POSITIVE MARKETING EXPERIENCE
» Like many stores, Sonus’ space is mostly allocated to installation. But having additional rooms dedi- cated to training and fabrication, plus rom to expand, give the location growth flexibility.
it’s the opposite. We’re relaxed until we get the car in the bay and then it’s laser-beam-style focus. We work this system and make sure that every- one sees it — it’s tied in with the public relations, Website and Facebook things that we do. We’re al- ways talking about the process we use to protect the car; to make sure that we treat your stuff like it’s our stuff.”
Another unique business practice is no pushing to add on to any sale. “We’ll never sell you anything that we wouldn’t
have ourselves, and we’ll never sell you anything you wouldn’t need,” said Williams. “If the cus- tomer talks about Bluetooth, then we talk about Bluetooth. We don’t talk about Bluetooth and HD radio and a rearview camera. We address their need and follow just that thing. We take their lead and we have developed a conversation tool that allows us to find out exactly what it is that they want.” Even the staff uniforms make an impression in doing things differently. Williams said his previ- ous, old work uniforms used to have “50 things embroidered down the side and MECP patches. We looked like Ford technicians,” he said. “Now we don’t. Our uniforms are custom designed by Oakley since we’re an Oakley dealer. We sell their optics, footwear, and backpacks. And, we had our uniforms designed with a different, breathable material than everyone else. There is just a Sonus logo on the sleeve.”
While the front of the shop has a Keurig coffee
maker, TVs, and the essential free Wi-Fi, Sonus offers free pick up and drop off for customers. “We encourage them not to wait here because, after 45 minutes, if you don’t work here, that time is pretty much all you can take,” said Williams. “There is so
48 Mobile Electronics February—March 2013
much going on with the phones ringing, the door is opening every five minutes — it’s just busy.”
Green Tape No More
For marketing, there is no TV, and radio is also out of mix now. “We had done some radio in the past, but it’s impossible to track,” said Williams. “Facebook and Twitter are huge, and we are active on fo- rums. We’ll target every forum like Volkswagen, Audi, BMW. If there is a forum for a Ford Focus, I am sure we have a post on it. We answer ques- tions — we’re not trying to sell things. We have our name and logo in the signature line so it’s all there. When someone asks what would fit here or what is wrong with this — we just give away free information.” There are no seasonal promotions and no sales.
“We give away gift cards and t-shirts off of our Facebook page because it has such a large reach,” said Williams. “We’ll ask a question about some- thing and then do a drawing. That stuff works well.” The Website also takes a different tack. “Our initial site had a few hundred cars on it,” said Williams. “We used to call it the hit collection of green tape. On our new site we picked eight cars and made sure those cars highlighted everything that we do — our fabrication and all the prep work. Our Website was so cluttered that there was no good template out there to navigate a gal- lery. We changed it to an auto-scroll where there are eight pictures for eight projects — for a total of 64 pictures. It links to our Facebook and links to our Twitter.” æ
“We chronicled the build of this store just like we would do a high –profile build for a client,” said Williams. “We showed building pictures and told people what was coming up which all led up to the grand opening. Te day of that grand opening we probably had between 350 and 400 people here. We had a grill going and we had radio stations out here doing the giveaways and the hockey tickets. We made the whole process an event and we kept it in front of everyone the whole time. We posted pictures of bulldozers before anything was even done. We getting 200, 300, 400 likes on the pictures when we posted them [on Facebook] so we knew people were watching.”
POOR MARKETING EXPERIENCE
Radio, according to Wil- liams, proved a disappoint- ment. “We did some live remotes but they cost a lot of money,” he said. “You’re giving things away and trying to get people to stop by. What we learned about radio is that it’s kind of like throwing a hot dog in a hall- way. You have 30-second spots, five or six of them a day, and you’re trying to hit something. And it’s hard to hit someone and make it stick doing radio. We might have spent $40,000 in the last year on it and it just didn’t work. We would have been better off buying a big tee-shirt launcher and shooting hundred dollar bills out on the road hoping people would have picked them up and brought them back in here.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68