Long-time local resident Arlene Dinsmore, owner of Hair Tiki Salon on County Road 512, is an energetic, creative person, always on the lookout for interesting ways to promote her business, which has done well since opening its doors two years ago this past May.
She found one recently, when she happened to glance out the front window and spotted a man pedaling a bike, pulling a framed structure with colorful ads on the sides. “He was just going by and I had Mandi (Mandi Zilnicki, a salon tech) chase him down,” Dinsmore laughs.
She loved the idea and became a client. “It was working well for us,” she said. Then, as it turned out, the man decided to sell the little two-bike business. Dinsmore wasted no time mulling it over. She bought the business, calling it simply BikeAds.com, created a couple of her own signs and drafted her two employees, Zilnicki and Rachel Fugate, to rotate with her, pedaling around town – two bikes with six sign spaces available, three each.
Dinsmore is not only an artistic individual, but also methodical and a precise planner. She strategically set up four routes – along CR 512, U.S. 1, Barber Street and Indian River Drive – allowing three to four hours to complete all four, with the route locations and times based on heaviest traffic.
Then she created a daily sign rotation, so each advertiser would appear on all three sides – left, right and back – during the week, for optimum visibility. Dinsmore designs the signs on her computer, and has them made up by a local business.
“We like to support small local businesses, like us, who don’t have a huge advertising budget and might not get their business known out there any other way.”
As to getting the Bikeads.com business “known out there,” Dinsmore says, “We don’t solicit! It’s been happening just by us riding around,” with the bright signs, bright clothes and friendly attitudes. “People call us. They see us all over town. And we enjoy it!”
Currently BikeAds.com has 12 clients, charging an initial $30 for the sign, and $20 per month for the exposure. Dinsmore has added a fourth rider to the team, surfer Kona Messersmith, whose bright shirts and long hair make the colorful vehicles even easier to notice. “We say hi to people. We stop and chat. And people ask us all the time how they can get to ride,” says Zilnicki.
“And we always try to be as courteous as possible,” says Dinsmore. “We like to sit at corners. We can get a drink of water and the signs can be seen.”
What about the salon? “She always likes to have stuff going on,” says Zilnicki, and Dinsmore adds, “If we start at 7, we’re done by 10, and get on over to the salon.” Always planning ahead, she says, “We want to do community events, special weekend events at the park, and we’re going to be in the Fourth of July parade.”
During the hot summer months, Dinsmore says, she schedules only one four-hour ride a day, typically between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., avoiding the afternoon storms. In October, she’ll go back to twice a day. So far the routes and sign rotations have worked out very well.
Doreen Pettus, a secretary at Riverside Pet Salon, a BikeAds.com client, is very happy with people’s response to the rolling ads. “I love it! I t’s really cool that we have our name out there, on a bike! It’s neat, and a lot of people notice it.”
Dinsmore’s goal is to reach the 50-client mark, assess the operation, “who it’s working for, who it’s not,” and then expand and develop the business accordingly. For further information, call 772-228-8986.