Thoughts, Tips and Strategies to Help Differentiate Your Laundry Business from the Competition
So… you’ve established the “Next Big Thing” in laundromats. You‘re ready to take on all comers and make your millions. You’re amped up. You’re psyched. You’re stoked. You’re geeked. You have enough energy to drywall a basement and then run a marathon.
You know your laundry business is amazing, and you’re totally convinced that you have surpassed the competition. You firmly believe you offer the best laundromat services in your market. But here’s the rub: if your competition has already established stronger customer habits than you have, you could be in trouble. Then again, you’re certainly not alone.
The freezing cold truth is that the best laundromat does not necessarily always win. However, there is definitely hope for you. In fact, the right strategy can stifle the competitors’ customer habits, thereby giving you a chance to win over their client base.
If you’re interested in growing your small business but struggling to succeed in an ocean of competition, read on. New leaders and marketers across all industries (including vended laundry) want to make their businesses shine. This is not easy to do in the face of so many other similar operations. The good news is that it’s quite possible to overcome your competition and reach new heights – if you’re willing to be patient and do your homework.
In this column, I’ll share several powerful ways in which you can stand out from the competition, while increasing sales and engagement.
Okay, let’s dive in…
The first way to differentiate your laundry business from the rest is to publish in-depth blog content. Consistent, high-quality online content is one of the best ways to stand out from the crowd. And there are numerous reasons why this is true.
For starters, most potential customers who find your website (you do have a website, don’t you?) are not necessarily ready to make a purchase. In other words, most of them are not prepared to visit your store that very moment. You must build trust and establish yourself as a laundry expert if you want to win them over on a regular basis.
If the blog content on your website resonates with your target audience, it will result in visitors returning to your website over and over. Eventually, these site visitors will begin to trust you and your business, and most likely will decide to try you out.
I would suggest diversifying your traditional blog posts with plenty of visual content, as well as embedding the occasional YouTube video. If you constantly deliver helpful, thoughtful, high-quality information, potential customers will commit to using your laundry services.
In addition, perhaps consider hosting some live interactive events. After all, are you more likely to engage with a “faceless brand” or with a local business where you feel as if you know some of the employees and have had personal conversations with the team? In my experience, the majority of people would choose the second option.
Along those same lines, laundromat customers – like all consumers today – are demanding more than generic online experiences as well. They expect laundry businesses to interact with them across multiple platforms – including social media, of course.
Given that, you can stand out from your competitors by holding weekly or monthly events on social sites, such as Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.
I’d also strongly suggest hosting webinars – where you can share laundering tips, tout your laundromat’s newest equipment, discuss the benefits of your store’s various payment options, explain your business’ pickup-and-deliver processes, provide a rundown of the many community events in which you’re involved, and much more.
Additionally, be sure to allow at least 15 to 20 minutes at the end of each webinar for attendees to ask questions.
No doubt, if the webinar topics attract your target audience, those individuals will be more likely to watch your content and engage with your laundry business in the future. The key to the success of this strategy is to encourage users to interact with your laundry’s brand in real time, which is something many, if not most, of your competitors are neglecting to do.
I’m also a huge fan of customer loyalty programs. Such promotional programs certainly don’t represent a new marketing strategy. However, if your loyalty rewards are in line with your market’s demographics, a well-developed reward system can easily help you stand out from the rest of the laundromats in the neighborhood.
For example, loyalty programs where customers can enter to win free gasoline, free groceries, free lottery tickets, and free washes are common. Talk with your customers and find out what types of rewards they would be most interested in earning – as this list will serve as the foundation to your store’s loyalty programs, which is just one more strategy to help encourage those living and working within your marketplace to continue to patronize your laundry business. Of course, be sure to find out what types of loyalty programs your competitors may be offering (if any) so that you can provide your regular customers with the best deals and most enticing rewards possible.
Lastly, you need to master the subject of caller support. Prospective customers expect laundromats to provide quick, responsive support options. Simply, if a potential pickup-and-delivery customer, for example, reached out to two separate laundromats, with one store responding immediately and the other following up in four hours, which laundry service is most likely to land that client’s business?
You can gradually improve the speed and quality of your customer support systems by asking users to fill out a client satisfaction survey at the end of their conversations. Go over this data at least once a week, and make any small changes necessary to ensure that users who call your laundromat receive the most positive experience possible.
As you can see there are plenty of ways in which your laundry business can stand out from the competition.
Discover your customers’ pain points and how to solve them. Look for lucrative niche markets within your trade area. Master the art of storytelling to further market your business. Of course, set appropriate pricing and provide exceptional customer service. And constantly tweak your laundry business as necessary to pull ahead (and remain ahead) of the competition.
If you’re willing to spend some time understanding your competition and enhancing your methods for engaging with your customers and potential customers, you should be able to see results fairly quickly. And don’t neglect perusing online reviews – both yours and those of your competitors – as they can be quite eye-opening.
Clearly, differentiating your laundromat from the other laundry businesses in your marketplace is necessary if you truly want to beat out those other stores. There is no way to consistently win big and land a sizeable amount of new customers without separating yourself from the pack.
The good news is that – once you do – you can begin to launch effective marketing campaigns, offering your ideal audience something no one else in your marketplace does. At this point, you will be making regular customer visits to your laundry much more as the result of business skill and marketing talent than just mere chance.
