My wife makes sure to include some "human" stuff in her business account, especially the stories. There's a strong feeling that small business accounts that portray the owner/operator as a person with feelings and hobbies is better that something which is just work related. Maybe push the food/travel stuff to the stories, but keep it there.
Me? I just try to be a bit goofy in my normal posts, I tend to write small novels for my posts, so it's easy to toss some levity in, especially self-depreciating stuff.
https://www.instagram.com/lonestarchiro
https://www.instagram.com/axis_squared

Cool Mike, I'll have to look into this more then. Right now I'm off to NH for the weekend with 8 other guys in a variety of great 60s to present cars. More Sunday night.

My web designer is looking into an instagram plug in btw, thanks for the suggestion.

I agree to the point the the 'human' side is germane to the business. Plating and cooking don't mesh. But seeing the boss in the shop at the wheel is personalizing the business well enough. I've seen too many businesses where the owner is obscure.

Sure, when you boil it down, all business inner offices are strikingly similar, but the shop end (ir the business is producing a product) is as different as there are businesses. Put the owner in the shop enough for the credibility.

My grandfather used to say he could sit at anyone's desk at a 25 employee business and do their job and he wasn't afraid to tell them that, in a supportive way.

I just got this email response back from one of my Italian restoration shop customers..

We have wondered ourselves if print ads are a good way to reach customers. We are trying a print ad in Hagerty Magazine starting in November. I’ll let you know if we get a good response from it.

We subscribe to Ferrari Market Newsletter. It’s pretty low tech but I think it has a pretty loyal following. I have attached the last issue so you can see what it looks like.
We seem to get a lot of business through word of mouth. We have also had some luck with people reacting to our social media posts. But it takes time to build up a following, and to figure out what #’s to use. We take turns posting on our Instagram account but it’s not what any of the guys prefer to do. They would much rather be working on a car than taking pictures and posting about their work.

Honestly, we rarely give business to someone who just calls, emails or mails us. I believe we started using your services because someone else recommended you.

We will certainly recommend your services if anyone asks.

A print ad may not have hooked in this Ferrari shop, but it may pique the interest of a Ferrari owner, who then looks into using your services, does a little internet research, and then mentions to this shop that he'd like to have his hardware refinished by Tru6. And that's your in. So there's still value to print ads.

Thanks Al.

I am considering an extremely simple, elegant ad. Trying to show all that we do turns into a scattershot mess very quickly. There's only so much your eye can take in. that said, when Infiniti launched, their ad campaign was a total failure compared to Lexus.

But then I think about one of our perfect, elegant B&W pics and a lot of white space with some text and a list of our services and a blue and red Tru6 logo, it speaks to who we are and that level of elegance and perfection we strive for on every job.

Jay Leno had a joke re: Infiniti vs Lexus. Something along the line of Lexus outselling Infiniti by a margin of 2:1. But sales of rocks and trees are way up!

I agree with the one good elegant pic of your work as opposed to the scattershot(s) of all you do. Your can list your various restoration skills in some unobtrusive font off to the side or bottom of the ad. Leave the various pics on your website for potential customers to peruse.

Print media is absolutely the hardest forum to get a technical, manufacturing or re-manufacturing point across - we struggle with it as well.

Print ads for magazines, trade show brochures, etc. are at the top of the print media pyramid in terms of difficulty.

The best ever? A cassette tape print ad:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1602535323.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1602535323.jpg

Tru-6 is worth it. Why?

It doesn't have to be a picture of your work, just get them to your web site and they will understand what you do.

Getting them to the website is the only reason for your ad. You will tell the technical tale there.

The covers from the magazine you ran where good - think in those terms. Porsche and Ferrari owners are overwhelmingly male. Appeal to that market with a bit of humor and sarcasm.

If I remember correctly, one of the covers had a Dad on a bed looking lovingly at an infant son or daughter. Put an example of your work in place of the baby.

Good luck!

The Maxell (print and TV) ads were perfect.

start with which emotion(s) you are trying to bring out in the ad.

The Maxell ad did that so well, it became a classic.

If the ad campaign isn't as successful as the one that put a stack of Maxell cassette tapes in every household, then it's a failure.

:p


I'm gonna disagree a bit. The print ads didn't sell Maxell. We all had Maxell tapes already. What it sold was reminding us to keep buying them, to buy the new versions of them, it was Maxell reminding us that THEY knew that WE knew how good they were.

Think of Coke. Or Pepsi. I always wondered why they advertise. Who are they convincing? Every living soul on the planets knows they they exist, and almost every living soul has tasted both, and decided which one they prefer. So, why advertise?

It's just to remind you. Just to say "we love Coke as much as you do, so we're on the same side". Just to keep in your head that every time you have to buy a Pepsi (because it's all they have), you feel a bit of yourself die inside because it's not the one you want. They're not finding new customers, they're ingraining lifetime customers. Same with Maxell. You didn't buy them because the ad told you to, you bought them because it was what your older brother used when he taped concerts, or what you weird uncle used when he would dub off of his very special vinyl prints, so as to not wear them out. The ads just made you feel like you made the right decision yourself.




Point is, Tru6 isn't at that place yet. So, do whatever it takes to get more grubby customer hands reaching for your product :)

Girls in bikinis holding finished product. "It's gold Jerry"

I'm better with online ads where keywords are what really make them pop. I think I'd make your website very noticeable and think of any parts you see most often that you're redoing and make those stand out. If you're seeing a lot of a particular part, odds are there are a lot more people looking for someone to redo that part.

Yup, Boobies and long legs in lace stockings.

Serious question though, why print ad vs advertising with online vendors for classic car parts or specialize in selling classic cars? I'd think you could do more with the online than the print couldn't you?

I know we're in totally different spaces but my online advertising tends to move more traffic to my website where customers can see my full list of offerings.

I will do online ads too. But I use Ad Blocker and expect a lot of people do these days.

Print have a certain je ne sais quoi that I am after as much as expanding business.

So I'm working on the ad and having the web site redone and am thinking that instead of decided to headline pages being Plating, Anodizing, Chrome, Cerakote etc., I may want to refine those to specifics, at least for the print ad. 911 owners have their own lexicon: cadmium, bright dip and a few others. With an elegant window frame pic up top in BW, white space with a para or two in the middle, I will have bubbles on the bottom in 4 color. I think some of these bubbles need to be more specific like fans & housings (this requires two bubbles, one for Cerakote and one for original longhood etched), one for calipers, again, problematic because one for Turbo calipers and one for standard steel. I think the beautiful pic up top will stop the reader from turning the page and the bubbles along the bottom will provide very specific examples of what I do.

Suspension will be another bubble. Very specific, direct, this is what your suspension will look like when we are done with it. I think that as close to a call to action as I can get.

But then the page starts to get really busy.

Creating an ad that mixes Infiniti elegance with Lexus "this is what our car can do" messaging in their commercials is challenging.

I am sure I am in the minority, but I don't get the elegant need.

No you are probably in the majority. Everything we do here is as much about aesthetics as it is use and function. It's a driving force for the company.

test

The first draft of the ad to go in The Early S Registry magazine, ESSES, is done. We will also run it, or one similar to it, in Panorama and probably Excellence too. I'm looking for some critical thoughts on it. What do you like, what do you NOT like (this is most important) what would you change to make it better and so on. Thank you for your help!

EDIT: Image quality takes a big hit uploading here.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1603486006.jpg