Phone book advertising

[wdoctor]

Hello all,
Thanks to all you guys on this forum, I'm new to the h/l restoration business. I've been doing w/s repairs for a little over 9yrs now and as many have pointed out, their is more and more competition-even up here in North Dakota. So, in trying to find an alternative as a supplement, I came across this forum. Thanks to many of your comments, I decided to try dvelup and it's been working out great. I started with a beginner kit practicing by hand, but found that they weren't turning out as well as some of the before and after pics I've seen, so I've since purchased power tools locally (again thanks to this forum), and now they turn out awesome. What a difference!!

Anyway, my original idea for this post was to ask about advertising in the phonebook. My yellow page advertising for w/s repair is up for renewal and I'm looking for ideas of what you guys do for this type of advertising for h/l restoration.

As far as other marketing, the obvious reasons for h/l rest. are
-cosmetic appearance

-better resale value

-better visibility @ night(has anyone found any statistics on how much light the corrosion holds back?

Thanks!!

[mrchip]

Hi .....those reasons were good enough....what would you charge retail??...how long of gaurantee?...has yellowbook been good?..worth the money?....are their a lot of ugly h/l in ND.?..I haven't really gone after the retail market but when I have done retail I made it worthwhile..from 80.00 to 120.00

[wdoctor]

Thanks for your reply, mrchip.
In my area there's not an enormous amount of h/l's that need to be restored, but I'm noticing more and more every day. I never paid attention to them before until I started looking into this, but just like rock chips, it's the first thing I notice on a vehicle.

There aren't a whole lot of car dealers, just 5 or 6 new car dealerships and about 8 or 10 really small used car lots that I'm not sure (haven't checked yet) would be much interested in spending much $$ on already low-profit cars. There aren't enough lots to make a living so, much of my wsr is retail. That leaves me with mostly retail for h/l's also.

I haven't heard of anyone around here restoring h/l's other than one dealership I do w/s repairs for (they just sand them w/1500 and polish the heck out of them but only by request from customers) and another dealership supposedly had someone coming around and "rub some stuff on them", but they didn't look any/much better.

Yes, the phonebooks have been good for me. I'm not buying a whole new ad for h/l rest. I can make my wsr ad 3 times larger for a minimal increase in $$. So I'm going to use the same ad for both. Thought this would be a good way to get the word out about h/l restoration.

I don't know how complete this is, but I have to go.
Thanks

[mrchip]

hey wdoctor..give it a shot,,what do you have to lose..if your ad in the yellowpages has generated you work it only makes sense that you will get some work if you ad h/l cleaningto the ad..where do you live? up north?...i have had "refinishing" and "restoration" on my truck but I think its over peoples head...put h/l cleaning ....its more simple for them to grasp

[GlassStarz]

The problem with the yellow pages is you get buisness from people who are looking for you. If you live in an area where no one is doing it chances are most people are not aware that headlights can be repaire result is no one looks in the book for you. I think most peoples advert $ would be better spent having a nice promo poster printed to place everywhere they repair cars.
In your case you already have the ad there so what the hey give it a try but Generaly I dont think the Yellow Pages are $ well spent

[rdesnoyers]

You should try yahoo local, it

[Gregg]

I agree with glassstars. I also doubt customers will look in the phone book for HLR services because the most people dont know it can be done. If you already have a WSR ad - I would suggest mentioning it in smaller words that you also offer HLR. If you have a website - they can look up more info there. I've used phone book ads before but for other services we used to offer.