Launching a mobile detailing business is actually not that difficult, but promoting it can be tough. Getting clients can be tough if you’re new and customers have never heard of you. Luckily for you, the world has changed a lot and finding customers near you is a lot easier than it used to be!
Your online presence is going to be the key to your success, along with the ability to retain clients and schedule maintenance washes. You have to stay booked and make enough money to live. This means doing good work, as efficiently as possible, and keeping chemical costs down as much as possible.
Set up fair, yet competitive pricing. You don’t want to charge more than everyone else when you’re first starting out, so charge a fair price without going too low. Check the Facebook Marketplace and look at other mobile detailers in your area to see what they’re able to charge. You want to be on the higher-end, without being the most expensive.
Paid Advertising: Build Up Enough Regular Clients to Live Comfortably
Paid advertising is going to be the quickest way to get results. It’s actually super easy to run Google and Facebook Ads, so you don’t have to hire a “professional” to do it for you. There are cases when the niche you’re in really does require a professional, but when it comes to mobile detailing, it’s actually super easy to promote.
Facebook Ads let you target very specific audiences, so keep in mind that hiring a mobile detailer is a luxury and not everyone can afford it. You want to target the top earners in your area and people who own nice cars. You want to target homeowners. You want to target people in real estate, Uber and Lyft drivers, etc. You can even target companies who own fleets of cars, trucks or SUVs.
Google will let you show up at the top with their paid ads, but you should definitely make a website before paying for Google Ads. Sign up for a domain and hosting, or hire a web developer to build the website and handle everything for you.
Setting up a website on your own isn’t that difficult, and buying the domain and hosting yourself will save you money even if you hire a professional, as then they can’t charge you for hosting.
Once your website is set up and features your contact info, as well as pictures of your work, then you’re ready to run Google Ads. Set up at least 3 ads, and test it out using a daily budget of $10-15. You can set the hours your ads will run to be Mon-Fri 9AM-5PM and only advertise during business hours. Test out different ads, and tweak the ad campaign as needed to get the best results.
You can run ads with the goal of getting calls, which works well if targeting mobile searches.
Reinvest Your Earnings Until…
If you spent $300 in advertising on the first month, then reinvest some of what you made back into advertising and increase your budget to $400. After a while, you’ll have so many regular clients who get maintenance details bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc – and you’ll be able to stay booked without spending a dime in advertising.
By that time, you’ll have word of mouth working in your favor and you’ll hopefully have a solid social media presence from showing off before/after photos and posting regularly.
Once you’re booked up and can’t handle any more work – pause the ad campaigns!
You can always advertise again if work starts to slow down, just resume your Google Ad campaigns and start again.
Focus on Long-Term Success
It’s easy to get booked immediately when you have an advertising budget, but you should always have your company’s long-term success in mind. What we mean by this is to focus on your website (SEO) and social media presence. Post as often as possible. Because after a while, you’ll have people who come to you directly because they know your brand, not because you paid to get a click. After a while, your website will show up at the top of Google just because it’s actually ranked to be at the top, not because you paid for it.
Promotion isn’t hard, run ads for immediate results while focusing on your long-term goals.
Content Marketing is Important: Every Modern Company is a Media Company
Sure, you can just run ads to get clients. But, to establish your brand as a leader in the auto detailing industry, you need to produce content. That means sharing all your before/after photos, recording videos and/or writing articles. Use your website as a platform to educate others on auto detailing, as this will make you look like an expert and build trust.
Customers will appreciate that you’re an expert and willing to publish DIY guides, making them more likely to purchase your services. You might think, “wait, but if I show them how to do it they won’t need me”… but look, there are people looking up detailing services to hire someone, and there are people looking up auto detailing to learn. You can win them both over.
Getting that content out and positioning yourself as an expert will make Google and other search engines rank your site at the top! That’s right, no more paying for ads in order to get in front of a larger audience.
The AutoPros.online team is dedicated to bringing you high quality automotive content for professionals and car enthusiasts, with topics like auto detailing, performance modifiations, repairs and automotive news.
