A good, free form of advertising
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I’ve recently joined a few local car club forums and answered a few questions & posted a writeup on finding a good bodyshop. Since I started doing this a few month’s ago I’ve probably gained about $2000 in business. It’s nothing huge by any means but it’s work and it gets the name out.
I’ve found that the groups are quite loyal to their shops and they are the car nuts that everybody goes to when they don’t know what shop to go to. I have a few customers like that which refer ton’s of collision jobs to us. I think this kind of thing would be awesome for the hobby guys and small shops. I’ve done a ton of quotes for guys on them, my prices may be a bit higher then some want to spend…but for guys with low overhead that can work for a bit less would probably get a good amount of business.
Here’s an example of one of the first post’s I usually make, plus an introduction informing them I’m in autobody. [url]http://forums.torontoaccords.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=56960[/url]. Feel free to copy and paste it elsewhere under your own name.
One thing is that some forums don’t like you advertising your business which is understandable since the want to charge for sponsors. If you make posts that reflect your in the trade you will get a ton of PM’s that can turn into jobs, just help people out and use a subtle indication, such as “at my bodyshop”. I mean your here posting on the forums anyhow, why not make a but or two for the business?
Just google car clubs & forums in your area.
I guess I should of posted something like this up earlier.. When I was bigger into performance work and custom body work we did a ton of advertising on these forums.. It works really well.. But also remember if you have any problems they will go right to the board posting, even if they are wrong.. We did this type of advertising for about 5 years.. I got sick of dealing w/ younger kids and we stopped.. I would say I probably gained somewhere in the neighborhood of 700-800k in sales over those 5 years. If you can deal with those car guys you can make good money..
Wow, thats a good chunk of change!
I try to get only into painting & collision, installing all of the custom stuff is where I figure people will get mad. Some of that custom stuff you just can’t get on right, so that’s my current strategy. I figure one unhappy guy could run your name down over their, I tend to spend a bit of extra time on their stuff….but so far the guys that have come in have been really easy going nice guys….but ya young fellars that like to spend money on their cars.
I usually tell them that custom installations is not what we specialize in and that an installation would be billed per hr spent installing, no up front quotes on an install.
Just have to be careful thats all.. If they love their car more than anything else they are usually the ones that are trouble.. I had very few problems, we just got sick of dealing with the young mentality around here. They wanted everything done right now.. They could care less that you have 15 cars in front of theirs..
Don’t forget local car clubs most consider my area a retirement community these guy’s have money to spend on there cars and they like here cars! Cant wait till I can get some of my own stuff done and down to some of these shows and show off what I can do maybe I can drum up a few paint jobs.
I don’t like dealing with the kids either I have a bunch of my kids friends wanting paint jobs now, But none have any money but these older guy’s have been around the block a few times and relize how things are.
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