Blog: The Spin
#LaundryMarketingNews
September 12, 2018
Writing Tips for the Linen and Uniform Service Industry
It’s totally okay to admit it: it’s tough to write riveting content about the linen and uniform service industry.
It just doesn’t have the flashiness of the fashion industry, the romance of the travel industry or the excitement of the sports industry.
If you’re struggling to create interesting copy for your linen or uniform service business, then you’re not alone, and this blog post can help.
Linen and uniform service content might not be the most exciting read, but your content may be just what your potential customers need. To the outsider, your blog post on the benefits of a restaurant linen rental service might be a snoozefest, but the family restaurant owner who stays up late every night to launder their napkins might not be able to stop reading.
After reading and editing hundreds of industry blog posts and web pages, along with emails, social media posts, video scripts and more over the past year, I’ve picked up a few tips when it comes to crafting compelling copy for the linen and uniform service industry. Hope this helps!
1. Explain yourself and stay away from industry lingo.
You may know what COG stands for, but if you use it in your industry content, your readers will go MIA. Even commercial laundry terms and concepts that seem obvious to you might be terribly confusing to readers who have had no exposure to the industry. You have to approach linen and uniform service writing with the assumption that your readers have no basis in the industry, and may even have misconceptions about the industry – for example, confusing your service with a laundromat or even a party rental company.
So, no matter what topic you’re covering, make sure to include helpful explanation while avoiding condescension. Stay away from industry-specific language and put things in terms that your average reader will understand!
2. Write in a conversational style.
Often, the only kind of writing that people know how to do is the kind they were taught in school: formal, overly-eloquent essay-style prose that’s unnecessarily complicated and is always trying too hard to sound smart. The truth is, although you make think that this kind of writing impresses your potential customers, no one is actually going to want to read it.
Instead, write in a more conversational style and try to make your writing as clear and direct as possible. In this industry, no one has time to decode your convoluted sentence structure – all they want is helpful information and maybe some interesting or entertaining facts. Keep it simple, put copy that you want to emphasize in a bold heading, and throw away the dictionary!
Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that you should be so informal in your writing that you’re using slang everywhere. But, instead of trying to impress readers with your fancy writing, impress them with the quality of the information you’re providing and the clarity of your explanations.
3. Stay on top of what’s going on in the various industries you service.
Chances are, you’re already doing this in some ways. But you might not be applying it to your content! Writing about the linen and uniform industry can become very repetitive, and a great way to refresh your blog is to write on current topics that are affecting the industries that you service.
For example, if you recently read an academic study on the psychological effects of hospital staff apparel on patients, that’s a great topic to write about if you’re looking to sell more hospital apparel. Or, if you’ve been reading articles about minimalist hotel trends, it might be good to cover the subject while also promoting your white hotel linens.
4. Focus on the effect, not the process.
For the most part, your customers don’t care about how exactly their linens get cleaned, unless you can also focus on the effect that your laundering process has on their business.
If you use uniform tracking technology, instead of telling your readers exactly how it works, tell customers how uniform tracking technology will save them money on uniform repairs and replacements. They might not understand why you think it’s great that you’ve minimized human contact with medical sheets during the laundering process, but they will care if you explain that your procedure lowers the risks of cross-contamination in their healthcare facility.
You may think the technicalities of your commercial laundry facility are endlessly fascinating, but your customers care about what you can do for their business.
5. Listen to your customers.
How do you know if you’re writing content that your customers want to read? Listen to them!
No, I don’t mean you should send out a survey. Instead, listen critically to your customers and potential customers, using their thoughts, opinions and questions as topics to address with your website, blog, videos and social media content. Not only will this tactic put you more in touch with your customer base, but it will help you formulate complete responses to these topics so you always have an answer ready.
Write on!
You’re part of a very unique industry, and as such, you’re an industry expert with valuable information that your customers are searching for. Share what you know, be honest about it, put yourself in your readers’ place, and start typing!
Or, if you’d rather spend time managing your business instead of writing, work with Infinite Laundry. We specialize in writing and editing search-friendly content for the linen and uniform industry. Contact us today to learn more about our content writing and SEO services!
