LAUREL, Md. — When Ray Kroner wanted to celebrate Kroner Dry Cleaners’ 70th anniversary in Cincinnati, the country was in a recession and people weren’t in a particularly festive mood. Still, Kroner saw an opportunity.

He called his local newspaper editor and asked what it would take to get coverage. The editor told him that he needed a hook. Kroner’s response: “How’s a 10-foot hanger for a hook?”

“He said, ‘Well, that’ll get our attention,’“ Kroner recalls. 

His team put together a 10-foot hanger made with PVC and wrapped it with a “Hanging around since 1939” label. “We like to use different ways to get attention from the media,” Kroner says.

Kroner, who is the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute’s (DLI) president-elect, shared that story and others during a recent DLI webinar, “Getting Noticed by the Media,” which he co-presented with DLI Communications Director Harry Kimmel. 

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at what makes something newsworthy and how to build media relationships. In Part 2, we examined the mechanics of writing an effective press release. Today, we’ll hear how Kroner has put those principles into practice — and how cleaners can handle themselves when the cameras show up.

Kroner’s approach to media coverage starts with a simple observation: Nobody outside the industry finds dry cleaning particularly exciting.

“There’s no curb appeal, nothing romantic about the service industry of dry cleaning,” he says. “Anytime I look at the newspaper, there’s always a story about a restaurant — who’s coming, who’s going, who’s new. There’s no other business that gets that kind of attention.”

His solution has been to stop trying to make dry cleaning the story and make the community the story instead. When his business hit its 75th anniversary, he threw a customer appreciation event with free drinks and food, then invited every politician from local trustees to the governor — telling each of them that the news crews would be there at 3 p.m. He told the news stations that the politicians would be arriving at 3 p.m. 

Both sides showed up.

When Cincinnati was bracing for the 17-year cicada emergence after the pandemic, Kroner organized a children’s cicada parade. He pitched it to the newspaper with a biblical framing — a pandemic followed by a plague of locusts — and recruited a local radio station and a college entomologist to judge the kids’ costume contest. Despite 36 hours of rain that forced the event indoors, two television stations showed up.

When gas prices spiked, he sent a press release with the headline, “We’re Suffering from Gas Pains.” That got reporters into his office, where he positioned himself in front of the company logo during every interview.

“A lot of this stuff is not about hitting home runs. You’re hitting singles,” Kroner says. “But you just keep swinging away at it.”

Kroner also stresses the value of cleaners positioning themselves as a resource available for reporters — not just when they have an event to promote, but as a standing source.

“Put your name out there,” he says. “The worst they can do is file it under garbage. But the best they could do is maybe keep it on file and it becomes a future reference for them, because there again, you’re doing some of their homework.”

When the interview does happen, Kimmel says, preparation is key. Remain calm, practice ahead of time, dress well — particularly for TV — and remember that there’s no such thing as “off the record.”

“Most reporters are not out to play ‘gotcha,’” Kimmel says. “They’re not doing it on purpose, but if you lead with your chin, you can leave an opening.”

Honesty is always the best policy, he says, and it’s fine to not have every answer on the spot. “Just say, ‘I’ll get back to you’ — and do follow up,” Kimmel says.

Kroner offered one final piece of advice for dry cleaners looking to raise their profile: lean into the identity of small business. He notes that the drycleaning industry is roughly 95% small business, and that small businesses account for more than half of annual economic growth.

“Everybody has a certain sentimental attachment to small business,” he says. “They might not be attracted to dry cleaning, but they will be attracted to small business. We should definitely promote that as part of our professional identity.”

For Part 1 of this series, click HERE. For Part 2, click HERE.