When I worked as a real estate agent there was one thing that mattered.
Your list. Que, Alec Baldwin, from Glengarry Glen Ross, "The leads are weak? You're weak!"
Your list were your leads and clients, buyers, and sellers. Each equally important to closing a deal, aka transaction, for my former broker Paul Massey.
Your list in laundry is just as important. Building one allows you to nurture prospective clients, stay in front of existing clients, and upsell them on your products and services. But don’t confuse building a list with having a following on social media. That ain’t your list—you’re just renting that audience from Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook (Meta), Linkedin, etc. They can ban you in a minute, and cut the bleep off from your audience.
Any great marketer will tell you to build an email list, but let’s be honest, that’s not always the easiest thing to do in our industry.
Sure, building an email list for your wash-and-fold or dry-cleaning clients is doable. You need their contact information to process their orders and make PUDs.
But what about your self-serve clients? They aren’t as easy to add to an email list, or maybe they are but you just haven’t given it any thought.
Thinking about, the thinking of laundry:
When you realize your client list is more valuable than your store. Things get really interesting.
Here are a few ways you can entice self-serve clients to join your email list:
Payment Card Registration
If your store uses reloadable payment cards to operate your machines, turn on the registration feature and ask for their email address. Keep it optional, if you want to, but making it mandatory will grow your list faster. Now you can entice people to register with:
- Free wash
- $2 on their card for registering
- Special perk available only to registered card members
Giveaway or Contest
Host a giveaway every month or quarter and require customers to fill out a registration form with their email address. Use an online form with a QR code so customers can sign up on their phones, or have them fill out a card and provide their email address. Some online form platforms allow you to verify the email address is real before they are submitted. Or you can substitute email addresses for cell phone numbers so you can text them.
Online Account
Create a portal clients can sign up for that gives them access to information about their local store (great for multi-store laundromats!), any upcoming events (store closures or customer appreciation events), and perks (like discounts to other businesses). Require an email address to sign up.
Additional Perks
Hang signs around your store about your email newsletter and offer additional perks for those who subscribe. This could include:
- Free birthday wash
- Discount on products purchased in the store
- Free snacks
These are just a few ways to get more self-serve clients signed up for your email list.
Once you have their contact information, you can reach out directly with specials, offers, and important updates or get them to try your drop-off or pickup-and-delivery services.
Your list will be a powerful tool, but only if you put in the work to grow it and use it.
That's all I got for you today.
Waleed
🏴☠️ ✌️
p.s. For more thoughts on the laundry business, follow along on Linkedin.
Echoing the wisdom of Don Porter
Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.
