marketing help

5

5150kon

New member
trying to figure out the best way to market. as of right now i am not mobile. more of the weekend garage warrior. or depending on the job i can do appointments late afternoon after i get off work. not being mobile exludes me from dealers, realitors, lawyers yada yada ya. would my best bet just be craigslist and wait for word of mouth to take hold? any and all ideas are greatly appreciated.
 
Are you a car enthusiast? What make? Go find a forum that is catered to that crowd and hustle up some bidniss.



Craigslist is full of wash n swirl type guys. They are super duper cheap. The majority of people hunting craigslist are cheapos. Tho at one point I did advertise on craigslist. I made it known I was not cheap but I was very good and they will be happy. I got 1 client from cl.



Get some nice business cards and flyers. Take them to local car shows. Don't just drop the flyers or cards off. Talk to the owners. Give your company's name a face. They will remember you. They may not care what a flyer or a card says.



Offer deals to family and friends. Tell them to keep the prices you offer them to themselves. Ask them to please help you out by telling everyone they know about you, "only if you are truly happy with how I treated your car." This usually appeals to the compassionate side of people and tells them you want to only ask for what's earned.
 
not as much of an enthusiast as i use to be.



im on one clubs board cause my roommate is party of it (sacramento fbody forum) and i put up an ad for discounted rates.



i like the car show idea, but with the seasons turning the shows are dieing ddown right.



im def working on the business cards, i know these are crucial, just one minor detail, a name haha. im having the hardest time with a name right now. i was thinking "exclusive" but i ithink thats pretty common already.



thanks for the advice jean-claude!! btw where di you get your cards made? i saw them in your other thread and i like those a lot. i want something basic not to busy, but the same stands out above the rest.
 
5150kon said:
not as much of an enthusiast as i use to be.



im on one clubs board cause my roommate is party of it (sacramento fbody forum) and i put up an ad for discounted rates.



i like the car show idea, but with the seasons turning the shows are dieing ddown right.



im def working on the business cards, i know these are crucial, just one minor detail, a name haha. im having the hardest time with a name right now. i was thinking "exclusive" but i ithink thats pretty common already.



thanks for the advice jean-claude!! btw where di you get your cards made? i saw them in your other thread and i like those a lot. i want something basic not to busy, but the same stands out above the rest.
Click to expand...



SB Detailing

(Sacramento's Best, if anyone ask you what the SB stands for)



Now you have your name. Go drawn up 10 different logos to fit that into. Make a thread with the logos attached and get some feedback. Now you have your logo.



I had THP printing do the printing of my card. I did the design and logo. My cards cost $350 for 1000. A far cry from $35 for 1000 2-color cards. But image means a lot to my clients and I need to fit the bill.
 
wow you just turned the last months of frustration around in the matter of a minute lol.



ya i figured those cost a pretty penny. turned out very nice.



guess of got some drawing to do, ill be back :geez



thanks again
 
Hi guys! I have the exact same situation. Posted 2 CList ads 10 minutes ago:wall and ran a small ad (not classified) in the local newspaper today.

Do you think a billboard ad would work? There is a billboard down the road from my place that says $100/month on it. Or should I stick with the newspaper at $64/day?:nixweiss Thank you for your help!
 
64 bucks a day = 2000 dollars a month. Vs. how many people read the newspaper Not cost efficent unless your phone is smoking from the calls your getting from your newspaper ad.



The billboard. How busy is the road? @ 100 dollars a month if one person calls you from that billboard you get your money back.
 
5150kon said:
not as much of an enthusiast as i use to be.



im on one clubs board cause my roommate is party of it (sacramento fbody forum) and i put up an ad for discounted rates.



i like the car show idea, but with the seasons turning the shows are dieing ddown right.



im def working on the business cards, i know these are crucial, just one minor detail, a name haha. im having the hardest time with a name right now. i was thinking "exclusive" but i ithink thats pretty common already.



thanks for the advice jean-claude!! btw where di you get your cards made? i saw them in your other thread and i like those a lot. i want something basic not to busy, but the same stands out above the rest.
Click to expand...



Another Fbody guy, eh? I have a 2000 ws.6 :clap:



I'm in your boat-what to do to drum up sales? I get that CL is cheap and I can tell you from experience that no one at a car show will let you do their ride-they are too arrogant/proud and i've been snub nosed quite a bit. I actually brought some firepower too (hot model/skimpy clothes with a flirty attitude). She ended up getting caught up talkign to dirty old men who would talk to her for long periods of time.



Now that winter's almost here, i feel damn near hopeless. But I think that i'm going to start calling parking/valet managers and offer them something like $20/car if they allow me to promote the biz with their services. Gonna require me to put some phone time in, but in this economy, you have to go after the clients, not wait for them.
 
Another thing to keep in mind is frequent a lot of boards that have the enthusiest on them. This board is cool to learn from but 95% of the people on this board are detailers themselves. meaning you're probably not going to pull to many clients from this site alone. But getting on other car sites where people enjoy their cars and want to talk about them is a gold mine to get involved in. Most of the top guys here are very active on other "enthusiest" boards and that's where they get the majority of their clientel from.
 
What about placing an ad on the local tv channel? Here there is "channel 10". It's just a channel that plays local games live and 95% of the time when there's no game it just perpetually rotates singles slide typed ads for anything from lawyers to the animal shelter.



I could put an ad on channel 10 for $9.50/day, $63/week, $250/2months. I'm leaning toward running it for a week to try it.



What do you guys think? Btw, how much business do you do in the winter? Thx.
 
I'm thinking about printing 1000 fliers and putting them on front doors of houses in my area. Good idea, bad idea, will I get in trouble with the law?
 
Ok...before you keep reading this post...please note that if you don't take my advice...you will be basically calling your competitors and asking them who the $4000 checks should be made out to. Ok here it goes:



Before you get any fliers, magnets, newspaper adds, or anything like that, hire a web designer to create and search engine optimize your website. My business is going through the roof now that my website is getting ranked well in google. Spend some serious money getting your website made professionally and making damn sure that it's the best in your area. If it's not, than don't even bother. An impressive and easy to find website will be your cash cow. You will make so much money from it in the long run you won't even regret the initial costs of developing it. Stay ahead of the damn curve. All the detailers in my area are doing fliers and what not. I'm attempting to stay ahead of the curve by optimizing my website for conversion call rates and working on a new blog for increased traffic.



Maksimum Auto Detailing- Professional Auto Detailing in Baltimore | Maksimum Auto Detailing - Professional Mobile Auto Detailing Serving the Baltimore Area Here is the site for reference.
 
What do you mean by the $4000 check? Also, you cater to the lambos and Ferraries. I'm not. Do you think a web site is really the best use of my money since I mainly detail $5,000-$20,000 used cars for the local used car dealer. I'm trying to refocus on the retail customers in this area which have nice cars but I don't remember the last time a $250,000 lambo drove past me.
 
The $4000 check is a way of saying to your competition "Here you take these customers and all this profit I don't need it!" Every time a customer looks for a detailer and doesn't find you, you just lost money. That's why you should be the top dog on the online scene in your area. Your mistaking when you say I work on the lambos and ferraris. 98% of my work is bread and butter cars. It's a treat for me to do an exotic.



The best advice I can give you is to reach for the stars build steps so you can actually get closer to them.
 
If I have a website professionally done, how long do you think it will be before I see customers? The used car place more or less stopped using me so I'm trying to scramble for retail customers.
 
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