Cleaning Business Marketing

Whether you operate a residential or commercial cleaning business, you clean carpets, windows or other specialized cleaning service, customers are the heart of your business. It is important to establish a marketing plan before you launch your business.

Many cleaning businesses fail – not because they aren’t good at cleaning – but because they simply did not advertise their business effectively to find the customers they needed to bring in income.

Cleaning business marketing does not need to be costly or time consuming. With a little research and planning, a business owner can create an automated marketing campaign that requires minimal time. He or she can also outsource advertising tasks, even on a limited budget. In addition, there are ways to effectively promote a cleaning business for free, although they generally will require more time.

You want to start with a cleaning business marketing plan. A simple way to draw up a plan without spending much money is to download marketing plan software that walks you through the planning process. You can also find sample marketing plans online to see what strategies other cleaning businesses have used, and the time and costs involved.

When you are organizing your advertising budget, keep in mind that you may want to invest more money initially to grow your customer base quickly. Once you have attained a group of happy customers, they can become repeat customers and also refer more clients to you without any effort on your part.

Networking with friends, other business owners and community organizations can help you spread the word about your cleaning services for free. You can get 250 professionally-designed business cards for about $10 that briefly describe your services, the benefits you provide and your contact information. These are easy “miniature ads” that you can hand out.

Announce the grand opening of your company by writing a brief press release to your local newspaper. This technique can get your business free publicity. The key is to provide interesting or newsworthy information like a limited time sale or the story of how your business started, etc..

Offering coupons through coupon mailing services can get the word out about your business while someone else does the marketing legwork. Customers like saving money, so with coupons you don’t have to feel like a salesperson. Coupons can also be run as ads in newspapers or other publications, or you can purchase targeted leads and mail “coupon” postcards to prospects in your neighborhood.

Involvement in the community can also help to build your business. Help sponsor local events, host free workshops on cleaning-related subjects or donate your services to a charity organization. This “feel good” type of marketing tends to attract customers simply because of the law of reciprocation – those who receive want to give back.

Even though a cleaning business is not operated on the internet, advertising online is essential to growing your income. Because of the expansion of the web and mobile technology, more and more people are using search engines and local search directories to find information instead of using the traditional yellow pages.  

The first step to online advertising is to get a website. Creating a cleaning business site is very affordable these days, and requires very little effort once you have it set up. Although you can hire a designer, many entrepreneurs decide to build their own sites using easy website makers. There are templates specifically for cleaning companies, and business owners can enter their specific company information into the template and many times have a completed site in one day.

The key is to use a variety of marketing methods to promote your cleaning business. Greater exposure leads to increased company recognition and before you know it, a lot of people will know about your cleaning service.

Home Business Center, Inc. lists tools and resources that entrepreneurs can use to market their cleaning businesses. Find out more >> Cleaning Business Marketing