Business Owners, a question

[dirtrulz]

Just a side note, I couldn't buy a filter for the cars I work on for 19.99... Much less the oil and do the job.

I have quite a few excellent reviews. One bad one, angry Russian is angry.

Just an example of common coupons, not you specifically. Have never seen mention of your shop name so I have no idea what specifically you work on. Go on youtube and search angry russian for some good ones. Do new customer generally tell you how they heard about you? It could help track what advertising is working for you. If it is word of mouth than that is of little help, kind of hard to get your customers more friends.

[ruthabagah]

Just a side note, I couldn't buy a filter for the cars I work on for 19.99... Much less the oil and do the job.

I have quite a few excellent reviews. One bad one, angry Russian is angry.

In Russia you don't fix car, Car fix You!

[spqrzilla]

Chris, I'm not going to ridicule you for trying to advertise your business. Please don't take my comments as an attack on you of any kind.

I have the same bafflement on how to spend my advertising budget.

[dirtrulz]

Assuming you work on european/german cars from the discussion, are you on any forums with local exposure. It will take some time but if you become known on there it may turn into some business, especially if you do performance upgrades and such. Discounts to forum member may work. Tough business to advertise as no one really looks until they really need it and then the first thing in most peoples mind are the dealership.

[Jim B]

Assuming you work on european/german cars from the discussion, are you on any forums with local exposure. It will take some time but if you become known on there it may turn into some business, especially if you do performance upgrades and such. Discounts to forum member may work.

Great point. Also, getting involved with owner's clubs, advertising in the owner's club newsletter, etc.

How's your street signage?

Maybe have some coupons for 5% or 10% off labor printed on some nice, glossy card stock and give them to your customers to hand out to their friends? Make sure to put an expiration date.

[colorider]

I built my business on Valpak advertising. I still get a great response from Valpak coupons.
Its not too expensive. I have tried just about every advertising method out there. Valpak and Internet searches are my 2 bust lead sources by a long shot. If the op would like more info , pm me.

[tmleadr03]

Just an example of common coupons, not you specifically. Have never seen mention of your shop name so I have no idea what specifically you work on. Go on youtube and search angry russian for some good ones. Do new customer generally tell you how they heard about you? It could help track what advertising is working for you. If it is word of mouth than that is of little help, kind of hard to get your customers more friends.

Going to go out on a limb and say you have signatures turned off...

LOL

[dirtrulz]

Well see, there you go. Pretty good website, like the hints on the front page. Seems as though it is pretty hard to get the older crowd who drives these cars to think of anyone other than the dealership. Dealers have done a good job of training the public to think they are the only ones qualified to work on their cars. How hard do you go after the performance crowd, the little rich kids who spend daddies money. That is where getting on the forums might do some good, talk to the mods and get litsted as a local expert and be helpful with forum questions. Once the locals get to know you and that you know what you are talking about they are more likely to come to you and get their little buddies to follow along. I dont know it the german tuner crowd has any kind of get togethers around town like shows or events but you could hand out cards and flyers there.

[dirtrulz]

One problem I see is that if I type in bmw/audi/mercedes repair englewood co into google you dont even come up. You are on some of the yellow page type links but your home page does not show up. I know there are ways to optimize your site for search engines without a lot of work, changing a few words to more commonly used search phrases. The only way I seem to find direct links to your shop is to already know what it is called. Making your site more likely to show on searches would be basically free.

[colorider]

If you want your website to get a better ranking with google, do this.
Add testimonials. Add pictures. And good descriptions of what you do. Use key words throughout your site. Transmition , oil change , tranny, air conditioning etc.
add pictures. Another major thing is make changes to your site on a weekly basis. Stale sites get punted to the end of the line in google searches. Have hyperlinks that link to product and/ or whatever coordinates with your business. Add a photo gallery.
Again a site that changes often is a site that gets bumped up in the search listings. KEYWORDS are very important, so use them as much as possible. Don't have to pay google, just modify your site each week. I like to add pics and testimonials to mine. Those work really well.