Stop Pitching and Start Helping: Build Loyalty With Email

Customer inboxes are filling with AI-generated messages and pitches nobody requested. For a cleaning or restoration company willing to send something genuinely useful, that clutter opens a door.

John Clendenning, founder of Carpet Cleaner Marketing Masters, disagrees with owners who call email outdated. He also doesn’t want it carrying the whole load.

Where’s the money?

“The money’s in the list,” Clendenning said. “Stick with that. Put that as your framework.”

Most companies have three core lists: customers, leads and referral partners. Email must be one way to stay in touch with them, alongside phone calls. Text messages deserve a lighter touch than many owners give them.

“I know there’s a lot of buzz about text messages. They get opened 98% of the time,” Clendenning noted. “And by the fifth one, they’ve unsubscribed because you’re too noisy.”

Those lists should be built honestly, with no farming addresses or buying lists. “You’re building authentic lists, real people that want to stay in touch with you,” he explained.

Win the inbox before anyone clicks

Deliverability comes first. An email that never reaches the inbox does nothing, so email health and security deserve attention and testing.

Once a message lands, Clendenning suggests treating it like a social media feed. Readers scroll, and even with a healthy open rate, plenty of recipients will only ever see the subject line.

“If it’s in the inbox, at least they saw the headline. So that’s your Twitter moment,” he said. “Even if they never open it, understand that the headline can make them remember you.”

That headline should signal help, not a pitch. “Sales pitch, you’re dismissed, you’re unsubscribed,” he added.

What they care about

Clendenning points to lessons the industry learned from marketers such as Joe Polish, Dan Kennedy, Howard Partridge and Steve Toburen, along with Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, which argues for building goodwill before asking for the sale.

“Give value, give value, give value. Now you got the license to sell something or pitch something,” he said.

Owners need a clear ideal customer profile and should write for that person.

“They don’t care about carpet cleaning,” Clendenning stated. “They care about a healthy, safe home, a good indoor environment, getting prepped for Christmas or the holidays, getting ready for the winter season if you’re in the north like me.”

Green living, kids, pets and odors all make good material. He likes a short tip of about three sentences, in the spirit of the old Hints from Heloise column, with a link to a blog post where readers can dig deeper.

Let the customer play the hero

“The customer’s the hero,” Clendenning said. “She needed this done for that reason, you just came in and helped guide her to that promised land.”

Watch Project Hail Mary with that lens, he suggested. “We’re the guide. We’re not Ryan Gosling. Sorry about our luck,” he joked.

The goal isn’t an instant booking. Clendenning references Dunbar’s number, the idea that people can only maintain a limited number of relationships. Good email earns a company a spot among the few resources a customer remembers.

“You become a welcome guest, not an annoying pest,” he said. “You become their cleaning and care consultant more than just the commodity that cleaned their rugs last time.”

A loyal customer might open only every fifth or 10th email. That’s fine.

Plan first, then bring in AI

Automation works best once a plan exists. Clendenning recommends mapping out what a new customer receives, what changes when they become a regular and whether the ongoing pace is a monthly e-newsletter, a print piece or both.

With that plan in place, AI can pitch in. “You can use AI to help you frame the layout and the concept, and then have it interview you to get your personal take and information,” Clendenning said. “And then when it writes, make sure it writes in your voice.”

Personal, local detail sets a company apart. His example is an owner who grew up with a yellow dog that came home caked in the region’s red clay mud.

“I know how to take it out, because I grew up in the area. That’s a much better story than ‘we get mud out of carpet,’” he said. “And everybody in the country runs that email.”

A self-described C student in English, Clendenning sees value in letting AI polish his writing. The direction still has to come from the owner.

“People are pushing back against AI slop,” he said. “It doesn’t do it for you, it does it with you.”

Strong writers can skip it entirely. “If you’re great at writing, don’t even use it, because you’re better than AI is,” Clendenning added.

Watch the complete interview or listen to the podcast below