Case Study - $30,000+ Revenue in 4 Months: Building a Mobile Car Detailing Brand from Scratch

Overview

In their first year of business, Detaild approached us with zero customers and no sales, needing assistance to build their brand from the ground up. We crafted a comprehensive plan spanning local SEO, social media marketing, paid advertising, and tangible assets like flyers and door hangers, to drive customer acquisition and kickstart their journey in the market.

Understanding the Problem

Launching in a competitive market, Detaild started as just an idea, with no customers, no sales, and limited knowledge on how to acquire customers.

This meant we were starting from scratch—they didn't even have a domain name yet. We were truly beginning at step 1.

But they knew what they wanted to do, offer professional mobile car detailing services to nearby customers.

So, we had to develop a comprehensive, top-to-bottom strategy to ensure their success and generate enough leads to sustain the business.

The Solution: A Top-to-Bottom Marketing Strategy for Lead Generation

To start, we needed to get their name out there and secure their first clients.

So, we collaborated with their team to create and finalize branding assets, which laid the foundation for the web design and other marketing materials. With these in place, we began building Detaild's digital and physical presence from the ground up.

This process involved a thorough analysis of data, including competitor analysis, keyword research, and content audits. These steps helped us identify the best strategies to optimize their online presence from the start through local SEO.

Once we gathered the necessary data, we started developing a custom website for them, which kicked off their SEO campaign. By creating local SEO location pages, strategic service pages, and optimizing the content site-wide, we targeted specific high-intent keywords that we had identified earlier.

On this website, we aimed to stand out and enhance the customer experience by making it as user-friendly as possible. To achieve this, we built a custom booking system to streamline their business operations, with a specific focus on managing appointment scheduling. More details on that later.

Beyond digital efforts, we also created physical assets to promote their services locally and expand brand awareness. Additionally, we developed a paid media strategy to further enhance their brand visibility and generate qualified leads.

Developing a Custom Website with an Online Booking Tool

To kick off this project, we first developed a branding strategy that would be consistent across all marketing materials. We aimed for a design that was clean, professional, and distinctive.

Here's what we came up with:

Once the branding was finalized, we moved on to designing a custom website.

While building the website, we decided to create an in-house booking tool to streamline appointment scheduling. During its development, we integrated an extensive database that stores information on every car make and model.

While scheduling an appointment on the website, users can select their specific car make and model. Once selected, the site displays an image of their vehicle along with three personalized mobile car detailing service packages.

These packages were pre-configured in collaboration with their team, allowing them to set pricing based on the specific vehicle the customer owns. Essentially, whether the vehicle is a large SUV or a small two-door coupe, the pricing adjusts accordingly, as the time required for the service varies.

This unique online booking tool offers customers immediate online quotes, eliminating the need for phone calls and simplifying the booking process compared to the more cumbersome methods used by other businesses.

This innovation significantly enhanced the user experience, driving increased engagement and conversions.

Our goal was to help them streamline their operations, and this tool successfully achieved that.

Implementing Local SEO Strategies

The next step in our web development process involved implementing local SEO strategies to enhance Detaild's online presence in local search results.

Due to this, we crafted SEO-optimized service pages to generate traffic for the various services Detaild offered, ensuring that potential customers could easily find the specific care solutions they were seeking.

Additionally, we created location landing pages for each area where Detaild operated, strategically driving traffic from different regions and boosting overall visibility.

Each page of the website was strategically tailored to rank for the high-intent keywords we targeted.

We also performed additional SEO enhancements, including listing them in local citations, relevant directories, and creating an optimized Google Business Profile.

The image below showcases the area pages we created to highlight the different towns where Detaild offers its mobile car detailing services.

Using Branded Gift Boxes to Drive Referrals and Loyalty

As the business was just starting out, we aimed to differentiate ourselves from the competitors.

Understanding the importance of tangible touchpoints, we curated a gift box for customers. Our goal was to create something memorable that would foster loyalty and help them remember us.

We created all the designs and sourced the materials, getting the cost down to just $5/box. This box, etched with Detaild's branding, included:

• Branded cardboard box

• Branded lanyards

• Embroidered keychains showcasing the brand

• A $25 coupon to foster word-of-mouth referrals

• A "thank you" postcard featuring a QR code to prompt customer reviews

• Custom stickers and business cards to further the brand's reach

These boxes weren't just for fun; they were a part of our overall strategy to help Detaild attract more clients.

How We Increased Customer Retention and Referrals

We instructed their team to give this box to each customer after the service. This not only distinguished Detaild from hobbyist side hustles but also solidified its image as a professional, customer-centric business.

Additionally, these boxes were strategically crafted to achieve a few key objectives:

1. Generate Google reviews through a thank you postcard featuring a QR code for easy access.

2. Encourage word-of-mouth referrals with a $25 coupon, designed as a "to" and "from" letter, allowing customers to gift it to someone they know.

3. Offer practical, branded gifts like lanyards, embroidered keychains, and stickers that customers could use in their daily lives or share with friends to drive more awareness (I still use my keychain to this day!).

4. Include business cards to make it easier for customers to contact us again in the future.

The inclusion of these tangible assets amplified customer appreciation, increased the amount of tips received, generated more word-of-mouth referrals, and enhanced the customers' overall experience with Detaild.

Using Paid Advertising to Generate Qualified Leads

Next, we needed to jumpstart brand awareness for the business, as it was still unknown to the public.

Our digital marketing strategy included targeted paid media campaigns on social media platforms, particularly through Facebook ads, to boost visibility and engagement.

By continuously testing and optimizing various ad copies and creatives, we were able to identify a winning set of ads that we could scale effectively.

With these ads, we achieved an average Cost Per Lead (CPL) of $4.59.

With the company being so new and having a limited budget, we managed to generate approximately 6 leads per day with just a small average daily spend of $27. Over the course of the 84-day campaign, this strategy totaled 496 leads.

Creating Physical Marketing Assets to Drive Awareness

Given that this was a mobile detailing business, our ideal audience consisted of vehicle owners who could afford the service and preferred paying someone else to clean their vehicle rather than doing it themselves.

Through our research, we discovered that a significant portion of our target customers would not be active on social media. As a result, our Facebook ads were designed to reach only a select percentage of the total customer base.

Because of this, we decided to implement a physical marketing strategy as well. We designed custom graphics and provided Detaild with flyers, door hangers, business cards, employee merchandise, and other assets.

These assets were designed to help the brand stand out in the physical world and reach a different segment of customers.

In addition to creating the door hangers, we implemented UTM tracking to measure their effectiveness. Each door hanger featured a unique QR code, enabling us to track the number of scans and conversions directly.

This data enabled us to assess the effectiveness of the door hangers and make necessary adjustments to the campaign (these performed surprisingly well).

Client Testimonial

The Results: A Lead Generation Machine

The work we did for Detaild successfully kickstarted a local service-based business from the ground up.

By employing a hybrid marketing strategy that combined both digital and physical solutions, we were able to effectively reach our target audience and get the business in front of the right people.

So, what happened when these strategies were implemented?

Well, the company became profitable in its debut season!

The combination of digital and physical marketing efforts led to increased brand awareness, consistent lead generation, and a growing customer base for Detaild, establishing it as a successful local service provider.

The Detaild crew were able to focus on providing high-quality work while the leads consistently flowed in from our marketing efforts.

Here are the results: