12 replies to this topic

[Brian Czeiner]

I am looking at Twitter trying to come up with ways to use it as an advertsing tool for the hobby and my business. Anyone have any ideas or success with this?

 

I am also looking at YouTube advertising, too.

[Michael Jr.]

I advertise on Facebook and get a good number of looks from it.

[mreibman]

Social media marketing is very powerful.

You need to target keywords and tags.

For instance, #slotcar might not get you as much traffic as #racing #hobbies or #fun

This is a vast topic and opportunity and you should be able to get huge bang for your buck.

And this is an area that isn't leveraged a lot in our hobby, but could be.

[Brian Czeiner]

Our Facebook advertsing has been very successful using the post boosts for certain posts and Womp Mafia events. They tend to reach between 4,000-7,000 car-oriented people with usually a few hundered engaging in the post for 20-40 bucks. We narrow the audience down using target words outside of the slot car genre and by age from past evaluations. The age group info also helps in targeting the audience. It seems to be split nearly equally every nine years from 45 to 65 and up, with the first nine years being the largest group by a few percent. Then 35-44 is solid in fourth place age group. As you can see, we do have a younger generation of customers looking, we still need to get them in the doors of the stores. That may take repeated ads. But at $20, it is a viable option every few months.

 

The last picture tells me people are living on their phone apps. This is where the people are. It certainly can't hurt to try. 

 

I want to expand into these other media platforms that seem to go "viral" with 100,000 views in a few hours.

I was hoping somebody on here would have ideas on how to use these other platforms and be willing to share their knowledge avoiding me wasting so much time with the learning curve. 

If I had easy access a track, I could try taking some good videos and see what happens. Some dirt slow cars would help in that area. Otherwise they are just blurrs you can't identify on the screen. 

 

The cars from the under bridge view in this video (about one minute and after) are Parma WhisperJet rental cars. We all know how slow those were but on camera, they look like they are flying yet are still identifiable as some type of car. Even the other views of the whole track support a slower car concept for the purposes of video. They were all running Deathstars.

 

 

 

 

[Brian Czeiner]

Does anybody know anything about using Twitter?

[Michael Jr.]

I get favorable results from Facebook. Results measured in looks and visits to the web page. Some... very few...  visits to my actual physical location. I have virtually zero hits or looks from Twitter or Instagram. Ironically I was looking at them and considering closing those accounts while I clicked on Slotblog to see what was going on.  By the end of the day I am leaning towards getting off of both of those altogether. Having them requires me to keep them current but no one is looking at them. The people that followed a few years back no longer check their own pages much less mine. Facebook and my static web page are the two internet places for info and outreach.

[Brian Czeiner]

Save me from wasting my time with them. Thanks. I guess its time to move into researching YouTube.

[Wizard Of Iz]

I am looking at Twitter trying to come up with ways to use it as an advertsing tool for the hobby and my business. Anyone have any ideas or success with this?

 

I am also looking at YouTube advertising, too.

 

I think you're off to a great start and are way, way ahead of 99% of other slot car related businesses.

 

Digital advertising can be a great tool because you can target the ad so that (for the most part) only a certain target audience sees your ad. That means you're not wasting ad dollars by reaching people that have zero interest in what you're doing. Facebook is a good place to start .. and also talk to Google about their advertising opportunities. And Google owns YouTube.

 

For example... I would target people Interested or very Interested in motorsports and/or RC cars (attended events, watch on TV, listen on the radio, visit motorsports websites, and/or buy merchandise.) And I'd include interest in NASCAR, Indy, NHRA, etc) as well as participate in hobbies like RC racing. There's little reason to target people that dislike such things. The exception to such precise targeting is the time period around Christmas and Father's Day when you should include the wives/daughters of men that like the activities mentioned above and might want a new idea for a gift.

 

Speaking of Google .. make sure your directory information is up to date and consistent everywhere your business name, address, website, and phone number appear. Having everything match everywhere raises your score for when someone does a Google search. It's a small part of their algorithm, but it's important. Just for kicks, I did a Google search for "slot car bodies" and Caveman Bodeez doesn't appear on the first page. Having everything "right" doesn't cost anything besides your time and makes you look to Google like a good business to recommend.

 

Your challenge might be finding a digital advertising seller that's willing to work with a "slot car size" (small) budget because there are many, many companies that are spending tens of thousands of dollars on digital advertising every month.

[Bill Seitz]

Jim Honeycutt has mentioned previously that Google charges a small monthly fee to have your information prioritized at the top of the search list. If you don't pay, the search puts you at least four pages down.

 

My wife and I don't use Instagram and Twitter at all, if that says anything. She's on Facebook daily, but the ads are turned off. If I want to get information from the Internet, I use Google, but I have ads turned off, too. Most of the time, I don't even pay attention to ads, block them right out - they're annoying. Best source for me is an Internet search, so if the search engine puts your business pages down the list, good chance I might not see it. I might also think it's not current, and the business has closed.

[Brian Czeiner]

Jim Honeycutt has mentioned previously that Google charges a small monthly fee to have your information prioritized at the top of the search list. If you don't pay, the search puts you at least four pages down.

 
Sounds like extortion to me. As a business, I'm not worried about advertising. I was thinking along the lines of something I can do to advertise for the hobby as a whole. Lets face it, if a person is here on Slotblog or any other slot car related social media, they already know about slot cars and we are preaching to the chior. That doesn't grow the hobby.
 
I'm searching to find a cost effective ways to reach new customers in store area zip codes. Our Womp Mafia/Grand Mafia series offers free social media advertising as one of the perks to running a Mafia event. The store does nothing except send me a few pictures unless I can find suitable ones on their own Facebook page. We post the event on our Facebook page and then boost those events in the store's local area with the idea of attracting new customers to their store. We regularly reach over 4,000 potential new customers in that area for $20. I was hoping to find other social media or internet options to reach an even larger audience. A short YouTube ad might be the ticket or if someone has another idea?

[elvis44102]

Give Jan Limpach a call. He is a search engine optimizer, maybe since it's slot cars you will get a little free advice.
 

Expert Search Engine Optimization

[Cheater]

John,

 

I reached out to Jan several years ago and got zero response. I doubt he has any interest in the hobby he was once so prominently involved in, at least based on my attempts to contact him. 

[elvis44102]

I have been in touch with Jan since this COVID came around, and we email and talk, but then I grew up with him since I was 14 into my twenties.

 

Jan was a super-perfectionist and we couldn't even go bowling normally; he would keep trying for 300 games. I enjoyed my racing before I got to the professional level much more than racing those very fast cars.

 

I am guessing a lot of 'fun' goes out the window when one is expected to perform well. I enjoyed building the cars in a race against how fast they could go, rather than my suspect driving skill.