Archive for January, 2010

Auto Repair Advertising – No Response No Information No Customer

If you partake of auto repair advertising you may have noticed a downturn in effectiveness as a new breed of consumers emerges. They are armed not with phonebooks and word of mouth but with Internet browsers and RSS feeds. They know where to check your information in the blink of an eye and can find the perfect middle ground between price and quality faster than you can change oil. This new group of consumers ranges from 16 to 60 and they are looking for you. But are you ready for how they do business?

A recent study of consumers seeking auto repair quotes/information online showed extremely high levels of dissatisfaction with the speed and personalization received by local technicians. Beyond that of the few facilities even offering email contact virtually none of them chose to respond to the inquiry. Even more powerful is that the vast majority of these customers reported they took their business elsewhere. Some in just a few hours. A subsequent study looking at the number of online searches for “auto repair” and all possible variations found that in any given month between April 2006 and March 2007 there were well over 52.4 million inquiries nationwide.

What a fantastic opportunity for your auto repair facility! It seems the market is wide open for technicians who return emails. Somebody out there is getting this business… why not you? But here’s the catch: Technicians choosing to tap into this massive stream of new customers will have to be prepared to focus on direct personal communication and provide information before sales.

No longer is it enough to say: “bring it in and we’ll take a look” or push credentials and experience now you must provide information along with a ballpark price or at least an explanation of why you are unable to estimate and a disclosure of your inspection fee. If you want to establish the kind of trust and credibility which leads to long term clients you must do the following:

1: Directly answer the question/concern of the individual.

2: Offer based on the information given either a ballpark price or an explanation as to why you are unable to give this and quote your inspection fee.

3: Offer potential lower cost alternatives to the full procedure if possible.

4: Ask for the business then provide an easy way to contact you.

Would you rather have a person come in once and never return or endless times over the course of many years for 50 150 maintenance while bringing legions of friends?

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t flout your credentials; it is always a good idea to include a sentence or two about your experience and certifications. But this initial online correspondence must be about offering information. There is no other way besides direct value rich correspondence to build trust with today’s net savvy consumer. Many auto repair facilities refuse to give any information at all over the phone or online. Unfortunately this approach in almost every case backfires. Not offering some sort of inforich response defeats the purpose of communication. This alienates your potential clients. While many technicians view these people as “price shoppers” the majority of consumers are only looking for a healthy middle ground between quality and cost.

At the end of the day the auto repair facility responding appropriately to online buyers has a much better chance of landing a strong line of new clients. Not only will you establish your professional credibility but you will have a major edge against the fierce local competition with a wide open door to new word of net business.

About the writer:  Drew Turnbaugh is Americas leading authority on communication based auto repair advertising and founder of The International Automotive Network IanAuto. IanAuto is responsible for helping facility owners reconnect with consumers while growing their business by becoming local information resources.

Cover Letter Format: What Your Cover Letter Content Must Have

Although cover letters should be different personalized and uniquely creative there are certain guidelines one must follow to ensure that the content of your cover letter guarantees you a high percentage of snagging the job that you want.

A cover letter format should be adhered to so you will be able to know what you will write down. This format will ensure an organized cover letter which will efficiently serve its purpose which is to highlight your capabilities and skills and show you as the best person for the job.

Essentially your cover letter should give a great first impression to the person reading it or the hiring manager and convince him or her to read on further then to peruse your resume and consider you for an interview. This may be too big a task for a measly letter but if you follow the right format this is very much possible.

Cover Letter Format

You signature block should be the first thing you write down in your cover letter. The signature block consists of your address your telephone number and your email address.

Next is the date when you sent the cover letter.

Follow this in the next few lines with the name of the person where the letter will be sent. It is a big plus for you if you know the name of the person who is receiving the applications for the company. Add the title or position of the person then the name of the organization then its company address.

The salutation is next. Your salutation must be personal avoid using “to whom it may concern” or “Dear sir or madam.”

Your opening paragraph should state the reason why you are writing where you have learned about the vacant position and some basic information about yourself. Keep it short; they don’t want to hear about your life story. Try to make it very interesting so that you will be able to grab their attention and keep on reading.

You second paragraph should start off by stating why you want to work for their company what interest you about them and in what they do. You can use what you have learned through research about their company doing this will show that you are diligent smart and serious about your application.

In the same paragraph you will be able to showcase your qualifications and your abilities. You can tell about your work experiences and what you were able to learn in that experience. Keep it short; mention only those that can be applied to the job you are applying for. Mention that your resume will have a more detailed explanation of all your skills and responsibilities.

Try to use bullets to outline your skills and etcetera. This will make your points clearer and easier to understand.

On the third paragraph mention any details about your schedule which would allow you to do interviews. Indicate that you are indeed very interested to come in and talk to them. Tell them that you will be more than happy to provide them with any information that they may need in regards to your employment with their company. Don’t forget to thank them for considering your application.

You can then write down your closing and affix your handwritten signature above your printed name. Don’t forget to mention that your reacute;sumeacute; is enclosed if it is.

There you have it the basic contents that a good cover letter should have.

About the writer:  You can learn a lot about your resume’s impact by comparing it to other resume examples. Give your resume or CV a polish by visiting http://1stclassresume.com where you can sign up for a practical newsletter and get tips such as how to improve your resume format write a compelling objective statement and develop a great cover letter.

Voiceover Work And Search Engine Optimization Seo Can It Be Done?

Trying to get voiceover talent jobs online is tough. Each day more and more people enter the field looking for a job in voice overs. With practically each and every one comes another website with the same focus as yours. All these personal pages are clambering for the same piece of a very small voiceover pie.

In recent years and the foreseeable future search engines are and will be the most widely used internet tool to find sites for products services or information. Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page and it’s just usually just the top three or four listings of that. Sounds kind of fruitless doesn’t it? The more traffic the more business but just how hard is it to make the top ten with voiceover talent?

Let’s give it a try I’ll type in “voice over” in everyone’s favorite search engine “Google” and let’s see what we get. As of this writing it returned 49700000 results. Sure some of the results are for other things but even narrowing the search parameters I still came up with 942000 results. One popular keyword research tool predicted that there will only be about 160 searches a day for “voice over”. One number seems incredibly high and the other incredibly low even if they are
both off by 50000 your commercial voice over service website has a lot of competition.

Ok “voice over” seems like a tough search engine term to crack let’s pick another. Let’s try “voice talent” and we get a whopping 2310000 sites as challengers. Put in “Voice actor” and we get over two million. If you got these kind of odds in Vegas would you go? When your odds of being struck by lightning is a measly 576000 to one or your odds of dating a supermodel is a sure bet at 88000 to 1 are you still going to make that voiceover website and hope for the best? Yep.

We are the people that love to buy lottery ticketswhy because they are fun and there’s always that chance…. Buying a lottery ticket is fine and building a “voice over” website is great as you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. One website developer who specializes in voice over websites says right their homepage; “I have never heard of anyone getting a VO gig because of someone stumbling onto their website via a generic web search.” Wow what’s a voice imaging talent to
do?

“The Voice” Frank Frederick had great advice in his lecture “How to Define Your Niche Voice Acting Market”. The days of being all things to all people are numbered. Take an honest assessment of who and what you are and become the best at doing it. Once you find your niche then make sure as many people as possible know about it. Even if you have a voice over agent or are a member of a voice over directory self marketing is essential.

Education and hard work are also a better bet for furthering your career than a generic “voice over cheap” website. Voiceover talent jobs are tough to come by and the good ones are even harder that’s why it’s so important to stay top of mind and totally prepared.

So when it comes to your personal voiceover talent website you need to think of it more as your electronic business card. Instead of focusing on the generic term “voice over” or “voice talent” make it “voice overs by your name” or “your name voice talent”. Better yet make sure your site is your name and your niche. Oh yeah and remember market yourself every chance you get because as we have seen if they don’t know you they probably won’t find you.

About the writer:  Alex ONeal has 30 years experience behind a microphone and has done thousands of projects for radio TV video games and corporate presentations. He approaches SEO as a hobby and has helped several sites achieve top search engine rankings. Check out the latest voice over articles on his website and hear voice demos at www.alexvox.com