Planet Laundry Dec 2020

Dennis Diaz DIGI TAL MARKET ING

Marketing Fads to Reconsider

When It Comes to Promoting Your Laundromat, Jumping on the Latest Marketing Bandwagon is Not a Great Idea

But it’s totally possible! Still, I get the temptation to buy leads. It seems like an easy in/out for your business. In theory, you buy a certain number of leads, and if you convert a certain percentage, you get a return on your investment. It’s simple math. Except it’s never really that simple. For one thing, most paid leads are completely cold . They have no knowledge of your business, and you’ll likely send your marketing materials into a void. You can’t even know for sure that the leads you’re following need your business. What if they have in-home laundry machines?What if they live in a completely different community? You just don’t know when you’re buying a lead, despite any assurances otherwise. So let’s stop this in its tracks. There are better ways to win leads – like inbound marketing, incentivized customer referrals and influencermarketing. If 2021 presents an opportunity to pay for leads, run (don’t walk) in the opposite direction.

like it’s built on memes these days. For those who may not know, memes are images (usually tied to popular culture) that present a humorous take on a topic. They’re sort of a shorthand for jokes, and often make references to whatever is going on in the world at large. Go to any popular social site, and they likely represent about 75 percent of the content you’ll see. So, as a business, the natural inclination is to try to take advantage of their popularity in a way that makes people remember you. There are a few hiccups with memes in laundrymarketing though. One is that they’re always evolving. Many build off of templates and ideas that were popular years ago, and a failure to understand the basic underpinnings can make it hard to create something that resonates. It’s practically a language at this point, and we all know how uncomfortable trying to speak a new language can be. The complications involved can lead to some fairly uncomfortable and confusing results, such as this meme claiming to feature Bill Nye:

Remember fidget spinners? It seems like 2017 was decades ago, but it’s only been a few years since the spinning fad took the world by storm – then disappeared to a well-deserved footnote in the history books. Thank goodness, right? Here’s my point: fads come and go. While some are pretty innocuous and innocent (or annoying), some can be pretty detrimental. Think fad diets. And when it comes tobusiness, a short-sighted fad can lead companies down a path that leads to less growth and less revenue, or even put your reputation at risk. So, this month, I want to put a few fads under the microscope and see if they’re good for laundry businesses. I’m not saying that all of thesewill always be bad, but I want to at least advise caution. Let’s dive in… Buying Leads... At ALL Winning leads is hard. I get that because, at the end of the day, that’s my job. I have to win leads for laundry businesses in a variety of communities and niches, and it’s… Just. Plain. Hard.

Advertising withMemes The social side of the internet seems

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