Strong Results From Weekly Blasts

Challenge: To Convince Customers To Invest In A New Product That Would Compel Them To Make Fundamental Changes In
Their Business Model.

Solution: Implement An Educational Marketing Program Built Around Weekly “Email Blasts” To Reassure Customers That Change Was The Surest Path To Growth.

With over 3,000 customers, DRB Systems is the largest supplier of computer equipment to the carwash industry. In the 1980s, the company introduced the industry’s first successful software-based POS system. This was followed a decade later by the first successful customer tracking program and gift management system.

However, these products were simply preambles to three of the company’s more recent introductions: The SiteWatch Xpress Pay Terminal, FastPass™ and the Automatic Recharge Module.  Working together, these products give carwashes new ways of interfacing with their markets; allowing customers to pay for their own transactions, have their transactions completed wireless and use unlimited health club style monthly passes.

Although the three products enhance the customer’s experience and expanded the carwash’s market, they represented a sizeable investment (typically over $100,000) and require significant changes in carwash business model. Naturally many operators were cautious and had to be convinced that making this change was worth the investment. Doing this required an ongoing educational effort. We helped DRB Systems deliver its message by creating weekly email blasts to explain the benefits of self-pay and wireless transactions as well as monthly membership programs.

The weekly email blasts now have gone out without interruption for three years; open rates are routinely in the upper teens; over half the company’s customers have adopted the new products; and over one million vehicles now have the company’s FastPass™ tags on their windshields.