Content about Marketing

PEMBROKE, Mass. — Do you have a map on your office wall? No? You should. I don’t mean a road map, but rather a map of your marketplace.

This map would depict your competitors, busy main drags, affluent neighborhoods, any information that tells you where your customers are coming from.

This is not something that you can purchase, so I suggest you get started making your own. Start with a town or city map that lists streets; have it blown up. Then fill in the information that you need.

Obviously there’s the town you’re in, but if you do business in neighboring towns, include them. Put in competitors in all directions. Color-code affluent high-use neighborhoods. Mark in busy shopping streets and commuter roadways. You might have to drive around and explore the territory in order to do justice to your project. The effort gets you canvassing the territory, which is a good thing to do, because you’ll continually make discoveries.

APPLETON, Wis. — When I was a new salesperson, one of my first bosses had a saying about the service we were selling: “You can have it on time, cheap, or right. Pick two.”

Consider having your top customer service representative (CSR) inform Mr. or Mrs. Cheapskate, “Well, certainly we will be happy to let you pay $X for dry-cleaning that designer wool blazer. It will be ready for pick up in July.” Or, “Of course we will be happy to charge you $Z and ruin the lining in the pressing process.” I’ll let you have some fun generating additional permutations.

The reason I’m bringing up the issue of cost is that my firm has complied the data from 2012 mystery shopping results from around the country. The cost of providing service is something we are hearing about from owners. For example, we have been told it’s too costly to:

SAN FRANCISCO — In our consulting practice, we field many questions, but the most common question has long been “How do I increase sales?”

When this question arises, we always encourage the person who is asking to modify it to “How do I increase profitable sales?”

How many of you have tried Groupon, delighted initially at the large number of respondents, but then evaluated the retention rate on those deeply discounted sales and vowed never to use it again? These promotional efforts can be used as a marketing introduction for a new service or new location, but resulting sustained sales are rare. They have the added disadvantage of training your customers to think that your service is not worth your normal price.

So what is the answer?

First, there is no silver bullet. Profitable sales require a multi-pronged, sustained effort. There is no passive path to increased profitable sales.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the continual quest for more sales and profit, invariably the subject of diversification arises. Diversification discussions usually include the topic of disaster restoration, so it might be appropriate to explore the reasoning behind a major effort to diversify and particularly to expand in the arena of disaster restoration services.

Diversification into any new business is a serious commitment, but restoration may require even more exploration than other related businesses. The large potential orders are alluring, the processing sounds easy, and the volume can help utilize excess capacity.

It is normal to have this driving incentive to increase sales volume, which is absolutely legitimate with a few caveats. I’ll attempt to list considerations to ponder before deciding to capitalize on this potentially lucrative source of business.

DETROIT — Wayne Wudyka, owner of 1-800-DryClean, has launched a new franchise brand—bizzie—which he believes will revolutionize the dry cleaning industry through patented technology and customer convenience.

The all-in-one cleaning solution combines state-of-the-art mobile technology with a convenient locker service. Its three-pronged consumer platform offers home/office laundry pickup and delivery, locker-based delivery, and on-location cleaning for window treatments and upholstery to save busy consumers time.

The on-site lockers, or “bizzie boxes,” operate using smart phone technology and will be installed across the United States and Canada in office buildings, residential communities, multifamily residences and parking structures, according to Wudyka.

GREENBELT, Md. — Jared Jeffries of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, along with business partner Shawn Strader, recently joined the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Venus Williams and Drew Brees in looking to make a fortune in franchises.

Jeffries and Strader have committed to opening a ZIPS Dry Cleaners, a Mid-Atlantic-based chain that has built a brand name on its low-cost, one-price-for-any-garment model. Their franchise is expected to open in Northern Virginia by the end of the year.

“Owning a franchise was the next logical step for me and Shawn, and ZIPS provided a safe and promising way to ease into the industry,” says Jeffries, who has been business partners with Strader since the two started their own company specializing in residential real estate investment in 2007.

Jeffries also believes franchising is uniquely suited to the skill sets he has developed as a professional athlete.

APPLETON, Wis. — When my husband and I bought our house, the kitchen had the ugliest overhead light I have ever seen. I vowed, “This is the first thing that we are going to throw away.” Fast-forward four years. We are selling the house. Guess what? The ugly overhead light is still in the kitchen.

Owners are great at ignoring the obvious. Mystery shopping—the practice of secretly evaluating a business through personal experience and reporting to its ownership—exposes what customers can clearly see. Here’s what mystery shopping consists of:

PEMBROKE, Mass. — If your dry cleaning shop is in a strip mall, I’m sorry to tell you that your storefront is boring, forgettable, nondescript.

A mall dry cleaner in Peoria has a front identical to a mall dry cleaner in Miami, which looks just like a store in Portland, and so on. Whether a drop store or a plant, few passersby take notice. There’s lots of glass, a door with hours printed on it, perhaps a 2-foot-high wall, and not much else. Your front matches the optometrist on one side and the tax office on the other.

No one walking by would ever turn to look at your shop. And if he or she did, nothing would register. It could be that your shop is four miles closer to his house than his current dry cleaner, but you will not get the prospect to give you a try. That’s because he will not see you, even though he looked right at you. And that is your problem, Mr. Strip Mall Dry Cleaner: lack of identity.

PEMBROKE, Mass. — One of the best ways you can find out what the marketplace thinks of your business is to listen to your customers. They can tell what level of quality you churn out, how detail-focused your crew is, how pleasant and knowledgeable your counter staff appears, what makes patrons happy about your offering, and what upsets them.

But obtaining customer input is not always so easy. You can’t set up a panel of six customers and ask them questions. For one thing, they might not be truthful. For another, they probably wouldn’t agree to do it. Nor can you have them fill out a survey form, because most will not put too much thought into the effort. And if your staffers ask every customer their level of satisfaction, they would simply utter, “Fine.” So you must be creative, even ingenious, in obtaining marketing information from your customers.

CHICAGO — Dry cleaners employ a broad range of marketing initiatives to promote their business and services, and three-quarters believe their efforts pay off by generating real dollars, according to the results of this month’s AmericanDrycleaner.com Wiresurvey.

Maintaining a company website is the most common marketing initiative, used by 71.4% of respondents. A close second, at 66.7%, is community outreach.

Other popular efforts include print advertising (57.1%), direct-mail marketing (52.4%), e-mail marketing (42.9%), and social media (33.3%). A smaller percentage (14.3%) uses other outlets, including radio, for marketing.

What is the main goal of your company’s marketing initiatives? If you’re trying to accomplish a multitude of things simultaneously, then you’re not alone.

Roughly 57% of respondents say their main goal is multi-faceted: to encourage customer loyalty, increase brand awareness, build the customer case, and increase short-term sales.

IRVINE, Calif. — Several drycleaning and laundry services franchises were recently recognized by Entrepreneur Magazineas being among the top 500 franchise systems for 2012.

Making this year’s list were:

• Martinizing Dry Cleaning, No. 278
• ZIPS Dry Cleaners, No. 325
• FRSTeam, No. 333
• Comet Cleaners, No. 346
• Certified Restoration Drycleaning Network, No. 388
• 1-800-DryClean, No. 427
• DryClean USA, No. 461
• Pressed4Time Inc., No. 481

To be eligible for the annual Franchise 500® ranking, a franchisor must have a minimum of 10 units, with at least one in the United States, and must be seeking new franchisees, the magazine says. All companies are judged on financial strength and stability, growth rate, size of the system, and other factors.

To learn more about the Franchise 500®, visit the Entrepreneur website.

SAN FRANCISCO — The lifestyle changes of consumers (most notably more casual attire), their extremely hectic lifestyles that limit time and/or desire to run errands, and the downward economic pressure in general have all been factors in the search for alternative profit centers to maintain the economic health of the fabricare industry.

I’m going to address some of the alternatives that are contributing to the sales and profit of cleaners. It is important to remember that any and all of them take careful planning and execution to be successful.

DISASTER RESTORATION

Disaster restoration divisions, with their large orders on the positive side, and the uncertainty of demand on the negative side, have been a common and welcome addition to many companies.

Anyone considering entering this business for the first time is advised to thoroughly research the required initial investment, potential challenges of collection, and the extremely aggressive competition in the sales process. If these factors are manageable, a professional team is required to make this business a success.