PEMBROKE, Mass. — Marketing is often given short shrift in the self-service laundry business. Most operators do very little promoting. Or, if they do, they follow tried and true avenues such as Valpak® coupons and advertisements in community bulletins. Unfortunately, few new ideas are ever tried.
If you want to grow your business, you should be spending 2% to 5% of your volume in a marketing campaign. Let’s peg it at 3.5%. That means if your volume is $300,000, you should spend $10,500 each year to promote your business.
The first step is to think how you can spend that $10,500 wisely. Begin by answering some questions.
What is your advertising/marketing campaign going to be about? It is not enough to focus on your existence as a Laundromat. There must be a compelling reason why you are promoting yourself.
Is it going to be about your super service? Maybe yours is the only Laundromat in the town that is attended. Then your theme can be about all the ways an attendant can help you:
- Returns your coins when a washer or dryer isn’t working
- Keeps bad elements from entering the store
- Assists by bringing your load to your car late at night
- Suggests which cleaning treatment is right for a garment
- Ensures that the premises is always clean
Will your theme be about your recently refurnished store now offering all-new equipment? Then focus on the time savings offered by faster work cycles.
Is it about convenient parking, as you are the only area Laundromat with a large parking lot available 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Then focus on ease of access and convenience.
Is it about your special days—Seniors Day on Tuesday, Young Mothers Day on Thursday, College Students Day on Saturday—during which you give eligible customers a $2 coupon for their washing? Then focus on the special savings.
Do you understand? First state the feature, then tell the benefit.
Now, how can you best market that theme? What can you do that will highlight the reason customers should switch to your store?
Certainly you could advertise on local TV, but would that be too scattershot an approach? Another possibility is to do an extensive newspaper ad campaign, which would promote your feature. You could spend the money in a mailing to apartment dwellers. You could sponsor a Little League baseball team and get your message across by having a side table at events. You could put on in-house events to celebrate your theme.
There are all sorts of possibilities. Think about reach, the cost per prospect, the message. Think about impact, the combinations of vehicles to get your message across, and how to go about creating a splash. In other words, what could you do that would get your neighborhood talking?
Here are a couple of creative ideas to stimulate your imagination:
- Give away a bike every month for a year
Call it “Bike-A-Thon Appreciation,” and customers can enter only by filling out a ticket. Announce that you’ll draw the winning ticket from the fishbowl on a certain day each month. On that date, throw a party and offer refreshments of cookies and juice and soda. Put up posters around town publicizing the giveaway. Since it is a year-long promotion, the momentum will increase.
If you spend $200 on each month’s bike prize, that’s $2,400 (buy beach cruiser bicycles rather than high-tech machines so any customer will be able to use them). Party refreshments may cost another $500. Finally, you might spend $1,000 on promoting the contest. The entire promotional effort might run you $4,000.
How will this spending help you win business? For one thing, it will generate community excitement. The monthly giveaway—maybe on the last Saturday afternoon each month?—will really become a party. Your existing clientele will become more entrenched. Secondly, you’ll gain new customers among the people who use your Laundromat during the contest. Third, you will receive extra publicity in newspaper articles or community bulletins that will increase your visibility and win you clients.
- Run a street campaign sending out solicitors to hand out $2 coupons
Call it your “$2 Savings Spree.” Hang up signs all over the town, insert flyers in car windshields, and do radio promotion. Swamp your town with reminders. Once a week, send four people to different sections of your area in four-hour stints to hand out coupons and to talk you up. Do this for six to eight weeks and you’ll have created a rousing campaign.
But don’t just send out “warm bodies.” Train your people, or use family members. Each person asks passers-by if they use a Laundromat—if they do, your rep hands out a coupon. Each worker also recites their one-sentence spiel, expressing why the person should switch Laundromats. In this way, the effort will be focused.
This campaign might cost you $2,000 to $2,500. Maybe the workers will put in 100 hours at $10 per/hour, which totals $1,000. I’d estimate the printing costs and promotional effort will be another $1,000-$1,500.
How will you gain new business? Many neighborhood people will be made aware of your store, and some will give you a try. Others will come because of the savings.
A few will be motivated to give you a try because of your spiel. For example, your rep says, “Your Laundromat doesn’t have an attendant, right? What do you do when you plunk in three quarters and the machine doesn’t work? Money out the window, right? If you were in our Laundromat, and a machine malfunctioned, our attendant would refund you your money.” Such a spiel will point out that the customer doesn’t have to settle for lost money.
These are just two marketing ideas. Using your imagination, anything is possible. Be bold, be original, be unique. Now, go create your own exciting marketing campaign.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Bruce Beggs at [email protected].