Know-How Exchange : Branding

Hi Paul,

Firstly I sympathise with you in relation to the legal non-compliance issues that you raised vis-a-vis your competitors and would suggest that you report these law-breakers to the relevant governing body. If they were put out of business wouldn't that have a good effect on your income?!

From a marketing perspective, can I suggest the following:

Focus on what your customers value - for example, legal compliance is most likely of no earthly interest to them; ask yourself (or better still ask them) what matters most to them as customers. What would make them recommend you?

Your website needs attention - the font should be changed to a sans serif - the Times Roman font on your headings looks out of date.

I appreciate that the culture in England is different to here in Ireland but that said, the pictures used portray one type of night out only - a young, girly, boozy night out. Can I suggest that each quadrant on your home page could portray a different type of occasion for example a ladies bingo party, a family wedding, and I know you don't want "lads" but perhaps you could portray a "tamer" lads night out. You can always refuse business if you get bad vibes from prospective males.

In order to get your website up the rankings, I suggest you engage an SEO expert to have a good look at how your website is set up, the meta tags you are using. You might consider a Google Adwords campaign. Your SEO adviser will be best placed to advise you in this regard.

Hope this is of some help.

Ann Sheehy
Bright Star Marketing
Ireland

On being legal, I would stick to just putting down that you are fully licensed on your web and other marketing materials, and leave it at that.

You may want to try to find a niche that takes you away from competing direct with the "big guys", better yet a niche that wont damage your buses. You are kind of starting this by aiming at the female clientele. Other alternates could be to aim at businesses looking to show clients, international visitors, etc. around. Or hire a staff member/driver that speaks a different language (one which there are visitors who come to your area) and then target these visitors. Here in San Francisco, there is a limo company that hires Japanese speaking drivers and promotes their business to them, and seems to be doing pretty well at it.

I agree with mbarber on pricing - you don't want t be half of theirs. 10-15% less should still get you the price competitive business, but also give you better margins. Or, harder to do would be to fin some way to make your service stand out as much better than the others and then charge more than they do.

In addition to the other suggestions (I agree that you need to raise prices, revise your website and use legal wording to tell clients that you're licensed), I would offer incentives for referrals.

Consider a percentage off the fees for a future booking when their referrals book with you. You may also want to co-brand - join in an incentive program with a club, restaurant, etc., for those who bring paid business to you.

In addition to all of those, make clients' actual experience logistically simple and entertaining. Instruct your drivers to be entertaining, charming and more appealing than the others in town. Word will get around and business will likely follow.

Can you focus on VIP (corporate) events in you area? Instead of thinking "party bus", think fun corporate limousine. What businesses in your area are creative, fun, younger, and active? With holiday parties coming up, your vehicles may be a good fit.

I agree that your website needs some cleaning up to look more professional than partying. Half the images would be enough.

In addition to the above great ideas, there are ways to market your website that require time rather than money. Are you on Face Book? If you are add as many friends as possible and ask your clients for pictures or have them post what a great experience they've had!

Paul,
where do you get most of your business from? Focus on that for now if you don't want to invest much.
It is from web search? Focus on your web site then.
That being said, your web site really needs some attention, if I was shopping around for a limo bus a) I probably would not even find you as your google ranking is low and b) I would be so put off by your web site I probably would not call you anyway.

The reason your google ranking is low is because there is simply not enough text and keywords. You need more copy to get up high in search results.

Those slides on the home page - worst idea ever. If I do want to see the images I want to browse them and not break my eyes trying to see something scrolling in front of me in four different places. If I click on one I am then redirected away from your web site - bad, bad, or so bad for your google ranking.

Text inside of the frame on home page is not the best idea as well - I did not even see it at first, white centered font on red background makes it unreadable.

Re-think the information you want to offer to your potential customer and re-think how you offer this information.

For example,
make your home page a place where your potential customers can read the most important information, understand what your company does and why it is better than the others.

Main menu then offers different type of occasions, for example "ladies night out", "corporate fun", "wedding", etc. Those pages have all the relevant information in one place - photo gallery, customer reviews, prices, additional information.
If I am a parent looking for a partybus for my kid's birthday I don't want to see young chicks stripping while choosing a limo. You need to target different audience individually.

I could go on and on but you get the idea.

If you want any further help feel free to contact me offline, I can help you with that. Trust me, it is not expensive to have a web site which will work for you, it just takes some thinking.

and answering your question above - all information must be on the same web site, and as much of it as possible.
as soon as you redirect to https://blogs.myspace.com/ - it is not your web site any longer, so you don't get anything of the information you entered there in terms of ranking.

different landing page is what i described above. If you have one page "wedding party bus" (accessible from main menu of your web site from any page) then someone who is looking for "wedding party bus" most likely will end up on this page directly. He/she will then read all the relevant information first, look at wedding pics, learn about the price, read some reviews.. And then, if customer want to learn more about the company, they can browse through other pages describing different types of occasions you cater.

Hope this helps,
Elena