How to attract corporate clients to a car service. Effective car service advertising

After starting their own business, many entrepreneurs are wondering,. Unfortunately, due to a lack of understanding of how to achieve the goal, many car services work for months after opening to the detriment. As a result, most of these properties are simply sold. If you do not want your business to suffer the same fate, we recommend that you carefully read the recommendations presented in this article.

Of course, when opening a business in a new place, an entrepreneur always has to face a lot of trouble and difficulties. That's why a lot of people don't even think about it.how to open a car servicedue to other difficulties. But, if you want to achieve what you want, and you have little time, you definitely need to think about an effective marketing strategy. One must be aware simple thing- it is necessary to attract customers before the opening of any commercial institution. In any case, a clear action plan should be developed. If you are not strong in this, order the services of specialists.

Before talking about how to promote a car service, you should discuss issues related to what needs to be done before buying advertising. By developing the right promotional offer is meant the benefit that it can bring, namely the return on savings. For this reason, you should focus on the target audience, and not on the beauty and attractiveness of the offer. Besides good publicity will lead to the emergence of new channels that will help to achieve the promotion of the project.

Today it is customary to distinguish between several varieties of advertising.:

• Business promotion through radio and TV;

Before choosing one of these types, please note that car service promotionis a complex process that requires an accurate analysis of supply and demand for a particular type of service. If you are at the planning stage, we advise you to familiarize yourself with "".

What services should be advertised

You must know, how to quickly promote a car serviceat no additional cost. This will require, at a minimum, to master the basics of marketing strategies. Understand that every potential customer who sees an ad must take a certain action. In particular, call or come to a car service. You must decide in advance what action the client needs to take in order to use your services. This is directly related to the choice of contacts that will be placed in the promotional offer. It might even be the name of the site. From here rises important question related to how to make sure that the client is interested in the area of ​​\u200b\u200byou offer services?

First of all, you need to take into account the following:

The client must want to modernize or subdue his transport;

You must focus on the target audience, which has enough finance to cooperate with your car service;

He must want to apply right now.

And so, answering the question ofhow to promote a car service from scratchonce again, good advertising must be used. Therefore, if you simply indicate that there is a diagnosis, specialists and favorable prices for services is unlikely to stand out from other competitors. Moreover, if there is no need, they will not pay attention to the proposal at all. Based on this, it becomes clear that it is better to focus on such a factor as urgency.

Advertising tricks

Suppose a person changed the oil about 6 months ago. That is, it is time to re-do the specified procedure. However, most people have a bad habit of procrastinating. Understanding this shortcoming can be the answer to, how to promote a business. To encourage the customer to change now, try to explain the reason why the oil should be changed now. Some experts in the field of advertising development describe not what the client can get, but what he refuses without taking advantage of the offer.

To get the maximum benefit from advertising, we suggest making a deadline for a special promotion, for example, for an oil change. Let your customers know that you are performing this operation in a short time, that there are specialists who understand different products and know their business.

It is more difficult to achieve recognition from customers if you have to work in limited conditions. For example, if you need to receive customers in the garage. Given that everyone loves comfort and pays attention to resources,we will show you how to promote a car service in a garageat no additional cost. If it is not possible to provide proper comfort, due to a lack of financial savings, then it is better to head for affordability. Let's say you offer to change the oil for 100 rubles cheaper than other service centers.Against the background of the urgency factor, the result will be extremely effective.

Increase in the target audience

As soon as advertising gives “first fruits”, you can think about expanding offers. Today, a body wash is considered a very useful service. This is due to the fact that every motorist needs to wash the car. Wherein technical condition auto in this aspect does not play any role. We note once again that it is more profitable to advertise services that are not used in great demand, because all the most profitable niches already used by others major competitors. If you plan to make money from oil changes, you must be the best in this field. For this reason, it is desirable to focus on your specialty.

Attention Secrets

No matter how it sounds, the best way to attract a new client is to “give him a bribe”. That is, you must attract potential customers in such a way that they feel that they can profit fromcooperation with your organization. At the same time, it is quite simple to act according to this principle. First you need to decide on the size of the "bribe". In other words, calculate the amount of money you are willing to spend to attract a new customer. The amount spent on attracting customers does not always seem rational. Someone can spend 100 rubles, others do not mind even 1000 dollars. You must understand that the contribution must be comparable to the possible benefit.

That is, if your services can bring good profit, then you need to focus on expensive advertising and profitable offers, with regard to discounts and affiliate programs. At the same time, you do not need to worry about attracting new customers in the future. After promoting the business, another factor will already play. After all, the company will already be known. Consequently, there will be more profit, which is more logical to spend on expanding the business.

After you've done your calculations about the money you can spend on advertising, think abouthow to promote a car service online. Today, this method is relatively profitable and extremely simple if you find professionals. If you already know that you are ready to allocate, say, 100 rubles for attracting a new client, then it is advisable to offer the service consumer a cost of 100 rubles. For example, you will pay the washer a certain amount of money so that he would allegedly wash the client's transport for free. At the same time, you know that you will have to pay only 50 rubles to the washer.

If the sink does not bring a good income, it is more rational to use it as a bonus. Therefore, if they come to you for a replacement engine or other spare parts, it is advisable to offer as additional service sink. There may be many alternatives.

How to Avoid Excessive Advertising Spending

This question should be asked by every entrepreneur who wants to save himself from repeated investments. If you don't knowhow to promote a car service without investment attentively Review the guidelines provided in this section of the article.

And so, for starters, you must take into account to the penny how much profit this or that advertising offer will allow you to gain. If it immediately becomes clear that more financial profit you can't get better and not start. At the same time, it is necessary to monitor the effectiveness of the proposal from the first seconds of the project launch.

If you cannot determine how effective and profitable advertising is, then do not use it at all. Most likely we are talking about losses that are not noticeable at first glance. In the future, if you do not stop in time, you may face additional costs. Speaking of performance analysis, it means that your employees will find out how customers came to the service. Thus, it will be possible to find out how justified your investments are. In addition, analyze the traffic to your site, if any. You cannot rely entirely on customer reviews, as they can misinform you without thinking about answering the above question.

Interaction with advertising channels

If you have reached the stage where it is important to correctly calculate the effectiveness of any advertising channel, we recommend supplementing the offer with contacts. This will help determine how effective your actions are. Numbers are recommended for print advertising. When it comes to promoting resources on the network, you can use special utilities to determine attendance.

Separate resources;

Use of passphrases;

Adding contacts;

Application of colored labels;

Operation of detachable coupons.

In other words, your task is to find out how many potential customers were converted to the company through these channels. If you're doing an ad, let's say in a newspaper or magazine, then you need to engage a certain response. After all, this will determine how much you can return money from investing this kind of investment. Remember that people who underestimate the value of channel management rarely get enough value out of their offerings. After all, new customers do not appear, and advertising money is spent at a "frantic" pace. It should be noted that the effectiveness of any advertising is quite simple to check. You just need to get necessary knowledge in one area or another. For example, on the Internet, the effectiveness of contextual advertising can be tracked using the Google Analytics program.

Work with clients

Trying to find outhow to promote a car service quickly and attract customersMost business owners make the huge mistake of thinking they should only target new customers. In fact, it is important not only to increase the base of potential customers, but also to periodically improve the terms of cooperation.

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Today's article will be more practical than theoretical, as I will describe the promotion of a car service using a specific example so that you have a clearer understanding of how to promote your companies on the Internet. I will say right away that these are not empty words, because it was according to this scheme that we promoted our client's service station.

So, let's say that you have your own car service, that is, a station Maintenance cars. By the way, quite a profitable business, except for the expensive threshold for entering this business. But I'm not talking about that. Imagine that you already have your own service station, fully functioning, there is a certain flow of customers, but this is not enough for you and you would like even more.

How to start promoting a car service

To begin with, I would make marketing strategy, that is, he painted exactly what goals and benefits I want to get from this at the output, as well as the most detailed step by step plan achieving the set goals. Trite, but necessary!

What are the goals and benefits?

As an option, this is an increase in the flow of customers by 500 per month, profit by 200 thousand, company recognition, increasing the loyalty of regular customers. This is all conditional, but as close to reality as possible. You should take the numbers not from the ceiling, but clearly calculate everything, because if, for example, a service station cannot handle more than 300 customers a month, then you don’t need to attract 500 customers, because your employees will be loaded to the maximum anyway.

In addition to the maximum workload, do not forget about financial investments in promotion, because. if you are financially limited, then you need to proceed from current opportunities, and not from a “Wishlist”.

After you have written down the goals and benefits, you need to move on to developing a strategy for promoting the car service.

First of all, you need sites that will drive traffic. This site and groups in in social networks. If the budget is minimal, then you need to limit yourself to the site and 1 social. network.

What should be the site?

You can, of course, make one landing, but then it will turn out to be very long, and as you know, people in 90% of cases scroll through the first 2-3 blocks of the site. Therefore, it is better to make a multi-pager with separate tabs.

In addition to the selling site, I would start a blog on the same domain and write articles on automotive topics. This will further instill confidence in customers. Plus, this will give search traffic in the future, but more on that later.

So we've got the site ready. Next, you need to create groups in social networks. For starters, I would take Vkontakte and, possibly, Odnoklassniki. I already wrote a very large material, so re-read those articles again so that you have detailed information.

What traffic sources to use

Of course it is. In Yandex.Direct, advertising will be launched on search and YAN, as well as retargeting. In Edwards the same, plus banner advertising. The only thing to keep in mind is that Google's traffic is mostly of poor quality in the CCM, so be careful with the CCM so as not to drain the budget into a pipe.

If the budget allows, then in addition to hot and warm requests, I will definitely use cold traffic through YAN. This will not give a lot of targeted traffic, but it can be warmed up by filtering texts in ads so that the site is visited by as few uninterested people as possible.

Once configured and running contextual advertising, let's start traffic in social networks.

here will have the least success, since the service is in demand when something breaks in the car, so there is no point in constantly spinning teasers. From targeting here, you can only use the promotion of posts.

I would focus more on city publics and buy ads in them. Also, for a faster increase in the number of the group, he organized a competition and advertised this particular competition. This option will give a good output not only for subscribers, but also for customers.

While posting, I would ask my friends, acquaintances to write in the comments positive reviews about STO - this will increase trust among other group members. Only if you use this method, you need to build in the form of a dialogue, conversations, and not just stupid reviews.

Also, I would add bots to the group so that it is not initially empty. This will not give a lot of traffic, but the group will be in a higher place in the search in VK. And taking into account the fact that the internal search in VK is becoming increasingly popular, then over time it will give good, additional traffic. But the main thing is not to overdo it so as not to get blocked from Vkontakte.

I would also definitely use SEO.

Most likely, in 6-8 months, for many requests in this niche, it would be possible to bypass all competitors, since basically people far from the Internet are engaged in this business, and SEO contractors, in general, do their work not quite qualitatively. Therefore, you can enter the TOP-3 very quickly.

If the budget allows, then we will definitely place on 2-3 city sites, and we will definitely add free and paid ads in Avito.

In addition to the above traffic sources, I would start a YouTube channel and constantly upload videos there. Taking into account the fact that video content has been developing very strongly over the past 5 years, this will give not only traffic, but also additional customer loyalty.

Be sure to monitor your online reputation

There is: 2GIS or any other directories. Therefore, I would constantly ask my friends, acquaintances, as well as clients to write reviews about my service station for some kind of bonus.

Understand that people are herd creatures. And if a lot is written about you good reviews, then with a high degree of probability they will turn to you. But keep in mind that reviews must be real and believable. If in fact it turns out the opposite, then one or two negative feedback can take a large number of customers.

Important!

And most importantly - do your job very well! If you take the service station niche, then there is a lot of deception going on. And if you make repairs very high quality and openly, then even with a higher value than the rest, there will be no end to customers. For example, I am ready to pay more, but I will be sure that the car is made with high quality and after a month it will not break again.

Budgets

As for the budget for promoting a car service, in this case, taking into account the development of the site and money for advertising in the first month, an average of 60-80 thousand rubles can be obtained. But it depends on the region.

Conclusion

In general, this is all about the analysis of the promotion of SRT. If you have a related business, then this model is most likely applicable to you, as I tried to show a universal way of promotion.

But if suddenly this model does not apply to you, write your niche in the comments and, perhaps, I will make a detailed analysis with your business.

How to promote a car service is only of interest to those entrepreneurs who look to the future and take care of their business. Today, all business on the Internet and even small firms or even private craftsmen have their own websites, who do not even have such an opportunity, they register in various directories, open groups on social networks. But this approach is ineffective, if you are engaged in car repair and additionally sell spare parts, then you should get an online store with good functionality.

But we have a question : "How to promote a car service?". To do this, in our article we will highlight a few highlights and mandatory activities that will help you have a constant influx of new customers. Relying on own experience for the promotion of auto parts stores and car services, we can distinguish two main rules of our own, which are given below.

How to promote a car service - rule number 1

Material base, human resources.

If you, for example, are engaged in Nissan repair, you need to provide a full range of services only in this area, to become the best in your specialization. To do this, you need to have the right tools, the right craftsmen, i.e. fully prepare the material base and human resources. Perhaps you are a universal car service and take on everything in a row, this happens most often. But not always, customers are satisfied with such car services, firstly, car repairs can drag on for many weeks, and secondly, the quality of service leaves much to be desired.

So, the rule is - be experts in your field, do not spread yourself, find a niche in the car service market, do not dilute your car service to all car brands.

Geographical location and internal space of the car service.

It is very important when you are going to open a car service to decide on a place, because your profit depends on how conveniently and quickly you can get to you. Otherwise, it will be difficult promote a car service. Have you ever wondered why official dealers, take at least Volkswagen or Ford always queue. Yes, many complain about their expensive service, but this does not make them less customers. Yes, because it is simply pleasant to be with them: here you are treated with respect, smile and help; all neatly dressed; there are waiting rooms; here you can follow the progress of the repair through special monitors; as well as such auto centers are conveniently located, the buildings are modern, and the interior inside envelops with high service and comfort.

So, the rule - if you are just starting out, find a box in the center where you can get there without traffic jams, at least paint the walls inside white, dress your masters in branded overalls, organize a leisure room for your clients.

How to promote a car service

Car service automation.

This implies the use information technologies, special programs for business automation, as well as an online store website. Promote a car service– today it is possible only through the Internet. Give up notebooks, notepads and Excel.

No computer can hold so much information, and not all entrepreneurs can afford to buy a server and spend a lot of money on its maintenance. And here “cloud technologies” come to the rescue, which, by the way, are implemented in our program.(LINK TO THE PAGE). Here you can store unlimited amounts of information, unlimited time.

There are ups and downs in any business, so if suddenly the flow of customers is reduced, which incurs losses, you open your chest with the numbers of your customers and make a mass mailing, which, by the way, is also implemented in our program. But you shouldn’t abuse this, it’s easier to establish a trusting relationship with the client and make sure that he always comes to your car service.

How to promote a car service - rule number 2

The main points on the promotion of a car service and attracting customers:

Smart marketing.
There are many definitions of the word marketing. talking plain language marketing is a way to attract and retain customers. How to promote a car service, and not lose your grip. Our three must-have events are your base. Your customers should attract customers so that rumors about your car service are passed from mouth to mouth, this is called a reputation and you need to develop it with the quality of the services provided.

Online advertising and the Internet.
If you have a website, then you can use contextual advertising services from Yandex Direct and Google, promote a car service, so much easier. If you do not have a website, then your competitors will soon force you out, who not only have a page on the Internet, but also services such as pre-registration for services.

Advertising for a car service

By the way, with our program, you can connect the online store option so that your customers sign up for your services - and you will get a functional website with high conversion.(LINK TO THE PAGE) It is important that your site be indexed by search engines, for this you need to register the site in thematic directories such as Double Gis, etc. It also does not hurt to create groups on social networks, where you must specify a link to your site.

Off-line advertising.
Some sources advise you to advertise in free newspapers, which naturally cost money to advertise. A dubious undertaking. Answer yourself the question, how often do you personally turn to such sources. As a rule, free newspapers with ads are several pages, where a bunch of ads are printed in a not always readable font and there is not even an empty square centimeter. So think about whether it is worth spending time and money, albeit small, on such advertising. An effective way to promote a car service is to distribute your own printed materials: business cards to the traffic police (where car owners apply after an accident), distribution of coupons with discounts in traffic jams (your entire target audience is in traffic jams).

All articles What equipment is needed for a car service

How to advertise your car service

The main wealth of any service is customers and their trust. But in order for a client to come to your service, stay yours for a long time, and even better, forever, you will have to work hard. The success of attracting and retaining customers consists of many components. Ignoring at least one of them reduces many times the overall effectiveness of the struggle for the client. Car service advertising in the media is one such component.

All car service customers can be divided into three categories:

1. Loyal customers - those who keep the client base, those who talk about your service to others in enthusiastic colors, those whom you need to cherish and cherish.

2. Clients who contacted you for the first time through a recommendation or an advertisement; their trust must be won and flattering recommendations confirmed.

3 . Clients who come to you by accident. Perhaps they will also replenish your permanent customer base.

It is believed (at least, so they write in clever articles and books) that advertising, like customers, does not happen much. The manager or owner must constantly promote their service. At the same time, they list different kinds, starting with "word of mouth" (stopping on it, albeit enthusiastically, but in passing), and ending with advertising in external sources Usually in the media. Let me agree with them only partially.

Not to say that there are a lot of questions about advertising. These questions that come to me, among all consultations, are much inferior to questions on taxes, service management, personnel and even labor protection and fire safety. But there are quite a lot of requests to place an advertisement for a car service in the magazine. Obviously, most of the owners or managers of the service either believe that placing ads somewhere, without analysis, is already enough, or do not pay due attention to this issue. In a series of articles on this topic, I will try to tell you the basics of advertising that a manager needs and consider typical mistakes made when conducting an advertising campaign.

I will not describe the basics of advertising - enough articles and books have been written on this topic. Obviously, a director who decides to deal with this issue deeply and seriously should stock up on literature or contact an appropriate specialist. True, there is a difficulty here. Personally, I have met, unfortunately, very, very few who understand the car service specifics well. Moreover, this applies both to the provision of services by the station itself, and sales of spare parts, materials, and services to car services.

I’ll make a reservation right away: talking about advertising, I will not talk about a sign over a car service or a roadside sign about finding a service. The conversation will be about advertising in various newspapers, magazines, radio or on big boards, i.e. about the advertising that is costly for any organization.

So. Does the number of clients on your service leave much to be desired? Have you decided to advertise your service to attract customers? Good deed. But… You may have already made the first mistake. Lack of customers is not a reason to immediately spend money on advertising. Let's consider several situations.

Reopened car service

If you have just opened a car service, then analyze several factors:

— types of work performed;

— location of the station;

— qualification of personnel and climate in the team;

- financial opportunities.

For example, if the service is located in a busy place, is well visible and performs tire fitting and oil and other consumables services, then you should not spend money on advertising at all - a bright sign is enough. If the team has not yet formed (high probability of turnover), its qualifications are not clear, then attracting a large number of customers that you will not satisfy will do more harm than good. And no one will return your money and time. You should not immediately start an advertising campaign if a new service has opened in place of the old one. Here you have to find out the "pluses" and "minuses" of the previous service, and preferably not so much from the words of the landlord or others, but from the words of the client. In my practice, there was a case when the negative attitude of customers towards the previous service forced new tenants to move out. In this case, neither the high qualification of the staff, nor advertising company.

Car service with history

– a new service is provided that will be of interest not only to old, but also to new customers;

- lack of customers on the service.

Usually, it is the introduction of a new service that aims to improve customer satisfaction. existing clients and attracting new ones. But, let's first consider whether our service is able to pass through itself a sharply increased number of customers (hereinafter, I conventionally believe that advertising increases the flow of customers), or is it enough that the old ones, using this service, will increase the profitability of the service and download new area of ​​work.

For example. You have a fully loaded undercarriage repair shop (your regular customers) and an engine and fuel diagnostics shop (your clients, clients of other small services and casual visitors). you enter new service— collapse-convergence. It is clear that at the initial stage this post will not need advertising, since it will be provided with work at the expense of all these cars.

Car service promotion: how to quickly attract customers and promote service stations

Moreover, the rest of the posts will be loaded at the expense of other services.

The case of no customers is more complex. A number of factors need to be analyzed here.

Seasonality. If the absence is caused new year holidays(and this is approximately from December 15 to February 1, depending on the level of service, specialization, etc.), May holidays (approximately from April 25 to May 15, depending on Easter and memorial days) or the vacation season (approximately from July 20 to September 10), then you should not be upset. On the contrary, use this time to improve your skills (your own and your employees), to expand the provided

services, purchasing equipment, restoring order or repairing a service.

Here we are also dealing with deferred repairs. That is, with those works that car owners have postponed to a later date (for example, replacing shock absorbers from winter to spring).

Based on the foregoing, it becomes clear that advertising in the "off season" is a disastrous business. The response, if any, is minimal. But advertising placed on the eve or during the season is most effective. It is at this moment that customers are looking for where to service their iron horse.

Personnel qualification. The most painful topic for the leader. It is considered in the "Management" section of the "Auto-Master" magazine and at seminars held by the Association of Car Service and Tuning Specialists. It is clear that without putting things in order with personnel (training, attracting specialists or poaching them), there is no point in spending money on advertising.

station specialization. To understand this point, consider an example. You specialize in servicing inexpensive domestically produced vehicles. The financial situation in the country has deteriorated - customers have no money, gasoline is becoming more expensive. The client, in order to save money, does some of the work himself. In the above case, this applies not only to changing the oil or brake pads, but also to more complex repairs on the chassis or engine. Add to this the extended service interval for replacing consumables. Thus, the focus of the service on this fleet of vehicles has led to a decrease in the number of visitors. And if not from

You have analyzed your situation and decided to advertise. Let's think about where to do it. Let's start with a typical situation not only for a car service, but also for companies selling spare parts, equipment, etc.

In the editorial office, a reader calls: "I have been reading your magazine with interest for a long time. Now I want to advertise my station with you!" It would seem something easier. If I read this publication, I like it, so others will read and see my ad. This is the main mistake. If you like a magazine or newspaper, this does not guarantee that your potential customers will read it.

In the example above, the reader wanted to place an advertisement in "Auto-Master" aimed at attracting customers to his universal car service specializing in car maintenance. At the same time, it was not taken into account that the audience of the magazine is services similar to it, and not motorists or corporate clients.

Another example. Placement of advertising in an automobile magazine or magazine "Buy-sell a car". Here it is somewhat more complicated. The main audience of such a publication is people looking for a new car. Naturally, today they are far from interested in repair or maintenance. The rest of the readers of such a publication, of course, will pay attention to your ad, but the question is whether the investment in advertising will pay off.

Here we need to make a small digression and talk about a very important parameter for assessing the cost of investments in advertising. I call it "call cost". Let me explain with an example. The cost of an advertisement in edition X is 100 rubles. We received a call from 2 people. Thus, the cost of their call for you is 50 rubles. In publication Y, the cost of an ad is 200 rubles, and 10 people called on the ad. In this case, the cost of the call is 20 rubles.

Very often, the advertiser chooses a publication with either a low ad cost or a very high ad cost. In both cases, we either have an incorrect definition of the readership as potential customers (this is most often), or the choice of publications on the basis of the "I like" principle.

Therefore, before deciding to advertise, it is necessary to understand exactly who we want to attract and what they read or at least view. Agree that a client who has a two-three-year-old Mercedes will most likely not pay attention to a piece of bad paper with advertisements different nature thrown into the mailbox.

Conversely, the owner of an inexpensive car is more likely to take a publication distributed free of charge through gas stations, mailboxes, or read a newspaper that is distributed at intersections.

Before engaging in advertising (not only in the media, but in general), one must clearly realize: what is suitable large companies, for example, selling auto parts, is often not suitable for a car service - a car service sells services. And in selling services, the main thing is to build confidence in yourself. Therefore, ideally, it is necessary to advertise the quality of the services provided. But this is extremely difficult to do. And I do not have a ready-made universal solution. Usually, services set a simpler task - to get the client to come.

Smart books advise finding a "unique selling proposition." For most universal service leaders, this is a daunting task. If you found a "unique selling proposition" in your car service - honor and praise to you, it may be worth changing your qualifications and going to promotional activities. Another thing is if your service has a narrow specialization - for example, repair of fuel equipment for diesel engines. Narrow specialization allows not only to have highly qualified personnel, but also a "unique selling proposition".

Such a "unique selling proposition" can, of course, be the price. But think about whether such advertising will play a cruel joke on you. IN winter dead season, one large Kiev station placed on the radio an offer to paint a car with fashionable materials for quite low price. I don’t know how many customers they managed to attract, but the talk that the company has problems spread among customers, among fellow competitors, and among suppliers. I would like to hope that their advertising has given at least some effect, although I doubt it.

Thus, before engaging in advertising, and anyone, and not just in the media, the manager must clearly understand how much he needs it, what consequences the increase in the number of customers will lead to, for which categories of customers it will be intended, where to advertise, how it should look, in what terms to carry it out.

We have already considered some of these issues, the rest will be considered in future publications.

To be continued…

Andrey Deceivers
Auto-Master

Promotion service station for body repair

Good day! I continue a series of articles about the STO business plan and as I promised earlier, today I will write an article about how to advertise a service station.

How to advertise service stations

As a rule, an advertising company is one of the most expensive items, especially when opening a service station, while quite often novice entrepreneurs spend a lot of money on advertising and everything would be fine, BUT most of the money is simply wasted.

What advertising attracts customers to the service station

Let's look at where the owner of the service station should advertise:

1. business cards. I already mentioned them in the business plan. Be sure to order business cards, but not cheap pieces of paper for 2 rubles, order colorful laminated business cards.

   Car service as a business and personal success

   You can place these business cards in auto parts stores, and you can negotiate with the owners of auto stores so that they place your business cards at their place, and you, in turn, place their business cards at your place;

2. Printing colorful booklets. These booklets are ordered at the printing house, and business cards can also be ordered there. Booklets are distributed free of charge to mailboxes of city residents. The booklet must contain the name of your service station (if you have not done this yet, then it's time to think about it, the name should also be on business cards), the address and telephone number of the service station. If you cannot come up with an interesting name for the service station on your own, then just google the Internet and take it from there. Just try to make the name of your service station unique in the city (that is, only for you). And of course, on booklets, you can describe in detail the types of services provided;
3. Advertising in elevators. This type advertising works well for the entire service sector, including service stations. The size of the layout should not be too small, because in this case it will simply be a waste of money;
4. Radio advertising. This is where advertising is a must. Only the radio should be promoted and broadcast in the local category. Many car enthusiasts listen to just the radio. But before you advertise on the radio, you need to determine competitive advantage in front of other service stations, that is, the reason why the motorist should go exactly to you;
5. Car magazine. Practically in all major cities there are auto-magazines, I myself live in small town and we don't have such a magazine. If a car magazine is published in your city, then advertising of your service station should be there on a permanent basis. However, pay attention to the circulation of the publication and the method of its distribution. In journals with a circulation of less than 5,000 copies. there is no point in advertising. Also, some publishers simply cheat and indicate the wrong circulation of the publication. Therefore, for the first time, it is worth coming to the publishing house and seeing how many magazines go into distribution;
6. City newspaper with ads. Almost every city has such a newspaper. There are two ways to advertise in such a newspaper. The first is in the form of an advertising module in the section on car sales (list the types of services provided by your service station in the module) and additionally place an ad in the section “Services” as from a private person about car repairs. If there are several such newspapers in the city, then, of course, advertise your service station in the most promoted one with a large circulation;
7. TV station advertising. In general, the cost of such advertising is quite high, but in every city there is a so-called TV newspaper in which the prices are not so high and the effect is much better (advertising in the form of videos and a ticker should not be given, as it is very expensive);
8. Internet advertising. Do not neglect this type of advertising, the most effective is Yandex Direct contextual advertising, as well as advertising in social networks. In order to give such advertising, it is worth ordering a business card website for a service station with a list and cost of services, as well as contact details and address;
9. word of mouth. With quality service and performance of the work itself on high level people themselves will begin to advise your service station to each other. This type of advertising can be influenced only by high quality of service and low prices.

Advertising that does not work for service stations

1. Free newspapers. With a huge circulation and almost zero efficiency. Such newspapers have zero value for the citizens and are very annoying, such newspapers are a relic of the past. And if we take into account that the cost of advertising in such publications is simply prohibitive if we compare price and quality, then it is better to refuse it;
2. Advertising on and in transport. This type of advertising does not work well because there are quite a few potential customers in public transport, and if they exist, then your advertisement will either not be noticed or simply ignored;
3. Plasma panels. It doesn’t matter which ones, on the street, indoors, at payment terminals, wherever they are trying to stick them. This advertisement does not work for almost any activity;
4. billboards. Advertising on billboards is image advertising and is not suitable for attracting potential customers;
5. Outdoor advertising.Requires coordination with the architecture of the city, but it’s not scary, the cost of such advertising is quite high, you won’t hang this banner in one place, for the effect you need to place it at least 5 places where there is a major traffic intersection (then it will make sense);
6. Posting ads. Despite the fact that the service station belongs to the service sector, posting simple ads does not have a strong effect.

This is where I will end my review, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments, or in my VK group “Business Secrets for a Beginner”.

Successful business!