The dry cleaners in my neighborhood are suffering from the recession. Both of the cleaners I frequent have canceled same day service on Saturdays. Last May, my local told me that she used to press 40 pairs of khakis a day, now just 7 or 8. At $6 each, that’s a couple thousand dollars of monthly revenue – and that’s just the khakis. Add in the shirts, blouses, sweaters et al that are part of ‘business casual’ and it’s obvious that a lot of money is off the table for these businesses.
Despite this I’m yet to see a dry cleaner go on the offensive to increase their revenue or take market share. I’m sure many think that location is enough to take customers and get loyalty. It’s not. I travel all over my town every day. If Purple Tie shows up in the workplace, that would automatically become a good candidate to steal my business.
The lifetime value of a customer is potentially huge. Even in these slower times, my household easily spends $500 annually on its dry cleaning. Knowing little about the business, I have to imagine that the margins are pretty good, possibly as much as 50%. This implies that a customer in your neighborhood who visits your business for five years is worth well over $1000 to you. So it’s amazing that dry cleaners do so little to attract customers and retain them.
So after the jump here are a few modest low-cost proposals for marketing a dry cleaning business to bring in new customers and keep them: