal pages. Even ones you spend money to "Boost" you may see a lot larger reach on there but that doesn't necessarily transfer to page clicks to the actual site. Or do you have a way of tracking from your main page where the referral traffic comes from?

 

Also, how much do you feel it matters that you are selling a "Thing" that's purchasable online in the comfort of the home versus we are selling a "Service" that requires you to put pants on and come to the shop?

 

Thanks for the prompt responses already guys!

[Coaster]

Unfortunately zoning around here has been a ROYAL pain up until very recently, no signage in the yard or marketing on the external walls of the building. We see a TON of traffic up and down Industrial on a daily basis but that doesn't always translate into business. We have some ideas on signage and stuff to do but that's a little bit of a different marketing stream.

 

If you don't mind me asking, without you knowing me on here just from driving by what would you think we do? Always nice to know what an honest unbiased opinion is.

 

What if that advertising was say painted on the side of a van parked in the last spot by the road. It would be very visible from at least one direction.

 

I mostly use Google to find new businesses, unless I'm referred by someone. Facebook I use to keep up with places I already know.

 

No one I know ever mentions Yelp anymore. Instagram just seems like twitter with pictures, not enough space to get any info across.

[iwashmycar]

I think referrals are huge. We build and sell houses. LOTs of which are referrals. It is also sort of geographic. I want to live "here"...oh you build here. Great.

 

Kind of the same...I need my car done "here"...oh you do that here. Great. What helps to assist that fact (considering there are probably many other places) is good reviews...Google, Yelp, ect. Make sure searches bring you up....you are under the right categories. If I am searching for brakes, you shouldn't only come up under performance tuning, or some shit.

 

When I want a new place for whatever I typically hit Google and Yelp and see what is highest rated. First hand reviews help my decision the majority of times. After that, having a decent website gets me on your phone and to your door. If I cant even see when you are open, or a good phone number...moving on!

 

 

tl:dr Go into the search engines, Yelp, ect and make sure your info is good, good looking, and up to date. #, hours, jobs you do, ect.

[Mitch]

 

If you don't mind me asking, without you knowing me on here just from driving by what would you think we do? Always nice to know what an honest unbiased opinion is.

 

Well you see the older cars and a variety of cars you don't see often out front. You often see a tow truck too. Nothing says feel free to stop on in, we'll take care of that oil change you're 6000 miles past due for. I guess look at what else is in the area pulling people past. Now obviously the big thing is costco. But you've got truck guys going to bullet liner, the harley place, jeepers at trailquest, soccer moms at the tennis place and gymnastics too. Something like 200 new houses are being built between your place and 42. You're in a great spot.

[verse]

Great to hear Facebook is being a good marketing tool for you, do your analytics on the page show a large amount of page clicks to your site from Facebook? What I find interesting is how few posts have any likes/comments/interactions versus personal pages. Even ones you spend money to "Boost" you may see a lot larger reach on there but that doesn't necessarily transfer to page clicks to the actual site. Or do you have a way of tracking from your main page where the referral traffic comes from?

 

Also, how much do you feel it matters that you are selling a "Thing" that's purchasable online in the comfort of the home versus we are selling a "Service" that requires you to put pants on and come to the shop?

 

Google analytics does a decent job at showing us where our website traffic is coming from. I'd say on a typical day 30-40%, some days as much as 65% of our traffic is from Facebook. We also get 10-15 page likes per day currently so that adds to our organic reach.

 

I don't think Facebook ads are necessarily for only products. Also helps with brand recognition and creating a following. A good ad that's correctly targeted could yield results for repair shop, but it can be expensive to get the learning curve correct with Facebook ads. I've been learning as I go and still could probably get better results than we are getting currently. I've seen other companies similar to ours, different niches, get frustrated b/c they are dumping money into ads with no results. Luckily we haven't had that problem.

[Franchi]

Subbed for info. :-)

[Gergwheel1647545492]

For daily maintenance stuff the money mailer thing is the best in my mind, i always go through those and see if there is anything decent in there.

 

For performance stuff i'd focus on google, facebook and other online things.

 

For the younger crowd, you could look into getting a snapchat filter for your business. Take a pic, and put yourself in a fancy supped up hotrod, something like that.

 

I also totally agree, since you are not hurting now, just keep doing good quality work and people will keep referring you.

[TTQ B4U]

I'm far from a marketing expert but with social media and the internet forums of today, I get 100% of what I'm looking for from referrals. CR and other forums from FB Pages my wife surfaces, etc. serve as a great resource. Not so much in the way of advertising but from direct referrals.

 

IMO it's 200% critical that every single customer be a raving fan as it only takes 1 person to say you suck then others to then chime in and say either that or you're meh...and then you slip off the map for good.

 

Work to track your customers by zip code and learn about what interests they have and perhaps tie together what they have in common so you can target those interest groups.

 

That said, interestingly enough, I do 1-2 details per week and nearly all are from referrals or other forums where someone asks who detailed someones car and they point to me.

 

I've also used nextdoor.com, Dublin Moms in the know FB, etc. with great success. Word of mouth spreads via social media fast and far far more effectively than any mailers or email blasts.

 

Good luck man! I will be heading out your way as I need to go visit Dublin Auto Spa for a repair on window tint. Found them a few years back as a referral from someone here in fact

[BIGGU]

I cant help much but I can say one thing that makes me never do business with a company is them putting flyers under my wipers. If I see that from any company I will never do business with them again.

[Zx2guy19]

For whatever it's worth, I enjoy your Instagram page! You guys post good pics and consistent updates.

[wagner]

Google analytics does a decent job at showing us where our website traffic is coming from. I'd say on a typical day 30-40%, some days as much as 65% of our traffic is from Facebook. We also get 10-15 page likes per day currently so that adds to our organic reach.

 

I don't think Facebook ads are necessarily for only products. Also helps with brand recognition and creating a following. A good ad that's correctly targeted could yield results for repair shop, but it can be expensive to get the learning curve correct with Facebook ads. I've been learning as I go and still could probably get better results than we are getting currently. I've seen other companies similar to ours, different niches, get frustrated b/c they are dumping money into ads with no results. Luckily we haven't had that problem.

 

This.

 

Facebook can also be a fickle whore, or at least she has been to us. They changed their algorithm again and it's punishing the magazines big time.

[Stretch]

For me it's word of mouth. If somebody I know recommends a place I almost always check them out. If I have a positive experience I always go back and always recommend the shop as well at any show, event, etc..

 

I hate flyers as well. Put one on my car and it just aggravates me

[verse]

This.

 

Facebook can also be a fickle whore, or at least she has been to us. They changed their algorithm again and it's punishing the magazines big time.

 

Yeah. We were getting a website view last year at .06 per click and lately it's been .15-.19 per click. It sucks b/c our budget has went up and only marginally better results. It is what it is. Still a great value for us.

[99StockGT]

Thanks again for all the interaction and opinions, exactly what I knew I could count on from ya'll. Let me address a couple things.

 

The painted vehicle at the end of the lot, if you've noticed recently we put eye catching rides there as well as our '65 C10 shop truck with company paint scheme there. Personally I agree our building is very non-descript so anything we can do to draw the eye and get people to notice the logo the better. There's a project in the works that will be along this line sometime soon once we can get out from under the current batch of project rides.

 

 

Reviews and referrals are our number 1 source of new customers, you typically are getting a better start with a customer who has had a sort of "warm introduction" than just someone picking up a flyer. Organic growth that way is definitely nice, however that also ties back to how do we drive people to view the reviews in the first place aside from random Googlings.

 

We absolutely are in an excellent spot with tremendous potential as Dublin continues to grow over top of us. With all the new businesses going in up and down Industrial as well as the new housing going in towards Plain City and New California it's just going to continue to get better. Hopefully Does a sign or flyer listing oil change specials and new customers welcome sort of those scream of business problems / thirst? Or does it come off as hey maybe give us a try?

 

Google analytics are definitely helpful, unfortunately we are seeing more like 10-15% of our traffic to the main page from Facebook/Instagram. The nice feature of Facebook is the ease of posting info/updates versus updating the website, unfortunately if you can't get eyes on the updated content it's all for not. For example, currently we are running a "Page Boost Ad" on the Lucore Race Facebook page. The money spent is over a 7 day period, every day I am manually changing the add wording and image. At current we have seen 5 new "Page Likes" which works out to about $10 per person to Like the page. Interaction with those new likes is 0. Now, our "Reach" is 7,454 People which is up 2,305% over the previous week... but how do you track and quantify that? Our designated market range includes 120,000 people... only 7,500 of so have paused for half a second on the ad? Only 5 of which have engaged with the ad? Would that kind of engagement percentage seem minuscule to anyone else? Money well spent?

 

The younger crowd...is a challenge. Let's box in the younger crowd at 18-30 for the sake of argument. How many of those people maintain there cars aside from a basic quick cheap oil change? How many lease or buy new versus used? How many are making money and saving enough for a breakdown/repair? How many are still living off parents? Not trying to make a judgement, but FINDING people in that age category who are capable of affording a repair isn't easy. Aside from the fact that most of your "traditional media" outlets don't reach that age group any more either. It's a challenge, hence why I'm on here asking you folks!

 

Mailers, well they have proven to work. Though your percentage is low, essentially every customer we get in the door and taken care of is one we can typically count on coming back time and again. Slowly but surely it keeps growing your base, can't argue the effectiveness of that.

 

Tim... you are SO right. Unfortunately in this industry, more than most, a reputation is incredibly hard to build and maintain but can be lost in an instant. With online reviews and the ability for comments/posts/shit to go viral in a moment it's a hell of a battle to maintain your place Atop The Mountain. Part of why I'm here is to make sure we are taking the absolutely best care possible of our customers, I've built my business reputation on it over years and will do my damndest to protect it.

 

We have dabbled with the window/windshield flyers in the past. Doesn't seem to be very positively appreciated. NOW, the exception to that is Diesel folks. A lot of businesses and business owners have a hell of a time finding competent shops to work on their machines quickly and at a reasonable rate. Many times I've put a card on a Powerstroke/Cummins/Duramax and gotten a call back. Considerably higher rate than with passenger cars.

 

Thanks for paying attention to our Instagram! I try to put content on there pretty much daily that shows not only our project cars and such but also the day to day vehicles. We don't just want your hotrods, but who gets excited about seeing an oil change on a camry?

 

Lastly.... Facebook and their fickleness. It's incredible the power they have over viewship/content appearance and give absolutely 0 notice or heads up on changes. On personal pages, the feed is based on communication and activity. The more you personally communicate and view a persons page the more often their updates drop into your feed. On the Business side of things it's a completely different beast. Those people have to actively search for your page, post on your page, select not only Like but Follow... if not even having 20,000 people that have Liked your page means nothing if there's almost no chance of interaction. UNLESS you do a paid advertisement, which will give you as I stated above a "Reach" and "Views" but are impossible to actually track or quantify. Frustrating...is not quite the word.

 

Again, thanks for all the involvement so far!

[wagner]

Yeah. We were getting a website view last year at .06 per click and lately it's been .15-.19 per click. It sucks b/c our budget has went up and only marginally better results. It is what it is. Still a great value for us.

 

Between their change and Instagram's change I've been playing wack-a-mole trying to figure out how to make it better.

 

Even when we sponsor posts they have throttled that, then you have this branded content bullshit that has crushed our reach and engagement too.

 

It's scary how Facebook really controls what people see and how it gets filtered.

[verse]

Our designated market range includes 120,000 people... only 7,500 of so have paused for half a second on the ad? Only 5 of which have engaged with the ad? Would that kind of engagement percentage seem minuscule to anyone else? Money well spent?

 

No. That "7500 reach" means Facebook has shown your ad to 7500 people. The 120000 people is how many people fit your target audience that you set up in your ad, ie. 28-58 that live in Dublin, OH. Some people have become immune to social media ads and scroll by without noticing if they don't catch their eye. I do it all the time on reddit or google searches.

 

As far as money well spent... hard to say. People scrolling through may remember your name when they have a problem with a car, maybe not. I'm not sure exactly how your quantity your results, we do in subscriptions purchased. I think the only way to quantify your results would be if the ad was a coupon that the customer had to show you when physically in your shop. The problem with coupon's, FB doesn't like text in their ads. lol

[iwashmycar]

Thanks for paying attention to our Instagram! I try to put content on there pretty much daily that shows not only our project cars and such but also the day to day vehicles. We don't just want your hotrods, but who gets excited about seeing an oil change on a camry?

 

 

 

So, from both your Facebook page and website I see no link to Instagram. Even on that Social9 thing that lists every link known to man lol. No Instagram.

[99StockGT]

No. That "7500 reach" means Facebook has shown your ad to 7500 people. The 120000 people is how many people fit your target audience that you set up in your ad, ie. 28-58 that live in Dublin, OH. Some people have become immune to social media ads and scroll by without noticing if they don't catch their eye. I do it all the time on reddit or google searches.

 

As far as money well spent... hard to say. People scrolling through may remember your name when they have a problem with a car, maybe not. I'm not sure exactly how your quantity your results, we do in subscriptions purchased. I think the only way to quantify your results would be if the ad was a coupon that the customer had to show you when physically in your shop. The problem with coupon's, FB doesn't like text in their ads. lol

 

Oh I fully understand the "7500 reach" part but how to do you verify they saw it? Spent more than 1 second or less than half a second viewing it? They can just as easily say "100,000" reach and we have absolutely no way of proving or disproving that point. Hence why measuring engagement is a metric I want. Seems odd that of everything that gets posted on there that 7500 people looked at the ad, read something on it, saw the images, then thought meh I won't bother clicking like on that I'm not into Muscle Cars/Race Cars/Trucks/etc etc

 

I've tried multiple ways of listing the Instagram link on Facebook and on our page, will have to check maybe they got deleted. Either way, I cross post nearly every Instagram post TO Facebook.

 

For those curious, @LucoreRacing is the page. Always welcome constructive criticism

[iwashmycar]

Usually if you 'share to Facebook' from Instagram it will note it as such on your Facebook page....so people can click on your Instagram link right from each Facebook picture. Upside is if you want it on IG and FB its kind of a one click thing.

[99StockGT]

Keep in mind, there are 2 different Lucore pages. Which I know, is annoying and confusing. One is Lucore Automotive. One is Lucore Race