In the car wash industry, here are two comments I hear too often:
1. It's a car wash; I don’t need a website.
2. I want a website, but it costs too much to create/maintain.
Wrong and wrong.
First, let me say this about having an active, useful website for your car wash: you’d be shocked to find out (1) how much it will get used, (2) how it can establish a very real competitive advantage for you, and (3) how much new business it can generate for you.
Too often, we think of the Internet as a place for large businesses or a tool for businesses that sell a product (so that they can reach a much larger market). But the truth is, the Internet is also a local community medium. Individuals utilize the Internet to explore their own cities, find new services, read reviews and discover value savings. If you don’t have a presence on the Web, you’re missing out on meeting a large portion of your local market. Period.
I didn’t use to believe this either, by the way. But 5 years ago I built our website anyway. I figured that maybe 5 or 10 people would visit the site per day (if we were lucky); we only had two car washes in a mid-market city after all. But about a year ago, I began using Google Analytics to track the number of visits we were receiving at www.metrocarwash.com and here’s what I discovered: we were averaging 100 visits to our car wash website every day.
That bit of information transformed our marketing philosophy. It made us realize just how many people were seeking us out and attempting to find information about our Company, the services we offered, and what was special about those services. Understanding this has helped us significantly in defining our overall marketing strategy and the message (and deals) we present to the public.
But what about the cost?
Here’s the good news: you can create and maintain your own website EASILY for $10. I’m not making this up.
Times have changed. The Internet has come a long way. And Google is an almost magical company providing small businesses with unbelievable marketing and operational tools (for essentially FREE).
If you are technologically savvy enough to have found this blog, then you’re savvy enough to build your own website with Google.
I’ve included a link that provides step-by-step instructions below, but let me say this: It is as simple as (1) getting a free gmail account, (2) checking to see if the domain name is available (www.yourcarwash.com), purchasing that name through Google for $10, and then utilizing their template software to create your site.
Click the following link to get started: http://mashable.com/2010/09/06/business-infrastructure-google-account/
In a nutshell, there’s no reason for car washes not to take control of their presence on the web. The cost is minimal. It’s simple to do. And the payoffs (in terms of garnering new customers) are significant. I can’t think of any marketing initiative that provides as much value or ROI.
If you have further questions, please feel free to reach me directly at sean@washalliance.com
