Out of the Crisis.Org

[Louis Altazan]

Over the years I have tried most traditional forms of advertising. Eventually I tried radio and found it quite effective. I have also spoken with shop owners, who have not had success with the medium. Within the limits of my knowledge I have put together a list of things, I feel made the difference for me.

1. I found it very helpful to locate a station that reached people who’s needs I felt I could meet, or better, exceed [potential clients.] Different radio formats reach very different audiences. Any good station can tell you who their listeners are. Of course they all try to convince you their group is best for you. This means I needed to understand the group I wanted, before speaking with a station.
   
   Stations are often directed at age groups, for instance 15-25 years or 26-40 and so on. Some are also gender specific or geared to special interest such as sports. For the market I chose I found talk radio reached the largest segment.
   
   Finding this was fairly straight forward. For several months, when vehicles came in, my techs would write on the work-order, which station radios were set on. By stratifying the results, I found my station.
   
   
2. Once I found my station, I needed to specify a time slot. Specific time slots [7:00 AM till 8:00 AM] are more expensive than random spots [5AM till off-air] but more effective as well. I found morning-drive to be most effective for me.
   
   My reasoning was, people who had car problems on the way home, likely wait till the next morning to call. Also people having problems on the way to work, might call. I further reasoned, running spots when I was not open for business would not be as effective as running during morning working hours.
   
   
3. I knew to be most effective people need to hear spots multiple times. This could be done through high frequency of spots [expensive] or consistently running at around the same times. Most people drive to work close to the same time each morning. A person may easily hear my spot five times in a week if run consistently in his drive time. With random spots it might take many times that number to make the same number of impressions.
   
   
4. Air-time cost money and the more people listening the more it cost. Since air time is a recurring expense, it made sense to me to maximize the effect of each spot . I hired a professional advertising agency. I consider the cost of producing professional commercials that are effective to be much lower than running spots that are not.
   
   I met with a few agencies before finding one I felt comfortable with. They can be found in the yellow pages, but I found listening to other commercials more handy. Those I found interesting, I called and asked who their agency was. I found a professional agency and have been with the same guy for over fifteen years. He knows my business and what I like, better still, I swap his services for auto repair.
   
   
5. I find the message most effective when it offers reasons people might choose my shop. I do not do promotional advertising, nothing with a call to action or special offer. My advertising is institutional in nature, in other words it explains the benefits of doing business with my company.
   
   Two main themes have been consistent for me from the beginning. “Fixed right, on time and at the price quoted,” and “Total lowest cost verses lowest price.” This has been stated dozens of different ways, but always the same message.
   
   
6. I also find it quite handy to add a tag for my website to every commercial. This has greatly increased traffic to the site and my overall business as a result.
   
   
7. Commercials with a degree of humor have been most effective for me. I normally produce six spots at a time, as it is less expensive than six separate spots. The first three will all share a common theme and the second three another common theme.
   I run the first three spots for six-months and then the other three, getting a year out of the production. By rotating the three spots and with the low frequency that I run people do not seem to get tired of the spots.
   
   
8. People let me know if they like my spots. I feel a few compliments likely represents many more people and the same with complaints.
   
   
9. I regard marketing as an investment, a way to get from where I am to where I wish to be. Like any investment it also builds in value in time and becomes more effective. I now run about one third the frequency and get the same results as three times the number of spots produced years ago.

_________________
Louis Altazan
Owner/Manager AGCO Automotive Corporation
Baton Rouge, LA

[Eric J.]

The shop I work for is slow and we have not been real busy in several months. I showed this article to the owner but he said radio advertising was too expensive. Everyday by about one all of our techs are cleaning their tools and leaving for the day.

[Louis Altazan]