Free 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.
Tags: about free car programs, Advertise on Your Car, free car program, free car programs, Get a Free Car
2 Comments
I feel very strongly about auto advertising, because at one time I was foolish enough to think I had thought up the idea myself. That is until I started researching. Now I’m almost ready to write a book about it. However, what I did with my hand full of kindergarden notes I set off to make my way with auto advertising. I found some printers/wrap shops (one went out of business a week later) ugh! but I continued on. Filled with courage and for the first time my wife was backing this project, subjectively, but backing it. Then I tryed contacting people with a sign on my car advertising what I was doing. What I didn’t figure out was people really aren’t as anxious as I thought they would be. Nevermind for three months I tryed and tryed until I realized 5 drivers over 3 months just isn’t enough. But I still have not contacted my advertisers and the driver-advertiser is like a seesaw. You can’t keep it even but wits make wisdom and success is somewhere way down the road. But this is what I want to know.
Where can I get the money for wrapping my car?
If, someone is looking to franchise, I would like to be in the business because I love people and I think car wrapping advertising would be a lot of fun.
I’ve tryed to get away from this, but I continual keep coming back. It’s in my blood. I wish either I could make something happen or get it out of my blood.
Joe, I have years of business experience – all with big companies, but I’ve helped a few friends start their own companies. The challenge is almost always what comes first, your product or your customers? In the case of an ad wrap advertising program for cars where you match the drivers and the advertisers, it’s my own opinion that you’ve got to have drivers ready to go because when you sign up a business who wants the ad to start – they’ll want it now and you’ll fail if you can’t deliver a driver.
There are a couple of ways you can solve for this. Start small. Talk face to face with the local businesses in your area. I mean small, non-franchised operations that might have a really good product but not a very sophisticated marketing or internet presence. See if you can’t get at least one to sign up. Be professional, use business cards, and make sure whatever number is on your business card is always answered and answered professionally. Cut the deal such that the business pays for the ad wrap and a monthly fee and use your car or your wife’s car if you have to. Make sure whichever car you use is clean, well maintained, in good shape and reasonably new. Bust your tail to make a good impression on them so you can use them as a referral for your next deal. While you’re driving for the first account, start lining up your next driver. College student, good driving record – a great match.
Make sure you’re getting some sort of referral fee from the ad wrap company you use. If you’re going to be bringing them business, they ought to make it worth your while. Build a solid win-win relationship with them.
Another way to get going is to join the program I recommend in this blog, TheFreeCar. Get an ad assignment with them. All of the necessaries are covered – they arrange for the ad wrap and pay for the ad wrap work. You get to see how their operation works, get to know the business from the inside, and see the types of companies who use this type of advertising. At the same time, you’re getting paid monthly for driving around.
The additional benefit of this approach, depending on the terms of service, are that while you’re driving on assignment for TheFreeCar, your car is wrapped with an ad, making it a great demo for you to use during your sales calls to local businesses.
I have, of course, neglected any consideration for the legal steps you need to set up your own business but assume you’re aware of those pieces of the puzzle. If not, though, check out SCORE online – Service Corps of Retired Executives. They have offices in all major cities. They are an organization that helps entrepreneurs flush out their business ideas and will often help you develop a business plan and provide ideas for getting started regardless of how much money you have.
I hope you stick it out, Joe. I am an entrepreneur at heart who hasn’t found the right idea yet but I am always intrigued by the ideas of others and love to see people succeed. Good luck.
Ken