Rent My Windshield

Targeting Advertisers for Your Windshield

One of the most important parts of renting out your windshield is in carefully selecting the businesses you plan to target for your sales pitch. Targeting the right business will save you plenty of time and seriously increase your chances of making a sale. This article is intended to give you a few tips to help make your sales job that much easier.

The most important thing you can do in the start of earning additional income is to be sure that you can get your message to the person actually making decisions about the marketing and advertising for the business. That is to say, you want to get your message to the person who’s already making spending decisions. It may seem obvious, but for that reason, you’ll want to select smaller, independently owned or managed businesses, rather than chain stores or franchises of massive corporations where marketing decisions are made on a regional basis and possibly in a distant office or even in another city.   

Any of the smaller independent business along your daily driving route can make a good target. Those with a “Grand Opening” or "Coming Soon!" sign out front might make particularly good candidates. Why shouldn’t their sign ride along with you and reach that many more people?  Pick up any of the small local publications that carry advertisements from independent business along your driving route. Think of the alternative weekly paper or even smaller free advertising magazines similar to employment guides or real estate publications. You may very well be ignoring them in the lobbies of stores or restaurants. Not only are these advertisers in your area, but more importantly, they’re all already spending money trying to reach people in your area. There’s no reason why part of that marketing budget shouldn’t go to you.

You may also want to investigate smaller businesses that don’t have store frontage right on your route. Pointing out the disadvantages of their location probably won’t help you, but the advantages of having an affordable mobile billboard may just be an idea that sells itself.

You’ll want to approach any business that you target with a complete sales kit, but that shouldn’t be more than a few printed pages. We’ll be making more of these materials available to you in the near future, but for now, your sales kit should include all the information from your rentmywindshield.com profile. A clear map of the driving route you’re following and an estimate of the other cars you’re passing each day can help you to justify your rates. A photo of your windshield and some samples of similar cars bearing advertisements won’t hurt a bit, and of course, you’ll want to spell out your rates in language as clear as possible. Production costs should also be itemized. Offering a discount for a six month commitment is a very good way to offer an incentive up front and get you some quick cash.  

In larger metropolitan areas, where you’re traveling in heavy traffic everyday, rates of 20 to 100 hundred dollars per month are not at all uncommon. But your advertiser will want to see results. In smaller cities or lower-traffic routes, you’ll need to charge less, but an extra 50 dollars is going to make driving every day feel that much better.

Simply walking into a store and asking to speak to a manager or owner is not a bad place to start, if you’re sure you’ve got your best sales face on and your sales pitch down. For most people, emailing a brief letter with all of the information above will allow you to reach far more businesses. A link to your rentmywindshield.com profile is a very good idea too (look for a video tutorial on rentmywindshield.com). But where to get the email addresses? Of course, you can always call, but one very good strategy is to pick up any of the publications mentioned above. More and more advertisers include an email address right in their print ads. And most independent businesses keep business cards right on the counter. Get into the habit of picking those up every time you stop in. A quick email describing your service and the route you’re already driving is a very good way to get your sales message in front of the right eyes.  

We’ll be publishing success stories and sample letters and sales kits and a lot of other materials as the site progresses.  If you’ve got a tip or suggestion on approaching businesses or on selling your windshield space, leave us a comment below or visit the forums.

Fredrick

www.rentmywindshield.com