First Business - Need Marketing/Advertising Ideas

[InsomnicBrain]

Hi,

I'm getting ready to open up my first franchise automotive business in a couple of months. I have gone through the training program and they have told me the only way for me to have a busy first few months is to go out and do outside sales to the local businesses.

I was wondering if I could get some ideas from some of you who have been in this situation before and some of you who just have some great ideas. It's a transmission shop and one of the marketing techniques they have taught me was to go to local business, especially automotive ones like (discount tire, autozone, etc) and introduce myself and try and set up a referral program with their employees, where customer come in and describe their car related problems and if it sounds like a minor/major transmission repair send them my way and the employees get compensated from me for each repair.

I would love to hear some of your suggestions, techniques, ideas, compensation ideas that some of you might recommend me doing to get my name out there.

I am really excited at the same time nervous and anxious since this will be my first business since leaving a corporate setting. A vast majority of my time will be spent doing outside sales with some hours in the shop. I wanted to get a daily routine going that I can follow. I was thinking of buying lunch for a companys employees once a week, leaving them with cards, brochures and car tips. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,

Robert

[CarlOrf00]

Wow. Okay, you're going into the Auto Repair biz. Very cool. My friend has been working with shops for over 2 years now on a site I'm not going to tell you about yet (you'll feel the noise when it hits)

Anyway here's what you want to do:

#1: Stay out of the phonebook. I'm not kidding. If corporate is buying it for you... great, but if you have to fork over the green, don't bother. Nobody is looking.

#2: Stay off the radio. Nobody cares anymore and it's beyond expensive

#3: Don't do direct mail UNLESS you're going to use a 4 part system. For that just Google "Auto Repair Advertising - Direct Mail - The 5 Step Survivalists Guide"

The dude who wrote that is a bit harsh on the industry, but he's dead on with what needs to happen.

#4: Local SEO. I can't stress this enough. PPC in your industry is up around $1 - $10 per click and it'll suck hard-core if you have to dive into that. SEO and you will do pretty well.

Now... here's how you want to do this. Please listen up because this is how I do things and it's how everyone should do things (No, I'm not that arrogant, I just think 3 minutes on the phone resulting in over 4000 new clients is worth at least an 'off handed mention')

Get In The Paper. No, I'm not kidding.

Here's how you do it:

#1: Discover what people want out of your industry.
To save you time I'll just tell you - they want trust, they want quality service and they don't want to fell like you're going to hose them. End of story.

#2: Develop your press release around the idea you're 'bucking the trend'. You're the guy they can trust.

#3: Don't just tell them this. You're going to offer free classes 1 day per week to teach people how to avoid "Auto Repair Ripoff"

#4: Write your press release about how you got into this business in order to help the American Auto Repair Workers image and how you chose this corporation because it stands for trust bla bla bla...

#5: DO NOT SEND YET!!!!! Call reporters for all the papers that service your area. Ask for "Business Editor". Hit them with a 30 second elevator speech about how you're new in the market and are offering all this cool free stuff.

FYI: you should also have a free ebook download about this stuff on your site to drive more local traffic. Of course that ebook will have loads of info... and your contact info.

FYI Part II: This same thing works with radio. But start small and work out. What you're doing is called "Pitching the media" Google "Media Pitch".

But I'm not kidding, this stuff works, and you'll explode your stuff very, very fast.

Another thing you can do is take this same idea and go to PTA meetings. Infiltrate the Soccer Moms.

Total Cost: $ Jack Crap
Total Time: 3-4 hours.
Total Result: You'll be the biggest game in town by the end of your first year.

[InsomnicBrain]

This will save me tons of money, I can't thank you enough. I will be doing my reserach. Thanks again!

[allysa]

for cheap and effective advertisement, try online. Also, you may advertise on your local news papers and classified ads, but it is more costly. Good luck on your new business.

[InsomnicBrain]

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestions. What kind of onilne advertisements would be effective locally? Would I find a online marketing firm or would I just try to create a website and try be first on the search engine?

Thanks...Robert