There are hundreds of marketing tactics and techniques you can use to help grow your business, but how do you know which ones are tried, tested, and proven to work? 

Over the next few blog posts, I want to cover some of the basics with you. 

One of those basics is email marketing. 

It’s been around for a few decades now, and the process has only gotten better and better. 

So let’s dig into everything you need to know about email marketing. 

What is Email Nurturing?

Email nurturing is the strategic process of sending emails to opted-in prospects. The primary goal is to warm these leads and generate customers over time, with the secondary goal of keeping current customers engaged and interested in your business. 

The overarching thing to remember is that you need to send emails that have value. I’m not advocating sending emails just to appear active and modern. 

You need to be aware of your customers, understand what they need from you, and find a way to engage with them in an interesting way. 

The process I want to share with you will help you do that.

So let’s look at how laundromats can use email nurturing. 

How Laundromats Can Use Email Nurturing

Step #1: Set Up A Landing Page to Capture Email Addresses

First things first — you have to collect emails. 

It might be tempting to shortcut this and buy them, but believe me — they WON’T be good. You have no idea if those people are interested in your business, or even live in your area. 

The best thing to do is collect the emails yourself. 

And the best way to collect emails is to set up a landing page. 

A landing page is just a simple page that gives a value proposition to someone in exchange for their information. We use these all the time at Spynr, and have quite a few to help us gain leads:

Building a landing page is step one. This is where you offer promotions, information, and try to win your website visitor over. It’s the first step of warming up that lead… sort of. 

Step #2: Drive Traffic to That Page

A landing page is great, but without traffic, you’ll never have anyone sign up. No signups means no leads… so you need to think about how you’re going to drive traffic to your new landing page. 

There are a variety of ways to do this, and all of them can have great results. Consider some of these options:

• Social media marketing
• Paid ads
• In-person marketing (flyers around your laundromat, etc.)
• Blogging
• Influencer marketing

Any of these options can help you generate traffic to your landing page, and hopefully help you start your email nurturing in earnest. 

Step #3: Create A Series of Emails

Now comes the actual emails. 

As a general rule, I like to start with three emails. 

The first is a welcome email, and if I’ve promoted something I deliver it immediately. 

The second is a reminder to use the promotion, and a bit more about the business being promoted. 

The third can be almost anything — so long as it’s engaging and helpful to the reader. 

These emails don’t have to be long. In fact, sometimes shorter is better. 

The main idea is to just get things started. Have a few emails ready to go, and you’ll be on track for step #4. 

Step #4: Schedule Your Emails Through Automation

Once you have your emails written, you need to figure out the automation. 

Why automate?

Well, you likely don’t have time to manually respond to every email you get. Even if you did have time, it might be a day or two before you get back to your new lead — and by then their interest may be gone!

So automation is key. Set up your first email to be sent out immediately, and then spread out the rest. I like to send a one-day then three-day followup, but it varies. 

And when it comes to the automation you use, you really can’t lose these days. There are tons of great platforms to choose from. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Hubspot
• Constant Contact
• Active Campaign
• Mailchimp

Step #5: Optimize Your Emails

Once you’ve got everything set up, all you have left to do is optimize. 

As you gain traffic, leads, and customers, you’ll find that some things work better than others. And that’s okay!

You have plenty of opportunity to improve over time, so don’t be afraid to make tweaks as you go. 

The Only Thing Left…

Is to get started!