BY MARY LOU JAY

Some of the best marketing results can come from those activities that companies aren’t doing for marketing reasons at all, but because it’s the right thing to do. Actively participating in your community by making donations, sponsoring charitable events or simply helping out in a crisis, can bring your business free (or relatively low-cost) media attention.

Bubble Bath Car Wash, which has six locations throughout San Antonio, is constantly supporting local organizations through donations of money, equipment or manpower. The company is also a big proponent of coming together in times of crisis. When many people couldn’t get water in their homes during Texas’ freeze last winter, Bubble Bath ran hoses from its machines and supplied water to them. After the area was hit by four tornadoes in 2017, several company employees went out with a company trailer and helped move damaged trees off lawns.

“We’re all in when it comes to our community,” said company president Nicholas Lopez. “This is really our community and we’re going to do whatever it takes to help each other out. If that ends up bringing some positive press, that’s great, but that’s never the motivation for why we do what we do.”

In the end, marketing really comes down to giving people a story that they can share. That’s how businesses end up with referrals. According to Lopez, Bubble Bath Car Wash relied heavily on grassroots marketing when it was getting started in 2005 and while the company now spends about 5% of its budget on marketing, he still believes that these community-focused efforts remain important in getting the company positive press and social media attention.

Getting included in a “best of” or “readers choice” listing of local businesses is another way for companies to garner free, positive publicity. That was certainly the case for Bubble Bath Car Wash, named the best car wash in The San Antonio Express-News’ YourSA Readers’ Choice Awards. The company received a nice, no-cost profile in the publication.

But it’s not just good service that earned Bubble Bath that award. Lopez attributes customers’ support to Bubble Bath’s underlying passion for community involvement. After one customer nominated the company, Bubble Bath Car Wash emailed its customers requesting their vote. “We asked our community to show us some love, and it turns out they said ‘We love the heck out of you guys,’” Lopez said.

CAUSE-RELATED MARKETING

Founded in 1981, Splash Car Wash now has 20 locations throughout New York and Connecticut. In 1985, after the company’s first good year, the owners wanted to give back to the community and get some free press at the same time. “I thought that if I got a charity involved, they could do all the publicity for me. I would just ask people to make donations to the charity, and I would wash their car for free,” said Mark Curtis, Co-founder and CEO.

He contacted a local association that helped children with special needs, which enthusiastically promoted the one-day event. The result was both television and radio coverage.

“What I didn’t realize at that time was the power of cause-related marketing,” Curtis said. “The coverage was unbelievable, and we raised $3,500 for the group. Our volume at that car wash went up 50% in the next 12 months. It may not have been 100% due to this, but I can tell you that there were people years later who would say to me, ‘I drive all the way across town because of what you did for the kids.’”

Curtis has found that free car wash days linked to a specific cause have been particularly successfully. There’s pre-event marketing to bring people to the car wash, and post-event coverage with the presentation of a check to the non-profit.

“The cause that you’re raising the money for does most of the PR, and they typically have great connections with television stations and newspapers. Plus, they have their own internet email list,” he said.

If car washes don’t want to give away free washes, Curtis noted that there are some no-cost ways to help the community and get positive attention. A car wash that asks customers to bring in canned goods for a local food pantry will likely get mentioned in the non-profit’s publicity (and possibly in the local press). To increase the donations to the Make a Wish foundation, Splash Car Wash asked customers to donate money to buy a star in the month leading up the free car wash day. In one store, that extra effort resulted in a $3,000 donation to the charity, and positive publicity for the car wash.

Smaller donations, like free car wash coupons given to PTAs and other groups, may not gain media attention, but they offer another way for a car wash build its brand.

“Any time you donate money, you get attention,” said Sherry Tehrani, Vice President of Marketing at Drive & Shine, which currently has 11 locations in northern Indiana and southwest Michigan. The company maintains a page on its website where nonprofits can request coupons for free car washes, and allows some non-profits to sell coupons for part of the profits.

“We never say no to any organization that asks for a donation of car wash coupons. Everybody sees that you are participating in the community, and that’s really big to a lot of people,” Tehrani said.

People who go to the events that a car wash helps sponsor will read the company’s name in the program and remember it. “It’s almost like an imprint,” Curtis said. “That doesn’t mean all the attendees will become your customers, but it is going to reinforce their good feelings about your company. That might be the deciding factor in their decision to use your car wash instead of someone else’s.”

SOCIAL MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES

Social media has become an increasingly important tool in marketing and building brand awareness, too. “I think social media is an effective and low-cost form of advertising and it’s more current. I think there’s better viewership on Instagram or Facebook than there is for a lot of local newspapers,” Curtis said.

Tehrani has been shifting her marketing efforts away from traditional media and more toward Facebook, Instagram and Google. “People can Google things and they can look at all the reviews, and then they can make their decisions based on that rather than on a newspaper’s list of best of,” she said. Although these sites offer paid versions for businesses, car washes can market successfully using their free tools. For example, they can post notices on Facebook about upcoming benefit car wash events and then follow-up with photos showing the check presentation.

She finds Google particularly effective in Drive & Shine’s branding efforts. She uses Google analytics to track what pages people most frequently visit on the Drive & Shine website. “I make sure that those pages offer some discount or something that people will want to look at,” she said. With another free tool, Google My Business, a car wash company can create free listings (complete with service and pricing information) that pop up when customers click on its location(s) on Google maps.

Although free and low-cost marketing can’t replace a well-planned and well-funded marketing plan, car washes should be taking advantage of these opportunities to help customers and prospective customers become more familiar with their businesses and to reinforce the messages in their paid marketing and advertising campaigns.

BETTER MARKETING GETS BETTER PEOPLE

In episode 73 of CAR WASH Magazine Live^TM, learn how you can use your marketing
techniques to bolster your talent strategy endeavors and attract more A players.
Find it here: carwashmagazinelive.com.