How can I get more business???

[anonymous]

I have a brand new mat and it is spotless. We feature all new wasco gen 6 front loaders 12 20's 12 30's 4 40's and 2 55's 14 30x30 stacks and lots of folding area. Pepsi machine is on the way and considering TV or stereo. We are surrounded by apt buildings and have passed out flyers. There are two old laundries in the area neither is very clean and both have very old equip. I think it would be poor business to catch them leaving and give them a flyer. What do you think???? I would like to get some commercial business ie motel or restaurant but don't know how to market that. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

Mrs. Clean!

[Kitty]

How long have you been open and what were the demos prior to opening?

[anonymous]

How long have you been open and what were the demos prior to opening?


Hello Kitty,

The mat has been open for two weeks. On sunday we did ok made about $150 for the day but would have liked to see double that for a sunday. The demos were pretty good, they projected better that avg turns per day. I am hoping that it's just that we are so new that the word is not out yet.

Mrs. D2bc

[Kitty]

Im assuming your attended, as you'd like to increase/start a commercial wdf business. Your attedent is your first impression to your customers so be sure your attedant is the right attendant for your business. The attendant is the extension of you and how you want to promote your business to your customers.

You have customers in your laundry for at least 1.5-2 hours while they wait. I would definately have a soda sancks video and televisions. You want to make sure you make your establishment is warm to your customers, you are inviting them to do business with you and want to retain them week after week.

If you built the laundry you cannot have that "build it and they will come" attitude, just because it is new and beauitful. Loyalty does have its advantages in this business and you will have to sway the business to your doors from the competitors. I suggest aggressive marketing if you have not been open too long. FREE wash weekend to sway patrons to your door is aggressive and works for the duration of a weekend to kick start your business.

If wanting to generate a commercial business thereafter, I suggest contacting the local churches, schools tanning salons and beauty salons salons and advertise for batchelor service and for the holiday I would advertise for the college laundry service as well as traditional comforter and bed spread business.



Kitty

[Kitty]

Put an ad in the paper for FREE WASH run for several weeks promoting a FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY Unlimited wash....

You insert the coins or leave the drop box out out...

[Kitty]

Your in California?
I understand this is a highly competitive area? 150 bucks for the day is not much, are you card ?

[Kitty]

Hello Kitty,

The mat has been open for two weeks. On sunday we did ok made about $150 for the day but would have liked to see double that for a sunday. The demos were pretty good, they projected better that avg turns per day. I am hoping that it's just that we are so new that the word is not out yet.

Mrs. D2bc

I'm curious,

Who's "they" projected the average turns per day?

[anonymous]

Your in California?
I understand this is a highly competitive area? 150 bucks for the day is not much, are you card ?

No. We were in the process of going card but decided not to do it. I may be expecting lightning to strike in a weeks time. How would you suggest we sway the customers from the other mat? Now my husband has no shame he will walk up to them as they are headed into the other mat and give them a flyer. I think that I have convinced him to get a TV in there. We have not added a full time attendant as of yet. We were waiting to see better sales and some WDF requests prior to getting a full time person. My husband is the attendant on the weekends.

Mrs. D2bc

[Kitty]

D2BC,

Please do not take offense to any of my statements, as I want to help you, but in turn help others not put thereselves in the same postion in which you are finding your self.

First and foremost, I would like to know who "they" are who projected your market and where "they" are today with the marketing of your new laundromat? I would hope that there was enough business to go around and "they" helped you and your husband and you all had been privy to the actual footwork wth the anaylsis that went into all the decisions and not just the numbers and spread sheets that determined the new store. I hope you and your husband learned what your competitor are doing it will only help you with how you proceed with your own business.

If you want commercial business, but yet are only attended on the weekends you are not consistent with these goals. You don't have a clear plan. You are going to have to earn the business from your competitors not just take them.

[Aromaz]

Be patient. It will take 1 or 2 years for your store to get where it's going. I'm assuming the "they" is the distributor who built the mat. Forget most of what they told you. I spent 15k plus on advertizing my first year and 5 years later I still get people who live nearby coming in and saying they did't know we existed. After 5 weeks open I never heard from my distributor again, not even a call to ask how things are going. Run a Grand Opening about 2 months after opening. Do unlimited FREE wash for 2 weeks. Get large banners out by the street. Big letters "FREE WASH". Watch for dirty tricks from your competitors, such as turning off your water if your meter is outdoors. If you have electronic controls on your washers, set them for 1 or 2 quarters to start. You'll be starting alot of machines and this makes it easier. During the 2 weeks have cans of soda in coolers in your store for free. Most of the people may never return, but they will teell their freind and family about the great new mat in town. Good luck.

[anonymous]

D2BC,

Please do not take offense to any of my statements, as I want to help you, but in turn help others not put thereselves in the same postion in which you are finding your self.

First and foremost, I would like to know who "they" are who projected your market and where "they" are today with the marketing of your new laundromat? I would hope that there was enough business to go around and "they" helped you and your husband and you all had been privy to the actual footwork wth the anaylsis that went into all the decisions and not just the numbers and spread sheets that determined the new store. I hope you and your husband learned what your competitor are doing it will only help you with how you proceed with your own business.

If you want commercial business, but yet are only attended on the weekends you are not consistent with these goals. You don't have a clear plan. You are going to have to earn the business from your competitors not just take them.

Well of course the distributor did a projection and we discussed and felt prior to getting his results that they would be biased as they want to sell equipment. We found an outside company that does demographics and compared the two. As we suspected the distributors numbers were much higher again understanding that they are in the business of selling equipment. Now it is a ordeal to get the distributor to come in and do anything at all since the sale is final. It could be all talk but some of the residents of the apartments have said when the the word gets out that this place is finally open we will get plenty of business. The old mats that I was refering to are both over a mile away in two different directions. We searched the area long and hard prior to making the decision on this location.

Now I really need to give this a little more time prior to getting worried. I let you know after this weekend if the numbers look better.

Mrs. D2bc

[Kitty]

Don't get worried, market the business, and I suggest you give that distributor and that salesperson a bad recommendation. There is no way to keep these slugs from continuing bad business. I would suspect the manufacturers would not appreciate there business. It would not hurt to contact the manufactuer that they sell for and discuss your dissatisfaction as well. Its the only way these guys will learn they will have to follow through and have the attention to detail this business demands!

Now, tomorrow, call the local paper and see what it will cost to run a few ads to run a few ads. You will want a large ad

WE WANT YOUR LAUNDRY ~~~
FREE WASH FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY UNLIMITED WASH
run this ad for a few weeks from now with the date. I suggest the week just prior to Christmas or just after. In my neck of the woods, Christmas week and thereafter are predominately the start of the busy season. Put your address and phone number NEW LAUNDRY LARGE CAPACITY FRONTLOADERS etc. yada yada. hae your Tv's and etc.

Be sure to find to capitalize on the competitor weaknesses and contact vending and gaming companies to put in games prior to the grand opening. Have any family members work the weekend and give away tshirts or laundry bags or soap contact the radio station for opening weekend for the grand opening. Have a chicken picken... Lots of ideas...

[anonymous]

Thank you Kitty,

These are some great ideas. We are going to get to marketing asap.

Mrs. D2bc

[Kitty]

Your moment of opportunity hasnt past yet and you say most of the customers may not know you yet, so you have all he noise you can make now. Make good use of it. Take advantage of all the free oportunties as you can without pissing off your competitors, ie standing in front of his establishment handing out fliers. Put flyers at video rentals, convenience stores, apt complex, car washes. Get your word out. Find the trailer parks, keep putting flyers out, dont stop. Add coupons on you free flyers....go to your local radio station and do a public broad cast....

Hire an attendant YOU GO GIRL!!!

Good luck


PS CALL THAT DISTRIBUTOR, and Manufacturer AND HAVE WORDS about the REPRESENTATION!!!!

[Buddy_Amoroso]

DON'T PANIC!

It sounds like you did everything right. It will take time for you to make your projections BUT IT WILL COME!

It is a slow process building a loyal customer base but with new equipment, a clean environment and friendly faces in a very short time you will have a loyal customer base.

We can all relate to what you are going through because we have all been there before.

Hang in there and good luck!

Buddy Amoroso
Baton Rouge, LA

[pete f]

The location of your mat, meaning visability from the street is very important. If you can not see your sign very easy from the road you will be much longer in getting business. Same goes for parking, to an extent. Advertising in the paper may be a waste of money, depending on it's circulation. A mailout to apartment renters nearby is more direct to your core customer base. I do not believe in free wash or dry, although my first day I gave away about 10-15 cards with $5 to $10 value on them to customers who lived nearby and did at least $15-25 a week in wash ( I had them fill out a survey). We did not do that the next day or any other time. I just wanted to get an idea of who was comming in. Many new owners have done well, others have never seen thier store get to the desired numbers becuase a new store is a bit of a crap shoot. Mine got there the first day, but I have many years in this business and spent a very long time looking for another location, passing up many. Over time you may do OK, and if you hustle w/d/f commercially it can help you out. If you have a nice mat in an area that needed one all you need to do is make customers aware of it, they will come. Discounting or free wash/dry is not needed. This is not to say you can't have a cook out and give away free hot dogs and soda some weekend. Just don't give away your business.

[Kitty]

The location of your mat, meaning visability from the street is very important. If you can not see your sign very easy from the road you will be much longer in getting business. Same goes for parking, to an extent. Advertising in the paper may be a waste of money, depending on it's circulation. A mailout to apartment renters nearby is more direct to your core customer base. I do not believe in free wash or dry, although my first day I gave away about 10-15 cards with $5 to $10 value on them to customers who lived nearby and did at least $15-25 a week in wash ( I had them fill out a survey). We did not do that the next day or any other time. I just wanted to get an idea of who was comming in. Many new owners have done well, others have never seen thier store get to the desired numbers becuase a new store is a bit of a crap shoot. Mine got there the first day, but I have many years in this business and spent a very long time looking for another location, passing up many. Over time you may do OK, and if you hustle w/d/f commercially it can help you out. If you have a nice mat in an area that needed one all you need to do is make customers aware of it, they will come. Discounting or free wash/dry is not needed. This is not to say you can't have a cook out and give away free hot dogs and soda some weekend. Just don't give away your business.

I don't like to give anything for free, but I do like to make some noise.

If it had been me, I would have been making some noise all along while the building was in progress, and I would have been making the competitors notice the incoming presense of the business as well as the community all along with a varity of marketing techniques.

Opening the business with a bang is important especially for a new build. It is extrememly important to entice/sway customer away from their current place of doing business in these situations. However, in a new build a marketing plan should have been in the plan from day one, how to bring in customers. Build and they will come, does not happen automatically.

Marketing this enticement is the key to bringing these patrons into your doors, why wait for business? The best and quickest form of doing this is to advertise a promotion for one weekend at opening. Usually, once you get the customers in your doors it will be your job to retain them each week, week after week. Can you do this?

[anonymous]

You guys are awsome!!! Kitty we did make noise during the building phase but it took far longer than anticipated due to a very poor mechanical engineer. Work done then had to be torn up and redone. Cost overun was 50K but we are still here!!!! I like the whole grand opening thing. Does the local radio stations charge for doing a grand opening???

Mrs D2bc

[Kitty]

In our area the radio station does weekly new business promotions. They will do an interview type of promotional type of advertising. You and/or your husband could discuss your new business and your grand opening on the air.

In addition you could invite the radio station to come for the grand opening and give away prizes. There's nothing like drawing attention to yourself, your business anyway...;)

Lots of great ideas when you first open, take the bull by the horn and don't miss all the opportunities, your new. Get the word out and do it quickly...get the community talking. Got a logo? Get your logo out in front of potential customers...Get some laundry bags with your logo printed up and give away to the first 50-100 people at the grand opening...or maybe something else?


Good luck!

[DuboisLaundry]

is the parking lot big enough for a school group to have a carwash in your parking lot? radios often cover that for free, sometimes they even go live with one of the personalities on site. this will help with people who don't even know there is a laundromat there.

if you are gonna do free wash in the paper for several weeks, only do weekend the first week, switch to midweek later on

[anonymous]

Of course you should do some signage and special grand opening promotions. However to me it is odd you are so concerned after two weeks of operation - did you really expect huge amounts of customers lining up the first day? Two months is a better reference point. My store has been in operation in the same location for 25 years and I'm still surprised by people that come in and say they didn't know we were here (but I think they're the once in a blue moon laundry customer).

[Aromaz]

The most powerfull word in advertizing is "FREE" Nothing gets peoples attention better. A FREE Wash promotion will get hundreds or thousands of possible new customers into your store. Few will come for free hotdogs or soda.

[Kitty]

Exactly, if you've had your soft opening, worked your kinks out and gotten the extra added amentities such as the soda machine snacks ext added as well as the TV's get the advertisement ready...

Run an ad for several weeks advertsing FREE ulimited wash...our results were great. If you do everything right have the value you say you should be able to retain the customers week after week thereafter....

[anonymous]

Yuck, I'm not a fan of the free wash promotion. They seem to be building tons of WalMarts around me and I don't recall them having free shopping opening promotions. I'm not saying the customers won't come (can you really call them customers if they don't pay?), but I'm just glad I never had to do that (and also that I don't have you guys as my friendly neighbor competition! :).

[pete f]

The most powerfull word in advertizing is "FREE" Nothing gets peoples attention better. A FREE Wash promotion will get hundreds or thousands of possible new customers into your store. Few will come for free hotdogs or soda.


I'm guessing you built in a bad location?
The mega store across the street from me did FREE wash for 2 -3 weeks. Maybe you learned from thier distrib. Statewide? Giving away your business is not a very good idea. I built 2 stores and gave away almost nothing. I still have not had the grand opening of the first store, that was in Mar of '00 Both are very profitable and were from day one of opening. I say if you put the store in the right spot you should be up to speed within 6 months. No giveaway is needed. Like was said, does Walmart give away product when they open? NO.

[pete f]

Exactly, if you've had your soft opening, worked your kinks out and gotten the extra added amentities such as the soda machine snacks ext added as well as the TV's get the advertisement ready...

Run an ad for several weeks advertsing FREE ulimited wash...our results were great. If you do everything right have the value you say you should be able to retain the customers week after week thereafter....

What is your experiance in giving away 3 weeks of free wash in your store? what type of revenue increase was realized after the promotion was stopped? What was the overall cost of the ads in the paper, the free wash?

[MyLaundry]

I don't recommend a "free wash" or "free dry" promotion for your grand opening. This is your core business, you should not give it away. There are many other ways to promote your business, but just "free wash or dry" is not a good idea.

If you start a free wash promotion, your competitors may respond with free wash to compete with you. Then all of you may eventually get stuck in the free wash or dry situation.

I also think if you provide free wash or dry to customers, they will think your operating cost is cheap, cheap. And then if you start charging them normal, they may think you make a whole lot of profit out of their pocket. I still have customers think it should take only $0.25 to dry a load.

Once again, if your location is good and there is a demand for a new mat. You shouldn't need a whole lot of marketing efforts to make your mat successful. My mat has been open for almost a year, without much marketing effort (no grand opening, no free this, no free that, no radio anouncement), it is doing much better than I expected before it was built. And lucky enough, I don't need to spend much money, time and headaches on marketing or advertising.

[Kitty]

What is your experiance in giving away 3 weeks of free wash in your store? what type of revenue increase was realized after the promotion was stopped? What was the overall cost of the ads in the paper, the free wash?

First, Peter.... I never said 3 weeks of free wash THAT IS JUST PLAIN NUTS!!!!

What I suggested is a GRAND OPENING PROMOTION for a short duration
3 days of Free unlimited wash to get customers in your store, It is an excellent grand opening. BD's best store opened in 88 where there were other competitors, dated and inefficient at meeting the customers expecations ( cleanliness equipment, amentities etc) BD came in a built a new store, nothing to extreme he even brought with him some aged top loaders. His store is/was nothing fancy. Parking was good, high visibility and on main street.

He ran a half page ad for 3 full weeks prior to the "grand opening"
3 weeks after he opened. With the bold words....WE WANT YOUR LAUNDRY~~ FREE Unlimited wash for the entire week blah blah blah...customers from all around came and he was busy busy he got there name and address and kept the retained the information. He had a pulled from a huge radius as he continues to do.

Since I wasn't there I don't know what it cost him for the ads, nor the cost of providing the free wash, but since he had no customers prior and was looking for customers he was a betting man. And as I see it today while he sits in Hawaii as I type this morning, I'd say he won that bet.

Pete, Guess what that bet actually cost him? What did the water cost him for three days, and the labor to help him with the zillions of customers. Think of the value he gave to those customers? PRICELESS to them.....and well worth the revenue Dave has earned off the store since, I am positive


Since 1988 He has retained most of those customers, increased his business year after year. Now, I hear you all say how most businesses level out and make what they earn after 1-2 years yada yada and this will be what you get but I do not belive this is true in all casas, as I have experience that the pie does widen. You guys just need to open youe eyes to some other markets.

I came into this particular business while in its 5 year it was increasing each year by the 8 year the business doubled in annual revenue with the amount of revenue it had finished in the first and second years. By 2001 we added a 20x20 addition that again increased business. With any addition, you are unsure whether you will simply level your current business to the new machines or bring in new business.

We marketed in the paper and ran an UNLIMITED WASH for 3 days only....I talked BD out of doing it for a week, 3 days is sufficient to get these people in your doors..With new fronts and dryers to compensate there was an immediate 33% increase in revenue.

I'd say a 33% increase is pretty darned substantial. Double digit increases are pretty significant and what was spent was well worth what was acheived.

Capitailize on your strengths and capitalize on your competitors weaknesses.

Kitty

[Aromaz]

You need 2 weeks because the first week won't get much traffic. By the middle of the second week you'll be packed. The cost? Who cares! You can only have one Grand Opening. It's a cost of opening. Make it memerable. It's worse standing at your door for weeks or months waiting for traffic. The Walmart analogy is rediculous. Before a Walmart opens, they've had months of free and paid publicity, both good and bad.

[Kitty]

I suppose you'd have to assess your market to determine that aspect of how long the promotion would need to run to see any results. In the market of which I am discussing showed immediate results on the very first day.

[anonymous]

Were I your competitor and you started a price war with free washes and free drys, I would make it my business to fight you tooth and nail. Giving your service away sends the wrong message to the customer, instigates your competitors, and in the short run is self-defeating. Being in the business a relatively short period somewhat limits my ability to offer the golden advice many vets on this board offer.

One thing I know for sure: this industry is filled with owners who compete by offering services for free. In the process, they simultaneously shoot themselves in the foot and hinder the industry. There are more favorable methods to gain market share.

Toto - who wishes you and your husband the best of luck.

[pete f]

First, Peter.... I never said 3 weeks of free wash THAT IS JUST PLAIN NUTS!!!!
.

Kitty


I read it as advertised 3 weeks for free wash. Advertising for 3 weeks to give away 3 days worth does not make much sense either.

MyLaundry and me have similar business plans, Aromaz and you seem to have the same thoughts. As we know everyone is different, and what works for you may not work for someone else. I rely heavly on the location as a big part of my marketing plan.

[Kitty]

Exactly, if everyone agreed on everything, then everthing would be the same...and that would not be any fun at all...;)

[Aromaz]

I agree, every situation and location is unique. The best thing that could happen is to open a mat and have it fill with customers from the get go. I'm sure this is not the norm. The whole idea of a grand opening is to get as many bodies in and out of the mat, and telling other people about it, as possible. If you don't need a grand opening, great. If you do, then make it count.

[anonymous]

is the parking lot big enough for a school group to have a carwash in your parking lot? radios often cover that for free, sometimes they even go live with one of the personalities on site. this will help with people who don't even know there is a laundromat there.


Great Idea, yes it is!!!

Mrs D2bc

[Kitty]

Please tell us what has happened since the holiday and what you have or have not done.

Please share with us...
Kitty