What Can Paid Ads Do for a Laundromat?

Growth is Achievable – If You Take It SeriouslyOnline advertising for self-service laundries is still somewhat of a new phenomenon. For decades the go-to method for sales has focused on community presence and accessibility, but those things aren’t enough anymore for today’s consumer. Competition and demand are as high as ever, yet the majority of laundry owners remain at a loss for how to advertise themselves on a modern stage. It’s a dilemma – although I believe that answers are closer than people think.As a marketing professional, I’m aware that my particular role is subject to critique on a daily basis – and for good reason. Without trying to sound bombastic and prideful though, the experience and expertise of companies like mine are actually the keys to modernizing the vended laundry industry. Such companies rely on a model of mutual respect and success that wants the best for all parties involved. That trust is based on continued education and providing results. From top to bottom, everything I do as professional revolves around those two principles.I approach a topic like paid advertising campaigns with care, knowing that it can be a touchy subject. Touchy or not, the fact is that it’s an important conversation that the industry needs to have. I realize that many companies have been burned – either unintentionally by their own efforts, or intentionally by other “marketers.” This article will educate you on the options and show you that the results you want are actually possible.Playing a Matching GameMarketing is simply a game of matchmaking that gets extremely complex very quickly. As real professionals, our job is to make that process look deceitfully simple. Essentially, the objective is to match your business with the customer who needs it most. You want that done in a way that complements the spirit of your business and doesn’t under- or over-sell who you are. That can be a delicate balance.To make things even trickier, my role typically involves matching up aspects of your business that you’ve previously overlooked. In reference to a paid advertising campaign, we have to examine all of the moving parts – your website, a landing page, the advertisement itself, the service being rendered and the target audience. When you take all of that and look at the big picture, most of the time there’s a disconnect between some of these aspects. Have you really been reaching your target audience? Is the copy and imagery of the ad appealing? Can your website actually accommodate a paid campaign? You see my point.Once you uncover these disparities, you can fix them. Any business can effectively get a campaign to match up with an operational sales funnel, and when run properly, a paid advertising campaign is an enormous step forward. One of my greatest joys is being able to provide the resources for a company to take that step.Measure the Right Metrics – The Trick is Getting LeadsThe biggest fear with paid campaigns is that business owners are afraid they don’t work. The temptation here is to look at the obvious metrics and despair. If an ad isn’t getting clicks or no one seems to be seeing it, business owners have a tendency to pull back and stick to the proven methods. While seeing how many clicks and impressions your advertisement gets is good, that information doesn’t actually tell you anything about how effective that ad really is. You don’t see any return on your investment off of counting clicks.Marketing isn’t just about getting people to buy. It isn’t even about getting more likes on social media or hits on your website. It’s about getting customers and companies to invest in relationships. People want to do business with other people – and showing care in how you approach them and providing real value are some of the best ways to create connections. Marketing is as much about the customer as it is your company, which usually requires a change in perspective.If your advertisements simply lead straight to your homepage, you’re essentially trying to get a hard sell on every single person who clicks on it. It’s the equivalent of walking down the street and forcing every person who walks past to take the flier you’re handing out – whether they want to read it or not. It turns people off. You can get all of the impressions in the world, but the rate at which you convert those impressions will remain abysmally low if you send them to the wrong place. If you’re going to spend money to get people’s attention, you need to make sure you optimize your chance to get money back from them, which means offering value immediately. The best way to do that is utilizing a landing page and focusing on lead generation.Look at it this way – if someone clicks on an ad that goes to your website, your only guarantee is that you have a one-time visitor. However, if you send them to a landing page that offers some type of value – such as a coupon or a newsletter subscription – you turn that one-time visitor into someone you contact frequently. Fostering that relationship can lead to repeated business, referrals and organic growth for your business.Unfortunately, most websites aren’t optimized to allow for all of the tools you need to effectively run a campaign like that. Free (or cheap) website generators may seem like a great investment, but not when they hamstring your marketing attempts. Don’t hire just any web designer. If your website can’t support a campaign like this, you absolutely need to get in touch with a marketing company that understands user interface and user experience design (UX/UI) and paid campaigns. It’s not cheap, but the upfront investment is worth the long-term growth for your company.GrowthEvery business wants to grow. Every business owner wants to reach out to its community and prove that his or her company has what it takes to last for the long term. So much of that depends on putting yourself out there and having the guts to do what it takes to be recognized. Take my advice or leave it, but your growth is entirely up to you.