Why Piano Technicians Need the Local Market Offers Program
Building a client base large enough to satisfy one's financial goals is often a long and difficult process. One group of potential clients—previously unreachable and therefore overlooked—are those who are shopping for a piano for the first time and have not yet made a purchase. Industry statistics suggest that most piano buyers purchase used pianos. They need the instruments they are considering evaluated; then, after purchase, they need them repaired, restored, and/or maintained. Until now, it's been virtually impossible to advertise to these shoppers, but the Local Market Offers Program makes it easy. Simply put, this program delivers your promotional offer to qualified local piano shoppers just as they are about to begin shopping and likely to need the services of a piano technician. You pay only when your offer is delivered. (For more information, click here to read Larry Fine's article, Building a Client Base with First-Time Piano Buyers.")
How It Works
Acoustic & Digital Piano Buyer, the successor to The Piano Book by Larry Fine, is read by tens of thousands of active piano shoppers annually. Available FREE online at www.PianoBuyer.com, it is by far the most widely read piano-buying reference available. Once shoppers have done their research, their next logical step is to begin to shop. Most, having never bought a piano, have little knowledge of their local market and need all the help they can get. Plus, everyone loves a deal!
Immediately upon accessing PianoBuyer.com or PianoMart.com for the first time, a shopper will be taken to a customized web page containing offers from local piano dealers seeking business in the shopper's area, followed by offers from technicians, teachers, and others. Typical offers from technicians might be for:
- discount on the first or second tuning
- discount on used-piano evaluation
- used-piano evaluation fee deducted from initial service or restoration
- free cleaning of piano interior with initial service
- discount on repair or rebuilding
- free accessories with restoration
to cite a few creative possibilities.
Each offer description is expandable to a full-page, printable ad or coupon that can be presented to you, making it easy to track the results of the promotion.
Don Mannino, RPT
"Piano technicians looking to expand their clientele often ask what the best way is to find new customers. Larry Fine's new idea of reaching local piano shoppers just when they're buying a piano makes a lot of sense—they need to have pianos evaluated, they'll need maintenance or repair work after they buy, plus they're at a stage where they're spending money already. This looks to be a great new way to build a business!"
Cypress, CA
Precision-Targeted and Precision-Timed:
Why the Local Market Offers Program is better than other forms of advertising
- Your offer is displayed at the moment it can have the greatest effect—precisely when the shopper is ready to shop.
- Most requesters will be serious piano shoppers—your prime audience—and not the general public.
- Your offer is delivered only in your local market, which you define for each offer. Over time, this can help you develop a client base closer to your home, minimizing travel time and expense.
- Unlike most advertising, which you have to pay for whether or not anyone reads it, with the Local Market Offers Program, you pay only when your offer is delivered.
- You set your own maximum monthly budget for each offer.
- The program can be made fully trackable: You'll know how many people saw your offer, how much you spent on advertising, and how much piano service work resulted.
- The program is extremely flexible: Change promotions or turn offers on or off at will, and advertise in multiple categories, as your business needs require.
- Your account and offer setup are very simple. You'll be up and running in minutes.
Manage Your Own Online Advertising Portal!
When you sign up, you'll have access to a password-protected online portal, through which you can:
- Configure the market in which you wish to have your offer distributed, according to metropolitan area, distance from home or shop, or by state, county, or zip code
- Upload your own unique ad or we can make one for you.
- Change your offer at any time, and create multiple offers, each with a different ad and market area; for example, one for tuning and repair and another for selling used and rebuilt pianos
- Set the maximum amount you wish to spend each month, and change it at any time
- Access statistics on offer performance, such as number of offers delivered and amount spent in a given time period, amount remaining in monthly budget, etc.
Pricing
Evelyn Smith, RPT
"Advertising to piano shoppers who are serious enough about their purchase that they're reading Piano Buyer is a great, cost-effective marketing idea for technicians. Those seeking new clients should seriously consider participating in this program."
Greensboro, NC
Pricing is on a “pay-per-offer-delivered” basis—that is, you’ll be charged a fee only when you offer is displayed to a zip-code-matched shopper—within the market area and maximum monthly budget you define during the offer setup.
If your monthly budget is reached before month's end, you'll receive an e-mail alert giving you the option of either raising the budget to continue offer delivery, or discontinuing delivery until the beginning of the next monthly billing cycle. Monthly billing is to your credit card.
Price Schedule
You pay only when your offer is displayed to a customer in your market area. The total due is charged to your credit card at the end of each calendar month. The price per delivered offer varies by product or service category. Note that, depending on the nature of your business, you may wish to place offers under multiple categories. For example, a technician who offers restoration services and also sells pianos, might place offers in both the “Piano Service” and “Piano Dealers” categories.
|
Product or Service Category |
Price per Delivered Offer |
Delivered Offers per $100 |
|---|---|---|
| Piano Dealers | $1.80 | 55 |
| Piano Rebuilding & Restoration | $1.20 | 83 |
| Piano Servicing, Tuning, and Used-Piano Evaluation | $1.00 | 100 |
| Piano Instruction | $0.75 | 133 |
| Piano Moving, Benches, Lamps, Other | $1.00 | 100 |
| News, Concerts, and Events (when accompanied by a Piano Dealer ad) | $0.50 | 200 |
Outstanding Value
Phil Glenn, RPT
"Sign me up! We all could use some extra business these days, and this is one of the most promising and innovative ideas I've seen for getting that new business—in any economy. I especially like its low-cost, low-risk aspect, and the fact that it's associated with Larry Fine."
Lakewood, WA
If you do the math, we believe you'll conclude that this program is an outstanding value.
For example, with the cost per delivered offer at $1, if you budgeted only $100 per month (our estimate of the amount needed to respond to all offer requests in a typical technician's market territory in a mid-size metro area), this program could deliver your offer to up to 100 active piano shoppers each month. That’s a detailed offer description, expandable to a full-page ad, and feature enhancements, delivered to 100 piano shoppers in your own backyard, many of whom need a piano technician now—for only $100! If only one of these 100 shoppers hired you to evaluate a used piano, and then became a long-term customer (a conservative estimate, considering how precisely targeted the shoppers are), the evaluation fee alone would pay for the program, and the years of tunings to follow would have come at no additional cost to you. If, over the years, you also sold the customer regulating, repair, climate-control installation, or restoration services, your $100 investment could end up bringing in thousands of dollars' worth of piano service work.