In June of 2006 I was asked by Professional Carwashing & Detailing^® to answer a question submitted by an anonymous reader regarding the best marketing ideas for bringing customers to a carwash quickly.Here is what I submitted…

Question: What are the best marketing ideas to attract customers to a carwash quickly?
So, you just opened a carwash or have an existing one and want to increase your customer traffic and revenue quickly. I took this question to the International Carwash Association’s (ICA) 2006 Car Care World Expo and asked a number of carwash owners and operators to give their response. This article is a result of those conversations as well as other creative carwash marketing ideas, all designed to increase customer traffic and sales quickly. The first response of those asked this question is that the carwash must be well-located, clean and attractive. Whether you own a full service or self-serve wash, the business must have “curb appeal” – a nice-looking building, attractive landscaping, friendly and professional–looking employees. An easy to read marquee or sign board is also essential for marketing one’s carwash and special promotions. If you have the location and appearance covered, the rest is in the marketing. Here are eight creative ideas to quickly increase your customer traffic and sales.

1. Direct mail
Direct mail is a great way to promote your carwash quickly to a specific target market. Strategically choose when your mailing arrives at your customers’ doors – shoot for later in the week if you want to increase your weekend business or consider a targeted promotion to drive up sales on slow weekdays. Be sure to look at the long range weather forecast for the best chance of the weather cooperating with your promotion. A strong offer with a clear call to action will persuade people to respond to your direct mail offer quickly. One idea is to have a 2-for-1 day. If a customer has a friend, spouse or coworker follow them to the wash, they receive two washes for the price of one. It’s a great way to gain new customers by having your existing ones recruit for you.

2. Door hangers
Have a contest where employees pass out door hangers in their neighborhood and around the carwash. The hanger could be designed as a personal invitation from the employee and contain special discounted offers so customers feel compelled to visit. The employee who brings in the most customers wins a prize. In addition, the customers could be given a chance to win a free carwash or a year’s worth of free washes – two free carwashes a month – via a drawing. One full service carwash owner at the Car Care World Expo noted they had a 12 percent response on a door hanger promotion they did in their community.

3. Sticky coupons
This idea is similar to the door hanger promotion. Everyone is familiar with sticky notes or Post-it® notes. Design a creative sticky note in the size of a dollar bill with a special offer on it and have employees stick it on dirty cars in parking lots and on front doors of houses. Reward the employee whose “dollars’’ brings in the most business.

4. Cross-promotion
Increase business quickly by partnering with another local business, such as a car care facility or a busy restaurant, for cross-promotional efforts. Pizzerias are extremely busy on Friday nights. Offer to supply a pizzeria with their box-top flyers on Fridays that contain both offers from your carwash and their pizzeria. Make sure you have a full staff on hand Saturday to handle the traffic! One Car Care Expo attendee said they partner with a busy restaurant and offer $1 off a carwash for a receipt brought in the same day from that restaurant.

How about this creative idea? Another expo attendee co-brands and cross-promotes with a local car dealership. The promotion goes something like this: when a new vehicle is purchased at the dealership, the customer receives 26 free carwash vouchers to be used at the partnering wash. It’s a year’s supply of free washes at one wash every two weeks. In exchange for the vouchers, the carwash receives free advertising and marketing by the dealership promoting its free carwash program. This idea is a great way to keep your name in front of current and prospective customers at the advertising expense of the dealership.

5. Buy one, get one
Tie a strong offer to any promotion and you will have customers quickly knocking on your doors. Offer a “buy one carwash today and get an exterior wash free on your next visit” deal to your customers. When the customer returns for their free wash have your employees trained and prepared to up-sell additional services and offer the customer an opportunity to purchase a prepaid carwash card if you have such a program. The “buy one, get one” promotion can be rolled out quickly by advertising on sign board marquees, door hangers, newspapers, direct mail and radio.

6. Win free carwashes for a year
Award every 25th car that rolls through your carwash a pass for a year’s supply of free washes. The pass or gift card contains 12 peel-off coupons valid for one free carwash a month. Have employees celebrate around the 25th-customer’s car to attract attention from pedestrians and other customers. Run this promotion over a weekend or two and when you kick it off, invite a popular local radio station to broadcast from your location.

7. Fundraisers
Non-profit organizations are always looking for ways to raise money fast. Partner with a local non-profit organization (i.e. school, church, sports team, etc.) and for every car they send you on a particular day donate a designated percentage of your sales to the cause. Strategically schedule the fundraiser to be run on specific days of the week – particularly on your slow days or, if you are working with a church, maybe a Monday or Tuesday. The organization, school, parents, etc., will do most of the advertising for you. You can also let people know on your marquee that on particular dates they can support their community while getting their car cleaned.

8. Prepaid carwash program
If you don’t have a prepaid carwash program you need to seriously consider one. Not only can you increase your revenue quickly upfront, but you also establish long-term, loyal customers. Offer pre-paid programs to your customers every time they come to your wash. These programs can be used to drive customers to your wash quickly if you have fundraising groups or employees sell them door-to-door or business-to-business in the area. There are many ways to have a prepaid program, such as with Peel-A-Deal®, peel-off coupon cards, punch cards or coupon books, without incurring a large start-up cost.

And then some
Getting a quick response and good return on one’s marketing dollars is the goal of every carwash owner and operator who advertises. However, getting a customer to your door is only part one of the challenge. Part two is retaining them. One marketing principle to keep your customers coming back is the “and then some” principle. If you ingrain this principle into your employees, and if they carry it out, your customers will choose your carwash every time over the competition down the street. The principle is simple: whatever your employees do, they should always do their best and then some. Your employees work hard, and then some. They conscientiously clean cars, and then some. They clean the door jambs, and then some. The tires and rims are spotless and shiny, and then some! If you go beyond your customers’ expectations you will not only have customers flocking to your carwash, you will have them promoting it to their friends and family. Customer retention is the name of the game. Use these marketing ideas to attract customers quickly. Use the “and then some” principle to keep them for life.

How many times a year are you approached by a school, church, youth sports association or other fundraising group wanting money for this or that? Community involvement is a necessary part of running a successful business, but is there a way you can do it that is both hassle-free and profitable? Yes, there is!

The answer is Peel-A-Deal®, a unique fundraiser peel off coupon card. The cards give pizzerias an opportunity to partner with local schools and non-profit organizations while increasing pizza sales and customer loyalty. The idea behind these cards is simple. The pizzeria purchases their custom designed cards from Peel-a-Deal (Vision Marketing, Inc.) and either sells or gives them to schools, churches, soccer teams and other groups in their area, who then turn around and sell them for a fee.

Peel-A-Deal® cards are typically sold to schools and groups on a 2-3 week consignment basis. For example, if a school gets 500 cards and each child participating sells five cards for $10, the profit is $5,000. If the pizzeria charges four dollars per card and gives the school the other six, the profit for the school is $3,000 and the pizzeria gets $2,000. Schools love this program because they can raise a lot of money in a short amount of time with no risk, as they return unsold cards to the pizzeria. Pizzerias love this program because they make money on every card sold and the coupons redeemed, and establish new loyal customers. The card is used by the customer as a savings card, and pays for itself after a few uses. The savings coupons are on the back and customers peel them off and turn them in with their purchase. The coupons have an adhesive back and can stick right on a cash register receipt, thus providing easy coupon redemption and tracking for the pizzeria.

Many pizza franchises have significantly increased their sales while supporting their local communities by offering their own Peel-A-Deal® pizza fundraising program. They advertise this program on their box toppers, table toppers, at the register, and in local advertisements. One pizza franchise sold 11,000 cards in less than six months, earning them a prepaid income of $55,000 (at a profit of five dollars per card).

This is also a good idea for smaller pizzeria owners who are asked for donations of products and money repeatedly each year. By implementing a Peel-A-Deal® fundraising card program, these requests can be met and it can be a win-win for everyone.

The company offering Peel-A-Deal®, Vision Marketing, Inc., can supply you with all the tools to start and run a successful fundraising program. They will help you design a customized card for your pizzeria and consult with you on how to market it to nonprofit groups in your area.

For more information on Peel-A-Deal®, visit www.peeladeal.com or contact Vision Marketing, Inc. at 877-563-5654.

In April of 2009 I was contacted by a reporter with QSR Magazine working on an article about Gift and Loyalty cards. The article was to target readers who own and operate fast food and casual dining restaurants, with information on the latest trends in the food service industry. Here is an email I sent him on the subject matter to which he took what he wanted from for his article.

My email:  Here at Vision Marketing, Inc. we not only supply various gift card products at some of the best prices in the industry but we also offer marketing ideas and solutions on how those products can be best used to increase sales and build customer loyalty. Gift cards are no doubt a great loyalty product. Many folks are familiar with the typical way they are used. Customer purchases a card for a set amount of money and then gives it as a gift. The receiver then redeems the card when making a purchase. The benefits are well noted for the vendor in that they have their money upfront and of course there is always a certain percentage of gift cards that are never redeemed. Either way the program is a win win for vendors.

Gift cards are also great tools to use in company incentive programs. Corporations large and small use them as thank you’s and incentives to their employees for reaching sales goals or for a job well done. They also make great thank you’s for clients. What better personal endorsement than when your company or business associate hands you a card promoting a local restaurant.

Another use of gift cards that has gained popularity with a high return rate is mailing out a post card with a gift card attached or one that pops out. This is a powerful tool to target new customers as well as existing customers. We have one franchise restaurant that targets a specified demographic in a 2 mile radius around their restaurant to promote it’s grand opening. They would do a $5.00 off pop out gift card on a $15 meal purchase. The program has been a big success in driving traffic into the restaurant. One of the benefits of a gift card is that the recipient tends to hold it in their wallet or purse as they see it as cash on hand. Vision Marketing offers a number of various products that can be used in a gift card program from paper, to plastic, to laminated cards, etc. However, plastic no doubt has a certain value that is attached to it when one receives it.

Another creative idea is to use gift or loyalty cards to partner with other local businesses. A pizza client of ours is partnering with a local cable company in their town. They are using our Peel-A-Deal(R) product in their promotion which contains 16 peel off coupons on the back of the card and one of them is for a Free Pizza no strings attached. The pizzeria gives about 400 cards a month to it’s local cable provider in exchange for free commercials. The cable company uses them as incentives to get them in the door with prospective advertisers. They promise people a free pizza if they will give them 10 minutes of their time. At the end of their meeting the cable representative gives the prospective advertiser the Peel-A-Deal(R) loyalty card. Not only does the card have the free pizza on it, but also 15 other coupons that range from a free side with purchase, discount pizza offers, to buy one pizza get one free type deals. What did the restaurant receive in exchange for the gift cards? The cable provider ran his commercial 1,500 times in one Month! Not only has the promotion been highly successful for the pizzeria, but the cable company loves it as well. Our client has also learned that his competitor is spending more advertising dollars with the same cable provider to combat all of his ads that are running in his market. This same card was also used as a fundraiser card and raised over $80,000 for local schools and churches last year. That is not bad for the cost of some Peel-A-Deal cards and some free pizzas. What is unique and sets the Peel-A-Deal product apart from our plastic gift cards is that it features multiple offers on one promotion.

Right now times are hard and folks are trying to make money and save as much money as they can, wherever they can. There is no better time to harness the power of gift and loyalty cards.

The following information was submitted with my September 2003 article on 8 ways to improve lube marketing.

There are a number of methods that a lube operator can use to bring in more college students to their lube. Some of the more popular ones include:

Prepaid Cards

Students who drive home often for breaks need to get an oil change or car inspection prior to making the trip.

You should create a prepaid oil change card and set up a table at the student check-in when new students and parents arrive. The card can be a punch card, a Peel-A-Deal® peel-off coupon card or a bar-coded card.

Magnetic Memo Boards

This highly visible marketing piece can be a big winner on college campuses. An operator can sponsor their own memo board or be on the board with other advertisers.

The operator should make arrangements with the college residence life office or student life office to provide these mini-billboards in every dorm room on campus. The boards are less than a $1 to print, and an arrangement can be made with the university to distribute the memo boards on move-in day.

Peel-A-Deal® Fundraising Cards

An operator can partner with a local school to provide an oil change discount card that the school can sell to help it raise money. The school and your business can receive a portion of the sale of each card. This is a win-win situation for all involved.