Classic Cleaners, the largest Eco-friendly dry cleaner in central Indiana, shed some light on the benefits of online advertising. Shawna O’Brien, part of the marketing and communications team at Classic Cleaners, relays her journey through online advertising.
As told to Erika Arora
Classic Cleaners, a full-service, locally owned dry cleaner, offers odor-free cleaning to the Indianapolis and surrounding communities. Being active in and supporting of our community has been a priority since starting the business 31 years ago.
We choose to advertise locally in a variety of ways to inform our community of the many cleaning services we offer to help them maintain their garments and household investments in like-new condition. We’re a relationship based company and we value the connections we make with our customers in the community. Our customers patronize our stores because our managers and customer service representatives give them the friendly, personalized service they would expect doing business with a good friend. Our store representatives remember their names, their kid’s activities, their pets and their hobbies. Advertising where they spend much of their time is another way to show we care and value them as customers.
One of our tag lines is, “We’re in your neighborhood”, because our 19 locations are adjacent to residential neighborhoods and many local high schools. We chose to advertise on Varsity News Network school’s websites because many of our customers are busy parents of children involved in the athletic programs. Not only does our advertising remind our customers of our convenient locations, it allows us to support our customers by investing in the athletic programs in which their children are involved.
My husband and I were Classic Cleaners free home pick-up and delivery route customers before I began marketing for the company. As a customer, I appreciated the business model and the quality of the service I was receiving with the convenient twice a week route service to our home. Four years ago, a friend of mine, who was a district manager at Classic at the time, shared with me the marketing opportunity with the company and I’ve been assisting their marketing efforts ever since.
I enjoy marketing because I enjoy sharing with our customers and our community the many ways we can help them with their wardrobe and household cleaning needs. I believe we offer value with our quality cleaning services as well as on-going limited time offers. We encourage communication via our Facebook and Twitter pages and we have fun creating Pinterest boards we feel image conscious individuals would enjoy following.
With marketing, it’s important to be accessible to your customers in the manner they choose to obtain information. We incorporated advertising online, locally, because we are aware that most individuals are online via a smart phone, tablet, or desktop during a large portion of their daily activities. Another reason we like to advertise online is it’s easily track-able. We can review the analytics and measure our efforts. We still advertise in print and on billboards, but we want to be at the top of our customers minds when they are on their mobile devices and online.
I learned of the opportunity to advertise with VNN when a sales individual reached out to Classic Cleaners a few years ago. I recognized his name and learned he went to High School with my Husband. As a relationship based business, and a strong advocate for doing business with local companies, Classic Cleaners decided advertising with VNN would be a great fit for the company.
Many Classic Cleaners employees are parents and understand how involved one becomes in a child’s athletic activities. We know parents in our community are going online to look at rosters, schedules, scores, rankings, and activities related to their children’s teams. After reviewing the statistics VNN provided us regarding how many of our customers and potential customers would view our advertisement, we believed this was an excellent advertising investment. We know our customers are already visiting these sites regularly and we’re going to get their attention when they’re online. The high schools we sponsor are Cathedral, Guerin, Westfield, and Park Tudor, all located in Indiana.
If your ideal customer is someone who has children involved in school programs, and are using online resources to stay up to date with those programs, online advertising is going to be your path of least resistance to reach those customers.
Interested in advertising with VNN? Follow the link for information: VNN Advertising.
