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Creating your Cleaning Business Advertising Plan & Policy

CHAPTER 14-: This is the fourteenth chapter of “The Complete Guide to Starting a Cleaning Business.” A marketing agenda is often confused with an advertisement policy. To begin with, they are not synonymous words but the words in their truest meanings are very closely related.

A marketing agenda for your cleaning service company can be seen as the philosophy behind selling your service. An advertisement policy for your company on the other hand comprises of the specific strategies and tactics that you will be using to sell the service. The former is based more on theory while the latter has a more pragmatic approach. Nonetheless, both are equally important in thrusting your company forward up the ramp of progress and prosperity.

Why You Need an Advertising Plan for your Cleaning Company

If you do not have a clear and comprehensive advertising policy in place, you leave your business vulnerable to deterioration. Advertising equals bringing in more clients. If your business is not supplied with a steady stream of clients, there will be no scope for your cleaning service company to develop, grow and evolve to compete with the big boys. Relying on a handful of customers is a cardinal sin in the world of business.

You must always look to expand your client collection, and reach out to new people who have not yet heard about your business. A well structured and carefully outlined advertisement policy will help you on your mission to explore unchartered territories. You cannot simply go knocking on people’s doors and ask them to let your clean their offices and houses.

You need far more clever and innovative ways to lure people into your business and make them the ones who ring you up and knock on your door. If you are the fisherman and the fish in the river are the customers, then your advertisement policy is the fishing rod. Just like a fishing rod is useless without a tempting bait attached at the top, an advertisement policy is of little to no use unless you have out of the box ideas to make your business as appealing in the eyes of the customers as you can.

Creating your Cleaning Business Advertising Plan

Staying true to the fishing rod and bait analogy, the first thing that you need to do before you can advertise your product is attain a clear understanding of what makes the fish bite the bait; or in other words find out what exactly makes the consumers tick. We live in a world of constant change and variation. What is deemed attractive today may not be considered the same the next day. Your job as an entrepreneur is to track these changes and always keep up with them. Sure, a cleaning service company is quite an old school business. However, that does not exempt it from being affected by the ever changing tastes of consumers. If you are not aware of what your consumers like, then all your advertising endeavors will turn out to be completely useless.

When it comes to advertisements, it is all about creating an impact and being effective. Now the word effective has two different meanings. The first meaning has to do with how much of an influence the advertisement had on your target audience. For example, if you post an advertisement on any form of media that helped you to increase your client count for the month, then that advertisement will be labelled as an effective one. However, there could be an exception to this rule. This is where the second meaning of the word effective comes into play.

The primary goal of an entrepreneur is to make profit by ensuring that earnings outweigh expenditures. If your advertisements are not cost effective, then you will end up spending more money on them than what you have gained from them. The number of new clients that you cater to may increase courtesy of an advertisement, but that will be of no benefit to you if those clients can’t channel in as much towards your business as the amount that you spent in getting them to know about your business in the first place.

What Advertising Can Do for Your Cleaning Company

As a novice entrepreneur, you may not be too keen on advertising simply because of the lack of immediate results that it produces. When it comes to advertising, most of the benefits that you will derive will be long term ones. For example, you can’t expect a client to come rushing to your doors just after having seen a janitorial service advertisement of yours. You need to learn about the psychology of consumers and how their mind works. More often than not, people need to spend a considerable amount of time in trying to decide whether a cleaning service would be of great value to them or not. You need to respect people’s need to take their time in considering your company as a shopping option.

When advertising is effective, it helps you in more ways than one. The first real advantage of advertising is that it gives you a certain degree of control and authority when you are trying to promote a newly launched cleaning service or an event. You get to choose how you want to approach your potential clientele and who exactly you want to approach.

Which bring us to the second advantage of advertisements, and that is the benefit of being able to target ideal customers only. What advertising allows you to do is incorporate personal messages that helps you to connect with the crowd who are most willing to sign up for your cleaning service. For example, your advertisement message can be specifically directed to single mothers who are having a horrendous time trying to keep their homes clean while working a job and taking care of the children as well.

While connecting with the target audience, you also create awareness for your business through advertisements. There is a very big percentage of the population in your city that is probably not even aware of how to reap the benefits of a cleaning service. Your advertisements can be an eye opener for them. It will introduce them to a service that they are not familiar with, but one that they may desperately need or are willing to try out just for the sake of curiosity.

Another thing that you ought to know about advertising is how it adds credibility to your message. You will know this when people will come up to you after seeing your advertisements and ask you if your business is running incredibly well. This is a clear indication of the fact that your advertisements can function as reputation enhancers for your cleaning service company. Every time somebody comes across an advert for your company, they will be convinced that your business is in an advantageous position.

Posting advertisements is in nature similar to showing off affluence and wealth. In the minds of the general masses, a business that is not doing too well will not be able to afford advertisements. Although the reality of the situation is that most business which have plummeting profits resort to rigorous advertisements, there is nothing wrong with riding the wave of people’s faulty assumptions as long as it benefits your company in one way or the other.

Advertising a particular service of your cleaning company helps you to draw attention to every other component of your business. Advertisements attract the attention of people and compel them to look deeper into what you have on offer for them. It is through advertisements that people get to know about your brand, your business philosophy, the kind of cleaning projects that you are undertaking at the moment, the other services that you have available for them etcetera. In other words, when you advertise one service, you end up advertising the entire business that you are running. Even your employees can use your advertisements to take in pride in the profession that they are engaged in.

Like every aspect of entrepreneurship, it is one thing to understand the importance and advantage of advertising, and it’s something entirely different to actually know how to reap those advantages. In other words, you need to have sound knowledge of the perfect techniques that can be used to advertise your cleaning service company. The following are 8 simple ways in which you can boost your advertising campaign and elevate your business to unprecedented heights.

8 Rules to Follow If You Must Boost your Advertising Campaign

1) Half the Time

Clients measure the quality of your cleaning service in terms of how fast you can pull of an excellent job. When advertising a service, be sure to mention that your cleaning staff can complete the necessary cleaning tasks in half the time while making no compromises whatsoever on the quality. This is a compelling message that will grab the attention of any prospective client who values time.

2) Showcase Your Specialty

Being versatile is commendable, but being specialized is what earns you the big bucks. Make sure that your set of skills is in sync with the requirements of the client. For example, if your cleaning Service Company specializes in floor and carpet care; make that very clear in your advertisement. This is a way of letting the people know that your floor and carpet care service is better than that of any other cleaning company in town.

3) Guarantee Quality and Completion

When you got out on a limb and make the bold statement of guaranteeing top notch quality and quick completion of your work, it helps you create a very good impression on the minds of consumers, especially those who have little experience with cleaning service companies. If anything, this is a fail proof way of attracting immediate attention. Also, a lot of clients see such “guarantees” as a symbol of the highest form of professionalism.

4) Boast about Your Past

During the initial stages of running your cleaning service business, there will be very few projects that you will be undertaking. However, you must make it a priority to let your consumers know about your past accomplishments, no matter how scanty they may be. Let them know exactly how impressive you were in your previous projects and the techniques that you used to solve problems. You may event want to post reviews of previous satisfied clients. This helps you to gain the confidence of the new clients.

5) Convert Features into Benefits

The features of your services should be advertised as clear and transparent benefits. For instance, instead of letting the customer know that your cleaning staff will leave your home sparkling clean, tell them that they can relax inside their sparkling clean home after a tiring day of work. Let the clients relate to the features of your service. The main goal is to connect with the audience on a personal level.

6) Give Them a Reason

This is a follow up on the previous point. When you are advertising a service, do not try to sell the service itself to the clients, but rather the experience that they can derive from it. For example, when advertising your janitorial services, let your clients know how they can walk into their office every morning and find a perfectly clean environment to work in every single time. Once again, it is all about letting your consumers become fascinated with the benefits that your cleaning service company will be providing to them.

7) Let them Reach You

An advertisement that does not include your contact details is all fluff and no substance. You must give your target the audience the opportunity to contact you and request for your services soon after seeing your advertisement. This is a way of letting your customers know that your cleaning company is always available to be at their service. Make sure to include a phone number, an email address, a link to your social media page, your web address and of course last but not the least, the address to your permanent location.

8) Advertise in the Right Places

You cannot go about advertising anywhere and everywhere. The key is to find your niche and focus on it. For example, advertising on free online directories may work for you during the first couple of months, but as business operations expand, you may feel the need to post advertisements on local community boards, free papers and church magazines. After amassing a little more wealth and success, you can think about advertising on specialized magazines, the radio or even on television channels. Through trial and error, you must find out what works for you the best.

At the end of the day, make sure that the objective of your advertisement campaign is clear and simple. No matter how big your cleaning service business becomes the goal of your advertisement policy or campaign should always be focused on reaching out to people and letting them know exactly what your cleaning service company is all about.

10 Best Ways to Advertise Your Cleaning Business

If you have ever met top players in the cleaning industry, then you may want to agree with me that one of the things that make their businesses sound out, as well as attract more clients is the ability to be in the faces of potential customers. How can one possibly be in the face of potential customers you just may ask? This means that they are always going to be all out to advertise their business.

One of the toughest parts of being in the cleaning business might be the part where you have to always strive to focus your efforts on finding customers. There are however a good number of ways to pull this off. However, you have got to be determined and undeterred to go all the way when advertising in concerned. You will also need to draw up a budget that will help you.

Much more than the funds that you will need to successfully run this part of your business, you will also need to devote some time so that you can see to it that things work really smoothly and successfully. So, if you have looking to seeking ways that will help in advertising your cleaning business, then here they are:

a. Print Fliers and Brochures

This was one of the first ways entrepreneurs did target their markets. Even though it seems like advertising online may have taken over, however, truth is that it is still a very result oriented way to drive your cleaning business. So, you will need to employ the services of a graphics artist and a printer who will be able to help you strike things off. Print fliers and brochures that contain information about your business, as well as the contact address.

b. Place Classified Ads in the Newspaper

One of the best ways to get your cleaning services business known by all and sundry is by placing some classified ads in the newspapers this is so that you can be able to attract clients who are not internet savvy. This is very effective because of the huge population of readership that the particular newspaper you intend to advertise with attracts.

C. Through Social Networking Platforms.

One other way through which you can advertise your business is through social networking platforms. This is very effective as we have more population of younger generation people and even the older ones who are internet buffs. You may consider trying Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and what have you,

d. Send Bulk SMS

The bulk SMS mode of advertisement has continued to work wonder. This is why you also have got to be fast in adopting the mode of advertisement. It means that you will need to collate numbers of customers and potential clients whom you can send messages to about your business.

e. Email Marketing

This entails doing all the marketing jobs through sending emails. The emails you send to be should be able to go a long way in introducing your kind of business and the services you are offering. As such, you will need to get a good number of email addresses. One good way to do this is to purchase these email addresses is to look through your address book or better yet buy from agents who sell.

f. Word Of Mouth Mode of Advertising

This good old mode of advertisement is one of the surest ways of attracting clients. How is this possible? This is possible when you begin from the known to the unknown. It means you have to start by telling those you know about your business and the services you render. Thereafter you move on to telling people you do not know- like people you meet at networking functions and what have you.

g. Write Proposals

This is another way to get some corporate clients. This would entail that you research to get names of possible organizations that may be in need of cleaning services and can comfortably pay for it. Once you do, then you start by sending then introductory letters stating what you are all about and how you want to serve them. Tell them you so wish to meet with them to discuss more in details.

h. Offer Discounts

You can also get your business in the faces of people when you have discounts. These discounts are meant to increase the number of people who patronize you per time. Therefore you have to be sure that the discount in question is such that is attractive and can help bring in profit.

i. Volunteer to Clean-: If you are looking to advertise your cleaning business, then you can first look to offering free services for a period of time. Thereafter offer them your rates and tell them you can continue to deal with them at a discounted rate.

Would these modes of advertisement really help your cleaning business? Yes indeed. Those top shots in the industry practices and perfected their skills in this and in no time they gathered quite a lot of forms.