How does one increase the number of acceptable job applicants in a dry cleaning company for instance?
Plis tel me any recruiting strategies that you know

Well, usually money talks. Offer to pay more than the competition, or have some other benefits besides just salary that make your place the "better" job.

You could also go "shop" other dry cleaners and when you receive good service from someone tell them that you'd be very interested in talking to them about coming to work for you. (Might make your competitors mad, but lots of industries use this strategy.)

You want to spend the money in your help wanted ad to make your requirements clear, like stating how much if any experience you require, what sort of training or experience you expect them to have, how many years of school and or diploma you want, maybe state the number of hours you offer or the hours they will be expected to give, like are you open on weekends, on Sundays, late night hours. Maybe state no phone calls, apply in person or something just to weed out uncooperative people or those who can't read and follow directions!

Several things, first of course you need to pay above average wages for the area, if a person can make more money doing the fries at Wendy's then you are not going to have top notch people. Also benefits are important to many.

And advertise where more skilled people live and look. And have specific standards, and do very complete background checks, find out what type of employee they were at where they used to work