lean-startupi have a website can I use this as a base to start up my laundry business.
You can absolutely use a website as a base to start up a laundry business. It’s a very good first start as it helps indicate you’re established and really invested as a legitimate company.
Include on your website the regions you’re going to serve, the services you’re offering, times, etc.
Once you have that in place you’re next step should be to promote the business with a strategy of local advertising using online and offline marketing opportunities. Depending on the type of laundry you’re doing this could be cold calling, direct mailers, or choosing specific marketing channels and events that your target market looks at / attends.
Having a website for a business like yours shows professionalism, enables you to have a @businessname email, and lets you run advertisements that are less copy intense as people wanting to know more will visit the site.
I would really encourage very careful selection and research of someone to help you on the website. The main things you’ll want are marketing not design so its important to get someone honest as a lot of this is backend stuff that you won’t have a way to verify. If you know someone that’s experienced ask them for a referral and see if they’ll also check the work after. There are A LOT of people claiming to help small businesses with their websites that make it look right from the outside but lacking on the backend functionality that helps customers find them through search engines.
Word of mouth will help you more than anything else. Other than that most people look in the yellow pages or something local for a business like yours.
Local advertising will be the best for you. Websites are the last place people look and are the last leg of advertising. This is what I learned from my business.
I would even try the newspaper and make a big ad (front page) a couple times to bring focus to your business with benefits on why your business is a better laundromat to go to. You can even get an article written about you (try to make it a positive thing for the writers).
Look at any advertising where you have bought something from looking at it. Question why you wanted to buy that product. This questioning mentality will bring lots of success.
“Web Copy That Sells” is an outdated book for cheap but has a lot of hints to help get your gears in the right direction. I would focus on the questions they ask and don’t take it overboard. Good luck!
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