Positive and Profitable Marketing

Marketing plans are only as effective as their reach. You can't successfully market your collision center without understanding your target. Marketing has many facets that require research to determine the correct message, the right resource and the intended receiver. Determining where your marketing is successful and where it is not working as well as knowing the differences in the market areas prepares you to restructure your marketing program. One of the differences might be ethnic based, your marketing is not effective because of wording used in your advertisements, or it could be a college area and your marketing message is directed at an older audience. Regardless of the market you have to ensure you generate awareness of your collision center, motivate potential customers to drive to your facility, create an acceptance of what you offer, identify your brand as unique, explain the processes that make doing business with you attractive and capitalize on your customer satisfaction index.

Follow this link to read my entire article in ABRN.

Call Tracking

I had a great conversation with McKay Allen and Bryan Pocock from ContactPoint LLC.   They have a new product called LOGMyCalls which is a unique program that tracks, records and scores phone calls online.  We all wonder how our people perform when people call into the shop asking for information.  Do they sell the shop on the phone or just answer the questions?  LOGMyCalls will record the calls, score them and provide coaching on how to improve the conversations our people have with customers.  They also allow you to have key numbers for each advertising program you use so you can see how effective it is.  I know shops are spending advertising money on ads, websites and mailers to get customers to call their shop and do not see any growth from that advertising.  Many times the problem is the person answering the phone is not handling the call properly.  Check out www.logmycalls.com if you think you have this problem or if you just want to know you don’t have the problem. 

Shout out to my friends

I have been developing a best practice series over the last few months and as some will say it has taken a village as well as traveling to some to make this series complete and accurate.    It is well on its way to completion and I need to give a few shops a shout out for allowing me to hang in their shops and take pictures of them performing the best practices.  Many thanks to First Team Hampton Chevrolet Collision Center,  Casey Collision Center, Hampton Collision, Hutchens Chevrolet Collision Center and Bay Custom Auto Body.