Are You Advertising Enough?

By Duane King | Dec 28, 2009

When is enough advertising enough, and when should you advertise? There are a lot of owners who think word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising. And it is, but it shouldn’t be your only advertising. With a wide variety of advertising opportunities available to owners it shouldn’t be difficult to find an advertising method that fits your budget and gets new customers in your store.

Let’s first look at why you need more than word-of-mouth advertising. For a self-service laundromat, the largest demographics are usually middle- to low-income renters, and those renters are constantly moving. Maybe when they move to another part of the town they keep coming to your store, but what about the new renters that move into your area? How will they know where your store is located and what services you offer? That is why you need to constantly be advertising. With my store’s college demographics, I estimate that 35 percent of my customer base moves each year. And that isn’t just moving from one apartment to another, but actually moving out of town. Therefore, I need to be constantly advertising to attract new customers and reinforcing my store to existing customers. Sometimes advertising doesn’t provide new income, but it helps maintain my store’s current income.

Where and how do you start your advertising campaign? These are probably the largest hurdles you as an owner have to make when starting a successful advertising campaign. And, chances are, you probably didn’t even know that you have already started your campaign, even though you might not have ever done any advertising.

Your store signage is probably the most important and cost-effective form of advertising you have. Your sign is displayed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and should be seen by everyone who passes your store each day. When you spread the cost over the lifetime of the sign, it becomes a very economical way to advertise your store. Take a look at your sign and see if it needs anything, maybe new lights or fresh paint – or perhaps it needs to be larger. You want to make sure that when you attract new customers with other forms of advertising, you don’t lose them before they walk through the door with a bad-looking sign.

Now the question is what type of advertising should you spend your advertising budget on? And when I say budget, I mean budget. You should have a certain amount of money set aside each month or quarter to go directly to advertising your store. Everyone’s budget will be different; however, I suggest at least 3 percent to 8 percent of your store’s gross income should be reinvested into advertising for your laundry business.

Now, back to the question of what type of advertising. As you know, there are many different kinds of advertising for all sizes of budgets and needs, but what will work for you? The current trend is moving away from an ad in the Yellow Pages and toward an informative Web page. Cell phones are becoming the main line for our customers, and many no longer pay for a landline for their homes or apartments. I wouldn’t cancel your Yellow Page ad just yet, but you should have a Web site to start the transition from one medium to another.

What else is out there? There are door hangers, back-of-store receipts, flyers, mass mailings, billboards, TV and radio spots, sandwich boards, sponsoring a local sports team, sponsoring an area event, newspaper ads, pizza box flyers, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook – and the list goes on and on. Some forms of advertising work better than others, and you will need to find what works best for your store.

You don’t need to pick just one – try different things and see what works for you. Most importantly, be repetitive with your ads. Getting a customer to remember your ad won’t work with just a single ad in the local newspaper; you need to consistently repeat your advertising to achieve brand recognition. The content of your ads can vary, but be sure your store’s name and logo are consistent, along with the general format of the ad.

And one last thing to think about before starting your advertising campaign – does your laundry need updating? Does it need to be freshened up a little? How about some new paint or updated lighting? How does your floor look? Do you need to update any of your interior signage? Are all of your machines in working order?

After all, there is no sense in paying for a long-term advertising campaign if all it accomplishes is to get potential customers through your doors once – to never return again. In that case, your word-of-mouth advertising would then be working against you, as one-time customers spread the word about the poor condition of your store.