Car Wash Advertising

[bigleo48]

A good friend of mine is the Advertising Manager at the local newspaper. He hasn't told me so, but I can see that advertising and readership is dropping. They recently stopped printing a Monday newspaper and never did Sundays. Not good.

I am opening a skate sharpening service at my wash (photos to come) and he has suggested what turns out to be $3k of advertising over 20 weeks! I plan on printing 50% off coupons and have my attendant go to the hockey rink twice a day and put them on windshields. Made a big sign out front with my own vinyl cutter. Will add it to my webpage. Total cost should be less than $100 and likely more effective. I may also run a few 1/8 of a page ads in the newspaper if I need to.

Big

 

[Chiefs]

packerscw,

Once in a great while someone complains and each time my response is for them to buy a book and sve $3-$4 per wash as they NEVER expire. As I said, there are also all kinds of $2.00 off coupons available through the Town Planner Calendars, website, Google, etc. We are set up such that every function other than Rain-X is sequential. We wash 85-90,000 cars a year with this format. Best of all, we have no need to upsell customers. Try putting yourself in the posoition of one of your customers. How annoying do you think it is to go to a car wash and every time have the salesperson try to con/persuade/educate you into you into buying a more expensive wash. As someone already said, by having someone on commission, they don't want to show up on a slow day and on busy days, spend way too much time trying to upsell customers costing you significant wash volume.

We just give them the very best wash on every visit (sans Rain-X). Besides, if you look at most car washes who have 3-4 packages, more than likely they are only averaging $1.50-$2.50 over and above their base price. Why should Iplay all those games of a $5.00 wash, and average $7.50 (if I am lucky), pay commissions, cost me wash volume when its busy, and insult customer's intelligence when I can charge them a fair price give them the best wash and reward those customers for their loyalty. Again, if you don't want to be rewarded for you loyalty and only come once every 1, 2 or 3 months, then you should pay me $10 for you are going to be my biggest pain in the butt and will likely hold my feet to the fire and require a re-wash.

This one wash format allows me to offer the discount programs (books, monthly pass, coupons, etc. I sure as heck don't want to offer them off a $5.00 wash. You know if we did have a 4 option format and started at $5.00, I am sure we would add some 25-50% to our annual wash volume as we would to our chemical costs, utility costs and labor costs.

 

[packerscw]

Chiefs,

Nice, I see you have your self a good thing going.

My question though is why dont u include the rain-x when you do your specials?

Ive heard lots about rain-x car wash products, but have never really looked much in to cost and pricing for the prodcut.

How much is your cost when somebody uses your rain-x product?

The way you make it sound is that lots of people like using the rain-x product.

Just would like some more rain-x product information if you dont mind.

thank you

 

[Chiefs]

First of all, even at just $1.00, we have only 8% of people buyin Rain-X. Secondly, to do so would force me to go from $10 to $11 which is something I do not wish to to do in this environment. Cost for rain-X is approximately 25 cents per car. Given the fact that my sales tax is already at 7.75%, I really don't feel like taking another 30 cents(cost+tax) per car off my bottom line. Lastly, I am on the edge of Cleveland so most of my customers are middle to lower income. In 1999 we were washing cars for $5 (for the "works" and washed 101,000 cars. Today we're washing around 85,000 per year at $8+ per car. At what point do we get so high that we really begin to see wash volumes slide so significantly, that adversely affects annual revenue.

Given all the new taxes and government mandates coming down the pike, we'll soon be going to $11 anyway. BTW, $1.00 increases are all I would ever do. In no way shape or form do I want to get involved in having to make change in less than whole dollar increments. I'm waiting to see how all these new taxes and mandates, not to mention the coming hyperinflation are going to affect me before making any changes or investing $1.00 in new equipment or adding anyone to my payroll. The customers are simply not there to warrant it.

 

[packerscw]

Anybody have any good sayings to put out front on the sign?

 

[Chiefs]

"We Take Pride In Your Ride"

"Our Vacuums Really Suck!"

"Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness" (although this will **** off your customers that are atheists)

"We Undue What Mother Nature Throws At Your Car"

"Does Your Car Scream Wash Me Please?"

"Car Need a Bath? Wash It Here"

 

[pitzerwm]

Go to the Library, we have a bunch of them there.

 

[JJJakubowski]

Chiefs:

Your testimonial for the effectiveness of cable TV advertising piqued interest. Again, could you please share any tips as how to navigate the "wide open spaces" of cable and how to best target (cost effectively) your ad spot exposures? Do you pick specific programs, channels, and time slots? Or do the cable guys simply give you a choice of ad exposure bundled packages? If so, what sort of package and target demographic? Or ... ?

Thanks.

JJJ/SSCWN

 

[pitzerwm]

Our cable company claims that you can target your customers. I think that you have to know which programs that they are likely to watch.

 

[Waxman]

A good friend of mine is the Advertising Manager at the local newspaper. He hasn't told me so, but I can see that advertising and readership is dropping. They recently stopped printing a Monday newspaper and never did Sundays. Not good.

I am opening a skate sharpening service at my wash (photos to come) and he has suggested what turns out to be $3k of advertising over 20 weeks! I plan on printing 50% off coupons and have my attendant go to the hockey rink twice a day and put them on windshields. Made a big sign out front with my own vinyl cutter. Will add it to my webpage. Total cost should be less than $100 and likely more effective. I may also run a few 1/8 of a page ads in the newspaper if I need to.

Big

$3k in newspaper advertising is way too much.

 

[pitzerwm]

Pat Crowe & promotions

Pat Crowe emailed me and reminded me that no one has talked about outrageous publicity stunts.

Just type Oprah into our new Forum search box above, and you will find a number links to the threads that discuss his Oprah for President promotion that almost instantly made him a world wide celebrity without having to go to jail.

You can read a review on his book: http://www.autocareforum.com/reviews/reviews.php?ref=747970653d70726f64756374732669643d736978

Sometimes, profit isn't easily measured.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

But did it make him any money? I remember he had a blast with it, but don't remember him actually providing any info that it made him money.

There's a guy that ran out in the bullring and had his pants pulled off by the bull in front of a stadium full of fans. Eventually video of it made it all over the world and made a worldwide "celebrity" (translation: Fool) of him instead of a fool in just his little world.

 

[Waxman]

Pat Crowe's crazy ad campaigns/promotions got him Huge publicity. It's not the same at all as having your pants yanked down on tv. It's national publicity for a promotion at your business.

IMO, an inappropriate/unfair comparison.

 

[bigleo48]

Isn't Oprah president via proxy anyway?

 

[pitzerwm]

IMO, Oprah wouldn't have done any of the anti-business taxes/rules/demonetizing

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Pat Crowe's crazy ad campaigns/promotions got him Huge publicity. It's not the same at all as having your pants yanked down on tv. It's national publicity for a promotion at your business.

IMO, an inappropriate/unfair comparison.

I'm not saying it was the same as the idiot with the bull. I was just pointing out that getting Huge publicity doesn't necessarily translate into $$$. Unless it made him money, I don't see how it's great advertising. Once again, it's great that he had a blast with it, but I don't think it would be in someone's best interest to spend significant money on something "out there" like that with no proof that it will benefit them at all.

 

[pitzerwm]

Pat, usually you can't or shouldn't copy another idea directly, but collect other ideas, what worked what didn't and with bits and pieces from here and there you can come up with your own idea. Nothing is guaranteed to work, even your best idea can bomb. Whining that God doesn't love you instead of trying this and that is the biggest fault. (not saying that you are)

Granted he probably didn't get rich with this idea, but he really didn't have to, he had the luxury of just screwing around and seeing what happened. Just like me bringing Ms. US of A in my ICA booth in 07, to raise money for breast cancer. There was no way that it made me money and with the cheap car washers, I only raised $1500 for the charity. But I had a good time and who knows what else might happen as a result of that.

No one wants to fail or can afford to fail, but you get smarter by screwing up. If you are real lucky you learn from other's screw ups, but not usually

Pat C, emailed me and stated that "the first full month of the OPRAH for President (October) my gross revenues were 87% higher than in the previous October". But, he wants to point out that there are always many variables, so he isn't claiming that it was a run away financial success. He had other things going though out the year, like a fund raiser with his church.

 

[packerscw]

Ever done anything with local school fundraisers? Such as when you see kids doing car washes in parking lots. I was thinking about allowing them to use a bay or two and have give them 100 percent profit out of the two bays that they use. I dont know just an idea

 

[Chiefs]

Packerscw

In this day and age, I think the idea of having a bunch of kids on your grounds using high pressure guns in a wet and slippery environment with customers driving around at who knows what speed, is a recipe for disiater and quite a nice law suit. Why not simply give them tokens to sell and let them keep the profits or otherwise promote your car wash.

We're celebrating our 50th anniversary in 3 weeks and I thought about getting a hot dog vendor, clowns, etc. but realized that uif uits a busy day (Saturday) of 500+ cars, the potential for haiving kids running around the parking lot held a great deal of potential for disaster and so I nixed the idea. Instead we are having a raffle for a 3 month winter wash pass, a one month pass, a 5 wash book, and free individual washes. To enter, we developed our own entry forms a requirement of which is an e-mail address (in fact they are not valid without one as winners will only be notified by e-mail). With the specials we are running (half price Tuesdays, 5 wash books for $30), they're bringing in plenty of business and new customers to see us through until winter. Get the schhols working for you off site rather than on site - far less liability involved.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I echo what Bill says. I do not want the kids on the lot. I donate coupons redeeemable for a wash that they can sell or use as part of a raffle or silent auction.