Advertising?

[thew750]

We're considering puting together some radio advertising for our shop. We had a ad sales person come by friday and it seems like it could work. Anyone ever use radio to advertise thier shop. We are considering a 2 month comitment of 330 spots with 2 live weekend remotes from a local rock station. All of the spots will be during Am and PM drive time. The reason I'm asking is this is going to be a huge amount of $$ for our shop and we want to know that the ROI will be there. We're talking about nearly $10,000.

[FORGIVEN]

Theres a lot of shops in my area , a whole lot !!! But only one advertises on the radio (local alternative/hardrock) and I can tell you their busy , this is going to sound funny but , it seems like they're almost TOO busy , I see alot of their work , and there is no heart & soul in it , like a production line ,a really expensive production line !!! God bless them , it's because of them and others like them why I've been staying working and booked pretty solid :twisted: !!!!!!!!!

[gremlin]

there is a good shop up in athens who doesn't advertise on the mainstream radio but they are always slammed. What they aparently do is put a flyer up in every store, shop, and bar that caters to the biker or hot rod crowd. They go to every bike rally and car show and even donate maybe a 100.00 tattoo as one of the door prizes at the event. (heck if nothing else it gets them a listing as a sponsor in the program) they also put up flyers on the telephone poles on the college campus and ad's in the college newspapers. They also put up a flyer on every music store bulletin board. basicly every where I go in the athens area I see their name, the flyers are everywhere, and the car shows bike shows they are always listed in the programs etc... they do a lot of leg work but it looks like it pays off because they are always booked solid.

[thew750]

We're mostly a flash shop with little custom, we're trying to change that by attracting some people who might not have origionally heard of us or assoiated us with custom work.

[FORGIVEN]

Like the shop Gremlin speaks of I also do a lot of donating of gift certificates to a fellowship I belong to , and its paid off !!! lets say i donate a $75.00 g.c. , when they get here I usually do Jedi mind tricks and gently push them to go BIGGER ... 95% of the time it works well !! plus it helps out the organization I belong to !!! Trying to erase some of that old bad Karma :shock: !!!!

[thew750]

I like the idea of radio, because everyone will hear it. We've done flyers before, and we do gift certs as well last year we gave about $2500.00 in GC and only about half were even used.

I'm mostly curious to know how radio has done for other shops, and what they put in thier spots. The sales person who was here is soposed to be getting me some samples that were done by other shops accross the country in other markets.

If anyone has ideas or suggestions feel free to speak up.

This will be nodoubt the most money we have ever spent on advertising.

[Pigment Pen]

I heard a radio spot for a shop in PA a few months ago. They were advertising $200.00 for all you can take. I can't imagine the amount of business they got from that but they played the spot quite a bit.

[gremlin]

lol I wish i would have been in Pa. I would have depleted their ink supply. I can sleep and have been caught snoring while being tattooed.

[JosephBigBear]

Well thew750 I would like to tell its good but on the hotest radio station in my area that the listeners would get a tattoo we cant advertise because they have a contract with this franchised tattoo company so I got boned as well as some of my bro's that own shops in norteast PA. One of my Bro's did get a chance to advertise on his local radio he said he picked a few but he will only place an add every 5-6 months.

[tat2rtist2]

Screw the radio..keep it real.

[Anonymous]

The best advertiseing is your work and word of mouth I would use that money to increase equipment an upgrade flash and put a add in local paper.just my thoughts to each there own for that of money you could afford to give away a few to people that gets aroung in different circles.

[Papa Gee]

Advertise at your local college. Usually they have a paper and you're targeting a group who are usually interested in getting tattooed.

[thew750]

A little info on the shop. I and two partners own it, we have six artists here and one peircer. We do advertise in a local paper The Pitch. Not a ehole lot of response except for the typical flash stuff. We have only had this shop about 6 mos. We do good enough business to keep $$ in our pockets, but we want to get into more custom work. We do a fair amount of college students but again they want the tribal band off the wall. We want to get the bikers who want sleeves, back pieces, etc. Some stuff that we can be proud of. If we're gonna do this it has to benefit us as artists, not so much as businessmen. We had a meeting last week about what we all wanted more of and it was clear that we want CUSTOM WORK assoiated with the name of our shop.

[ink_freak]

heres what i would do .take your time i advertise on the radio for my flooring buisness it cost alot but i have a large budget for that company.when someone picks out the flash piece let them know u do custom work !. alot of people i deal with dont realize that custom stuff can be done they are only familiar with the pick a piece off the wall shop.to make it short ....a radio commercial is a lot of $ for a new shop and satis fied customers will eventually pay for u to get that spot but for the time do what you do and let every one know that YOUR AN ARTIST! and you can change any thing and create anything to suit them ....... alot of times if people are made aware that you can create a piece that only they have and that its made for them specificly they will pay the price and take that route :lol:

[kate]

The shop I used to be at advertised for a year on radio, then off radio for 6 months trying to figure out if it was worth it. Then when summer hit they decided to give it a shot and ran a spot on alternative radio, free piercing w/ tattoo deal (trying to intice people off the lake) and business rose by 60%. Which is huge. It was mostly flash art, (which you said you were trying to expand from) but profits were up.

[tat2rtist2]

You should be proud of any work you do, not just custom. work the shows...location is also a factor..big custom work cost $...some areas just dont have it..travel..do guest spots etc..offer specials on backpieces and sleeves to get the work out there to be seen.

[thew750]

Well, it's set. We're gonna go radio!!! I just heard the sample this morning, and it is bad ass. We're even gonna Tattoo one of the stations DJ's while LIVE on the air at one of the remotes. He's gonna have a whole backpiece done by three us us at once. This is gonna be fun. Thanks for all of the advice, I'm stoked about this. I'll let everyone know how things turn out.