Joining a Free Car Program
Posted October 14, 2009 – 10:51 pm in: Get a Free Car
A free car program screenshot
I realized I hadn’t given visitors a review of TheFreeCar program. I talked a little bit about facts, the reason these programs exist, and how you can get into one, but not exactly about the service provided by this particular program.
The photo in this post is the main screen in the free car program. I’ve blued out my log-in information, obviously, for privacy reasons. The members’ area is your home page and it contains links to all of the information you’ll need to be successful in landing a deal.
Signing up was easy. They charge you for the service, but you can use any number of methods for payment, including PayPal, and it’s only $29.50 for a one year membership.
The members’ area includes links to:
- Member’s Guide – a set of information about the programs, facts about payments, and steps on how to get started.
- Tips and Hints – tips for making your application process to advertisers as attractive as possible and how to be successful at getting paid to drive your own car with ad wrap advertising.
- Samples – Pictures of example ad wrap advertising. Looks great!
- Car Finder – The list of programs available in your area.
While I’m obviously only eligible for a free car program in my own area, I checked other parts of the US, Canada, and Spain even to see if there truly are programs available in every area. There are. In fact, almost every location I checked had multiple opportunities for both free car programs and for programs that pay you to drive your own car with advertising.
There were other types of programs, too:
- A free gas plan where you agree to have a vinyl ad wrap placed on your car and the advertising company pays for all of your gas.
- In Spain, you can get a new Smart Car with ad wrap for only 80 euros a month. I know that equates to about $119 USD but I don’t know the going rate for a Smart Car.
- Various ad sizes – if you don’t want to completely cover your car in an ad, you can do a smaller ad but you’ll make less money.
Once you see a program you’re interested in, either for a free car or an offer to get paid to drive your own car with advertising, you simply click the apply button. This will take you directly to the advertiser’s application. This is a long list of questions. The estimate is that it will take you about 10 minutes to complete but it took me about 20 – maybe I was over-thinking.
The questions include things about your driving habits but also questions about your lifestyle which give an indication of how much you drive. For example, there’s a question about whether or not you drive your kids to sports practice. I assume, if you do, that’s a good sign because the ad wrap on the car gets exposed to more viewers.
Now, here was the best part:
You can make as much as $3200/month by performing extra services like handing out free samples or driving the car to organized events. So, you get a free car or a monthly check for advertising on your own car AND you can easily earn more money by doing some easy, extra work.
I did not see any stipulation that you couldn’t apply for multiple programs to increase your chances of being accepted which means you get the ability to apply to a number of possible advertisers all at the same time which will improve your chances of finding a free car program that works for you.
Well worth the $2.46/month I paid for the membership. Oh, and I almost forgot one of the best parts!!! Let’s say you sign up – you’re also given information on how to refer your friends and family for a referral fee. Get two of your friends to join and you’ve more than covered the cost of your own membership. Already called my brother in New York.
No Comments | Tags: application, free car program directory, free car programs, get paid for advertising on your car, joining a free car program, tipsGet Paid to Advertise on Your Car – Cover Car Payments
Posted October 12, 2009 – 3:28 pm in: Advertise on Your Car
How would you like to get paid to advertise on your car? Instead of getting a free car, these marketing programs like TheFreeCar match you up with advertisers who want that nice, blank space on your car – particularly if you live in a major city and drive a lot of miles.
You have to do some work up front. Sign up for their service so you’re eligible to be entered into their list of drivers, fill out some paperwork, etc. Once you’re approved and once you’re matched with an ad campaign, the rest is taken care of for you. The marketing firm or advertiser will arrange for the ad wrap to be applied to your car and the terms of the ad campaign are outlined in advance. The ad wrap comes off easily when the program ends and you get money each month (depending on the deal). Hundreds of dollars, in most cases.
These are some of the most popular arrangements. First, you’re driving around anyway. Might as well make that car earn its way, while you’re at it. Second, if you live in a big city or drive lots of miles, you’re the type of roaming billboard these companies are looking for. As I mentioned before, TheFreeCar charges a membership fee for you to join. What I didn’t realize was that it works out to just a couple of dollars a month. A couple dollars a month makes you eligible to get paid to advertise on your car for hundreds of dollars. That’s a shot worth taking.
Photo by: Jeff K
3 Comments | Tags: car wrap advertising, get paid to advertise on your car, paid to advertise on carFree Car Programs
Posted October 12, 2009 – 11:51 am in: Free Car Program Information
Free Car Keys photo by Caitlinator
Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Free car programs. Get a free car for simply helping a company spread the word about their products and services. Guess what - it’s true.
Signing up is simple enough. Find a free car program – like TheFreeCar – join their service, fill out the paperwork and start looking for matches to your location. Could it really be that simple?
It appears so, but a little knowledge never hurt.
Let’s be clear about a few facts:
There are several of these programs available and many top name brands looking to advertise their company on autos and vehicles by having you drive those cars around as you would normally.
It’s a tried, true, and tested advertising strategy which has been around since the late ’90s. Stories started appearing in the news about real people driving free cars or putting advertising on their cars in 2000.
It’s such an ingenious concept. Think about it. Advertising costs large companies hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. For the cost of a car and some ad wrap, they can be exposing their company to thousands of consumers every day. What a huge marketing save!
There are two ways of going about this, though. Some companies provide the car and the advertising is already in place. These aren’t trashy cars, either! It doesn’t help for a company to put a great ad out there and throw it on a clunker. These are very nice, clean, well maintained cars.
The other way of getting a free car is to actually use your own, existing car and allow these companies to place their ad on your car. In essence, they’re paying your car payment – maybe even covering some of your driving expenses. It’s just like getting a free car.
The challenge is, you and I read these facts and we want in. Who wouldn’t? In today’s economy, any extra money coming our way is a damn, good thing! That’s the problem. There’s more of us than there are of them – the advertisers. This means the advertisers can be choosy about who gets selected for a free car program and who doesn’t.
If these companies started screening the candidates for these programs themselves, well, it would suck up a lot of time they should be using for something else. To solve for that, they pay firms that specialize in matching the program to potential drivers. That means signing up with such a program is about the only way to get in on the game. And to even better improve your odds, you want a company who’s going to work at getting the most advertisers signed up as possible so you have more opportunities to choose from. You want a company hungry to make thier own business model succeed.
Some of these programs are free to join. TheFreeCar is not. Why would you sign up with a company that would make you pay a fee to join their service? I’ll tell you why. Consider it a screening process. They’re sorting out the chaff from the wheat.
Free car programs that charge a fee for the service are reducing the time spent on those who aren’t really interested in making the program work from those who are very serious about getting into a free car program or driving their car with advertising on it in exchange for money. They don’t want to waste their time on everyone who is interesed because most of those folks won’t qualify anway and they’ll have spent a lot of time and money on those invidiuals.
These prorams need serious, reasonable, individuals who have thought through the opportunity and fit the program. They know that if you put a little money in the game, too, you’re going to work harder on your own behalf to make a good fit for one of these free car programs. In exchange, they should work harder for you. For $30, that’s not a bad deal at all.
2 Comments | Tags: about free car programs, Advertise on Your Car, free car program, free car programs, Get a Free Car
