[adamkushner]

A quick note on technology:

We see a lot of websites built on WordPress. You can always check to see if a site is on WordPress by adding a /wp-admin to the end of the root URL (www.domainname.com/wp-admin).

WordPress is a database driven website. If you don’t need a database for things like ecommerce, client login/user management, and other more advanced features, You don’t need a database driven website.

[adamkushner]

Great input Gentleman. An average ~20% new customers vs. repeat customers while specializing in 4 – 6 Car brands. 

Would you say the a shop servicing 2 or less car brands per Month, therefore a super Niche Market, like Volvo/Saab, or Mercedes/Smart/Sprinter would have a smaller new customer target and be focused more on maintaining current customers to maintain car count?

[adamkushner]

If you do go down the road of TV be sure to retain ownership of the video content. This is a great asset for use in video marketing on Youtube and Facebook.

If you do not go down the road of TV I’d recommend continuing on the video path. It is an awesome way to maintain a human relationship will customers and build trust with prospective new customers.

[adamkushner]

When considering an investment in SEO(Generating Leads For Yourself) or Buying Third Party Leads(Google Adwords, Yelp, Facebook Ads), there is a short term and a long term benefit to each.  

SEO

Short Term – Content for email, social media and PPC marketing

Long Term – Rank Organically for Keywords as your content is indexed and gains traction.

Buying Third Party Leads(Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, etc.)

Short Term – Show up on the first page of Google and Bing today. 

Long Term – Google Adwords & Facebook Remarking to prospects, Continue to capture in market buyers.

[adamkushner]

Doug, I agree. Yelp and it’s importance varies greatly. Consider the audience the platform has traction with. In some geographic areas Yelp has a stronger following.

Also, consider Yelp is native to IOS (Iphone apple searches). 

Bottom line – It’s important that you show up, accurately. That you monitor customer interactions. That you rally customers to provide positive feedback so that you can market your reputation. 

[adamkushner]

I experienced running a shop and managing my Google Adwords – when the word BMW could be bought for pennies. I watched the rise of Companies that manage Google Adwords and even hired one once. I quickly fired them and have been managing my families Adwords account (and dozens of other auto shops accounts) since. 

Agreed, you can write many books on the subject.

Agreed, you can spend thousands a month on Google Adwords (a third party lead provider) or you can invest in your own website and content marketing to rank organically. 

Google Adwords is a system. Once you determine what keywords, ads and landing pages drive conversions you have a system that you can throttle to create results.

BUT – as Larry and Patrick mention, there must be a sales process that provides feedback to the system on the quality of the leads and the revenue they create. Without the complete ecosystem, which includes the person managing the adwords campaign, call tracking, lead conversion mechanisms(call to actions, downloadable content, coupons, VIP Clubs)reporting on the results and implementing the feedback, Google Adwords can cost a lot, with no connection to results.

 

[adamkushner]

Awesome thread, I forgot the days of sending out a printed newsletter. At my families shop we called it Sven News. Included Trivia, car care tips, specials, employee and family news, as well as cars we had for sale. Sometimes we listed old snow tire inventory or wheel and tire packages.

Newsletters of some kind on a consistent basis are key. Why not format them for print! We did scrub the mailing list for geographic area and visits/spending. 

Tom’s perspective is great. we leveraged the content in the newsletter to make the relationship personal. 

[adamkushner]

Great advice Patrick.

– Getting to 30 reviews on Google and Facebook ASAP.
– Goodwill Policy 
– Google Adwords
– Facebook & Instagram Ads

– A professional website that is mobile optimized (responsive) and good optimization for search engines and local search.

– Submit a local listing update

– Start collecting emails (a good closer is “could we have your email address? we send out special offers and coupons from time to time”)

– I agree on Patrick’s Yelp comments.

Great Thread!

[adamkushner]

There are four major data providers (Infogroup, Acxiom, Factual and Nuestar) which are trusted by most online directories, review sites, search engines, GPS services, etc. 

By updating your company info with these you can ensure you show up almost everywhere.

There are paid services available like MozSEO, we offer this service to our clients in our listing builder product. It’s also important to claim your Google My Business and Facebook listings and verify them.

[adamkushner]

Tom,

1. 100% Correct.  Last week I even had a call from a Google impersonator socially hacking for adwords account info.

2. I am, My clients are, your competition is probably not aware of it.  I recommend it.  

I have a couple of good articles about adwords remarketing on my blog.  This one is a great intro: http://businessactualization.com/blog/bid/191954/Adwords-Re-marketing-And-Traditional-Marketing-It-s-About-Alignment

[adamkushner]

I have several clients that are BOSCH Service Centers.  It is worth becoming a BOSCH shop for the financing program alone: http://www.boschcarservice.us/Pages/BoschServiceCreditCard.aspx

The credit card program works great and I recommend it.

[adamkushner]

I think the tablet inspection is very cool.  Autovitals and Bolt-On have great products.  I did not think Autovitals has SMS integration?  I may need to Demo it again.  Again, I think these are very cool, but I’m still a skeptic of it in a production environment.  I would like to hear from shops and techs using it.

Mike, when is this coming to Google Glass?  Now that would be cool, like the BMW augmented reality repair information youtube video…Is your inspection report product integrated with the EIS product?

I think eAutoClub has a great solution as well.  Data mining for keyword triggers of services performed.  Then a report of what services are due.  This is not perfect as it is not Year/Make/Model specific. Bolt-On has this as well at a category specific level, so you must be using categories to have accuracy(correct me if I’m wrong Mike). Bolt-on is not YMM either as far as I know.

Either way these automated service presentation products are worth looking at…

[adamkushner]

Check out Service Intelligence (www.eautoclub.com) It does this for 26 service items.  Sorry if this is marked spam, but it is worth talking about and checking out.