Opening Strategy, Print Media and Outdoor Advertising

Last Updated on 06.08.2024 by hrushetskyy

OPENING STRATEGY

A realistic first-year’s budget is at least 10 percent of projected gross sales. Some stores have done well with a big opening campaign then coasted on a large amount of word-of-mouth advertising. The most successful loudest though use regular media advertising.

The opening phase of your advertising program will be the key to your long term success. You should plan a grand opening preceded by a preopening promotional campaign. The grand opening is actually your formal opening of which you will make major announcements most effectively through direct mail and newspaper/magazine advertising.

You want to build your volume up as fast as possible in this business in order to protect your cash flow. There are a lot of things you can do locally to build your image as a tire expert that can cost you little but pay big dividends. It must start with a strong grand opening.

Yours is a business that virtually every car owner comes in contact with at some time. Use your opening to hold demonstrations in how to change a tire as well as little talks on how a consumer can recognize that his tire is in need of replacement. Supplement this with a giveaway of top-of-the-line radials or all-season tires. Make up registration blanks for customers to fill in name and address and pop into the box for the drawing. After the drawing do not throw these entry blanks away. Rather alphabetize them and put them on your mailing list. Then when you hold special sales or want to do some kind of direct mailing you will have a list that is narrowed down to a specific market segment.

Take an ad in the paper to announce your grand opening and buy 15-second radio spots for the same purpose. Make sure the ads mention that there will be demonstrations and a drawing for a set of radials (or wheel covers or a fancy car battery).

You should be selling merchandise for a few weeks before your grand opening. Your business sign(s) should be up and most or your entire inventory in the store. Customers will wander in and if pleased with your merchandise and your approach to them will start spreading the word.

Use every trick in the book to hook customers into coming by during your grand opening. Have daily drawings for door prizes. Manufacturers’ sales reps sometimes contribute promotional items if you advise them of your grand opening. Keep liberal supplies of promotional flyers (perhaps with first-purchase discount coupons) business cards gift certificates and specialty-advertising items in the store. Coffee snacks and other refreshments will add to the festive mood.

Make Your Grand Opening a Media Event!

When you open your business take a picture of yourself your staff or partners and the building. Have the picture blown up to an 8 x 10 glossy black-and-white print. Then write a brief story about your business your background your prospective customers and the need for a full-service tire store.

Send this to the city editor of your newspaper with the heading “For Release on X Date.” Or if you are running a grand- opening ad give the release to the ad salesperson who will make certain it gets into the paper.

You may follow the same process with your local radio and TV stations. Television and radio use much less news of this type than newspapers but when they have a slow news day you may find yourself getting some free publicity.

Work with a radio station to do a live remote from your store on the day of your opening (which should by the way be held on Saturday). This is always a draw for young people who want a chance to say something on the radio. Enhance excitement by asking one of the young people to do the drawing for the prize. If you do a remote chances are the deejay will want to interview you on the air asking you about the differences in types of tires. In such an interview you should get in the fact that you sell not only to home consumers but also to businesses particularly small and medium-sized ones with tire replacement needs. Also emphasize that your own small size means that you understand the needs of your market in a personal way. You don’t have to rehearse what you’re going to say but you do need to be well prepared. So know the specifics of your product including differences between steel-belted and polyester bias ply tires and be prepared to talk the benefits of how your tire store gives superior value in service extended warranty programs and so on.

After your grand opening you should be able to get additional coverage for your store by featuring the names of prize winners in your giveaway. Actually you could write up the bulk of the store in advance then fill in the blanks and type a finished- copy news release the minute the opening is over. Also chances for getting the follow-up story published will be greatly increased in a local market if you have your picture taken with the winner(s) and the prizes they’ve won. Even better might be to have the mayor or some local celebrity give out the prizes. All of these factors contribute to the newsworthiness of your opening. It is something that concerns several people in the community. That makes it news. And you can reap the retailing benefit of it.

Go through the same process with local radio and TV stations. Propose to the feature editor of the local TV station that a camera crew follow your installation crew as they replace tires on a typical vehicle. There is a certain amount of built- in visual appeal in watching all the hydraulics at work. The TV people can interview you as to how to choose tires how to recognize that they’re wearing out when to rotate and why the usual sort of thing. This kind of coverage can position you in the community as the tire expert and give you exposure you can’t buy in any add When you first contact the feature editor of a TV station you are likely to be told that there is nothing new about tires. Your response is that of course there is. In the last few years you say tire balancing has become computerized. If you are in a seasonal location you can also stress that it’s important for people to check into mounting snow tires for the winter. Be-sides it’s always of interest to consumers to be told how they can recognize serious wear and tear on their tires. Or would the

TV station is interested in some hard facts about the differences between retreads and new tires? Maybe you can think of another “hook” to pique the station’s interest. The idea here is to give the station an “angle something that makes the story newsworthy or visually interesting. Suppose as sometimes happen a major tire manufacturer has a recall of tires it has sold. Maybe you sell the tires that are being recalled and maybe you don’t. It doesn’t matter. What you do is write or call the feature editor and say something like “In light of all the fuss over the recent recall of X tires your viewers might be interested in knowing what to look for in a tire and how to spot problems with the tires they have before they get too dangerous.” This is a direct tie-in with headlines and it is the kind of thing that is perceived as giving consumers in-depth information. Usually once you’ve got the editors hooked the story develops a life of its own. And when the news crew asks you questions you can give the kind of information included with this report regarding various tires.

There’s no doubt that it’s “soft” news. But people are always interested in new little known facts that they can put to practical use. And while the eyes of the world are not necessarily on tire-replacement procedures there is always the possibility that people will be interested in knowing that (for example) if their tires are wearing in X manner their car may be out of alignment and if they are wearing in Y manner there may be too little tread for safety.

PERSONAL CONTACT

Word-of-mouth is always important to business growth. Each happy customer can steer dozens of new ones to you. Make sure that business cards and/or flyers are always available in your store for customers to pass on to others.

Tip: Successful operators in any business frequently are well-known personally in their communities. This is no accident. Smart businesspeople know the importance of making contacts, they become active in their communities joining and leading civic organizations attending charity events speaking at seminars getting involved in politics attending openings of other businesses and events at local institutions. Of course the proper running of your business comes first but time spent developing contacts does pay off.

Successful tire entrepreneurs agree that if you are going to make it in this business you have to do a little investigating. Entrepreneur tracked down a veteran of the tire trade who had used creative personal contacts to build tire business. Every ad medium he used was supplemented by personal contact. Streamline personal contacts by carrying around business cards with you all the time. Get into the habit of noticing the condition of tires on all vehicles whether in shopping-center parking lots or at football games.

TIRE DEALER

Attend car shows drag strip races county fairs with automobile exhibitions anything that requires a mass of people to park their vehicles. Then look at those tires. If you see a vehicle in dire need of tire replacement take out a card and write a note on the back of it something like this: “I noticed your tires are bald and very dangerous to drive. Give me a call at my store and I will make you a good deal.”

The person receiving this card may not contact you right away. But he may put in it the glove compartment or his wallet and carry it around for six months. By the end of that time he more or less knows you and will be more likely to give you a call than if you had not pursued him as a customer.

In a similar way seek out connections with the local car clubs (e.g. The Camaro club) the local chapter of say the Sports Car Club of America. Here you are likely to meet people who already have an interest in the well being of their automobiles. In a sense they are “presold” on the idea of regularly replacing or balancing their tires. Take this opportunity to pass around your business cards talk up the benefits of trading with you (better and faster service better deals etc.). Also seek out opportunities to give tire-care clinics sponsored by civic organizations women’s groups and the like. Conduct hands on demonstrations of how to change a tire and how to watch for signs of wear and tear on a tire. You use these occasions to build rapport and more important trust with customers. When it comes time for them to buy tires they are more likely to come to you. This is the kind of aggressive personalized marketing for which there is no substitute.

Personal contact is the major means you have of obtaining ongoing business from the business community. If you belong to such community-service organizations as the Lions Kiwanis Rotary Business & Professional Women and the

like where your fellow entrepreneurs are likely to be found as well you can use membership in these groups to advance the cause of your doing business together. This is one of the best means available of drumming up business from the owner of the local cab service the local stationery- store fleet owner the local plumber and so on. Networking has proven itself an extremely useful way of mixing social situations with opportunities to expand business. And your pitch is always the same: you offer quality tires at a strong competitive price.

Among the most potentially lucrative of commercial accounts will be automobile dealerships new and used. Used-car lots are a natural. Frequently when a car is sold or traded in the dealer who buys it and spiffs it up for resale will want to replace existing tires get some brake or alignment work done and so forth. You want these people to bring you the business. You may find that many dealers want to do all this on a shoestring which means they may want to buy lower-cost retreads rather than custom tires. Further there are drawbacks to having dealerships as your customers. You can’t negotiate the markup with a dealer in the way that you can with an individual consumer. Usually in fact dealers want a discount of some kind before they’ll deal with a vendor. On the other hand a single dealership can provide you with the kind of steady tire-replacement volume (e.g. 60 to 100 cars per month) that will allow you to plan your own tire purchases in mass quantities at favorable high-volume terms on a regular basis. But the key point for the present discussion is that you want to build the business-community customer base. You could offer them a 15 percent commission on all third-party business they send to you as well. Or you could consider carrying them for 30 days billing as you are billed by your suppliers once a month. Once you are established they will keep coming to you. Personal contact supplemented by such devices as direct mail will be the most effective advertising medium you can use to start this process rolling.

PRINT MEDIA

Selecting the Publication

Once you know what your goals are you can analyze them in terms of your budget to determine what the best print media are to use in reaching your target markets. Effective print advertising may include an overlap between the various forms of print advertising vehicles such as newsletters regional magazines newspapers and the Yellow Pages. You should study your competition and find out what they ‘re doing then start looking for alternative avenues that will be at least as effective if not more so.

You can find publications that will be appropriate for your advertising campaign by looking through reference sources like the directories put out by the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) 3004 Glenview Rd. Wilmette IL 60091, (312)256-6067. The SRDS directories list all the relevant information about consumer and trade publications. You’ll find a short description of each publication and its editorial content that the publication goes out to and a breakdown of circulation figures. Using this information a list of suitable publications can be compiled.

To obtain more in-depth information on the publications you’ve listed contact an ad representative at each and have them send you a media kit. These contain a sample copy and detailed information about the editorial content a breakdown of readership demographics the publication’s ad rates and an audited circulation statement from the publisher.

There are two primary audits: the ABC or Audit Bureau of Circulation and the BPA or Business Publications Audit. Audited circulations are sworn statements by the publisher verified by an outside source that the publication is distributed to the number of people claimed in the circulation figures.

With this information in hand you can determine the cost-effectiveness of advertising in a publication by determining an “efficiency ratio” between the circulation and the ad rates. This ratio is called your CPM or cost per thousand. The CPM is the cost of advertising divided by the circulation in thousands. So if the circulation is 30 000 and the rate for a full-page ad is $600 divide the cost by 30. In this case you would have a $20 cost per thousand or CPM. This is the common denominator used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of advertising in a publication.

Newspapers Magazines and Newsletters

If your business draws its customers primarily from the local community you’ll find newspaper advertising valuable. A display or classified ad is not expensive and will expose your product lines to the attention of high-potential customers. In a large metropolitan area the opposite may be true. To cope with this problem some large-city papers have created special small-firm advertising sections and service directories where a dozen or more small-firm ads can be run on a single page.

The rates for advertising in these sections are lower making them more accessible to small business. By the same token classified display ads as they are called cost much less than typical display ads in many magazines, however not all magazines allow advertisers to take display ads in their classified sections.

A good many tire ads appear in the sports sections of newspapers. The reason for this is that in any given household the man of the house does the newspaper shopping for the tires that will be bought for the family car. In many metro areas special Sunday automotive sections are popular among readers especially males.

SAMPLE AD

Why Should You Drive 12.6 Miles For a Set of Tires?

Because Davis Tire Center has the best tire values in the tri-county area, and we’ll match our service against any shop in the state!

Steel-Belted Radials              Snow Tires

Polyester Radials                  RV Tires

Major Brands                        Heavy-Duty   Retreads

Custom Wheels                     Batteries

Alignment                             Shock   Absorbers

(Passes Ask about our extended warranty plan on alignments.)

Davis Tire Center 14000 Old Cavern Highway Cavern City MO 21880 555-8280

Hours: Monday-Friday 7 a.m. 8 p.m. Sat. & Sun. 9 a.m. 6 p.m.

In any given newspaper ad you should have at least one tire that is super cheap. This draws the attention of the public and serves as your loss leader. It may vary from ad to ad radials one week retreads the next perhaps. The purpose is to draw customers into your store. Once they are there you can show them the range of tire values you have. The prices on your specials remain the same but some customers may want to “trade up” to high-class (and higher-margin) tires as the needs of their vehicles dictate.

Look at the sample ads included with this report to get an idea of how tire stores usually advertise in the newspaper. The one thing about these ads that leaves one relatively unsatisfied is that they all tend to look alike. This is one of the principal reasons that tire ads have at least one loss leader in them: Something has to grab the customer’s attention. If you can take advantage of manufacturers’ coop advertising (discussed later in this section) for your newspaper ads by all means do so. The added zing that is supplied by tire manufacturers can give you will improve the appearance of your ads and increase the chance that they will be read with attention by your customers.

To make your print-media ads count most buy space at the best rates. Often advertising costs less if more space is purchased. For example if your campaign calls for 45 inches of column space at $4.50 per inch the cost will be $202.50. The publication’s rate card may reveal that 50 inches can be purchased at a rate of $4 per inch for a total of $200.

Newsletters are great print vehicles for reaching specialized markets. Because circulations are typically small rates for advertising in newsletters are very reasonable. Their circulations are also much targeted because of their specialized editorial content. In terms of cost effectiveness this is one of the best types of print media to purchase. But you have to be careful. Many newsletters aren’t audited publications. They operate on a controlled-circulation basis so you basically have to take the word of the publisher that the newsletter is distributed to the number of people claimed.

Don’t scatter your ads. Skipping from one publication to another seldom gets results. It destroys the effectiveness of consecutive advertising and most important you lose the handling and consideration privileges received by consistent advertisers. This can make a great deal of difference when you want to secure a favorable position for your ad in the publication.

The Yellow Pages

Most local businesses advertise their goods and services in the Yellow Pages. Such advertisements may be illustrated and vary in size from simple one-line listings to quarter-page spreads. The phone company has specific categories according to which they classify businesses. Be careful to choose the most appropriate one(s). Sometimes it may be worthwhile to advertise in more than one category that is to cross-reference your listing. Consider listing your store under the names of established brand names. For example suppose one of the lines you sell is Uniroyal. In the Yellow Pages under “Tires the Uniroyal logo is prominently displayed (paid for by the manufacturer). Underneath that you’ll see “Available at these fine stores “Uniroyal Dealers or a similar listing. Underneath that listing is your store. If a shopper wants Uniroyal or is interested in checking out Uniroyal because of some TV ad he saw he’ll look under the name of the brand and start calling stores. You’re listed there and you get the calls. By the way this type of Yellow Pages advertising is usually less expensive.

Be careful about making the deadlines the Yellow Pages companies give you for sending in your ad(s). Missing them can mean going a whole year without advertising in this important medium.

OUTDOOR ADVERTISING

Bus Benches

Next time you’re in your car waiting at a traffic light look around you. Chances are you’ll see a bus stop bench with an advertisement painted on it and you’ll probably read all or part of it before the light turns green. So will thousands of others day after day.

Bus bench advertising can be an excellent medium for a tire store. It’s highly visible like a billboard because it is seen by vehicular traffic. Essentially you have a huge captive audience stuck at red lights or in slow-moving traffic. We spoke with an account executive of a Los Angeles- based bus bench manufacturing company she said that an advertisement on one bus bench at a busy Los Angeles inter-section will be seen by 35-50 000 people per day.

Usually the advertising consists of simple 2-color artwork with your company’s name brief copy describing the service the address and the telephone number. Think of it as a huge business card conveying the same information in basically the same format.

Rates and terms will vary depending on the city you’re in. In Los Angeles you can rent bench space for a minimum of 12 months and as long as 36 months. If you rent two benches for 12 months the cost is $40 per bench per month, if you rent 5 benches the cost is $29 per bench per month, 10 benches are $27 each per month and so on. For a 24- or 36-month rental you’d take $1 and $2 off the cost of each bench per month respectively. You will also pay a flat fee for the artwork of anywhere from $175 to $300 depending on if you want your logo or a more complicated design. You only pay this fee once whether you’re renting one bench or one thousand.

Call your city’s mass transit department or local bus company to find out who manufactures and/or rents advertising space on their bus stop benches.

ELECTRONIC MEDIA

Television

Television advertising has a reputation for being expensive. Far too many small-business people are intimidated by stories of the high cost of television time. Major corporations spend millions on their advertising campaigns but they plan to reach millions of viewers. On a smaller scale TV costs can be surprisingly low. The price of television time depends on several factors: the size of the market area the length of the ad the time of day the ad appears the rating of the program the quantity of advertising purchased and a handful of other factors.

One 30-second spot can cost depending on these factors from $10 (using a slide and voice-over audio) to over $1 000.

It’s up to the advertiser to first decide just how much money is available for television advertising then to shop around for the best deal.

At many stations a “grid” system is used to price TV time. This means that there may be several prices possible for the same commercial at the same time of day, the higher the price the higher the priority of the spot. A high-priority commercial will preempt one of lower priority.

One additional cost is the production of a commercial. This can range from a low of $50 for a simple station-produced announcement to a figure well into four digits for an ad produced using professional studio techniques.

Local stations often package deals designed to give the smaller business an opportunity to use TV effectively while keeping costs low. There are programs to fit any advertising budget from $250 a year to as much as a business can afford.

The small-business person’s best friend can be a local station’s ad salesperson, a call to these people will usually answer all your questions. Before contacting a station however you should do some homework.

Cable Television

Perhaps the most powerful advertising medium to emerge in recent years cable television is often overlooked by small entrepreneurial advertisers. Many small business owners tend to think that just because it is television cable T.V. is expensive. The truth however is that it is a very inexpensive medium compared to the reach of the add

Many of the national cable networks are similar to broadcast networks in the way they price their T.V. time. The only difference is the actual price. National cable television networks are much cheaper than regular national television broadcast networks because of the smaller number of viewers reached. Since cable television is not hooked up to every household in the nation they don’t reach as many viewers as broadcast television. Therefore their rates are considerably less. For instance a 30 second spot on a national cable network like ESPN might cost $500 for national coverage depending on the time and volume purchased.

To buy national time you would contact the cable network directly. However you can also purchase time on a cable net-work by market through your local cable franchise. This allows advertisers to concentrate their efforts in areas that fall within the scope of the local cable franchise’s boundaries. Usually the cost for this time is relatively cheap. Sometimes as low as $20 for a 30 second spot.

Regional coverage is available as well through a group of companies throughout the nation called cable interconnects. These companies enable the advertiser to buy time on a cable network throughout a specific region by connecting the cable companies in that region. For instance if you wanted to reach the entire San Diego market you would contact the San Diego interconnect company and buy time through them.

There are also many regional cable networks that may provide the advertising exposure you are seeking. These networks price their T. V. time in the same manner as the national networks but their prices are many times much less.

Keep in mind that the prices listed in this section are just approximations. To find out more about cable television con-tact your local cable company or one of the cable networks. If you are not experienced purchasing media time you may want to consider hiring an advertising agency or better yet contact a local media buying service.

Radio

Advertising on major radio stations presents the same problems for small- business owners as advertising in metro newspapers. Such advertising reaches an audience far beyond the limits of a small business’s trading area and the cost is high.

But radio advertising can be an effective and affordable medium for you. Advertising on small local stations that broadcast to local markets can cost as little as $6.50 for each spot announcement. These stations most with a power of less than 1 000 watts now make up the majority of commercial radio stations in the United States. Their low wattage limits them to very small geographic areas and their programs are specifically designed to appeal to the people in this limited market. When you buy time on such a station you’re not paying for wasted circulation.

To get the complete story on a radio station’s advertising costs visit the broadcasting office examine the rate card and have a talk with an authorized station representative. The Standard Rate and Data Service catalogues will also furnish cost data.

You have heard institutional tire ads by such big companies as Goodyear Michelin and Uniroyal on television. Sometimes at the end of the commercial you will hear something like: “Available at Davis Tire Center 123 Main Street.”  This tag line geared to the local market is the result of co-op advertising programs. In such an arrangement you pay part of the cost of the ad but the manufacturer pays the biggest chunk. One big reason to take advantage of co-op advertising is that the institutional ads are very well produced and give class to your ad program. You are riding on the coattails of a major ad campaign without having to pay big prices.

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