Leaving flyer on parked car: ultimate sin?

[sudsmobile]

I'm telling you, you guys are really sensitive. Am I really knocking it? No. I'm saying it's not an effective way to advertise. Do you know what the word anecdotal means? Your stories and mine are anecdotal. They don't mean anything in the big picture, they're taken on their own. I sold a huge job one day leaving the super market. I was literally loading groceries into my rig when the phone range and a guy said "Hey, I just saw you in the parking lot and I want to schedule details for two cars." Does that mean I should spend all my time in grocery store parking lots? No, that's anecdotal. And I would expect that the number of CFOs and CEOs that watch their kids play little league is roughly equivalent percentage wise to how many CFOs and CEOs there are in any one area of the particular city you're in. And what is that anyway? CFOs and CEOs are the only ones that get their cars detailed? I do work for all kinds of people, teachers, nurses, guys that work at tire stores, a guy that works at Pep Boys, I mean you name it. So, again, that's the cross section you're looking for. Average person in your town, not the CFOs and CEOs only which will run you out of potential customers in a hurry.

I mean seriously stop getting so butt hurt when somebody disagrees with you. I'm certainly not saying that supporting your local little league is a bad idea, in fact I think it's great for little league. I'm just telling you that it's not an effective way to spend your advertising dollar. I always assumed that people supported little league for the charity aspect of it, not because it led to a ton of business. I mean if little league advertising were really the way to go, Nationwide, Coca Cola and Disney would be all over it instead of Big Lou's Wood Fired Pizza.

[sudsmobile]

I will say this for the last time in this thread and then I will bow out because I've said my piece. Advertising is a number's game. Your potential customer base in this industry is indescribably small. I would estimate it at somewhere around 5 out of 1000 people. If you advertise to the same couple hundred people a year at the little league field, that's an incredibly small audience. Now, hey, again anecdotal evidence shows that you could pull 3 jobs from that which would likely pay for your advertising and put you well above average in terms of return on views. That does not make it successful because it's not sustainable. If you placed that same billboard ad at venues that yielded a couple hundred unique views throughout a given time frame, you would see that the return would end up being average in terms of jobs and well below average in terms of dollars spent per customer gained.

[sudsmobile]

I will add one thing. This relates to our business, not all businesses. Big Lou's Wood Fired Pizza probably does incredibly well because the teams support his establishment after the games and who doesn't like pizza. Ice Cream parlors probably do great too. Kid related businesses. Sporting goods maybe. Auto detailers are just another business like realtors and pool builders where more than half your audience has no disposal income or a car.

[Dr Oldz]

Years ago one of the best thing I did for advertising for myself was to go to a car show and set up a demonstration. I asked the main show organizer if I could set up a demonstration table. In return I offered any car club member 10% off paint correction/details. I took a black hood. Some 2000 grit sandpaper. A polisher. And what I needed to buff out the sanding marks. Also took a good light and had people look for swirls on their own vehicles if they wanted after. Ended up just about sanding the paint off a junk hood that day and 3 weeks of business solidly booked. Talked shop with a bunch of guys and explained paint correction with them. Ended up being one of the best things I ever did. Years later a lot of the guys are still repeat business. I also helped some guys get what they needed to do it themselves.

[Belo]

I'd rather have a flyer under my wiper than that sticky thing as neat as it is.

same. dont think a flyer under the wiper hurts anything. just annoying if you don't see it till you're seated and buckled. the cling would leave a mark and piss me off.

[gregpack]

One thing I will add if you decide to try the flyers. The International Car wash Association does fairly frequent studies on consumer washing habits. One of the things they determined is if you're going to do advertising, marketing, and offer freebies do it to potential customers driving clean cars. This is initially counter intuitive. Its in our nature to think "Hey, that car is dirty, lets make them a customer" when most likely the car is dirty because they just don't care that much about vehicle appearance. In my case (automatic car wash business )dirty car customers would just get their free car wash and never be seen again. Focus your energies on the clean cars in the lot. Don't waste energy on the nasty ones.

[sudsmobile]

Great point. Our best customers are customers that already have clean cars. We rarely get a super dirty car and have them turn into a regular. It's like their once a year or twice decade mandatory cleaning or they're selling the car or turning it in.

[PaulMys]

If I saw a flyer under my truck wiper, I'd not only be Pi$$ed, I'd be looking for a mark left by a belt buckle or something from the person leaning over it to insert it under the wiper.

DO NOT touch my truck. Period!!

[sudsmobile]

Just to be clear, I was referring to targeting clean cars through any form of advertising, not specifically condoning flyers under the wiper which I've already stated I think is a bad use of advertising dollar.

[PaulMys]

Just to be clear, I was referring to targeting clean cars through any form of advertising, not specifically condoning flyers under the wiper which I've already stated I think is a bad use of advertising dollar.

Yup. I gleaned that info many posts ago.

My post was a stand-alone.