Consumer technology trends influence which marketing strategies flourish and which ones fizzle. With today’s average U.S. consumer spending five hours a day on their smartphones and tablets, mobility is a priority. Search and social media are key components in that picture, too.

The mobile audience reach of Facebook is almost 80 percent, while Google Maps is more than 66 percent. See a trend there? Car wash operators keen to connect with more customers can improve their results by taking advantage of the growing power of search and social media tools.

Nail Down Your Digital Location with Google Maps

The Yellow Pages were once considered the gold standard for getting your business in front of customers seeking your service. While those venerable phone books are still in print and distributed across the country, much of that search-and-connect traffic has moved online.

Melanie Ohlinger, social media marketing specialist at Washworld Inc. in DePere, Wisconsin, believes it’s important that car wash operators follow suit. “Google Maps is the new Yellow Pages,” she said. Where consumers 20 years ago may have never known you existed if they didn’t come across your listing in the Yellow Pages, today the same could be said for businesses that aren’t in Google Maps.

Operators may not recognize the value of claiming their space in Google Maps because the internet already has so many facets. Companies have websites and Facebook pages, Instagram accounts and blogs. Where does Google Maps fit into that matrix? “Consumers don’t start with your business name,” Ohlinger said. “Instead, they’ll type in, ‘Car wash near me.’” Your website may have a beautiful, easily navigable design. Your Facebook feed might have thousands of followers. But without verified location data tied to your business, you probably won’t appear in those search results.

Getting Started with Google Maps

Ohlinger said car wash operators should begin by looking up their business on Google Maps to see what kind of information may already be online. Is your address on there? How about your business name? “Even if your business name is on there, check to be sure the information is correct,” she said. Whether the existing data is accurate or not, operators will want to login with a Google My Business account (if you don’t already have one, create it now) and claim their business so they can better control what information is getting in front of potential customers. “From there Google will walk you through the process,” Ohlinger said. Operators can manage locations on Google Maps and even build a very basic web page through the platform.

There are a number of advantages of claiming your space on Google Maps. “Once you’re verified you go from having a tiny blue marker and being about five results down to having a large red teardrop and being in the top three results on that page,” Ohlinger said of search rankings on the site.

It’s a great way for single-location operators to stand out, and it also gives multi-location brands a boost by displaying all of their nearby stores at once. Data within the Google Maps platform can be further linked to a business’s adwords and other analytics — integrations with the rest of Google’s many offerings is comprehensive for an operator interested in making the most of it. “It’s more than just a map or a way for people to get your address,” Ohlinger said.

Map Your Future

Remember that Google Maps isn’t the end of the online possibilities, but it provides a very solid foundation car wash brands can build on in all kinds of ways. “Once you have that set up, it’s time to focus on other social media,” Ohlinger said. “You can always come back to Google Maps and do more there later.”

Though the platform offers a wide range of possibilities and a robust set of features, Ohlinger said, “Instead of focusing on one thing, you want to make sure you have an even web presence across the board so that no matter what someone is using, they’ll be able to find you.”

Geotargeting Offers New Ways to Find Customers

Racer Wash Management already had a website, an online store and recently added a custom mobile app to the mix. As Andrew Zamora, president and managing member of the Lubbock, Texas-based brand looked for additional ways to market his business, he realized Facebook’s ad platform offered an opportunity to connect with customers based on the user’s location, a feature he hadn’t used before.

It’s common for operators to target consumers who travel near one of their stores, but that doesn’t need to be the limit of your brand’s reach. Geotargeting — also called geofencing — continues to be an underutilized tool, with less than a quarter of marketers saying they use hyperlocal targeting to its full potential.

As Zamora considered ways to promote a new store in a city where they hadn’t yet established a solid marketing footprint, he saw a chance to capitalize on location-based technology. “Now we can specifically target a retail area that’s close to us, or a college or even nearby apartment complexes,” Zamora said. Special events and public venues are also popular areas for geofencing marketing campaigns.

“We can surround an area—say it’s a Texas Tech football game—and hit 70,000 people whether they have liked us or not,” Zamora said. Relatively inexpensive and quick to set up, the use of location-based ads and linked discount codes meant those thousands of potential customers didn’t even need to pass by a Racer Wash location to learn about the business. “It’s any area you want to target,” Zamora said.

The results from Racer Wash’s expanded location-based advertising efforts were immediate. “You see the leads you’re getting and how many people look at what you’re doing,” Zamora said. “When they come in to redeem the ad, we track it all.” A button on the point-of-sale system flags the transaction, giving the store granular data on the performance of each geofencing campaign. Multiple ads can run simultaneously without losing visibility into the effectiveness of each.

Geotargeting Gives Your Marketing Initiatives Reach

The ability to get in front of more users through location-based marketing means car wash operators can take advantage of consumers’ combined love affair of smartphones and saving money. Juniper Research estimates there will be more than a billion mobile coupon users by 2019. And in an increasingly competitive business environment, “Marketing isn’t an expense. It’s a necessity,” Zamora said.

Ad spend goes farther with the many location options offered by Facebook’s geofencing tools. Businesses have the ability to finely tune their target areas and user demographics. “Geofencing is so flexible, you can do so many things,” Zamora said.

The selection process allows a central pin to be dropped on a map nearly anywhere, and a radius selected to include as much or as little of the surrounding area as you want. A number of audience options are available as well. You may choose to target everyone who passes through the location, or only those Facebook users who live in the area, for example. “You can then reach those people in that geofence,” Zamora said.