How to Market a Car Wash With an Email Newsletter

Sending an email newsletter can be one of the best ways to grow your car wash’s customer base.

Here at Pit Crew, we clean car wash pits across the East Coast. When your car wash is successful, we’ll have more car wash pits to clean.

That’s why, in this guide, we’re going to go through:

• Why email marketing is important for car washes
• Some email marketing ground rules
• What makes an email newsletter worth reading

We hope this guide helps you to improve customer retention and keep your car wash buzzing.

Email Marketing Boosts Car Wash Customer Retention

As a car wash business owner, you face a lot of competition. The car wash industry is highly fragmented. According to some industry reports, the 50 largest car wash companies in America make up less than 20% of the total market. That means that roughly 80% of the car washes out there are either single location or regional franchises.

Plus, many motorists wash their car very infrequently. According to a washos.com, the top 28% of car wash customers make up 66% of all car washes. The remaining 72% of cash washes come from customers who only wash their cars every couple of months or even more infrequently than that. When customers don’t wash their cars as often, they have a harder time remembering and going back to the place they went to previously.

These two factors combine to make customer retention very difficult for car washes. In a highly competitive industry, you want to stay top of mind to improve customer loyalty. Plus, when loyal customers don’t wash their car often enough, you want to encourage more frequent washes. It all comes back around to customer retention.

Email marketing improves customer retention because…

 

1. It’s a friendly way to stay top of mind

According to this report by HubSpot, “74% of Baby Boomers think email is the most personal channel to communicate with brands”

2. It’s infinitely scalable

Unlike mailed advertisements or billboards, expanding your reach is as easy as adding addresses to your mailing list. Need to send two emails a month instead of just one? Just duplicate your template and rewrite the content.

3. It’s proven to increase repeat business

80% of businesses in a survey said that they rely on email marketing as their primary method for customer retention

The Right and Wrongs of Email Marketing

It’s okay to address email marketing’s elephant in the room. Yes, it’s true. Many, many, many email newsletter go straight to the spam box or are left unread in the recipient’s inbox.

While that’s certainly true, email marketing has a strangely robust ROI. Some reports have even quoted ROI close to 4,200%. Results may vary but some marketers claim it edges out other marketing channels like social media and paid advertisements.

If this comes as a surprise to you, consider the importance of setting up your email marketing correctly. For the right purpose, the right audience and the right methods, email marketing can be a big benefit to your car wash. If you misfire with the wrong audience or the wrong methods, you can expect lower success.

So let’s get into what makes an email marketing strategy right or wrong.

Some Ground Rules:

 

1. Ask permission to send emails

There is no quicker route to the spam box than to send an unwanted email. That’s because that’s exactly what spam is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a reputable business with the best intentions, any email that is sent without permission from the recipient is spam.

Lucky for you, as a good car wash owner, you care about your customers enough to do it right. Ask their permission to send them an email newsletter and be sure to specify how often you plan to send them something and what the emails will be about. Let them know why they’ll be happy to receive the email whether that be because of:

• exclusive deals
• car washing tips
• or updates to subscription memberships.

 

2. Express concern for their privacy

The internet of the 21st century has become a jungle with data-hungry lions, tigers and bears around every corner. When a customer gives you their email address, they are trusting you that you won’t sell it to a third-party or store it where it can be easily stolen.

Let your customers know that you value their privacy. You can express this is an official privacy statement, or as a footnote on the first email you send them. Don’t worry about using legalese. Just let them know that you care.

3. Don’t buy or sell email addresses

Email is a communication channel of trust and trust takes time to build. If you’re desperate to start sending emails and you don’t have enough willing recipients, you might be tempted to buy a list of email addresses. That’s a quick way to violate your customers’ trust and land your email in the spam box.

Making an Email Newsletter Worth Reading

Now that you know the big do’s and don’ts of marketing your car wash with email, let’s go over some basic principles of a successful email newsletter.

Build the Right Audience

To have the biggest impact, you need to have a willing audience. If you have a monthly membership program, it might make sense to start there. You can also get new signups from your social media following or from visitors to your website. Starting with a list of people who already know your car wash brand will make it easier to get a foot in the door.

But, even if you have a perfect email newsletter, you can still expect some unsubscribers. It’s important to not get too attached to the list that you have right now. Instead, focus on always bringing in more subscribers with an assumption that you’ll have some drop-off.

When attracting new email signups, it’s important to make it worthwhile for your customers to sign up. Exclusive offers for new signups make a lot of sense because retaining a long-term customer will recoup the cost of the coupon.

Another way to get more subscribers is to think socially. Think about what content or promotions would be shareable. When you include something that your customers would want to spread to their friends, their friends may consider subscribing.

Create the Right Content

The best way to make an email newsletter worth sharing is to include content in your email that your customers like reading about.

Think of Yourself as a Guest in Their Inbox

Stay away from the “Me Me Me” of car wash marketing. Although your car wash probably has a lot going for it, being focused on constantly promoting your best attributes is a bad move.

When you send an email, you’re a guest in someone else’s inbox. You don’t want to be the type of guest that would tell an hour long story about themselves at someone else’s birthday party.

Instead, talk about yourself in a way that the reader might find interesting. Show the charity work that you’re doing or talk about how much you love a specific neighborhood that you plan to expand into. Include tips on how to get the best wash or why waxing is a good idea. Information that your readers would find helpful shows that you care about them.

Be Friendly and Polite

Use a polite and friendly tone of voice when you write your email newsletter. If it helps, draft the email with “Dear Mom” and then change it to “Valued Customer” afterwards. Starting with “Valued Customer” often makes what you write next professional in a stuffy sort of way. If possible, include your real name in the signature. Remember, many of your best subscribers see email as the most personal way to communicate with you.

Do your best to “read the room” as well. While staying away from politically-charged topics might seem easy, they aren’t the only topics that might upset someone. For example, if you are sending out a birthday coupon, think of the customers who might not feel the best about their age. Having a laugh about growing older might help them feel better but a bad joke might make them feel worse.

Use Email Marketing to Give Them the Best Car Washing Experience

Your email marketing can be an extension of your customer service. You can use it as an opportunity to make your car wash more welcoming and easier to navigate.

You can use email marketing to help new car wash club members. When someone signs up for a monthly membership, you can automate a series of emails to welcome them. You can tell them how to use their membership and who to talk to if something isn’t working.

Use your email marketing to encourage 5 star reviews online. Having a positive rating online can be one of the biggest attractors for new business. Proactively asking for positive reviews can drown out the negative reviews from customers who wrongfully blame you.

Send Coupons and Avoid Holiday Promotions

Coupons or discounts are a great way to thank customers for staying subscribed to your email list.

Many businesses try to make a big show for the holidays. Sometimes this works. Sometimes your voice is lost among all the noise.

Instead, sending coupons sporadically but frequently can keep your customers subscribed. They’ll be hooked on trying to anticipate when the next coupon will drop. It’s a much better way to cut through the noise of an inbox crowded with spam offers.

Put Your Email Marketing Strategy to Work

With some ground rules and pointers, all that’s left is to get started. Remember to start small and manageable at first so that you can focus on consistency.

Best of luck!