Complete Auto Detailing Marketing Plan For Beginners

Jun 24, 2022

Are you looking for a complete auto detailing marketing plan for beginners?

You don’t have to search further. You have come to the right place.



David Ogilvy observed, "Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster."

The correctness of this statement cannot be overemphasized, especially in a car detailing business.

The Car Detailing Industry Size

The car detailing industry is a multibillion-dollar industry.

And it is also a close-knit one at that. This means that to get a foothold in it, you would have to put out quality work consistently to attract customers to your auto shop.


But putting out great service isn't the holy grail. Because if you fail to market effectively, it can also end up in failure. 



These two, quality service and a good marketing strategy, bring growth to your auto detailing business.

Below you will see some ways to scale up and attract customers, making them trust that their rides will be in safe hands.

Scrubbing Detailing Wheels

1. Through Google SEO: 

Getting your website to rank high on google search cannot be taken for granted because, according to online data statistics, the first five organic results on that first page generate more than 67% of all clicks. 

You want your website to be the first that comes up when potential clients are searching for car detailing businesses. Some tips to increase your SEO include:


Use of keywords: 

Ensure that your keywords are in your title tags. Also, ensure that at least two to three of your keywords appear per page. More, it could have the opposite effect.


Use LSI Keywords: 

Latent semantic indexing refers to related terms to your keywords. This will help Google comprehend your content better. For example, if your keyword is going to be "car," then a word like "automobile" could be its LSI equivalent.


Other methods you can use include internal links on your page to take viewers to other pages on your site and mobile optimization to ensure that your potential leads are not limited by their devices.

2. YouTube Video Marketing 

Dedicate time to growing your Youtube channel by putting out visual content showing you at work on various cars. 

Videos speak louder than words most times, and you would do well to produce engaging and creative content to keep viewers coming back for more. 


These viewers would end up becoming subscribers. 

Having more subscribers would mean the algorithm recommends your channel more, expanding your reach.



You can place links in your videos' descriptions to your website. This strategy will get them to see what products and services you offer.

Some ideas for content you can create can center around Do-It-Yourself tutorials. Also, develop reviews on different kinds of cars you detail.

3. Collaboration With Other YouTubers

For a starter in the detailing business, you would gain much from getting an endorsement from other car-related channels. 

The automobile community is a  big one on YouTube. And these channels already have a big reach. 

A shout-out from them would draw guaranteed traffic to your channel.


Make a list of these car owners especially targetting those in your locality. You could make friends with some of them. 

You do that by offering to do car detailing for free to those around you. You can ask for a shout-out in exchange.

Go further by giving these Youtubers your customized coupon codes that other customers can use.

4. Make Use of Advertising Channels: 

Advertising is a major part of marketing, and it involves using various forms, including media, to publicize your car detailing business. Amongst it includes:


  • Print Media: Advertise in newspapers and magazines, especially ones centered around cars
  • Radio. 
  • Television
  •  Billboards.
  • You can easily share Digital on various platforms.
  •  Digital advertising ( Google ads, Facebook ads).

5. Create A Strong Social Media Following

It is very beneficial to create a strong online presence for your auto detailing business is very helpful. 

You can do this by having a page promoting your business on major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Keep those pages active by regularly posting about your car detailing projects. Also, endeavor to do so in an engaging manner to garner likes, comments, and shares. This way, you can get new followers.


Also, strive to get your account verified across these platforms as that gives you more credibility in the eyes of your followers.

Then, from time to time, do promote or sponsor posts to ensure that your business gets beyond the reach of just your followers.

6. Utilize Referrals

As old as life itself, word-of-mouth remains one of the most effective ways of driving up your customer base.

This is an organic way of getting more customers. When your customers are fully satisfied with your service, they are more inclined to tell family, friends, and contacts about your car shop.


One way to incentivize them is to give bonuses like discounts on services for each referral. 


You can use Referral Factory and Refersion to generate automatic referrals for your business.

One of the perks of Referral Factory is that it comes in with an inbuilt page builder. With it, you can build pages that remain 100% your brand. Refersion helps you set up a flexible structure of offers and referral rewards for conversions that meet your set requirements.

Detailing and Cleaning Wheel Well

7. Utilize CRM Software 

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. 


It is a piece of technology that helps manage interactions with customers and leads alike. CRM systems help to keep data in one place. 

It is useful in collating spreadsheets and databases for customers' data. This software helps with organization and efficiency.


A CRM like ‘Keap’ can collate all communications, purchases, and quotes connected to a client(current or potential). And also make all this information available at a shirt moment's notice.

8. Be Responsive to Reviews

One big mistake that most companies make is failing to respond to reviews from customers. As a car detailing business, ensure that reviews from your customers, whether positive or negative, are effectively responded to.


This will give potential customers a heads up of how your business will treat customers in person.

Be polite in all forms of exchanges.  Customers want you to get to the root of their issues and prefer useful solutions, not redundant replies that could show some levels of negligence.


Let your replies show that you care about the well-being of your customers.

9. Implement Email Marketing 

Create email lists after getting consent from both current customers and even just basic leads. Consent is important. It's been discovered that emails perform better with clients who opted in than those who didn't.


Your emails should have well-targeted and useful content to prevent them from landing in the spam folder. 

Ensure that information about new and updated offers, such as discounts, promos, bonuses, and unique perks for car aesthetics, is strategically included in your emails to your customers.


Also, constantly be in the minds of your customers. You can do this by sending texts in and around festive seasons and, if possible, their birthdays.

10. Booths at Auto Expos

Whenever you can and when the opportunity presents itself, always try to get yourself involved in different automobile shows and expositions. 

This way, you position yourself as a car detailing expert. The essence is that in shows like these, you get opportunities to meet lots of car owners. And as you get to interact with them,  you can easily offer services of different kinds.

11. Get Your Business Certified

Getting your business certified will go a long way in giving much-needed credibility to your business. The truth is that customers will like to deal with people they feel they can trust, and a fact is, getting linked up with associations that offer courses, training, and certificates will rack up your integrity and trust score.

Websites for Detailers

12. Ensure Your Business is listed on Online Directories:

A good way to create visibility for your detailing business is to ensure that your business is listed on major sites. 

An example includes Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. 


Also, you can directly affiliate with the car detailing industry sites such as Carwash.com and Car Detailing Directory. 

This way, you increase the likelihood of your business coming up in searches.



13. Partnership With Closely Related Businesses:

You can always team up with another company, probably one in car repair or car tuning. 

A collaboration like that would ensure that you can generate and share more leads. Each of you can easily refer customers with varying car needs.



You can refer a customer that needs car repair to your partner, and the same happens when a customer who went for repairs needs car detailing. Your partner will refer them to you.

Conclusion

The essence of sharing multiple ideas is for you to select the best suitable option. As a beginner, you may not have enough resources to implement all of the things discussed in this post. However, you are sure of finding two or more car detailing marketing strategies that will work for you. One thing you have to note is that there is no need to start with all of them at once. Take a look at your available budget and choose the most feasible option to get started. 

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