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How Can You Hit The Target When You Don't Know Where The Bullseye Is?
I’ve mentioned this topic before, but never went into really any depth until now.
Many shops don’t advertise because they have no real way of knowing if it works. Of those that do advertise, often there’s not a clearly defined strategy but rather a “shotgun” approach. I would like to offer a suggestion for your shop to consider. It involves identifying your marketing bullseye.
The technology to target specific zip codes has been around for quite a while, typically used with direct mail. First, let’s talk about which zip codes. Do you want to target zip codes with a certain income level? Or perhaps a zip code that has a lot of late model vehicles? Or perhaps a lot of trucks, or no European vehicles. Whatever your preference criteria happens to be, you can target those zip codes. On average, most shops try to stay with a certain number of miles radius from the shop. In very urban areas, perhaps 5 miles or less, while others are more.
Once you have your criteria, the second step is the delivery method. In my experience, direct mail isn’t the most effective way to deliver your message. What if you could deliver your message to your chosen zip codes only when people were looking for auto repair such that your shop is offering? I have found the most bang for the buck that can deliver on that promise to be Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. It’s the modern-day Yellow Pages, only better.
Few understand that PPC advertising is the fastest way to get to the top of Google, Bing, & Yahoo. Your shop can show an unlimited amount of times in the search engines for free. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad and they go to your site. The sole purpose of a website is to generate a phone call; that’s it.
You can get a Google tracking phone number for free and tie that into Google Analytics so you can see how many calls you are getting, how much it’s costing you, and more importantly, the ROI. A sample is below. You will quickly learn that if the person answering the phone isn’t skilled in converting callers to appointments, you’re better off not making the investment in the first place.
There is no shortage of professional phone training for automotive sales professionals. Many of which are either sponsors, members, or contributors to this website, so there’s no excuse to let phone calls fall through the cracks. I have had great training with Elite Worldwide. One of the first signs of ineffective phone procedure is when someone claims most of the calls are price shoppers. It’s the phone person’s job to convert price shoppers into an appointment, not to try to sell a job over the phone.
The point is, done correctly, you will receive many more phone calls than your shop’s production capability can handle. Then it becomes a numbers game of selecting the type of jobs you really want or like. For instance, take a look at an average day in our transmissions only shop using our call tracking service, Conviza.com at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_Z7So2YC_k0KwoQyJfTU25TrN23ehw6F On busy days, we would get 50 or more calls in a day.
Here’s an infographic article that shows 3 classes of Americans by income. It shows the top 20% of income earners, the bottom 20%, and the “average American” income earners. Which would you want to target? See https://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-americans-make-spend-money/
In my next post, I’ll discuss affordable sources for zip code and vehicle data and how that can make the phone ring with your shop’s kind of customer on the other end.
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2 Replies
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Could you please recommend a company to use for pay per click my email is billy@billycraven.com we are seeing the results that you are receiving.
Thanks,
Billy Craven
Shores Automotive
561-391-0260
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Could you please recommend a company to use for pay per click my email is billy@billycraven.com we are seeing the results that you are receiving.
Thanks,
Billy Craven
Shores Automotive
561-391-0260
==============================================================Billy, I sent the following directly to your Email address. The following is for others that may want to contact me as you did.
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You were probably expecting a sales pitch, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I hate to disappoint but I have nothing to sell except free information on how I did it. I’m paying it forward for all the people who helped me along the way to get me to where I am today.
I didn’t use any company for PPC advertising. I did it all myself. I learned how to do it from subscribing to the Google Ads blog and YouTube channel, referring to their support site, and you can too. For me, it was a very profitable activity to learn and manage my own PPC account. I did use Convirza for call tracking to measure my PPC effectiveness.
Because we had a manager in place, I also used Convirza’s conversation analytics product as well, which scores calls based on the conversation because I didn’t have time to personally listen in to every call to find out if he was handling inbound calls correctly.
PPC companies know the mechanics PPC advertising but they don’t know the automotive business. People who know the automotive business don’t know PPC. Hence the problem. I found myself to save thousands by doing it myself. It was well worth my time to learn on my own.
However, if you don’t want to do it yourself, I have limited experience with only 1 company, for just a few months, and it was about a 5 on a 0-10 scale. That was ReachLocal. You can also do a search for PPC companies. I wish I could really recommend somebody, I really do, but can’t because of my very limited experience with them. Here are the DIY resources I used to learn…
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