How to Get More Customers for Your Cleaning Business

Running a cleaning business brings endless challenges — pricing, finding good employees, insurance and tax regulations — the challenges never end. But the most important challenge is of course to build a profitable business, that’s what this is all about.

In order to build a profitable cleaning business, acquiring and retaining customers is the number one priority that we should devote the majority of our time to.

The 4 most powerful ways to get more customers are:

(1) Referrals

(2) Email Campaigns

(3) Yelp and Google Business

(4) Social media marketing.

Let’s dive into how to get the most out of each.

 

1. Referrals 

Who were your first customers? They were most likely friends and family or people you already knew. This is because people buy from people they know and trust. Even huge enterprises like AirBnB and Uber attribute their success to the power of referrals.

Just because you’ve been in business for one or two years doesn’t mean it’s too late to leverage referrals—it’s always a good time to leverage referrals.

How do you leverage a referral program, you ask? Simply ask for it! Simply ask customers once you finish a job by sending an email or use a referral software to send to customers and friends and family. Use a software referral program like Vyper, Ambassador, or even just create a special coupon code that’s assigned to each person you reach out to.

2. Email Campaigns

Launching email campaigns is one of the most effective ways to get new leads and convert them to customers.

Collecting emails is as easy as it can be. All it takes is asking for the prospect’s name and email address, by offering them a free or discounted product in exchange.

This can be done by offering them a free Ebook or infographic once they hop on to your website’s homepage. Make sure it’s something relevant to your audience than they can get value from. A free Ebook would be a better option.

Not only do they help convert traffic into sales, but you get a chance to build a relationship with the prospective client, which increases the likelihood of customer retention.

Take advantage of email marketing services like MailChimp/ConvertKit/Constant Contact to help you automate your email marketing and make the best out of it.

 

 

3. Your Yelp and Google Business Page

The goal of social media isn’t to sell people things. The goal is to be social, that is, to form relationships. The biggest mistake I’ve seen in social media is when companies try to use social media solely as a place to sell.

It’s like going to a BBQ with friends and having that one guy try to sell you on some product while you’re trying to relax?

There are 3 goals of social media:

1. 1. 1. To make your company easily accessible to potential customers
      2. Interacting with your customer base
      3. Social trust

Do these 3 things well and watch the leads pour in.

Setting up the accounts is pretty straightforward so let’s take a look at some best practices for the top 3: Yelp, Google, and Facebook.

• Yelp: There are roughly 140 million users visiting Yelp every month! In my cleaning business’s first year I had $60,000 worth of leads come from Yelp alone (picture of Revenue between April 2019 – March 20th. Here are four tips for successfully running your Yelp account:

1. 1. 1. Add your photo (owner/manager) to the profile. This will give you a personable edge over those big faceless companies.
      2. Add before and after photos of your best work to the highlights page.
      3. Make your Call to Action links to the next step to book appointments.
      4. Create response templates To streamline getting back to Every inquiry you get. Don’t Ghost on your customers!

 

• Google: In 4-5 months I usually get 400+ leads come in from Google, with the average job being over $130, granting me at least $52,000. Apart from the same tips from Yelp, make sure to:

1. 1. 1. Take time and constantly adjust your target market.
      2. Start off with a big budget and then move down if it seems ineffective or too expensive. This will help you better understand where to spend your time and efforts as you’ll have more data to analyze.
      3. Try multiple strategies (A/B Testing) and always track and measure its progress

 

• Facebook: Facebook is a place where people spend tons of time looking for ideas and are open to exploring. In other words, everyone is ready to mingle with your company! You’ll want to balance just being helpful with gently guiding people towards your company. With Facebook you’ll just want to make sure to:

1. 1. 1. Prioritize helping others over trying to help yourself. By doing so you’ll actually end up helping yourself more.
      2. Take risks and put out content that creates energy. Mix it up
once in a while and get people’s attention. Bring up topics like: “5 things Customers do that offend maid service workers.” This type of content will drive traffic and gives you a platform to show how your service is unlike any other. But remember: play nice.

 

4. Social Media Networking

 The secret to success, whether you’re trying to become CEO or trying to get more law clients is: you need to network. Social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, are magical tools that allow you to foster impactful relationships right from your desk or phone.

There are 2 main ways to use social media to your advantage, let’s take a look at both.

1. 1. 1. Directly interact with people in common/general groups or online networks. Since we are trying to gain cleaning clients, which are normally homeowners and complex residents, we’re going to want to “hang out” where these people hang out. Join Facebook groups from your city where people ask general questions about where to go for services, join neighborhood groups, or request to become a preferred vendor for a neighborhood HOA website.
      2. Create your own social media page (instructions here) or forum where you can foster your own specific community. The main goal here is to engage with your customers by building customer relationships, increasing brand awareness, and by sharing your industry expertise.

Top tips for running a successful Facebook page are:

1. 1. 1. Earn responsive badges by responding very quickly to messages and inquiries
      2. Make quality posts and worry less of quantity
      3. Post at the best times (Facebook = Wednesday at 3p or 12p-1p on Saturday and Sunday)
      4. Use high-quality images to build your site
      5. Mix it up with videos by using Facebook live

Here’s a full list of 26 tips from the marketing masters at Hubspot.

 

Ready, Set, Grow!

Follow these steps and watch the customers pour in. One final question remains, though: How are you going to manage all these new jobs?

Invest in software, like Maidily, that automates capturing leads and scheduling your clients’ jobs. Don’t try to do everything manually and risk losing all those clients you worked so hard to acquire.

Learn more about how Maidliy can help you organize, maintain, and grow your cleaning business.