How to Develop a Recognizable Car Wash Brand
You need to develop a recognizable car wash brand when you want to stand out among other car washes in your area. It is easy to get caught up in everything that makes your car wash different from the competition. However, you need to narrow down your focus and determine what makes your car wash business unique from all the others to build the best car wash brand.What Is Your Car Wash Brand?
You first need to understand what a car wash brand is and how it relates to your business. Many people mistakenly assume their brand is the same as their logo, colors used to identify their business, or even catchy slogans. While these things are essential parts of your car wash service business plan, they are not your car wash brand.So, what exactly is a brand? A brand is an intangible marketing and business concept used by consumers to help identify a specific service, product, or company. Brands help shape consumers’ impressions of businesses, their services, and their products.
Furthermore, brands help companies develop brand identity within their respective industries to create a competitive advantage over competitors.
How Do You Build a Car Wash Brand?
The first place to start building a car wash brand is to think about your brand identity. Brand identity uses various marketing and advertising techniques to promote your car wash, such as an easily noticeable logo, a catchy slogan, unique color schemes, and outstanding customer service. The combination of these things helps create brand identity.For example, if you were to see an apple with a bite taken out of the right side, you would automatically recognize this logo as being associated with Apple. Additionally, seeing the logo should be associated with exceptional products, quality service, or even an emotional response that makes you smile. It is these things that make a brand.
So, what do you need to do to build your car wash brand?
Step 1: Plan
It is essential to create a color scheme for your car wash along with a logo. A logo could be an image or the name of your car wash with some graphic enhancements. Think about how your color scheme and logo will be used on marketing materials, car wash signage, car wash uniforms, social media, and your website. Most importantly, make sure you like what you create.Step 2: Be Consistent
Consistency is key to developing the best car wash brand. Unfortunately, some businesses fall short in this area because they use their business name on certain marketing materials, a logo on another, and different color schemes. Think about how confusing that would be for customers.For your car wash, you want to think about how your color scheme and logo are applied to all aspects of your car wash, including menu boards, vacuum stations, wash stations, wash tunnels, street signs, canopies, customer waiting areas, etc. Everything should match and be consistent.
Step 3: Keep It Simple
People have shorter attention spans today than they did a decade ago. They are constantly being bombarded with marketing messages on social media, through text messages, online, etc. As a result, you have less than 10 seconds to get your message across as it relates to your brand. So, you need to keep things as simple as possible.Step 4: Customize
When developing your brand, it is easy to stray and focus on specific products or services you offer that could be associated with another major brand. For example, if your car wash uses Armor All products, it can be tempting to promote the Armor All brand with your car wash. Unfortunately, what customers will remember is Armor All, not your brand.While mentioning you feature Armor All products on menu boards and certain marketing materials would be acceptable, it should not be the highlight of your branding. Instead, you want to focus on customizing your brand and making it the focal point of your car wash business.
Step 5: Get Feedback
Once you create a car wash brand, you want to test it out and gather feedback from your employees and customers. Some key questions to ask include:- How memorable is the brand?
- Would you know the car wash associated with the brand?
- How does the brand make you feel?
- What would you change about the brand to make it more recognizable?
Step 6: Be Your Brand
After implementing your brand and related marketing strategies, you and your employees need to be your daily ambassadors through exceptional customer service, maintaining a clean car wash, and ensuring consumers can easily identify with your brand.Building a car wash brand can seem challenging at first. However, if you utilize these six steps, you are sure to create the best car wash brand for your car wash.