Running a truck wash business can easily become a 24/7 activity depending on the hours of operation. And at this point we must also consider that trucks travel up and down the interstate every day of the year, and at any time of the day or night. Not long ago a truck wash manager from the United States asked me about increasing his daily wash volume, he was looking for suggestions. Well, the most important thing to increase sales is marketing, but not just any type of marketing works in the truck wash industry.

You see, local radio is much less effective these days because of all the Satellite Radio users, truckers like to have hundreds of channels to choose from while driving through the middle of nowhere for hours on end. They get used to it and turn off the local stations. Cable TV doesn’t work, you can’t watch TV while driving, and most truckers don’t read the local papers as they drive through each city. So how can you market better?

First determine your market segments; Local fleets, independent truckers, long haul carriers, LTL carriers, local fleets, multitudes of race cars and RVs. So, let’s discuss the need for both;

• local grassroots marketing
• Telephonic sales
• Greater Signage
• website strategy
• Future mobile smartphone integration
• Potential use of GPS-powered Google Maps applications

For local marketing (local fleets and large private local vehicles), it makes sense to do grassroots marketing to reach local customers, including RVs, large vehicles (that can’t easily go to a car wash) normal cars) and the local fleets that belong to companies and the government. agencies I use my own proprietary “Bonzai and Blitz” marketing plan (available for a $100 Starbucks card) that has been used in cities across the country with great success in the laundry industry. The plan can be modified and used as the basis for implementing a locally based marketing mission in almost any city.

Telephone sales work best when contacting trucking fleet dispatchers. Of course, it’s also wise to have decent signage on the highway frontage 25 miles away from your truck wash as trucks approach from various directions. It also makes sense to get into the new mobile smartphone app software so it will alert drivers when they are approaching – your phone knows your GPS location and will alert them when they are near your wash truck.

Let’s face it, when marketing a truck wash, there is not a one size fits all approach that is going to get the job done. If you want to increase traffic and daily volumes, you will have to think here.