Social Media Marketing For Your Auto Detailing Business

Every auto detailing business should develop some type of a social media marketing program to keep the customer or prospect "engaged" with your auto detailing business. The days of just having a web site are gone. You still must have a professional and well coded web site but you must also now drive new traffic to your web site and to your business through other "digital" marketing mediums. Having and managing a facebook page, and keeping your business and it's latest news in front of your customers thru emails, videos, text message alerts and tweets are a fabulous way to help drive sales up.

Facebook - For the most part facebook is a free way to promote your auto detailing business to others within this ever-growing online community. You can post pictures of cars you have detailed, list promotions and special offers, answer questions from prospects and have customers "brag" about your auto detailing services. You can even post a short video clip of a car that you recently detailed and show the various steps that you took. You can even target market your own display ads that will show up on other facebook subscribers pages that you choose. There is a small cost to display these ads but it is not very expensive and will get your business promoted to a captive audience. Keep your facebook page updated with fresh content and publish a fan page too. Just like anything else if you "work it" you will prosper. If you already have a personal facebook page you should design a separate facebook page for your auto detailing business.

E mails - An "old and reliable" way to keep your "business information" and special offers in front of your customers is through establishing and maintaining an effective direct email campaign. Years ago when I owned a large auto detailing business I accomplished the above through direct mail. Direct mail was expensive because you have to first develop what you want to put in your mailer, then physically design it, have it printed, fold it, put postage on it and then take hundreds if not thousands of mail pieces to the post office. That can get very expensive and the whole process could take well over a week before the recipient is reading your mailer. Today with direct email you can do all the above in an hour or less a for a fraction of the cost of direct mail. There are email services like aweber.com and constantcontact.com that you can sign up for to help you create and manage your customer email list. You should "segment" your email program so you have a separate list of prospects and an additional list of your past customers. By segmenting your email subscribers you can send the appropriate email for that particular list. If you have not been recording email addresses of prospects and customers you better start before it is too late. Emails will never die, but your business could if you do not keep a fresh flow of incoming potential customers and keep your past customers loyal by offering them more than what they would expect.

YouTube - It's no wonder why google paid a few billion dollars to a couple of college kids that invented this amazing digital medium! The bottom line is you need to make videos of and about your auto detailing business. Don't panic you will not even need to purchase a camcorder. But you will at least need a digital camera. There are services online like Animoto.com that will take your still images that you took with your digital camera and within ten minutes turn those pictures into sensational videos. They will even post them on youtube and facebook for you! Having short 5-10 minute videos on your web site will increase it's ranking on the major search engines and it will help build more credibility with your customers and prospects visiting your web site and facebook page. Animoto has various subscriber plans available including a free plan. You must take advantage of the opportunity that youtube can provide for your auto detailing business. Youtube is another free service that your auto detailing business can utilize to help generate additional revenues.

SMS Text Alerts - Are you recording your prospects and customers cell phone numbers? Be sure you are entering them into your customer and prospect data base. You can send these individuals short text messages with coupons and small graphic ads directly to their cell phones. Lets face it the mobile phone is growing like an uncontrollable major storm and we all might as well go along for the ride. People are with their cell phones for much of the day and with their computers a lot less, usually just to log on and check their emails. When you text someone they are excited to see who it's from and what the message says and usually instantly open and read it. Sending special offers, discounts, coupons and service reminders will set you apart from your competition and keep your customer "engaged" with your auto detailing business and it's offers. You can actually sign up for DetailDeals.com text alert service and get a free month so you can see first hand what a powerful marketing tool this is. Again, stay ahead of your competition and keep your prospects more involved with your auto detailing business. There are millions of iPhones and Androids in use today because people want a better experience with their "personal communicator." Be the innovator and not the follower by developing a well thought-out SMS Text Alert program for your business.

Twitter - I personally do not tweet but my detailing training business does and we have hundreds of followers and most are in the auto detailing business in some capacity. Tweeting is very "clickish" to me but if your customers are using twitter you might as well develop a twitter campaign and send tweets to your followers so you can get your latest and greatest special offers out to them. If the offer really excites them (and it should) they will re tweet it and many other twitter subscribers will see it and before you know it your phone is ringing off the hook! Be sure you "brand" your twitter home page by publishing a background that represents your business, like showing your logo or your mobile rig. Send tweets at least once a week offering a good deal on a full service car detail or even a free service with the purchase of a complete car detail. Possibly offer free fabric protection when purchasing a complete interior detailing. Make your offers attractive so they get re tweeted. Take a poll with your existing customer base and ask them if they tweet. If they do then it is a no brainer of what you will do next. Remember if you snooze..... you loose!

LinkedIn - Is a business-oriented social networking web site. The objective of this web site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. LinkedIn can then be used to find people and business opportunities recommended by someone in a person's contact network. This can lead to you establishing and obtaining business accounts from professional individuals, fleet accounts and even commercial accounts with multiple vehicles that need detailed or their appearances need cosmetically maintained on a regular basis. You may acquire a business that has a fleet of vehicles that needs cleaned and detailed prior to being turned-in to the leasing company! This is another free online networking service you should seriously consider.

Well here you have some good ideas to get your social media marketing plan for your auto detailing business up and running. Sure it will take a few hours every night for a week or so but it is well worth it. The day of just handing out flyers and business cards is not gone and never will be. But you must take advantage of these other "digital" marketing tools to promote your auto detailing business and earn the revenues that you really deserve. If you would like to know more about what was discussed in this article or need some more direction to get your social media plan going please contact me.

Nicholas J Vacco
President
Detail King.com