Marketing to delivery laundry service customers is a different game than marketing to traditional laundromat customers. You’re not competing against local laundromats, you’re competing with digital-first laundry apps.
Own a laundromat and want to expand your services?
Offering delivery laundry service to reach double-utilization of your staff and your equipment makes sense. But, this new vertical is not as absentee as a traditional self-service laundromat. It is a logistics and warehousing business. On top of that, you’re marketing playbook is going to need a facelift…
Marketing to delivery laundry service customers is a different game than marketing to traditional laundromat customers. You’re not competing against local laundromats, you’re competing with digital-first laundry apps. These digital-first laundry apps do not process any of the cleaning – instead pairing the customer with a cleaning partner (whether laundromat or freelance contractor) to do the laundry. With no laundry to worry about, these apps hone their focus on marketing.
You’re starting off at a disadvantage. Here’s how to catch up.
New to the digital marketing world? Unsure what email automation funnels BI tools are? Start here. We’ll start you off with the basics before we get into the big leagues below.
Before you start any advertising, it’s best to know who your target customer is. This takes time and thought, not money. So spend some time creating customer personas.
Customer personas are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers. They help you focus your time on qualified prospects, guide your ads to suit the needs of your target customers and align your message. As a result, you’ll be able to attract high-value visitors, leads, and customers to your business who you’ll be more likely to retain over time.
More specifically, having an understanding of your customer persona(s) is critical to driving content creation, product development, sales follow-up, and really anything that relates to customer acquisition and retention.
Let’s imagine busy moms are your ideal customers for a residential laundry delivery service. Hint: They are a very strong demographic when it comes to residential delivery laundry service customers. Your marketing is going to be different than a service that targets commercial accounts like gyms, spas, and Airbnbs. Is a busy mom likely to convert on an ad targeting commercial linen contracts? Likewise, is an Airbnb going to convert on marketing that is geared to folding residential laundry? See where we are going?
Now you need to know where to catch them when they are looking for you.
It’s our experience that marketing for home services does better with pull marketing (drawing customers interest in your service once they’re already looking for a solution) instead of push marketing (pushing your brand in front of audiences (usually with paid advertising or promotions). Your laundry delivery service falls in the same bucket as other home services that your customers use: plumbers, landscapers, HVAC, carpet cleaning, etc.
Have you ever clicked on an Instagram ad (push marketing) to have their carpets cleaned? It’s much more likely that carpet cleaners convert more from ranking well for relevant Google searches (pull marketing). When you have a pest problem, do you remember the ad you saw on Facebook a couple of weeks ago or do you Google it?
Facebook & Instagram Ads
Door Hangers & EDDM
Event Sponsorships
Google Adwords
SEO Rankings
Google My Business Posts
Nowadays, most people head straight to Google or Alexa if they need the answer to a question. If customers search for “a laundry pickup and delivery service near me” and a local laundromat has a poor web presence, what happens to those potential customers?
They go elsewhere. A business with a subpar online presence loses potential customers to competitors.
SEO ranking is crowded in the space these days. And, it’s only getting more and more crowded. How can a new laundry delivery service get started building an online presence?
It does this by providing social signals to Google, by driving traffic to your website, and by providing social proof in the form of reviews.
Google says local search results are based on “relevance, distance, and prominence.”
Relevance: How well a listing matches the intent of the searcher.
Distance: Google pairs searchers with verified businesses in close proximity.
Prominence: How well-known your business is.
Post often. Share links. Share photos. Do not sleep on this. It’s return on time invested is exponentially more than Facebook, Instagram, and all those other things you’re tempted to waste your time on.
Continued Web Development
Post daily to GMB
Professional Photos
Think your website is ok as is
Ignore GMB for Facebook/Instagram
Use stock photos
Topline growth is a great performance indicator of your laundry delivery business as you get started. However, your profitability comes from density. You can’t depend on new route customers alone because sometimes they come from across town. These sales might be easy to close, but do you already have a route established in the area?
Less time in a vehicle + more time servicing customers = more profit. It’s simple.
Route density improves efficiency because it reduces your windshield time. The benefits of route density go beyond the ability to deliver service faster. You can be more responsive to service calls when drivers are close by. And, you can leverage supervisors and maximize their time when they can oversee accounts that are in the same geographic location.
Once you get a base business established with your existing delivery laundry service customers, target desirable work by density. If you get a referral that doesn’t fit certain density criteria, take the time to consider if it’s the right delivery laundry service customer for you. If you decide to take the opportunity, think about how you can build density around that job.
Route density is ultimately a function of assertive marketing strategies and solid sales efforts.
Here are some guidelines to consider when building route density. Be patient – density doesn’t increase overnight, and it takes planning and lots of diligence. You’ve got to focus on the plan to tighten up routes and stick to it.
Balancing efficiency and customer satisfaction isn’t easy. Some customers prefer a certain day for services; others want services delivered during a certain time of day. Many customers appreciate continuity – but not as much as your staff appreciates it. Laundry service delivery drivers get more confident and more efficient when they are working on the same routes. When your routes are dense, accommodating these preferences is much easier. As your delivery mistakes decrease, your retention increases which leads to increased density on these routes.
Target geographically.
Neighborhood-specific keywords: Instead of “Austin laundry service” target “Cedar Park laundry service”
Set restrictive location parameters on your PPC ads.
Use waitlists to generate demand in new neighborhoods.
Think all revenue comes with the same profitability.
Target on a city-level if your city is too big to service.
Service a radius that is too large to reach profitability.
Let customers leave without getting on a waitlist.
Advanced tips for how to get more delivery laundry service customers
Are you beyond-beginner? Here are three more advanced tips to get more delivery laundry service customers.
We offer suggestions on three email automations you need to offer for your delivery laundry service customers. You should be checking in with them to make sure they place their first order, after their first order is delivered, and after they submit a customer support inquiry. These can all be automated at the click of a button.
If you’re spending money on PPC advertising, you need to be tracking these clicks through conversion. Clicks are great but orders are better. Get insights into how we track order conversion through Google Tag Manager to guide our marketing budgets and delivery route expansion plans.
Get on the phone! Selling commercial accounts on your delivery laundry service is hard work. The impact of adding a few geographically centered commercial accounts to your routes can be the difference between big profits and big losses. Here is our two-step guide to closing more deals with cold-calling business accounts.
Delivery laundry service is a new vertical for your laundromat. It is going to take time.
While you focus on building up your laundry delivery service customers, keep your eye on the ball with your self-service laundromat business.
Take it one step at a time – making sure you have a solid base of the fundamentals before moving to more advanced options. If you’re catching customers where they are looking for you, investing in a professional online presence, and making geographically centered marketing decisions, you’re off to a great start.
For Laundromat Operators:
As laundromats move from self-service to full-service, they're becoming bigger businesses. But, software alone won't get you to 15 turns per day.
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