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Businesses that offer laundry services face a challenge. With more than 3 million competitors, standing out among the other local laundry service businesses is no easy task. While this poses an obvious problem, the solution is simple: create an innovative marketing plan specific for laundries and employ the right strategies to convince your potential customers that your service is just what they need.

Utilizing the most innovative and modern marketing strategies is crucial to stand out among other businesses and to make your business more visible. According to an analysis by the US Federal Bureau, in the last 10 years, the laundry industry has grown a total of 6.6 percent on average every year, so future forecasts remain optimistic. 

With this in mind, an effective marketing campaign is the key to ensuring success in the future. Here, you’ll find some effective innovative strategies for approaching your clients and growing your business.

# 1 Advertise your laundry services with Google Ads

If you were someone who wants to find a laundry service in the area, where would you start? There is no doubt that today all searches start in a search engine with Google being the most popular of all. Google has more than 3 billion online searches a day and an 80 percent projection in the advertising market of search engines for 2019.

With so much traffic, any business looking to gain publicity would be foolish not to take advantage of it and work to have their business appear within a Google search results page. However, because Google is so popular, it can be a challenge for laundries to get a position on the first results page. 

Due to the high level of competition in the organic section (the non-paid results that appear naturally) the first strategy worth implementing is advertising your business through Google Ads. An effective ad will allow you to position yourself among the first results of this giant search engine.

For example, you can see that during the last 12 months, the average number of monthly searches in Mexico related to “laundry” has been more than 40,000. It’s a growing trend, but there are 161 million similar results with that keyword. To be able to stand out among so many organic results, you need to use Google Ads effectively to achieve more visibility without spending too much.

Advertising on Google gives you more control than other types of advertising since it allows you to direct the ad to a specific and local audience. This means that you can target the ad to the location of your business where your potential customers can be found. Defining the location when creating your ad with Google Ads is essential to get a better return on investment. 

The type of ad you choose to make and use is also important. As of now, text ads are the most effective ads in Google for your business.

Text Ads

Google‘s text ads are displayed above and below the organic results on a Google search page. These are composed of a title, a visible URL and a description. The title and description must be developed according to the keywords that the user would search for to find an advertised service. 

As mentioned before, any action taken by a potential client starts with a search. The user types in words or phrases related to what they want to find. For example, “laundry service home delivery in Barcelona.” In Google Ads, these terms are called keywords.

Keywords or key phrases are those that best describe the service or product offered by your business. The best option is to create a list with different relevant terms, taking into account what your potential customers would likely type into Google to find your services. By doing this, you can reach people who are really interested in what you offer and increase the likelihood that they will click on your ads and request your services.

Google’s algorithm dictates the results based on an auction in which all advertisers take part. It uses that auction to determine the ranking of the ads and is influenced by different aspects. Those aspects are: 

• The advertiser’s offer: how much you’re willing to pay per click on the ad.

• The quality of the ad and the landing page: Google takes the relevance of the ad in terms of the search and the importance of it into account. It also penalizes the advertiser if the landing page is not properly designed for users. For example, if it is too slow or is not optimized for different devices, you can be penalized.

• Limit of the ranking: the ad must meet or exceed the minimum requirements indicated by Google to pass their quality tests.

• The context of the search: Google takes the search phrase or words used by the user, its physical location, the device used, and even the other ads and results similar to yours into consideration when ranking ads.

• Ad extensions: additional informational features in the ad, such as the contact number or some other link for specific pages on your site. Google estimates the impact of these extensions on the profitability of the ad.

This ad highlights the most striking benefits of the company (“Save Up to 35%” and “Free service quote”) in the title and the description, and shows their phone number and the price thanks to the ad extensions. Its components are attractive, informative and compelling so it’s probably an effective ad that gets clicks.

According to WordStream, a good ad should be focused on what the potential client wants to achieve with the help of the service offered.

Here are some tips to create effective text ads that will allow you to get more clicks:

• Highlight the most striking benefits especially the ones you consider unique including discounts in volume or home delivery. 

• Use convincing language that encourages your potential customers to take action.

• Make the most of the character limit to occupy as much space as possible.

• If possible, add numbers like a minimum price per weight.

• Make the ad compatible with mobile devices. For that, you can add the location of your business and a contact number that can be quickly used from a mobile device.

Finally, the ads must be optimized according to your business’s location and your potential customers to avoid clicks from users who are not in the locality and therefore can’t use your services. When optimizing the ad for a certain location, you must make sure to select the proper option when creating your ad so that it is only shown to people who are in the same location.

If you want to know more about the types of ads that Google offers and how to use them to win more customers, check out this article about what Google Ads is and how it works.

#2 Get more Customers through Email Marketing

Did you know that, according to Hubspot, more than half of marketers say that email marketing is the most effective way to generate profit? It is not a surprise that this is also true for the laundry business. Even with all of the latest innovations in marketing, email is still one of the most effective ways to communicate with your customers. 

Create a monthly newsletter and maintain contact with your regular and potential customers to generate interest and stand out among your competitors. It’s a good strategy because it works to get more visibility. If the content you develop is relevant and high quality, it will be more likely to be shared to give you more exposure.

Email marketing opportunities in the laundry industry are quite limited, but they are still great. You will see below how to achieve a strong customer base and what kind of content you should focus on to do so.

Offer Incentives

Keep your customers interested in your business by offering small incentives, both in the store and in your weekly newsletters. A good way to create a strong customer information base and get a list of personal emails is to offer customers coupons or discounts within the newsletter in exchange for their email address. 

In this example, you can see good use of the bulletin spaces to generate interest. Mrs.R’s offers continuous promotions for loyal customers where it allows them not only to save time by leaving using a laundry service but also to save money by choosing their establishment.

Create Content of Excellence

One of the biggest mistakes when using this marketing tool is to approach potential customers with too much content with little substance. As you saw in the previous example, Mrs. R’s newsletter promotes offers, contains coupons and similar beneficial opportunities to make the customer’s experience memorable and positive. 

Share topics of interest and strong ads with your potential customers and take advantage of email marketing to inform them about a unique offer during the year. For example, to take advantage of the start of the summer season and the end of the cold weather you could present your potential customers with an offer to wash quilts or their winter coats with a 20 percent discount.

Offer a Referral Program 

According to the New York Times, 65 percent of transactions come from a recommendation. That is, two-thirds of the population take action regarding a business because someone else recommended it.

There is nothing as valuable as the favorable word of a client. On average, according to an article by The BrandonGaille:

Laundry businesses lose up to 55 percent of their customers for lack of good service.  

So, to count on the recommendation of your clients to their acquaintances, it is key to offer a quality service.

But, instead of waiting for the service to succeed and your customers to feel comfortable recommending it, you can offer them incentives to recommend your business to their acquaintances. Within the newsletter, offer them the option to join a referral program where they can earn rewards every time they bring a new customer into your business.

In this example, Soapy Suds offers its clients the opportunity to participate in their referral program and earn something in return. They have no limitations regarding the number of people, on the contrary, they encourage the client to invite as many people as possible to save more when using their services. 

Now, for both the first and second strategies to be effective, you will have to focus on the next step.

#3 Optimize your Online Presence

Even if you’ve followed the first two steps perfectly,, if you don’t have an attractive and simple website for your potential customers to use, they may not close the deal. 

Jeff Wile, owner of a marketing agency for laundries in Florida, says in an interview:

“If your strategies direct users to your website and it does not load, it loads slowly, it’s not optimized for mobile devices or the navigation is not easy to understand, then it’s as if the entire marketing process in which you invested time and money would not have happened.” 

Currently, a quarter of the population is millennial, so marketing strategies have changed based on their needs. Overall, any internet user, including you as a business, needs the ability to browse an attractive website that is easy to use. Without this, your efforts to reach a larger audience in your area would not make sense.

There are many laundry businesses, so it is important to know how to stand out from the competition. Increase your visibility with a web page that adapts to different devices. This should be your focus whenever you start working on a new website or optimizing the one you already have. 

A potential customer who has heard about your business will most likely do a little online research before taking action and having a website optimized for all types of devices will guarantee that they will have the best user experience no matter how they access your site.

Take a look at the Free to Be website. The design is simple but striking. It loads quickly and adapts both to users who visit the site from a computer or from a mobile phone. The best thing is that you have the option to subscribe in all the sections so a user won’t have to navigate away from the page they’re on to do so.

Another positive feature of this website is the ease that potential customers have to communicate with the business. Your business’s web page should have your contact information visible and accessible, especially if it is optimized to be used from a mobile phone. According to a study conducted by Huff Industrial Marketing, 44 percent of people leave a website if they can’t immediately find the contact information. 

Optimizing your website for users browsing from their mobile phone is essential to offer the best service and stand out from your competitors. According to an analysis by ComScore, the use of the internet through mobile phones has grown by 78 percent. So if you do not do this, you will lose opportunities to connect with as many potential customers as you could.

This Portland dry cleaning business, Laundry Care, has a clean, fast and mobile-friendly website where they invite the user to create an account to use the services, or to learn how it works.

As you navigate, you’ll find information about who they are and the different services they offer. In addition, they feature different positive reviews from satisfied customers. This is a great example of how you can get credibility with a good web design.

It’s important to have an attractive and modern web page that covers users’ needs especially as a laundry service since beating the competition is crucial. If you want to learn how to create one, don’t miss our article about how to create a professional website.

#4 Create a Presentation Video

A lot of smaller businesses don’t understand the importance of video marketing in this day and age. According to a trend analysis by HubSpot, 54 percent of consumers want to watch videos from businesses. While this used to be a large undertaking, you no longer have to be a large corporation with a six-figure marketing budget to create quality presentation videos or commercials. 

Today, creating a presentation video for your company is more feasible than ever. The resources have become more accessible and you can create quality videos without investing much money. A camera (or even a smartphone), a tripod, creativity and proper planning is all you need to create a good video with appealing content to leave a good impression on viewers. 

A presentation video’s goal is to tell the viewer about the characteristics of your business including what your business does, what benefits it offers, what makes it unique, etc. It is a great opportunity to promote your company by getting closer to the consumer and differentiating yourself from your competitors.

It is a convenient way to gain visibility and build trust among your potential customers. With a good presentation video, you can share what makes you proud of your business and your vision. You can take this opportunity to put a face to all the information you already put online through your website. It’s best to do this in a short and entertaining way so you hold your viewer’s attention throughout the video. 

In this video from Pilgrim Dry Cleaners, viewers learn about the characteristics of their business and how to use their home delivery service. Since they know that their clients look for comfort, their video focuses on that idea. They have detailed what they offer and why it is so special in a video that is just 1 minute and 24 seconds long.

Before producing your presentation video, think about the features that make your business unique and the benefits your customers can get. You want your video to transmit information but also to convince viewers to use your services, so let your creativity take the reins and have fun doing it.

Once your video is ready, you can upload it to different video platforms like YouTube or Vimeo. These platforms will allow you to optimize your video to achieve more visibility from your objective audience based on their location. In addition, they will allow you to share it easily and quickly on your web page in the “About Us” section.

# 5 Use Print Advertising

While digital marketing strategies are important, you can’t forget the traditional marketing strategies available to reach your target audience. Offline marketing can help round out a successful marketing strategy, especially for local businesses like laundries.

For traditional and local businesses, connecting with the local community and gaining their support is essential for success. This makes reaching out through traditional marketing important. 

Send Postcards to the Community

Design flashy postcards that advertise your business and send them out to local residents to introduce yourself to the community. It is a small but effective investment since you can reach all potential customers who live close to your business. 

Make sure to add some kind of incentive to convince those who receive the postcard to contact your business. For example, you could add coupons in the ad for a 25 percent discount for new customers or offer a seasonal discount like a percent off washing and caring for blankets and quilts.

This is an example of an attractive and eye-catching postcard from a local laundry business. In this case, it is a simple presentation strategy to let the community know what services they offer. In it, they include the hours of operation and their contact information, but the most striking things are in red: they offer one free service to new clients. 

Look for inspiration in other businesses that have used this strategy to design a quality postcard. After all, you don’t want it to end up in the trash. Overall, it’s important to create a neat, eye-catching design complete with incentives that invite the potential customer to choose your business over others.

Create Business Cards

Laundry is one of the many inevitables in life so it’s worth investing in at least 500 business cards. Keep them in your business and on your person to hand out as you see fit. It is an ideal way to network and let anyone who crosses your path know the services you offer. 

Numerous studies claim that business cards are one of the most powerful tools when it comes to marketing. It is a way to create genuine personal connections since it allows you to establish direct contact with potential clients. In this type of business, you can find potential clients at any time, so taking the opportunity to present yourself personally increases your chances of gaining a new customer.

The business card’s design is essential for leaving a lasting impression on potential customers. Consider it as the first impression of your business, it is a crucial moment that can create or completely break a potential lasting business relationship.

A business card designed to impress will not only allow you to create a first good impression, but it is also a good way to break the ice with potential clients. Besides promoting your business, you can use the space to add a small incentive to use your services.

For example, you could design the back of the card with spaces to fill each time they visit your establishment, where they’ll get a stamp for every visit and will receive one free. For example, you can have your business care say something like “the sixth visit is free.”

This is a great example of a creative and effective business card. On the one hand, it has all the necessary contact information and a brief description of the business’s services. On the other, it has a special offer that invites those who have the card to use their services six times to get the sixth visit free. In addition, it is a clean and modern design that draws attention.

These 5 marketing strategies for your laundry business will allow you to start your marketing plan and find an effective way to stand out among your competitors in order to get more customers. In such a competitive environment, your creativity along with your new marketing knowledge will allow you to strengthen relationships with your customers and grow your business within the community.

The post 5 Marketing Strategies for Laundries appeared first on Kolau Blog.

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The lack of proper spaces for washing machines and the dryers in newly built housing centers as well as the average person’s increasingly busy life created an opening in the market that entrepreneurs are looking to take advantage of. This has left many people wondering what they need to do to start a laundry business in Mexico.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), there are 30,805 companies in Mexico that offer dry cleaning and laundry services with Mexico City having the largest number of establishments. It’s not surprising considering that it’s also a low investment business that can generate $10,000 to $25,000 per month.

If you’re looking to open this type of business, you need to know the pros and cons of the industry and how to start it to make a profitable laundry service.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Setting up a Laundry Service

If you still have doubts and you’re not sure if this type of business is for you, take a look at an analysis of the pros and cons of setting up a laundry service in Mexico. As the entrepreneur and investor Warren Buffet says:

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.  

Advantages

• Ease of management: One of the greatest advantages of a laundromat business model is that it’s not necessary to be present in the establishment to start it. The washing machines and dryers work alone and the customers themselves can use them with a few simple steps and pay through an installed slot machine. This automation makes it possible to manage a self-service laundrette by telematic control instead of being there all of the time. In addition, installing cameras in the room can allow you to see what happens at all times from a mobile device.

• Affordable minimum investment: It’s a low investment business ideal for entrepreneurs who don’t have a large startup capital. Unlike other business models, it’s possible to eliminate expenses such as hiring personnel.

• Minimum risk: Washing clothes is a basic need that is not subject to rising or falling depending on the evolution of the market. In addition, there is a tendency to delegate domestic tasks like laundry to outside services due to a lack of time. Couple that with the decrease of space in housing for larger household appliances and it’s safe to say that laundry services have a steady place in the business world. This means that the risk of opening this type of business is small and there is a higher probability of success.

• Possibility of generating extra income with complementary services: If you want to set up a self-service laundrette, there is also the possibility of installing vending machines to offer coffee or snacks to people waiting for their laundry to finish. This is an easy way to earn extra income. If self-service is not enough, it’s also possible to add value by offering ironing services, tailoring,  or even full-service laundry services with home deliveries.

• Possibility of increasing profits through a 24-hour service: Taking into account that staff is not essential for a laundry service to work, you can offer longer operating hours or a self-service 24 hours laundromat to accommodate customers who can’t go do laundry during normal business hours.

• Franchise opportunities: Having the support of a franchise can help you find better locations and access better machinery and premium detergents. You can also get advice to help your business succeed. Although the necessary investment for a franchise is higher it can be the better option. For example, if you don’t know where to start, you don’t know much about the industry, you don’t have time or you want to reduce your risk and make your business profitable quickly, opening a franchise could be the best option.

Disadvantages

• Need to invest in training or expert staff: If you don’t know the industry, you may have to find a consultant or hire experienced staff to establish the business. This can increase your initial investment considerably.

• Very competitive sector: The fact that it’s a booming industry and highly demanded business model makes it more competitive. Mexico already has over 30,000 laundry establishments and dry cleaning services so finding a way to differentiate yourself and developing a good marketing plan is more necessary than ever. 

Is it profitable to open a laundry service?

One of the first questions (and, sometimes, one of the most difficult to answer) people ask when starting a business is whether or not it will be profitable in the short and long term. According to several sources, laundromats and similar laundry services are considered one of the most profitable business models in Mexico.

According to data from the magazine Entrepreneur, laundry-based businesses can reach operating margins of 50 percent and average profits of up to 30 percent. This, added to the fact that the investment necessary to set up the business is low, makes it possible to get a return on your investment in a short time.

For example, suppose you’re setting up a small self-service laundrette with four washers and two dryers. The investment in the machinery would be about $49,500 without the slot machines. If you want to automate the machines with coin slots, the investment would go up to about $70,000.

To this cost, you would have to add the rent of an establishment that could cost between $3,000 and $5,000 per month, plus utilities like gas, electricity and water. You’ll then have to invest in detergents, fabric softeners, furniture and Internet service among others. Even with all of these expenses, according to the experience of the director of Maytag Mexico, Carlos Martínez, it’s possible to recover the investment in less than a year. 

Therefore, yes, a laundry service is a profitable business provided you open it in the right place, offer a quality service and use effective marketing strategies to beat your competitors.

How to Open a Laundry Service Step by Step

Like any business, you first have to develop a business plan and study the market to decide who your target audience will be and what services you’ll offer (a self-service laundromat, home delivery, ironing service, by request etc.). 

You’ll also have to decide where you’re going to open it considering which location would be the most advantageous and if you’re going to open a franchise or create your own business. Finally, you’ll need to decide what machinery you’re going to choose and how you’ll promote the business.

From there, you can follow a series of steps to properly start your laundry business.

Step 1 – Affiliate with Canalava

If you don’t know the industry, it’s best to seek advice and training to decrease your chances of failure and increase the chances of success. In Mexico, the Canalava (a national chamber of the laundry industry) can help you navigate the ins and outs of the industry facilitating the opening and management of your laundry.

By joining the Canalava you get the following benefits:

• Business training: Courses, seminars and workshops on everything involved in setting up a laundry service.

• Advice and management: Accounting packages, advice on the regulations applicable to the laundry sector and management of procedures such as land use, opening notice, adhesion contract and verification of scales, among many others.

• Liaison with federal dependencies: Possible support of different federal and state agencies.

• Access to information of the industry: Newsletters, digital magazines and business opportunities regarding the laundry industry.

Step 2 – Study and Define your Ideal Client

The first step and one of the most important parts of the creation of any business is defining your target market. To achieve success, your laundry service should be built around the type of client or the broad community you want to reach. Most of the decisions about your services will have to do with whether or not they meet the needs of your ideal clients. 

For example, if you want to attract entrepreneurs or workers of medium-high purchasing power who don’t have time to do laundry, a by-order or home delivery laundry service could work well. On the other hand, if your business is aimed at students or singles who rent rooms and don’t have a washing machine, the best option would be to set up a self-service laundromat.

Another idea is to cater to other businesses such as restaurants or spas that need to wash large quantities of tablecloths or towels. There, you would need to have large capacity industrial washers and dryers. It could also be beneficial to offer an ironing service since these businesses probably don’t have the time or the irons to do it themselves.

Defining your ideal client will not only help you build your laundry business, but it will also allow you to design an effective marketing strategy. To do this, you must study your target audience and know it like the palm of your hand. In marketing terms, this is known as defining your “buyer persona.”

According to Tony Zambito, founder and principal authority on information about buyers and creator of the term “buyer persona”, this is an archetypal model that is the result of a research process that defines who the buyers are, what they are trying to achieve, how they think, where they buy products or services, how they buy them, their motivations and when they decide to make purchases. 

It’s about putting yourself in the shoes of your ideal client and thinking about what their concerns, needs and actions are. You can also conduct surveys or interviews with your ideal clients to obtain more information about them.

Step 3 – Choose an Establishment Intelligently

The choice of premises can be a factor that ultimately decides the fate of your laundry business. Verónica Ybarzabal Téllez, president of the Canalava, said, “a laundry business serves a sector of the area and localization is the determining factor for its success.” 

A laundromat located far from where the majority of your potential customers reside, or one in an area where other laundromats that offer the same services already exist, will hardly be profitable. Therefore, when defining your ideal clients, it’s important to find out where they live.

Generally, it’s best to place a laundromat on a busy street in an urban neighborhood along a main commuting route, near subdivisions or apartment buildings, in shopping centers, within coastal towns or in the center of a city.

According to an analysis by the magazine Entrepreneur, most people who use laundry services are middle class and often live in popular neighborhoods with a high population density. Customers who live in these areas often prefer self-service laundromats over delivery or drop-off services.

If you want to get to managers of restaurants, hotels, spas or hospitals you should look for a place that is near these establishments. Keep in mind that this type of customer usually spends about $4,000 on laundry services and are typically eager to deal with laundry businesses so they aren’t as unobtainable as you might think. 

In addition to the proximity to your potential customers, you must take into account the size of the space, the rental or purchase price, any renovations needed and the cost of monthly utilities. 

Finally, it’s important that the architecture of the premises aligns with your objectives. Here, pay attention to the following:

• If the planned machinery can be easily set up in the space.

• If the electrical and water installation would need to be adjusted to set up the machinery or if rewiring and moving pipes would be necessary.

• If you need a renovation project to change the premises to fit your objectives and what the cost would be.

Step 4 – Choose the Right Equipment

The equipment takes up a substantial part of your initial investment and, like the location, the quality of laundry services you offer can be another factor that determines the success of your laundromat. Besides taking the price into account, take your potential customers’ needs and the efficiency of the machines into account.

In general, having at least one large industrial washing machine is essential, since many of your customers might go to your laundromat just because they don’t have access to large capacity washing machines. In addition, they would be necessary to attract small businesses, too.

You should also have at least one washing machine dedicated to delicate clothing to offer better service and satisfy those customers who want to wash delicate fabrics such as silk or wool. If your target audience wears these types of garments, be sure to include this specialized washing machine. Of course, you’ll also need dryers and accessories like detergent dispensers. 

According to Carlos Martinez, commercial director of the laundry equipment distributor Maytag Mexico, a laundromat can be started with six semi-industrial machines and a large-capacity one.

If you want your laundry service to be self-service and you want to skip the staff, you should invest in machines that include a slot machine or a central payment system so they can choose their washing and drying cycles and pay in cash, with a credit card or even with a loyalty card.

Finally, keep in mind that there are many industrial and semi-industrial machines that also include a magnetic card capable of recording high-value data like frequencies of use or washing cycles that your customers usually use.

Those statistics can help you improve the management of your laundromat and implement more effective marketing strategies. For example, you could do promotions with discounts on specific types of washes that your customers use more to attract new customers or retain the ones you already have.

Step 5 – Create a Marketing Plan

Opening a laundry business and standing idly by waiting for customers to appear hardly ever works. Many small businesses fail because they don’t have a marketing plan usually because they see marketing or advertising as a cost that can be cut. 

In the book Return on Marketing Investment by Guy R. Powell, CEO and founding partner of ProRelevant Marketing Solutions, he states:

Everything we spend on marketing should be seen
as an investment.  

Even if there is a cost in the beginning, what really matters is the return you get from our actions. 

To create your marketing plan you should think about what channels (online and offline) will let you reach your potential customers in the most effective way. Are your clients students? Then they are likely to be active on social networks or they at least use Google to find the nearest laundromat. Are your clients middle-aged instead? Maybe they usually read the newspaper, subscribe to a local magazine or listen to the radio.

Depending on your target audience, choose the media outlet(s) that they’re more likely to use so the chance of them seeing your advertisements is higher. That being said, there are some digital marketing channels and strategies that, as a rule, are usually effective for every type of laundry customer. Here are some of those channels.

Use Google to Gain Visibility 

The company behind the most used search engine in the world is also responsible for the popular and useful advertising platform called Google Ads. This allows you to add your website to the top positions of Google.

According to data from Google Trends, people are increasingly searching for “laundry nearby” so advertising on Google, without a doubt, can help you gain visibility of people who are looking for your services.

In addition, digital advertising is one of the most affordable and effective ways to advertise a local business. A study by the Mexican association of Internet shows that 80 percent of users search for information on the Internet and one in three users interacts with digital advertising.

Using Email Marketing for Customer Loyalty

According to Hubspot data, 99 percent of consumers check their email every day and 80 percent of professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention. It’s a very effective channel due to the fact that it allows direct communication with the client.

This is about getting your customers to subscribe to your email list so you can send them offers, promotions and other communications so they’ll remain interested in your laundry business. 

For this, you can add a simple form on your website so that your customers can provide their name and email address. You should also hang a sign in your laundromat to inform them that they can subscribe to your newsletter to receive promotions and discounts.

Once you have collected some email addresses you will have to plan out the content of the emails to send them while also deciding how often you will do it. 

You can send your clients individual discounts for their birthday, offer them a discount to wash their blankets when the winter ends or create a promotion in September to wash double the amount of clothes for the price of one to make their return to work after summer vacations more bearable. You can be as creative as you like here!

Gather Positive Reviews with a Google My Business Account

With a Google My Business account, your laundry service will appear on Google Maps whenever someone searches for nearby laundromats. To make your laundry service appear among the first results of Google Maps, you must accumulate positive reviews on Google.

To get them, you can ask your satisfied customers to write reviews or offer an incentive for them to do so. If you have an email list, you can send an email to your subscribers to ask them to write a review in exchange for receiving, for example, a 30 percent discount on their next wash. 

Step 6 – Calculate your Necessary Investment

Once you create your business plan, it’s time to calculate all the expenses that your laundry service will have. To do this, you can group the different types of expenses into categories so you don’t forget anything. For example, to set up a laundromat, calculate it in the following way: 

• Project: Cost of the electrical, construction or similar projects

• Rents: Whether for the location, the equipment or for the furniture

• Licenses: Land use permit(s), notice of opening declarations, external announcement and registration to the Federal Taxpayers Registry, etc.

• Insurance: For the business, equipment, etc.

• Reforms: Any necessary renovations that your space may need to function properly as a laundromat

• Installation: Wiring and lighting installation, plumbing, ventilation, air conditioning, gas, fire protection, security cameras, Internet, etc.

• Equipment: Washers, dryers, irons, payment centers, detergent dispensers, coin exchange machine, vending machines, television, etc.

• Products for washing: Soaps, detergents and softeners

• Furniture and utilities: Tables, clothes racks, shelves, chairs, sofas, magazine racks, cubes, etc.

• Decorations: Cost of painting the premises, posters, etc.

• Services: Cleaning service, repair services, etc.

In addition to the money necessary to cover those expenses, it’s important to have a sum of money to cover possible incidental problems. Remember that when you open a business, during the first months (or years), income is used to recover the investment, therefore, you have to be prepared to face the possible initial losses.

The only thing that’s left to do is to set up the company and get all your licenses and papers in order to start serving your community. Remember that the Canalava makes it easy for you to build your laundry service by helping you identify and manage all the necessary permits and go through the proper procedures.

Now that you know how to do it and where to find support, you can confidently join the growing community of entrepreneurs opening laundry businesses in Mexico. 

The post How to Start a Laundry Business in Mexico appeared first on Kolau Blog.