Are car hauling businesses profitable? How can you increase the profitability of a car hauling company? Here is everything you need to know.
Just like every other business that offers services in the automobile industry, a car hauling business can be profitable as long as all other factors that will aid the profitability of the business are put in place.
What is a Car Hauling Service?
Car hauling services are part of the automobile towing industry and players in this industry generally tow light or heavy motor vehicles over short and long distances. Car hauling companies may also provide incidental services, such as storage and emergency road repair services.
A car hauling business can indeed be profitable, but in order to grow the business to become profitable, here are some tips you can follow to achieve it;
12 Ways to Increase the Profitability of your Car Hauling Business
1. Create and Promote Special Packages on a Regular Basis
One of the ways that you can make your car hauling business profitable is to ensure that from time to time you come up with promos that will be too tempting for customers to resist and at the same time will not deep into your profitability. For example, if your competitors are offering towing a car for $100 per mile, you can go below the industry average and start with $90 per mile.
2. Partner with Key Stakeholders That Will Help You Attract Customers
Another marketing strategy you need to adopt if you want to run a profitable car hauling business is to partner with key stakeholders in and around your location. You can partner with mechanic shops, car importers and exporters and auto dealership shops et al. Please note that you can reach an agreement with them on the percentage they stand to get when any customer comes through their referrals.
3. Develop Mailing Lists and Leverage on Email Marketing
Developing mailing lists of your target market is yet another marketing idea that you can use to market your car hauling service. Of course, before launching any business, you would have in mind the people and businesses that are likely to patronize your services, hence you should be able to develop mailing lists and then use the list to market your car hauling service.
Email marketing is an ideal approach and a means of getting new visitors, as well as maintain relationships with your existing customers.
4. Spend More on Advertising and Promotion of your Car Hauling Service
If indeed you want to maximize profits from your car hauling business, then you must be ready to spend money in order to be in the face of your target market. You are expected to advertise your car hauling services on local dailies (community newspapers), local TV and radio stations.
You are expected to promote your car hauling business online via blogs and all available social media platforms. Make use of attractive hand bills to create awareness and also to give direction to your office location. Position our signage/flexi banners at strategic places in and around the city where you have your car hauling services business (office).
5. Leverage on Short Videos on Social Media
In recent time, you can’t do much on social medial without leveraging on short video content to drive your narratives. You could create a short-but-sweet video that explains what your car hauling service is all about, the services your offer, or you could dive deep into a topic that relates to your business.
Your potential customers might be searching for how-to videos and that will give you an opportunity to catch their attention. And with the ability to shoot videos on any smartphone, this is a free marketing idea that can make a big impact.
6. Get All Your Employees Involved in Marketing Your Services
As a car hauling business operator, part of what you need to do if you want to continue to welcome clients is to ensure that all your employees (not only marketing and sales executives) are directly or indirectly involved in the sales and marketing of your services.
Just ensure that you create provision for your employees to earn a commission when they bring in business for the organization. You can as well create business model that will enable freelancers to work with your organization especially as it relates to bringing in business; whenever they refer clients to your organization, they will earn a percentage of the deal.
7. Form Strategic Marketing Alliance with Players in the Automobile Industry
As a car hauling services business owner, you should look towards forming strategic marketing alliance with major players in the automobile industry.
Good enough, there are opportunities for car hauling businesses to form strategic marketing alliance with other players in the automobile industry due to the fact that some auto dealership shops or car importers and exporters don’t own their own towing trucks would want to contract such services to a car hauling company.
8. Build Good Business Network
Networking is perhaps one of the most effective and creative marketing ideas needed to begin to build your clientele base and you have to put plans in place to leverage on all your networks if you truly want to do well with your car hauling business.
In view of that, you should look out for gatherings where you can network with auto mechanic garages, auto dealership shops and of course car exporters and importers et al. These are the people that will likely patronize your car hauling service.
9. Develop a Customer Referral Program
Another strategic marketing idea that you can deploy for your car hauling services business is to develop a customer referral program that will help you reward customers who refer other customers to you. This is actually encouraging word of mouth promotion of your business. Interestingly, customers you get via referral would definitely become another satisfied customer that will help you attract other customers.
10. Engage in Guerilla Marketing
Applying guerilla marketing approach is yet another creative marketing idea that you can adopt for your car hauling business. Guerilla marketing emphasizes creativity over budget, and strategies are often cheap and easy to implement, especially when localized.
Broadcast your Twitter handle with sidewalk chalk, use an abandoned storefront as a canvas for street art, or plaster custom stickers on urban décor that makes those who stroll by look twice. There is a ton of room for invention here, and you don’t need a big budget to be successful with this idea.
11. Brand Your Tow Trucks and Official Vehicles
If you run a standard car hauling business, you are expected to have towing trucks at least and official vehicles. If this applies to you, then one of the ways of marketing the business is to brand all your tow trucks and official vehicles in such a way that people would always want to make enquiries.
Aside from branding all your vehicles, you can as well paste stickers of your company on clients and family member’s cars. It will go a long way to communicate your brand and also to attract customers who would make enquiries and perhaps patronize your car hauling services.
12. List Your Car Hauling Services Company on Yellow Pages Ads (Local Directories)
Although with the advent of internet, hard copy yellow pages’ ads have been relegated to the background, but it is still one major tool that will help people identify and locate your car hauling services office or contact you when they need your services urgently. Of course, if people know that your car hauling company exists in their location, they will sure patronize your services.