Car wash owners and operators are constantly working to reinforce the importance of consumers washing their cars at a professional car wash. And latest studies show that two-thirds of consumers in the United States usually wash their car at a professional car wash.
Efforts by the International Carwash Association and its WaterSavers program are geared to drive that number higher. Since the program’s inception in 2009, it has become the professional car wash industry’s largest and most successful consumer and water regulator outreach program — ever.
Last year marked a shift in public relations efforts for the program that included creating more resources for member companies to utilize to market the program at their location, as well as a targeted digital and print media campaign to reach consumers with a message of environmental responsibility.
“We’re really excited about what we’ve been able to accomplish in the last 12-18 months with WaterSavers,” said ICA Director of Marketing Matt DeWolf. “This program really helps operators demonstrate that they are an environmentally responsible business, and for consumers, it drives home the importance of washing your car at a professional car wash.”
Online Value
In its digital efforts, there were 146 WaterSavers car washes with Facebook pages, utilizing 1,606 custom ad units to reach more than 26 million users on Facebook. A potential customer saw a WaterSavers ad more than 163 million times and the campaign generated nearly 27,000 clicks, or 185 clicks per wash.
A targeted blogger outreach added more than 180,000 impressions on Facebook and more than 273,000 on Twitter, with 27,308 contest entries. “The blogger outreach was key to helping us get visibility in a social arena where peer recommendations and virality plays an important role in behavior,” DeWolf said.
An additional 23.7 million online impressions and more than 1.2 million print impressions, with placements in 955 online media outlets and 79 print outlets were generated from the program’s winter pre-packaged story release to media outlets.
WaterSavers as an Industry Resource
The consumer outreach efforts have seen great success, but the program also continues to make great strides in building relationships with water regulators. In the past 12 months, WaterSavers has been referenced as a resource for regulators in Indianapolis and, most recently, at the Rocky Mountain Car Wash Association’s meeting.
“There was a lot of good discussion about WaterSavers and the ICA,” said Shane Wells, president of the Rocky Mountain Car Wash Association. “Denver Water referenced the ICA in several places for design of their certification process, and WaterSavers was discussed too many times to count.”
“We’ve been working for the past four years to gain traction with water regulators and educate them about our program and how it can be a valuable tool for them as they consider their drought response plans,” said ICA Chief Operating Officer Claire Darmanin. “We’ve had the opportunity to present at several conferences, including the last WaterSmarts Innovation Conference, and regulators were seeking us out to get more information about our program.”
Continuing the Push
According to the ICA, this year there will be two additional blogger outreach and matte release campaigns, creating a total of three major consumer-facing campaigns for calendar year. The outreach will center around three specific themes, Earth Day, summer car washing and winterizing your car.
So far, the first wave of outreach has been picked up by 1,281 websites generating 24.4 million impressions from outlets like the LA Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It’s also reached 29 different bloggers with 860,000 impressions and 23,370 giveaway entries.
“From a consumer perspective, we looked at the results of our work in the last year and believe that the best value for our members is through generating buzz within that social sphere,” said DeWolf. “There’s nothing more effective at driving traffic to your business than positive referrals, and that starts by getting our message out to the influential folks in those spaces.”
And the work continues on the regulator front as well. “We are looking forward to our ongoing work with water regulators,” said Darmanin. “It’s one of the areas where we think WaterSavers can really make a difference in the perception of professional car washing.”
