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In the planning of any business, a thorough knowledge of the marketplace is an important research component. Knowing who is currently in the industry, their strengths and apparent weaknesses as well as trends of future competitors cannot be ignored.
Furthermore, to portray a positive side to yourself, it is important to provide high quality work and to price fairly. Honesty and trust is important in this industry since most people in a storm get to see each other regularly, and they do talk. Anything negative can be detrimental to you and your business. It takes time to gain that trust and confidence in the PDR industry.
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In the planning of any business, a thorough knowledge of the marketplace is an important research component. Knowing who is currently in the industry, their strengths and apparent weaknesses as well as trends of future competitors cannot be ignored.
Furthermore, to portray a positive side to yourself, it is important to provide high quality work and to price fairly. Honesty and trust is important in this industry since most people in a storm get to see each other regularly, and they do talk. Anything negative can be detrimental to you and your business. It takes time to gain that trust and confidence in the PDR industry.
Major competitors
In PDR, the major companies seem to be Dent Wizard and its franchise, Dent Wizard NSW, DentMasters, The Dent King, United Hail, DentsRus, Dent Doctor, Australasian Hail and National Hail. Recently other player have joined the market such as The Dent Shed. All of these companies have been in the industry for about 20 years. Being the first in the industry means they have become well established withe many contacts in the insurance industry. At least some of these have national preferred contracts with some of the insurance giants. This means, when hailstorms occur, they are invited into the storm with allocations. In some cases, venues may even be provided for them but this is more the exception than the rule. Nevertheless, this provides obvious cash flow.
Marketing strategies
Definitely being new to the market will be a challenge in itself. Before you do decide to go through the promotional channel, ensure you are able to do PDR with confidence and are willing to take a variety of work.
Getting your image into the market place is three-fold:
- teaming up with other technicians and letting others know that you are available to work in the industry
- capturing the customer base
- getting known to the insurance industry
Most technicians will get employed with other companies at least in the interim to get the name out there and get a feel for the industry. Furthermore, it is probably better to save up before expanding or going alone. Moving between companies is quite common amongst technicians and given it is common, it is an ideal platform to gather information through observation and discussions with various business owners. Never make it that obvious and also be very careful on what information is provided – this is a known secretive industry with virtually no technician or PDR manager actually giving exact figures. After a while though, you get a feel for what is correct.
Of course it depends on the chosen model structure for your business and your future plan as to what extent you pour resources.
Advertising strategies
Traditionally, the yellow pages was an ideal way to promote yourself and this is still true even blending well with the internet revolution. But in the modern day, you may wish to check the viability based on the rates charged given there are now many other avenues to advertise. This article may be of use. If you do go ahead, the mot likely area to place ads are in the ‘paintless dent repair’ or ‘paintless dent removal’ section or perhaps ‘hail dent repairs’. You may find that others may be tending towards the internet and not bothering as much with this form of advertising – is it a concept to advertise here given less competitors? Food for thought.
The Internet Revolution
There is no doubt that the internet revolution coupled with the accessibility on the mobile phone technologies including I-phones and I-pads and similar has had a huge impact on the popularity of advertising in this medium. The rise of the Google giant and google adsense provides a very simply method of advertising targeted in anything from web pages, to the media and even email (gmail). And now even YouTube (owned by Google) has advertising campaigns. The whole concept of google adsense is to target the search terms and related content with special algorithms.
Websites
No matter what approach or model you adopt, it is crucial to have your own web presence – your own website. And we are not talking about one or two page wonders – but an informative and well designed website. It clearly has to portray the information to the customer base. Note that some customers may simply want to find the information whilst others want to interrogate your past history, previous work, how long you have been in the industry and so forth. You need to cater for both customers.
The website concept also projects an important image about your company. It suggests that you have gone to the trouble of making one and gone the extra mile in making it both informative and useful for the customer base. This is portfolio builder and an indirect method for portraying information voluntarily for perusal by others in their own time.
Facebook is an incredibly popular form of communication and is exploding! To prove how effective it has been, you may have found friends you have not seen for 20 to 30 years! With so many people on there and the real life chat and information as well as simple likes and sharing, you can consider this a good opportunity to promote your business.
However, be careful! I did suggest it is useful way to promote your company BUT if anything negative gets out, you have very little ways of controlling it. You have been warned.
Linked-In
This is virtually another type of Facebook in some respects for the business world and more for the professional executives and large corporations. It is an ideal platform to launch a company, spread words about the website and get linked to other similar industries including insurance companies.
Word and Mouth / Referrals
Referrals are an important component as it normally represents customers earned from good feedback! This still is one of the most important methods of getting repeat work and should not be underestimated in terms of its effectiveness. And best of all, it can be free!
Newspaper advertisements
Newspapers are still a very popular form of advertising. Australians love the concept of picking up the newspaper and having a read. There is nothing to switch on, it is there. The papers can be around for about a week in any house hold. This can then make advertising a little more expensive than other mediums. So, it is best to plan whether this represents the best choice for you. If you are targeting clients in your local region, then this is good way to attract local customers. It is extremely important to know your local market and competitors and definitely the design of the ad has to be well thought.
Brochures and Fridge Magnets
One concept of advertising that attracts people’s attention is informative advertising. By providing some useful information and designing very colourful brochures, it is more likely they will not be thrown out. If the target is for children even more so, the children may nag to keep it! The simple fact that there is a magnet is catchy for children.
Radio advertisements and other media
Although this is a form of advertising though it can get unnecessarily expensive.
Designing your ads
A good article with advice in this area is tips to writing newspaper ads. Generally you need to catch them with the headline and tempt with something to pursue them to dial that number. Give-aways are a popular way to capture the customers and believe me they even go for $50 give-aways. Of course, you require to design and manage this well for it to work in your favour. Remember, do not promise what you cannnot deliver!
Articles written about your company and yourself
A great way for promoting your company and your own image is to have articles written about you. There are writers out there who write articles on interesting topics for magazines or for newspapers. It could be a type of career push, information about making money, the recent hailstorm in your city or region. If you fit in, then allow them to write an article.
Be careful of live interviews on radios and television. They often have an underlying motive and if you are not used to the media, you can be taken out of context or suddenly thrown into the deep end with no way out (nerves and inexperience). If you know someone who is experienced in the media, let them do the talking. This is why large corporations employ media liaison officers!
Here is a nice Canadian Article written in response to a hailstorm that had demolished vehicles at that time.
Promoting PDR by demonstration
Demonstrating the PDR techniques are an excellent way to promote yourself and it again ties in with the informative advertising. Most poeple are not aware about PDR particularly if they have never made a claims and if the hail damage was repaired in a panel shop – even if some or all of the damage was repaired by PDR.
A demonstration during a hailstorm OR within the confines of safety in the workshop allow one of your technicians or yourself to demonstrate how a dent disappears! This certainly eases fears for those that may have heard negative comments about PDR.
