In a marketplace teeming with car wash service providers, your business has to constantly innovate and refine its strategies to attract new customers. Whether you are an established brand or one that is just breaking ground, you will need to take advantage of all of your available resources to raise awareness and sway new customers to your brand. Marketing does not happen overnight, and to bear fruits, it has to be deliberate, targeted, and constant.
5 Innovative Ideas to Attract New Customers for Your Car Wash
Attract New Customers via Existing Customers
Turning to your existing customers is the perfect place to start. Yes, rewarding your existing customers for their successful referrals is tried and tested and a no brainer. But the internet age lets you further leverage that relationship by inviting them to follow you on your Facebook company page. By doing so, when they interact with your page, they will lock in your chances of being visible to their network and your new prospects. These free and unsolicited acknowledgements that come from your very legitimate brand ambassadors, carries a lot of weight.
Additionally, encourage your regulars to give you customer reviews that you can post to your website. When you have prospective new customers checking out your website, you want them to know about others experiences with your business.
Partner With Other Businesses
In fact, some of your existing customers will also be owners of businesses or work in various other organizations, who may be interested in doing product or service swaps as gifts. For instance, if your client owns a gym that does birthday gifts for their regular members, they may be interested in novel ways to attract new customers such as using your car wash coupons as gifts while you use their (say, free gym classes) passes as similar gifts for your clients.
Alternatively, seek out nearby complementary businesses e.g. auto dealerships, car repair shops, car rental agencies, etc who may be interested in cross promoting their service offers with yours. Make sure the arrangement you go into is clear to your prospective partners. If there is an auto dealership nearby, negotiate with them if they would agree to help promote your services by tagging on to each car sale of theirs, a free car wash and detailing service at your facilities, for a specified period.
Use Events & Launches to Attract New Customers
At various times of the year, you will have products, services and/open days to launch; business or community events to host, co-host or participate in. These are times when you have dedicated resources to create the buzz that draws in the crowds from different walks of life, to your business.
So, make full use of this opportunity to leave a lasting impression on the crowds and to attract new customers. Draw their attention to the uniqueness of your services as well as your social interests in the well-being of your community. To put your money where your mouth is, for every service that they buy, offer to put $5 into their favorite local charity or non-profit cause. This will raise the integrity of your brand in the eyes of your potential new clients.
Increase Your Visibility
A picture speaks a thousand words so equally important to the above four strategies to attract new customers is the visual impact of your brand – physically and virtually.
Whether your prospective car wash customers are the drivers that whizz by your store or an internet user who stumbles onto your website while browsing, you literally have a minute or less to grab their attention with a mental snapshot that sticks in their minds. Should your frontages look dull, unappealing and neglected, you will not stand a chance with your passersby. Yet, if you invest the time to organize, tidy and brighten things up, chances are you will pique their curiosity into wanting to linger a while to check out your business.
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