I have been realy hitting the air ways hard for the last three years however most of our work comes from the customers sending there freinds and family..We have also just started to do alot of print adds in the local papers we do this by placing little post card fliers in them... in most of our adds we keep telling the people its always there choice where they choose to repair there cars...I have seen other shops try this and fail by not sticking with it.. you realy need to commit for the long haul and its a spendy one at that but works thats for sure...

small town here ... got an add on the front of the local phone book for 30 years now , but thats about it ... here it's word of mouth and maintaining a good rep. cutting a deductible or giving something for nothing can sometimes be my best add dollar.

we've been in business for 20 years and our telephone has never been published. all we had was a sign, and that got damaged during a hurricane years back. all of our customers arrive by word of mouth or they just see crashed cars along the lot. your work should be the only advertising you rely on that brings in business. the other stuff just gets the word around that your another bodyshop.

MoCoke wrote:
we've been in business for 20 years and our telephone has never been published. all we had was a sign, and that got damaged during a hurricane years back. all of our customers arrive by word of mouth or they just see crashed cars along the lot. your work should be the only advertising you rely on that brings in business. the other stuff just gets the word around that your another bodyshop. Just to give you all a idea of the market im in there are over 250 body shops with in 35 miles of my shops.....we have been open for over 15 years now and only have two drp accounts... most of our work is word of mouth but being on the radio helps keep your name fresh in there minds... I have had neigbors forget I have shop and its on the back of my damm truck that sits in the driveway lolololol

I would have to say that advertising cant hurt you any unless its an annoying to poeple. I paint at a dealership and in the nine years we have never advertised and I feel it has hurt us. I have had so many poeple ask me if we work on customer cars. They think we only work on the cars owned by the dealership. Some people that have lived in this town for years say they didnt even know we had a body shop at the dealership.

MoCoke wrote:
we've been in business for 20 years and our telephone has never been published. all we had was a sign, and that got damaged during a hurricane years back. all of our customers arrive by word of mouth or they just see crashed cars along the lot. your work should be the only advertising you rely on that brings in business. the other stuff just gets the word around that your another bodyshop.

this may work for you but this is horrible advice! Advertising is key, we do magazines,web, news paper, visit agents and local merchant commerce. Marketing works!