Where to advertise?

I really appreciate this thread. I've been detailing since I was a teenager but only recently have decided to try and make some money at it. I'm not particularly interested in doing "volume detailing".

I've been looking into different types of marketing for my business and seeing what has worked and hasn't worked for others is so helpful. Please continue to chime in. I will be following this thread closely.
 
I've lucked out and have a friend that owns an exhaust shop that he lets me work out of. Just detailing a car in his shop with customers coming in and out has helped me gain some new clients. It's funny to see the expression on they're faces when they say "it looks great" and I reply with "it's not done yet" lol. But lucky the police department is next door and I've been doing some of those guys cars. Working with firefighters, police officers, or even military could benefit your business greatly because usually the people in those fields talk more to each other and will spread the word if you do a great job.
 
You know, people use different ways of advertising, but the thing you should do is doing your work well. Usually, if you are a good professional, people will know about you very quickly via your friends, meetings and so on. Advertising is a part of building business, certainly, but the main thing is master the skills.
 
I started my business as a side gig two weeks ago. I posted a small ad on Craigslist and since then I have had three full details, two wash/interior detail, and I have four more scheduled. All but one of these jobs came from my very first customer. He had a new black Camaro that I did a full detail on; he was so impressed with the work I did that he told everyone.

It doesn't hurt that I have a refferal program setup. For every customer he gets me I give him 5% cash value of their service or 10% compounding off of his next service. In other words if he gets me 10 people for full details, his next detail is free. By next weekend my startup cost will be paid in full!
 
I am surprised no one has mention detailing forums. I've gotten quite a few quality customers off of them
 
Advertising and marketing are two different things in my opinion. It is really how you approach either that makes it count. What you neednto find out is what part of your local market you want to reach and who they do business with and how they obtain clients and business partners. Networking is going to be one of your best forms of marketing with the best return on investment; you get out of it what you put into it. Direct contact with the people you want to do business with, via referrals and you speaking directly to people is the only sure fire way to obtain business and know what you investment is actually going towards and obtaining for you. If you are only trying to reach a few clients to do volume work then why spend money advertising to reach hundreds if not thousands of people that may not know you and may not desire your services? Read Renny Doyle's book and you will learn a little more about all this and what has worked for him and many other companies.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using AG Online
 
I have tried Google adwords but no luck with it at all. I have a plenty of work and just wanted to try it to see why everyone says it works so well. It did nothing for me at all. The best thing about it is you can set the budget so its pretty cheap.
 
ThomasonCarCare said:
I started my business as a side gig two weeks ago. I posted a small ad on Craigslist and since then I have had three full details, two wash/interior detail, and I have four more scheduled. All but one of these jobs came from my very first customer. He had a new black Camaro that I did a full detail on; he was so impressed with the work I did that he told everyone.

It doesn't hurt that I have a refferal program setup. For every customer he gets me I give him 5% cash value of their service or 10% compounding off of his next service. In other words if he gets me 10 people for full details, his next detail is free. By next weekend my startup cost will be paid in full!
Click to expand...

Perfect! Man, you have a very good business and my congrats to you with your ad success. That will play good for your business and further work. Nice to hear about people success. :dblthumb2:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top