CHICAGO — Marketing can drive customer acquisition, retention, and overall business growth for today’s self-service laundries. By creating awareness about their laundromat’s services and amenities, store owners can ensure their target audience knows about them and what sets them apart from competitors. But are their marketing efforts paying off?
Nearly two-thirds of the self-service laundry owners polled in this quarter’s American Coin-Op Your Views survey report they market their business “less than most laundry owners” or not at all.
About 6% say they market “more than any other laundry owner.” Roughly 18% say they market “more than most laundry owners,” and another 11.8% state they market “as much as other laundry owners.”
Around 41% have advertised or otherwise promoted their store(s) in the last 12 months, while 58.8% have not.
For those who do market their laundry businesses, 18.8% say it’s been worth the time and expense “without a doubt.” Another 31.3% say it’s been worth it but with some exceptions.
Roughly 6% believe their marketing hasn’t been worth the time and expense “without a doubt,” and 6.3% state it hasn’t been worth it, with some exceptions.
About 38% aren’t sure if their marketing efforts have been worth what they’ve put into them.
Roughly 6% say they use a company website to market their laundry business, 11.8% say they use social media, and 29.4% say they use both. Roughly 53% report that they use neither.
Whether they market their business or not, 82.4% of respondents say that good “word-of-mouth advertising” is more than important than any marketing efforts. Some 6% say it isn’t more important, and 11.8% say they aren’t sure.
Finally, those polled were invited to share their thoughts about self-service laundry marketing beyond what they’d been asked. Here are a few of the responses:
- “Promotions have worked for me. However, the people who need clean clothes live fairly close to your location, so they have a choice of around four places they can go. If you are offering something they want, they will find their way to you.”
- “Consistent advertising is what helped propel us to significant growth for the past decade doing pickup and delivery. Knowing your reach and adjusting/increasing your spend is critical to continue growing.”
- “In a small town, like where my coin laundry is, word of mouth means more than anything. I have advertised in circulars, newspaper, (and) online in the past, but the word of mouth has built my business more than all those combined.”
While American Coin-Op’s Your Views survey presents a snapshot of store owners’ viewpoints at a particular moment, it should not be considered scientific. Subscribers to American Coin-Op e-mail blasts are invited to participate anonymously in the industry survey.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Bruce Beggs at [email protected].
