It is just over a year and one month since I created my North West London driving school marketing website to illustrate how important it is to have an online presence to be successful as a driving instructor especially in these hard times of the credit crunch when many of your competition is offering ridiculously cheap lessons in a bid to attract more business.
While this advertising website was targeted at an area just outside my normal working catchment area (hampstead village NW3 London), and at the time I didn't have any clients in, a lot has happened, and I'm reaping the benefits of this online campaign.
The driving school website now ranks number 1 or 2 for the term driving lessons hampstead or instructor, is constantly getting hits and generating enquiries on a weekly basis, and this has meant that I now have more pupils to Supplement the downturn in number of people taking lessons due to the uncertainty in the current UK economic conditions.
There are some of you who might have started an online presence by registering a school domain name, maybe even bought some hosting package, but never followed through with the rest of the online driving school marketing steps, and thus have a half finished project which never produced any results for your self-employed business.
As I've always said on this marketing blog, you have to continually work on promoting both your business and website everyday if possible, both online and offline. I am now taking business from people who are based in NW3 London, some even have websites that are older than mine, and may even be charging less than I do, all because some people know that if you are on the first page of google.co.uk especially in the top 3, you must be offering a good quality service. Others will just call the first person on the list, and if they get a response within a reasonable time, don't bother to look any further, after all not everyone is looking for cheap driving lessons, but a good quality service.
So if you are one of those readers of these articles who have either been putting off doing some online business marketing via a website/blog, or you started but never completed it, then maybe this success story will motivate you to put action to your thoughts.
Update Jan 2015
My Hampstead blog has slipped down the rankings but is still on the 1st page. As I mentioned the targeted area was outside the normal area I was willing to travel to, and with the improvement in the UK economy I am now turning down most enquiries from this area so i'm not actively using this online tool presently.
Driving school marketing for Winter
It might just be september, and as an instructor business might be much healthier than it normally is, especially with the last minute rush from learner drivers to beat the new driving test in october, but one of the secrets of successful driving school marketing is to prepare for the future now.
Anyone who has been in the business for a while or who did their research into the industry before becoming involved would know that things slow down in winter, especially in the run up to Christmas and this year is going to be no exception, in fact things might even be tougher in 2010 due to the announced reduction in government public sector spending, so competion is going to be stronger in getting the few driving lessons that people might be willing to take, so you need to start thinking about how you are going to advertise and market your services from now!
I have already started my advertising and marketing campaign both online and offline, gearing up to make sure that I reduce the fall in income and revenue over the traditional christmas period and not wait till the january new resolution driving lesson craze kicks in.
So you are wondering what can an instructor do as far as pupill generation, marketing, advertising (and this doesn't necessarily mean newspapers, yellow pages, google adwords or student union magazines) is concerned to increase the pupil awareness of a driving school's services and attract enquiries and hopefully sales conversions in a downturning market that generally refocuses on holiday gifts.
Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to share my specific targets and goals including steps to achieve them with you, as that would be business suicide. You can have a look through this blog and try and implemet some of my how to market your driving school ideas. If you are one of those that has be putting off getting a driving school website then do so TODAY (not that this will be able to help this winter, but not having one is bad marketing anyway). There are other ideas I have shared here which if you haven't implemented you should try.
Remember your current client base can be used as leverage to get more business, but don't offer stupid rewards like free first assessment lesson! Any loss leader must have a hook, so a better way is third lesson free if you pay for 2 in advance, reward you current pupil with a free lesson if friend takes 10 lessons or half price if colleaugue takes four not one!
The purpose of this post is to get you thinking about future business now while the going might be good, just because you get home at 7pm doesn't mean that you can't spend an extra 30 minutes doing some driving school business marketing and offline advertising before calling it a day. Even if you are at the top of your game, doing nothing will not keep you there!
Anyone who has been in the business for a while or who did their research into the industry before becoming involved would know that things slow down in winter, especially in the run up to Christmas and this year is going to be no exception, in fact things might even be tougher in 2010 due to the announced reduction in government public sector spending, so competion is going to be stronger in getting the few driving lessons that people might be willing to take, so you need to start thinking about how you are going to advertise and market your services from now!
I have already started my advertising and marketing campaign both online and offline, gearing up to make sure that I reduce the fall in income and revenue over the traditional christmas period and not wait till the january new resolution driving lesson craze kicks in.
So you are wondering what can an instructor do as far as pupill generation, marketing, advertising (and this doesn't necessarily mean newspapers, yellow pages, google adwords or student union magazines) is concerned to increase the pupil awareness of a driving school's services and attract enquiries and hopefully sales conversions in a downturning market that generally refocuses on holiday gifts.
Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to share my specific targets and goals including steps to achieve them with you, as that would be business suicide. You can have a look through this blog and try and implemet some of my how to market your driving school ideas. If you are one of those that has be putting off getting a driving school website then do so TODAY (not that this will be able to help this winter, but not having one is bad marketing anyway). There are other ideas I have shared here which if you haven't implemented you should try.
Remember your current client base can be used as leverage to get more business, but don't offer stupid rewards like free first assessment lesson! Any loss leader must have a hook, so a better way is third lesson free if you pay for 2 in advance, reward you current pupil with a free lesson if friend takes 10 lessons or half price if colleaugue takes four not one!
The purpose of this post is to get you thinking about future business now while the going might be good, just because you get home at 7pm doesn't mean that you can't spend an extra 30 minutes doing some driving school business marketing and offline advertising before calling it a day. Even if you are at the top of your game, doing nothing will not keep you there!
Driving school Adverts be honest
In my opinion it is very important that your driving school marketing and advertising is honest and not be filled with half-truths. While you might initially get away with exaggerating facts about your business, in the long run it is a bad strategy and will come back to haunt you especially since it is very easy nowadays to spread bad news or gossip via social media such as facebook, etc.
I recently came across a driving instructor website, and the claims on it were far from the truth, the unfortunate thing is that it won't be hard for a potential learner driver to see through the half-truth and this will put them off using their services.
The other thing is that ADIs already have a tarnished image with a lot of the public, many thinking that we are only interested in money, and will try and prolong training, to maximise income so it is in the interest of all instructors that you be honest in your business advertising literature.
Additional Reading
How to market your driving instructor services.
Effective business marketing
I recently came across a driving instructor website, and the claims on it were far from the truth, the unfortunate thing is that it won't be hard for a potential learner driver to see through the half-truth and this will put them off using their services.
The other thing is that ADIs already have a tarnished image with a lot of the public, many thinking that we are only interested in money, and will try and prolong training, to maximise income so it is in the interest of all instructors that you be honest in your business advertising literature.
Additional Reading
How to market your driving instructor services.
Effective business marketing
Driving school is good business!
One of my learner driver pupils made a comment today while out on tuition with me, that owning a driving school is good business because she saw so many driving school cars on the road!
Many people start an enterprise without doing proper market research just because they think there is a demand for services or know one or two people who might need a product which might not be currently available or diffcult to get!
One of the reasons a lot of driving instructors go out of business after just a few months or within the first 2 years is because they didn't do their homework properly. Yes there is a demand for driving lessons, and it is very hard to pass the DSA car test without help from an instructor (especially since there are rumours that more people will be failing following DSA changes in october). But do you know how many driving lessons you need to give a week to keep your business afloat, even more importantly how are you going to get those learners to pay for your services on a weekly basis?
Is the best way to promote your driving school offering cheap driving lessons with the promise of better quality at a lower cost? I've been told all I need to be sucessful is a good driving instructor website, and the orders will start flowing in!
Driving school marketing and advertising is not a simple one off process that can achieved over a short period, it is continuous, needs to always evolve, and even when you get on the first page of google, you work has just begun, because your competition is also working to be even more successful. Are you a marketing instructor? or are you just hoping that a few adverts in the local newspapers, yellow pages or leaflets will do the trick!
Many people start an enterprise without doing proper market research just because they think there is a demand for services or know one or two people who might need a product which might not be currently available or diffcult to get!
One of the reasons a lot of driving instructors go out of business after just a few months or within the first 2 years is because they didn't do their homework properly. Yes there is a demand for driving lessons, and it is very hard to pass the DSA car test without help from an instructor (especially since there are rumours that more people will be failing following DSA changes in october). But do you know how many driving lessons you need to give a week to keep your business afloat, even more importantly how are you going to get those learners to pay for your services on a weekly basis?
Is the best way to promote your driving school offering cheap driving lessons with the promise of better quality at a lower cost? I've been told all I need to be sucessful is a good driving instructor website, and the orders will start flowing in!
Driving school marketing and advertising is not a simple one off process that can achieved over a short period, it is continuous, needs to always evolve, and even when you get on the first page of google, you work has just begun, because your competition is also working to be even more successful. Are you a marketing instructor? or are you just hoping that a few adverts in the local newspapers, yellow pages or leaflets will do the trick!
Facebook Driving school marketing update
I have now completed my driving school advertising campaign on facebook, and the results weren't very encouraging for my niche of business.
The driving instructor adverts to promote a page of mine ran for almost 3 weeks, and the results are as follows.
1. Stuck to my budget which is good.
2. Ad had over 51,041 impressions, with only 22 clicks which is a very poor click through rate considering it was targeted at UK members who said they were interested in driving lessons. It seems to me that a lot of peope on there just like to hang out, post pictures and while away time!
3. This leads me to believe that facebook is not a good place to advertise on as a driving school owner. If you have had better success using a CPC marketing campaign on facebook, I would love to hear your experience.
4. I did manage to reach my target, but only 5 of the subscribers were a direct result of my ads.
I will be trying driving school advertising on google later on in the year which seems to have a more targeted audience via Adwords, but might be a little more expensive. Subscribe to the blog by email if you want to be notified when my next article is posted, enter your email address in the box provided in the top right hand corner.
The driving instructor adverts to promote a page of mine ran for almost 3 weeks, and the results are as follows.
1. Stuck to my budget which is good.
2. Ad had over 51,041 impressions, with only 22 clicks which is a very poor click through rate considering it was targeted at UK members who said they were interested in driving lessons. It seems to me that a lot of peope on there just like to hang out, post pictures and while away time!
3. This leads me to believe that facebook is not a good place to advertise on as a driving school owner. If you have had better success using a CPC marketing campaign on facebook, I would love to hear your experience.
4. I did manage to reach my target, but only 5 of the subscribers were a direct result of my ads.
I will be trying driving school advertising on google later on in the year which seems to have a more targeted audience via Adwords, but might be a little more expensive. Subscribe to the blog by email if you want to be notified when my next article is posted, enter your email address in the box provided in the top right hand corner.
Driving school advertising facebook
I decided to experiment with driving school advertising on facebook since it has over 140 million users worldwide even though I'm only interested in 17 - 40 year olds in London who might want to learn to drive.
Ask any successful business person, and they will tell you it takes money to make money, so advertising and marketing needs a budget set aside for it as well.
The purpose of my marketing campaign on facebook was to attract people to a new page I had created which will serve as a hub to drive targeted traffic to my main website. I'm going to share the results here just so you can see how I got on, you can then decide if you should use a similar approach for your driving school marketing efforts.
If you need advice on how to setup a facebook marketing page for your driving school, then go to Self made minds.
I logged into my facebook account, and created a marketing campaign for the page, and opted for the pay per click basis as opposed to the number of impressions, since the object was to get fans to subcsribe.
Having selected the target market including, age, geographical location, interests, the system then recommended a bid amount for how much I was to pay for each facebook user that clicks on my advert 75p, but I was not going to pay that amount as it was too much and I only wanted to pay a maximum of £5 each day the advertisement was running.
So for the first day I only bid 10p and within the 24hrs my driving school advertisement only had 3 impressions(number of times it was shown), with nobody clicking on it.
For the second 24hr period I decided to double the campaign bid amount to 20p, this then resulted in 16843 impressions with 8 people clicking on the ad and thus being shown my facebook driving instructor page, but only 2 of them actually became a fan and subscribed. This low amount of clicks for such a large number of impressions meant that my adverts were less targeted, so I decided to increase the bid amount to 25p, but narrow the audience only to those interested in driving lessons as opposed to those that liked cars and automobiles.
My 3rd day of advertising gave me 6411 impressions and only 2 clicks, with no conversions, so no progress this time.
Still no more clicks and conversions on 4th day, so I've decided to keep the advert running until I reach my target.
Ask any successful business person, and they will tell you it takes money to make money, so advertising and marketing needs a budget set aside for it as well.
The purpose of my marketing campaign on facebook was to attract people to a new page I had created which will serve as a hub to drive targeted traffic to my main website. I'm going to share the results here just so you can see how I got on, you can then decide if you should use a similar approach for your driving school marketing efforts.
If you need advice on how to setup a facebook marketing page for your driving school, then go to Self made minds.
I logged into my facebook account, and created a marketing campaign for the page, and opted for the pay per click basis as opposed to the number of impressions, since the object was to get fans to subcsribe.
Having selected the target market including, age, geographical location, interests, the system then recommended a bid amount for how much I was to pay for each facebook user that clicks on my advert 75p, but I was not going to pay that amount as it was too much and I only wanted to pay a maximum of £5 each day the advertisement was running.
So for the first day I only bid 10p and within the 24hrs my driving school advertisement only had 3 impressions(number of times it was shown), with nobody clicking on it.
For the second 24hr period I decided to double the campaign bid amount to 20p, this then resulted in 16843 impressions with 8 people clicking on the ad and thus being shown my facebook driving instructor page, but only 2 of them actually became a fan and subscribed. This low amount of clicks for such a large number of impressions meant that my adverts were less targeted, so I decided to increase the bid amount to 25p, but narrow the audience only to those interested in driving lessons as opposed to those that liked cars and automobiles.
My 3rd day of advertising gave me 6411 impressions and only 2 clicks, with no conversions, so no progress this time.
Still no more clicks and conversions on 4th day, so I've decided to keep the advert running until I reach my target.
Driving School Business Cards
One cheap way of effectively marketing a driving instructor is through the use of driving school business cards which can act as a complimentary way of advertising.
The average cost of printing 500 black and white business cards online for your school is around £25 (the price of a single lesson), but the effects it could have if properly used could run into hundreds of pounds return on investment and it could be a few months before you need to order more of this stationary for the office.
Your driving school business cards should have the following basic details printed on them.
1. Driving school name. This is your identity and brand representation.
2. Business logo and motto if you have one.
3. Instructor name and contact number (usually mobile, but could be a landline if using an answering service or spouse at home acting as secretary)
4. Driving lessons website, you can't compete in the current day and age or be able to promote your ADI and learner driver services without one.
Let me illustrate with an example of how handing out a business card to one person if you are in the right place at the right moment can bring more learner drivers to you.
I met a woman who joined me for driving lessons, she in turn introduced me to her son (complete beginner), brother in law (foreign licence holder), sister in law (partly trained driver) and sister (beginner). If I didn't have a card that pointed her to my website where she was able to get a lot of information about learning to drive, the DSA test which prompted her to use me despite not being the cheapest in the area, I could have lost out on the hundreds of pounds of business.
Don't under estimate the marketing power of driving school business cards, I have mentioned in the past how I missed a promoting chance while out in the car because I had run out of cards, so make sure you have supplies in your vehicle, wallet, purse because you can have a networking moment anywhere, supermarket, childrens school playground, etc.
The average cost of printing 500 black and white business cards online for your school is around £25 (the price of a single lesson), but the effects it could have if properly used could run into hundreds of pounds return on investment and it could be a few months before you need to order more of this stationary for the office.
Your driving school business cards should have the following basic details printed on them.
1. Driving school name. This is your identity and brand representation.
2. Business logo and motto if you have one.
3. Instructor name and contact number (usually mobile, but could be a landline if using an answering service or spouse at home acting as secretary)
4. Driving lessons website, you can't compete in the current day and age or be able to promote your ADI and learner driver services without one.
Let me illustrate with an example of how handing out a business card to one person if you are in the right place at the right moment can bring more learner drivers to you.
I met a woman who joined me for driving lessons, she in turn introduced me to her son (complete beginner), brother in law (foreign licence holder), sister in law (partly trained driver) and sister (beginner). If I didn't have a card that pointed her to my website where she was able to get a lot of information about learning to drive, the DSA test which prompted her to use me despite not being the cheapest in the area, I could have lost out on the hundreds of pounds of business.
Don't under estimate the marketing power of driving school business cards, I have mentioned in the past how I missed a promoting chance while out in the car because I had run out of cards, so make sure you have supplies in your vehicle, wallet, purse because you can have a networking moment anywhere, supermarket, childrens school playground, etc.
Driving School top 3 on Google
My driving lessons in NW3 school website is now in the top 3 spots on google.co.uk for the search terms "driving school hampstead" as well as lessons and instructor.
As I mentioned in my getting driving school indexed in google article there are not many websites competing for driving lessons in hamsptead (only 35,000), so I haven't really done any work on promoting this website because I'm not really targeting clients in this area of London.
I have however made sure that the on page optimisation (8 pages in total) is done with the written content covering the subject of driving lessons in Hampstead NW3, sprinkling in words like school and instructor where appropriate, couple that with the domain name containing my keywords and a few links from this blog and blogcatalogue.com, the age of the website has now allowed it to climb up the rankings of google since the domain was registered in september 2009.
Now as you can see driving school marketing using a website does take time and effort, but it DOES work, and ANYONE can do it, which is why I created this blog to give you tips on what to do.
I will obviously continue to monitor my website performance, to see if any of the competition is getting ahead of me, but in the meantime I'm now in a position to get a few more enquiries which I can either take or turn away. Would you like to be in the same position, you can do it yourself, or pay someone hundreds of pounds.
As I mentioned in my getting driving school indexed in google article there are not many websites competing for driving lessons in hamsptead (only 35,000), so I haven't really done any work on promoting this website because I'm not really targeting clients in this area of London.
I have however made sure that the on page optimisation (8 pages in total) is done with the written content covering the subject of driving lessons in Hampstead NW3, sprinkling in words like school and instructor where appropriate, couple that with the domain name containing my keywords and a few links from this blog and blogcatalogue.com, the age of the website has now allowed it to climb up the rankings of google since the domain was registered in september 2009.
Now as you can see driving school marketing using a website does take time and effort, but it DOES work, and ANYONE can do it, which is why I created this blog to give you tips on what to do.
I will obviously continue to monitor my website performance, to see if any of the competition is getting ahead of me, but in the meantime I'm now in a position to get a few more enquiries which I can either take or turn away. Would you like to be in the same position, you can do it yourself, or pay someone hundreds of pounds.
Advertising driving school on Google
I will be writing an article soon on using google adwords to advertising your driving school online, but in the meantime here is some advice for those of you already marketing your business or instructor teaching services on the internet through google's pay per click system.
Make sure the website page you are paying google to direct traffic to can sell your product or services.
An important part of being a good business owner is knowing who your local competition is, and what they are doing, so I saw an advert on a google search page for a new driving school operating in my area and decided to find out who they are and what they do, so I went to the website.
Just one page with a few words (including some grammatical errors and a false claim), and a large graphic mentioning the lesson price of from £18 pounds per hour.
I don't know how much this instructor was paying for each time someone clicked on the link in google, but the only people that will pick up the phone and call this person is someone looking for cheap lessons around the £18/hr range.
There is nothing there to sell the services of the instructor, I don't even know the business owners name!
I reckon the driving instructor was conned into giving a supposed marketing company some money to setup a website and get traffic to it, maybe £200 including the google adwords budget all gone down the drain because I doubt he will have a decent conversion rate on anyone that calls from seeing such a poor example of driving school marketing.
This is not the first time I've seen a one page driving instructor website being used as the landing page for a google marketing campaign, I once contacted an ADI offering a fixed fee to setup a 5 page blog to replace a free page that only mentioned the lesson price and area the school operated in addition to telephone number.
Before you spend too much money driving google traffic to a website page, put yourself in the shoes of a cash stripped learner driver and ask the question why would I use this person? Will I get value for my money? What is the track record (can it be proven)?
If you are a new driving instructor or PDI, subscribe to the blog (enter your email address in the box on the top right, the system is powered by feedburner, and I don't use your email details for anything else including selling to 3rd parties) so you don't miss any future marketing/advertising articles or tips including using Google Adwords to promote your services on the internet.
Make sure the website page you are paying google to direct traffic to can sell your product or services.
An important part of being a good business owner is knowing who your local competition is, and what they are doing, so I saw an advert on a google search page for a new driving school operating in my area and decided to find out who they are and what they do, so I went to the website.
Just one page with a few words (including some grammatical errors and a false claim), and a large graphic mentioning the lesson price of from £18 pounds per hour.
I don't know how much this instructor was paying for each time someone clicked on the link in google, but the only people that will pick up the phone and call this person is someone looking for cheap lessons around the £18/hr range.
There is nothing there to sell the services of the instructor, I don't even know the business owners name!
I reckon the driving instructor was conned into giving a supposed marketing company some money to setup a website and get traffic to it, maybe £200 including the google adwords budget all gone down the drain because I doubt he will have a decent conversion rate on anyone that calls from seeing such a poor example of driving school marketing.
This is not the first time I've seen a one page driving instructor website being used as the landing page for a google marketing campaign, I once contacted an ADI offering a fixed fee to setup a 5 page blog to replace a free page that only mentioned the lesson price and area the school operated in addition to telephone number.
Before you spend too much money driving google traffic to a website page, put yourself in the shoes of a cash stripped learner driver and ask the question why would I use this person? Will I get value for my money? What is the track record (can it be proven)?
If you are a new driving instructor or PDI, subscribe to the blog (enter your email address in the box on the top right, the system is powered by feedburner, and I don't use your email details for anything else including selling to 3rd parties) so you don't miss any future marketing/advertising articles or tips including using Google Adwords to promote your services on the internet.
Driving school website suspended
Can you afford to allow your driving school advertising website to get suspended especially after spending time and effort in getting it to rank for the driving related keywords for your local instructor market.
I was today doing some research on the internet for some driving instructor related services, saw a website on the first page of google for the terms I was interested in, clicked on thr link, and this is what I got!
One of the reasons why I advice driving instructors to register their school domains themselves is that it gives them the freedom to choose who they use as a website host, whether it be a free one or paid! I included step by step details of how to do this in my earlier article, and the good thing is that it only costs £5 a year, so there is no reason why any of you reading this can't do it.
If you don't mind using a blog to market or advertise your driving school then you can use google's blogspot hosting for free, so all it will cost you is £5 a year to have an online presence which you totally control.
Remember with a website learner drivers come to you of their own accord, other advertising relies on you impressing them enough to try you.
I was today doing some research on the internet for some driving instructor related services, saw a website on the first page of google for the terms I was interested in, clicked on thr link, and this is what I got!
One of the reasons why I advice driving instructors to register their school domains themselves is that it gives them the freedom to choose who they use as a website host, whether it be a free one or paid! I included step by step details of how to do this in my earlier article, and the good thing is that it only costs £5 a year, so there is no reason why any of you reading this can't do it.
If you don't mind using a blog to market or advertise your driving school then you can use google's blogspot hosting for free, so all it will cost you is £5 a year to have an online presence which you totally control.
Remember with a website learner drivers come to you of their own accord, other advertising relies on you impressing them enough to try you.
Driving School Marketing key words
A quick article on chosing and using driving school keywords on your instructor marketing/advertising website or blog.
There are the obvious keywords that you will definately want to use such as driving school, lessons and instructor but as a newly created ADI promoting website you have very little chance of ranking for those high traffic much sought after keywords as the likes of AA, BSM, Red have much bigger makerting, SEO and advertising budgets to keep them on page one of google. What you want to do is concentrate or much less competitive long tails search phares which you can more easily rank for and are more targeted to your market in any case.
Take an example of my Hampstead driving school website, i'm targeting a much smaller and lower traffic keywords of "driving lessons in Hampastead", "learning to drive in NW3", etc. As it is more likely that anyone searching specifically for "independent driving instructor hampstead" is not interested in the big brands and thus giving me a better chance of getting the new learner driver from the enquiry.
Having just one page of your advertising website will not work especially if there are no external websites linking to it (the amount of similar external authoritative websites linking to any url or hompage is what tells google that you know what you are talking about, and others trust you), you need to have multiple pages repeating in different ways the core services that you provide.
Take this blog of mine, it is about marketing your driving school or instructor tuition services, so far there are about 20 pages, and each article talks about different ways to advertise online and offline your business.
I have mentioned the importance of school car graphics, the need to have an online presence, chosing a driving school domain name, shared some ideas and tips on driving lessons marketing or advertising, so if any human or search engine robot visited here, they will be in no doubt as to what this site is about, I'm not just relying on having a relevant domain name or the index page having the right keywords.
This is an ongoing task of building up the authority of this blog, couple that with me contacting webmasters (friends, colleagus or even rivals in other towns) asking if they will be willing to link a relevant post is what gives the ranking for your targeted keywords.
As I have mentioned in the past, you don't just create a 5 page driving school website, sit back and start to hope the enquiries start flooding in, you need monitor, tweak and keep abreast of your competition. If you haven't got enough pupils to give driving lessons to, then you have time on your hands to do some marketing/advertising whether it be online creating relevant information to attract new clients to your blog or it be phoning, emailing prospective clients or existing pupils who have promised to add a link to their facebook profile or myspace.
Thinks about what a learner driver, provisional licence holder might need, and provide a solution. This is one of the reasons why I like a blog, I can turn an incident that happened during a driving lessons into an informational post that will attract potential future clients, sometimes stealing students from other instructors because I offer more value tuition.
There are the obvious keywords that you will definately want to use such as driving school, lessons and instructor but as a newly created ADI promoting website you have very little chance of ranking for those high traffic much sought after keywords as the likes of AA, BSM, Red have much bigger makerting, SEO and advertising budgets to keep them on page one of google. What you want to do is concentrate or much less competitive long tails search phares which you can more easily rank for and are more targeted to your market in any case.
Take an example of my Hampstead driving school website, i'm targeting a much smaller and lower traffic keywords of "driving lessons in Hampastead", "learning to drive in NW3", etc. As it is more likely that anyone searching specifically for "independent driving instructor hampstead" is not interested in the big brands and thus giving me a better chance of getting the new learner driver from the enquiry.
Creating content for your keywords
To make sure your driving school marketing website or blog can rank for your targeted keywords, you obviously need to create relevant content, but the mistake many driving instructors do is they stuff the homepage or index page with their chosen words and think that alone will do the trick!Having just one page of your advertising website will not work especially if there are no external websites linking to it (the amount of similar external authoritative websites linking to any url or hompage is what tells google that you know what you are talking about, and others trust you), you need to have multiple pages repeating in different ways the core services that you provide.
Take this blog of mine, it is about marketing your driving school or instructor tuition services, so far there are about 20 pages, and each article talks about different ways to advertise online and offline your business.
I have mentioned the importance of school car graphics, the need to have an online presence, chosing a driving school domain name, shared some ideas and tips on driving lessons marketing or advertising, so if any human or search engine robot visited here, they will be in no doubt as to what this site is about, I'm not just relying on having a relevant domain name or the index page having the right keywords.
This is an ongoing task of building up the authority of this blog, couple that with me contacting webmasters (friends, colleagus or even rivals in other towns) asking if they will be willing to link a relevant post is what gives the ranking for your targeted keywords.
As I have mentioned in the past, you don't just create a 5 page driving school website, sit back and start to hope the enquiries start flooding in, you need monitor, tweak and keep abreast of your competition. If you haven't got enough pupils to give driving lessons to, then you have time on your hands to do some marketing/advertising whether it be online creating relevant information to attract new clients to your blog or it be phoning, emailing prospective clients or existing pupils who have promised to add a link to their facebook profile or myspace.
Think out of the box!
If you do a search on google.co.uk for "driving test in hampstead", you will see my earlier mentioned website in either position 1 or 2, now it is very unlikey that anyone performing this particular search term wants lessons, but being at the top of the list means they will click on my site. I have posted some relevant information there for them to digest, they might already have an instructor to take them on the day, but if anything happens and they need someone else, guess who they will most likely use? This page could also attract someone who might have failed their test in another part of London, sometime ago, moved to Hampstead NW3 and are now beginning to think of having another attempt at the DSA test.Thinks about what a learner driver, provisional licence holder might need, and provide a solution. This is one of the reasons why I like a blog, I can turn an incident that happened during a driving lessons into an informational post that will attract potential future clients, sometimes stealing students from other instructors because I offer more value tuition.
Missed instructor marketing opportunity
Today I missed an opportunity to market my driving instructor services to a potential client while out giving lessons in my car because I had run out of business cards.
We were in traffic, when this cyclist pulled up next to my open window and said have you got a card on you? I looked in my dashboard pocket, but there where none, so I said sorry I've run out. He had a look at my driving school car graphics, read out aloud the school name trying to memorise it as he rode off. Now I have no idea if he would have called after finding out how much I charged for lessons, but at least he would have visted the driving school website, and maybe the information there could have persuaded him to pay a little extra for a higher quality instructor rather than go for the cheapest driving lessons he could find.
I have now restocked my car, so hopefully that will be the last time I miss giving out a card to a potential client and lose the chance of advertising my driving school.
PS: I'll be posting a new article soon about free driving school websites, so make sure you bookmark this blog, follow me if you are a blogger user or subscribe by email entering your address in the box provided above.
We were in traffic, when this cyclist pulled up next to my open window and said have you got a card on you? I looked in my dashboard pocket, but there where none, so I said sorry I've run out. He had a look at my driving school car graphics, read out aloud the school name trying to memorise it as he rode off. Now I have no idea if he would have called after finding out how much I charged for lessons, but at least he would have visted the driving school website, and maybe the information there could have persuaded him to pay a little extra for a higher quality instructor rather than go for the cheapest driving lessons he could find.
I have now restocked my car, so hopefully that will be the last time I miss giving out a card to a potential client and lose the chance of advertising my driving school.
PS: I'll be posting a new article soon about free driving school websites, so make sure you bookmark this blog, follow me if you are a blogger user or subscribe by email entering your address in the box provided above.
Driving instructor marketing what have you done today
If your driving school needs more learner drivers, here is a question for you, what instructor marketing efforts have you tried today?
1. Could you have sent a sms text or better still called some of the people who have called you and made enquiries about learning to drive in the past 3 months (surely you have kept records of all those prospective clients including name). But if they are ready, they will call me, maybe or they might call your competitor.
Even if you only get one driving lesson out of 10 calls, that is better than sitting and waiting for the phone to ring. I use this marketing system regularly to top up sucsessful referals from my driving instructor website.
2. Have you registered that driving school domain name, that you have been putting off for the last 4 weeks? Did you know that all things being equal, a 3 month old domain will rank higher than one that was registered 1 month ago?
3. How about that overdue article you have been planning to write for your driving school website about the complex junction used by your local test centre, don't forget to drive down and take a few pictures to illustrate your maketing article. But if I give free test tips away, people will be able to pass the driving test without having to take any lessons or tuition with me! If you don't put the information on your website, people will not find your website, see it is useful, link to it and pass it on to others! In any case there will still be those who know the theory, but can't put into practise and they are the ones who will call you up especially if they had an attempt with one of your competitors who never quite gave them the helpful tips you shared online.
4. Could you have ordered your driving instructor business cards that you don't have.
5. How about washing your dual controlled instructor vehicle, so that it looks more attractive and those school advertising graphics can really shine through and grab the attention of new potential learner drivers.
6. Online forum activity. Use the free time to join a learner driver forum, and start giving advise to test candidates, you have setup a signature with your website url so people can also visit and find out more about the services you offer. If you are consistent with your activity, people will be willing to recommend or try you out.
Being a good teacher is just a small part of the things required to run a successful driving school business, marketing your services is just as important especially in the early years, as it will be a long time before you get a steady flow of recommendations coming in from those you have helped to pass.
So I ask again what driving instructor marketing or advertising have you done to grow your business today?
1. Could you have sent a sms text or better still called some of the people who have called you and made enquiries about learning to drive in the past 3 months (surely you have kept records of all those prospective clients including name). But if they are ready, they will call me, maybe or they might call your competitor.
Even if you only get one driving lesson out of 10 calls, that is better than sitting and waiting for the phone to ring. I use this marketing system regularly to top up sucsessful referals from my driving instructor website.
2. Have you registered that driving school domain name, that you have been putting off for the last 4 weeks? Did you know that all things being equal, a 3 month old domain will rank higher than one that was registered 1 month ago?
3. How about that overdue article you have been planning to write for your driving school website about the complex junction used by your local test centre, don't forget to drive down and take a few pictures to illustrate your maketing article. But if I give free test tips away, people will be able to pass the driving test without having to take any lessons or tuition with me! If you don't put the information on your website, people will not find your website, see it is useful, link to it and pass it on to others! In any case there will still be those who know the theory, but can't put into practise and they are the ones who will call you up especially if they had an attempt with one of your competitors who never quite gave them the helpful tips you shared online.
4. Could you have ordered your driving instructor business cards that you don't have.
5. How about washing your dual controlled instructor vehicle, so that it looks more attractive and those school advertising graphics can really shine through and grab the attention of new potential learner drivers.
6. Online forum activity. Use the free time to join a learner driver forum, and start giving advise to test candidates, you have setup a signature with your website url so people can also visit and find out more about the services you offer. If you are consistent with your activity, people will be willing to recommend or try you out.
Being a good teacher is just a small part of the things required to run a successful driving school business, marketing your services is just as important especially in the early years, as it will be a long time before you get a steady flow of recommendations coming in from those you have helped to pass.
So I ask again what driving instructor marketing or advertising have you done to grow your business today?
Promoting driving school website
Many of you might already have a marketing driving school website and might be wondering how do I promote it. I'm going to show you an example of how one instructor is doing it.
I was searching on the internet for information about the proposed DSA independent driving changes in october 2010 when I came across the following.
Notice the purple highlighted link on the first page of google.com for the term 'driving test changes 2010' the title of the page is "Driving Test Changes - Reasons to Learn With JSF Now!" clicking on the link takes me to a free press release page where the driving instructor uses the proposed changes to market his/her services and includes 3 links back to the driving school website.
I don't know how long that press release will stay on the first page of google for those search terms, but while it does, the catchy title will surely refer some traffic to the driving school and maybe someone in Gloucestershire will sign up for some lessons.
The use of links in the press release could be improved, as 3 links to the same home page is excessive. If I were the one, I would have a link to the home page, and a second link pointing to a different page which would talk more about independent driving and the DSA changes in October 2010. Having a look at the website of the school, there is one such page, but it contains almost the exact same information from the press release, I would have changed the page a bit, and linked to it from the press release, this would then allow my driving school page gain some authority from the well established free press release website, and in the future people searching for independent driving or dsa test changes in 2010 will hopefully find that page of my advertising website.
If you want more learner drivers to come to you, then you need to TAKE ACTION, don't just read this blog, register your driving school domain name and get a website created.
You need to add relevant content to your website or blog that will benefit readers with the appropriate keywords sprinkled throughout (make sure the words fit into the article naturally without spamming).
Promote your blog or website using tools such as twitter or facebook, in particular if an article is popular or doing well then spread the love! Ask your learners to post links in their social media, they are very willing to do this after a pass!
If you post a picture of them with their pass certificate make sure you write a review (using appropriate words like your brand name and area you cover and get them to endorse i!
You could also write a motoring article for your local newspaper especially if addresses a current traffic or safety issue.
There are no instant results guaranteed, but every little helps as JSF driving school in Gloucester knows.
I was searching on the internet for information about the proposed DSA independent driving changes in october 2010 when I came across the following.
Notice the purple highlighted link on the first page of google.com for the term 'driving test changes 2010' the title of the page is "Driving Test Changes - Reasons to Learn With JSF Now!" clicking on the link takes me to a free press release page where the driving instructor uses the proposed changes to market his/her services and includes 3 links back to the driving school website.
I don't know how long that press release will stay on the first page of google for those search terms, but while it does, the catchy title will surely refer some traffic to the driving school and maybe someone in Gloucestershire will sign up for some lessons.
The use of links in the press release could be improved, as 3 links to the same home page is excessive. If I were the one, I would have a link to the home page, and a second link pointing to a different page which would talk more about independent driving and the DSA changes in October 2010. Having a look at the website of the school, there is one such page, but it contains almost the exact same information from the press release, I would have changed the page a bit, and linked to it from the press release, this would then allow my driving school page gain some authority from the well established free press release website, and in the future people searching for independent driving or dsa test changes in 2010 will hopefully find that page of my advertising website.
If you want more learner drivers to come to you, then you need to TAKE ACTION, don't just read this blog, register your driving school domain name and get a website created.
You need to add relevant content to your website or blog that will benefit readers with the appropriate keywords sprinkled throughout (make sure the words fit into the article naturally without spamming).
Promote your blog or website using tools such as twitter or facebook, in particular if an article is popular or doing well then spread the love! Ask your learners to post links in their social media, they are very willing to do this after a pass!
If you post a picture of them with their pass certificate make sure you write a review (using appropriate words like your brand name and area you cover and get them to endorse i!
You could also write a motoring article for your local newspaper especially if addresses a current traffic or safety issue.
There are no instant results guaranteed, but every little helps as JSF driving school in Gloucester knows.
Driving School Car Graphics
One good and not too expensive way of driving school advertising is having graphics on your instructor car.
Not a lot of independent business owners use this form of instructor marketing for various reasons, but it is very effective in drawing attention to the services offered as well as establishing the brand or driving school name especially if it has your school website on it.
If you have bought a car or leased it for 12 months then I would suggest you put some professionally designed graphics on it if you are really serious about getting more learner drivers to sign up with you.
But it is the only car I have and need it for private use as well. If you want to build up your business, then you have to deal with any pride, or not being cool issues. You want to be advertising your driving school whether you are conducting lessons or not. The more your brand is seen, the more likely you will get an enquiry, how many people see a car while it is giving lessons, say they should really call to start their lessons, but forget or are distracted and never get to it.
No company runs an advert once on telly or in the newspapers, they do it over and over, you buy a product because you saw it on the TV, heard it on the radio, saw it at a bus stop, etc. So let your car work for you even while you are sleeping, having a meal with the family on Father's day, doing the weekly shopping or at the cinema spending your hard earned money.
It might be expensive to put graphics on your school car initially, but over a year, the amount of exposure you will get, will surely pay off, take a leaf from AA, BSM and even RED!
As a driving instructor you need to think as a business owner, not a teacher, and marketing is all about being known and recognised by your potential clients, recommendations work, but if you are just starting out, then advertising is what exposes you, so make sure your school car is not just used for giving lessons, it should be calling those new learner in as well. The time to be cool and pose will come once you are making enough money, have an established business and your website is doing it's job.
Not a lot of independent business owners use this form of instructor marketing for various reasons, but it is very effective in drawing attention to the services offered as well as establishing the brand or driving school name especially if it has your school website on it.
If you have bought a car or leased it for 12 months then I would suggest you put some professionally designed graphics on it if you are really serious about getting more learner drivers to sign up with you.
But it is the only car I have and need it for private use as well. If you want to build up your business, then you have to deal with any pride, or not being cool issues. You want to be advertising your driving school whether you are conducting lessons or not. The more your brand is seen, the more likely you will get an enquiry, how many people see a car while it is giving lessons, say they should really call to start their lessons, but forget or are distracted and never get to it.
No company runs an advert once on telly or in the newspapers, they do it over and over, you buy a product because you saw it on the TV, heard it on the radio, saw it at a bus stop, etc. So let your car work for you even while you are sleeping, having a meal with the family on Father's day, doing the weekly shopping or at the cinema spending your hard earned money.
It might be expensive to put graphics on your school car initially, but over a year, the amount of exposure you will get, will surely pay off, take a leaf from AA, BSM and even RED!
As a driving instructor you need to think as a business owner, not a teacher, and marketing is all about being known and recognised by your potential clients, recommendations work, but if you are just starting out, then advertising is what exposes you, so make sure your school car is not just used for giving lessons, it should be calling those new learner in as well. The time to be cool and pose will come once you are making enough money, have an established business and your website is doing it's job.
Funny driving school name
I noticed a funny driving school name on an instructor's business car the other day, 'Bloomin L I've Passed'!
I did a search on google, but could not find a driving school website for the instructor, but while that name might catch the attention of a teenaged learner driver, it does not do much as far as online marketing of an ADI is concerned. If there was a website, then one of the words that would be repeated regularly would be the driving school name.
The only people searching for 'Bloomin L I've Passed' will either be people who have seen the car on the road or those recommended by current learner drivers of the instructor.
Anyone else wanting to learn to drive in Edgware (which is where this school is based) will search for 'driving instructor edgware', 'driving lessons HA8', 'driving school near edgware HA' so you can see why it is important to have a school business name that contains the keywords people wanting your service will type into search engines.
As for the owner of 'Bloomin L I've Passed', he needs to learn about marketing, as I presume from the listing in Thomson Local directory, he does want more learner drivers.
Edit: I just spotted another name that I can not understand why it is being used: Bully-4-U Driving School!
I did a search on google, but could not find a driving school website for the instructor, but while that name might catch the attention of a teenaged learner driver, it does not do much as far as online marketing of an ADI is concerned. If there was a website, then one of the words that would be repeated regularly would be the driving school name.
The only people searching for 'Bloomin L I've Passed' will either be people who have seen the car on the road or those recommended by current learner drivers of the instructor.
Anyone else wanting to learn to drive in Edgware (which is where this school is based) will search for 'driving instructor edgware', 'driving lessons HA8', 'driving school near edgware HA' so you can see why it is important to have a school business name that contains the keywords people wanting your service will type into search engines.
As for the owner of 'Bloomin L I've Passed', he needs to learn about marketing, as I presume from the listing in Thomson Local directory, he does want more learner drivers.
Edit: I just spotted another name that I can not understand why it is being used: Bully-4-U Driving School!
Driving instructor advertising leaflet
If you are considering printing some advertising leaflets for your driving school marketing efforts, my honest advice to you would be don't bother, as the return on your investment is going to be very low.
Let me explain why door to door leaflet drops will not do much to attract more learner drivers to you.
Driving school advert leaflets are not targeted when posted through letter boxes. You have no idea if the house has any provisional licence holders who might benefit from lessons. Even if there is a potential learner driver, they might not be ready or have the money to start at the time of your marketing campaign. Assuming they decide to keep the leaflet, what are the chances they will find or remember your leaflet 9 months later.
How many people take a second look at leaflets that are posted through the door? Most people don't trust companies that advertise this way, consider them cheap or untrustworthy.
How much information can you put on a leaflet that will convince people to use your services, will that include price and will it satisfy the cheap driving lessons crew?
The people that will benefit most from your leaftlet advertising campaign will be the printer and distribution company (if you decide to use one).
A driving school website exposes your instructor services to people who are ready and actively looking for lessons, car for a test or refresher tuition, if you don't have one or have a poorly designed, non optimised standard website, you are losing out and also wasting money on the wrong marketing tools.
This week alone, I've already had 2 new pupils signed up for lessons after visiting my online blog, and it is just wednesday.
Let me explain why door to door leaflet drops will not do much to attract more learner drivers to you.
Driving school advert leaflets are not targeted when posted through letter boxes. You have no idea if the house has any provisional licence holders who might benefit from lessons. Even if there is a potential learner driver, they might not be ready or have the money to start at the time of your marketing campaign. Assuming they decide to keep the leaflet, what are the chances they will find or remember your leaflet 9 months later.
How many people take a second look at leaflets that are posted through the door? Most people don't trust companies that advertise this way, consider them cheap or untrustworthy.
How much information can you put on a leaflet that will convince people to use your services, will that include price and will it satisfy the cheap driving lessons crew?
The people that will benefit most from your leaftlet advertising campaign will be the printer and distribution company (if you decide to use one).
A driving school website exposes your instructor services to people who are ready and actively looking for lessons, car for a test or refresher tuition, if you don't have one or have a poorly designed, non optimised standard website, you are losing out and also wasting money on the wrong marketing tools.
This week alone, I've already had 2 new pupils signed up for lessons after visiting my online blog, and it is just wednesday.
Choosing driving school name
There is nothing special about choosing a driving school name, but if you are serious about your marketing efforts especially online with a driving school website, then you need to extra careful on what name you eventually choose.
I mentioned previously in one of my earlier school marketing articles that learner drivers will normally search for either "driving lessons town name", "driving instructor place" or "driving school town/city" for this very reason you should make sure that the name you choose includes driving school so that when you register a domain name those words are included as well.
School of Motoring is dead, don't use that in the name of your business. The next thing you now need to do is setup your cheap instructor website.
I mentioned previously in one of my earlier school marketing articles that learner drivers will normally search for either "driving lessons town name", "driving instructor place" or "driving school town/city" for this very reason you should make sure that the name you choose includes driving school so that when you register a domain name those words are included as well.
School of Motoring is dead, don't use that in the name of your business. The next thing you now need to do is setup your cheap instructor website.
Marketing takes time no magic or instant results
As a driving instructor, you need to know that marketing your driving school services takes time and effort, and that there are no instant results that can be gained just because you have carried out some steps like creating a website or sent out emails to potential clients who made enquiries in the past about taking lessons with you.
The current economic climate means a lot of struggling instructors who want more work through getting more learner driver pupils are vulnerable to various schemes which basically promises a lot and hardly delivers, as long as you pay to use their online directory or other means of getting clients to your door step.
Anyone who has been in this business for long enough will know that there are basically 2 types of clients looking for driving lessons.
1. Those after cheap driving lessons who are only interested in the lowest priced services they can get offering the most (I once had someone call for £15 lessons in a BMW mini in London)!
2. The ones who are interested in the getting high quality tuition from the right instructor and are willing to pay decent and fair prices for the services offered and don't want to necessarily go with a national brand like AA, BSM or RED.
Your driving school marketing efforts needs to be concentrated on attracting people from the second category as they are more likely to not only be loyal clients, will take reasonable advice, not cancel lessons at short notice because they don't feel like it or had a late night out the previous day.
For this reason you just can't advertise everywhere or take the words of a yellow pages or BT online directory salesperson, because they might get your phone ringing, but if the first question the enquirer asks is how much do you charge per hour for lessons, they are the wrong type.
My website gives a lot of information out to the learner driver, in particular about taking the driving test in the local centre, and while I might lose a few people by giving away this honest advice, many people who have either failed once in the area, or want to try their next attempt to pass in my area have called me to help them out. I also get a lot of foreign licence holders call me up because of a page specifically setup advicing how to approach getting a full British licence in my local town. All this means I get people who value the effort put into providing what might be 'free' information to them. I've even had people take trains from other parts of the county to come and take driving lessons with me just from seeing my website.
My online internet marketing presence has been running for a couple of years now, and has been rewarding me with learner driver pupils every week, and you can use the same principle to your own advantage while you supplement your marketing with other methods.
Don't be drawn in by anyone advertising a magic secret formula for driving instructors, there is none, you just need to be able to attract or find the right people wanting to learn to drive.
The current economic climate means a lot of struggling instructors who want more work through getting more learner driver pupils are vulnerable to various schemes which basically promises a lot and hardly delivers, as long as you pay to use their online directory or other means of getting clients to your door step.
Anyone who has been in this business for long enough will know that there are basically 2 types of clients looking for driving lessons.
1. Those after cheap driving lessons who are only interested in the lowest priced services they can get offering the most (I once had someone call for £15 lessons in a BMW mini in London)!
2. The ones who are interested in the getting high quality tuition from the right instructor and are willing to pay decent and fair prices for the services offered and don't want to necessarily go with a national brand like AA, BSM or RED.
Your driving school marketing efforts needs to be concentrated on attracting people from the second category as they are more likely to not only be loyal clients, will take reasonable advice, not cancel lessons at short notice because they don't feel like it or had a late night out the previous day.
For this reason you just can't advertise everywhere or take the words of a yellow pages or BT online directory salesperson, because they might get your phone ringing, but if the first question the enquirer asks is how much do you charge per hour for lessons, they are the wrong type.
My website gives a lot of information out to the learner driver, in particular about taking the driving test in the local centre, and while I might lose a few people by giving away this honest advice, many people who have either failed once in the area, or want to try their next attempt to pass in my area have called me to help them out. I also get a lot of foreign licence holders call me up because of a page specifically setup advicing how to approach getting a full British licence in my local town. All this means I get people who value the effort put into providing what might be 'free' information to them. I've even had people take trains from other parts of the county to come and take driving lessons with me just from seeing my website.
My online internet marketing presence has been running for a couple of years now, and has been rewarding me with learner driver pupils every week, and you can use the same principle to your own advantage while you supplement your marketing with other methods.
Don't be drawn in by anyone advertising a magic secret formula for driving instructors, there is none, you just need to be able to attract or find the right people wanting to learn to drive.
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