Whether or not you’re looking to grow your cleaning business quickly or just maintain the level of business you have, marketing is important for your commercial cleaning business. If you’re unsure where to start, We’ve got you covered!

We have put together a guide to walk you through everything you will need to have a successful marketing strategy for your cleaning business.

Here’s everything we’ll cover in this guide:

• What is branding? Why is it important for your cleaning business?
• Building a website for your cleaning business?
• Identifying your target audience What does this mean, and why is it important? 
• How do you leverage different platforms to market a cleaning business?

How to Market a Cleaning Business #1 - Branding is important!

You might hear a lot about what you need to build your brand. So what does that mean? Branding might feel like a complicated term for a lot of people but your brand is how your cleaning business is perceived. 

What is a brand? Essentially it’s anything that is associated with your business, whether it’s visual, audible, or otherwise. (You know the McDonald’s jingle? That’s a part of their brand.) 

What is your ‘brand’ made up of? Usually, your commercial cleaning brand is made up of your logo, your name, your messaging, and your assets. Building your brand means building what that name, logo, and message mean to your customers and your potential customers. 

Your brand sets you apart from your competitors and makes your business easily recognizable. It should also spark a sense of trust and reliability among your customers and potential customers.

If you want a good example, look at Coca-Cola. All you need to see is the shape of their old bottles or the colours of their logo to know who they are and on top of that, what they mean to you as a brand. Eg. Do you like it, hate it, like what they stand for? All of that is a part of their brand. 

Some important elements for branding that your cleaning business should have:

• Name: A unique name for your business
• Colour Palette: Use one or two colours that best represent what your business stands for 
• Each colour depicts a certain emotion, feeling, mood, etc. Pick one that you think will best communicate what your brand (business) stands for. (Fun fact, the emotions that colours evoke even impact the colour of the President of the United States tie.) 
• Logo: A unique image/text that represents your company (that will be the face of your company) 
• Positioning: Your mission & vision What do you do? What are your values? What problem are you solving? How are you different from your competitors?

Once you have your brand elements in place, the next step is to build a website for your cleaning business.

How to Market a Cleaning Business #2 - Building a website

Why is having a website important? It is among the first few things your potential customers/ leads will see before they choose to work with you. It also makes you look like a legitimate business. 

What should your company website include? The most important element for your website is all the branding elements you should have put together from Step 1 of this guide.

It should also include an About section that talks about your cleaning business’s vision, mission, the products and services your cleaning business offers, and your contact information. 

Building a website on your own is easy. Check out our article on  Easy Ways to Build a Website for tips

Once you have your brand elements and your website in place, you are ready to start putting together a marketing plan for your business.  The first step to a good marketing plan is to create a goal. That goal for a commercial cleaning company’s marketing plan will usually include a group of people you want to reach with your marketing efforts.

How to Market a Cleaning Business #3 - Identifying the target audience 

What does the term ‘target audience’ mean?

To say it plainly: the ideal people you want as your clients. If you were a company with a product, it would be the audience your product is best suited for. Write down a list of who you want to attract. What do they do for a living, where they spend time online and in-person and what value will you be bringing to them? 

Example:

If you are an expert at cleaning office buildings in your local area which, let’s say, is Chicago, then your target audience will probably be Office owners/ managers, commercial property managers, etc in and around Chicago.  

Decide what action you want them to take. Want them to fill out a form on your website? Call you. Make sure this is clear on your website and any marketing that you do.

How to Market a Cleaning Business #4 -  Options to get more leads

There are a number of ways/ mediums through which you can market your cleaning business to your audience. There are a lot of ways but we will take a look at the most accessible options. Before you get started, think about what makes the most sense for your business and what your goals are. Who are you trying to attract?

Here are some marketing channels that you can explore: 

Organic Marketing

This term refers to the process of getting your leads without paying per click or per view. This also means you don’t spend money on marketing in the form of ads, boosted posts, or anything else.

Organic marketing is free and is a great way to start marketing your cleaning business. While it doesn’t cost advertising dollars, it does require time, effort, and a lot of patience. It may not bring you leads overnight, but over time you will see growth.

Below are some ways in which you can get more Janitorial leads to come to you without it costing you any money.

Organic/Unpaid posts on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

Creating content and posting on social media platforms is free.

• Start with identifying the platform where your target audience spends most of their time
• Create your business accounts on those platforms. You do not have to be on all the social media platforms – it is more important to pick one or two and build them well
• Start posting regularly. The posts could be about your cleaning business, the services you offer, highlighting any offers and discounts available, etc. 
• Ask your friends and family to follow you and share your content
• After some time you will start to see people following you
• Remember – success won’t be instant! One of the most important things to invest in social media is time

Get Reviews for Your Cleaning Business

We live in a review culture. It is incredibly common for people to search for reviews before buying a product or a service, so make sure to ask your happy customers to leave you a review on Google, Yelp, or your Facebook page.

You can also ask some of your clients to send you video testimonials that you can post on your social media platforms and/or on your website. It is important to make sure you let your customers know that your intent will be to use their reviews for marketing.

Check out our article on 7 ways to get more Reviews for your Cleaning Business for tips.

Get Referrals for your Cleaning Business

Start a referral program. It doesn’t have to be a formal one! You can simply ask your happy and loyal customers to recommend you to someone they think is looking for a cleaning service. 

Tip: Incentivizing both parties (the referrer and the referral) always helps get more referrals. 

Check out our article on  4 ways to get easy referrals for your cleaning business for more tips.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is another marketing medium that’s effective if done strategically. It is incredibly common to see businesses use this tactic. Make sure your emails are providing your audience value.

Hear our Growth Manager give some great tips on how to leverage Email Marketing for your cleaning business.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing does cost money but it is also another way to spread the word about your business without using a lot of resources.

Traditional Marketing includes things like (but not limited to):

• Having posters and/or brochures about your business circulated in your local area
• Giving away your business cards to your current customers to share with others 
• Give away some SWAG to your customers, cleaners, vendors, etc with your logo printed on them. If it’s something wearable like a hat or tote bag they might end up doing some free advertising for your cleaning business!
• Having some ‘leave behinds’ printed with your logo on it (Fridge magnet is a good example) 

Paid Advertising

Paid ads require a little more thinking & planning in comparison to organic marketing.  Before you start, you should have answers to these questions:

• Who do you want to reach out to through your marketing efforts?
• What is your marketing goal? 
• Do you have the time & capacity to do it yourself? If you don’t you’d probably need to hire someone on a freelance basis or full-time basis to do this for you
• What’s your budget? How much do you want to spend on marketing per week, per month & per year? 
• What type of messaging do you want to start out with? What do you want your ads to say?

Once you have answers to all these questions, you should be in a good position to start exploring paid advertising for your cleaning business. Below are the most commonly used advertising platforms that work! 

Ads on Social Media

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are very easy to get started with. It is pretty straightforward and you do not need a huge budget to create & execute Facebook Ads. Especially if you are a small business trying to reach people in your local area, it is certainly inexpensive to advertise on Facebook and it works! Here’s a step-by-step guide  that will help you set up the first Facebook ad for your cleaning business

Google Ads

With Google ads, you can reach out to a wider network of audiences and it offers a variety of ad format types that you can use.

The different formats Google Ads offers are

• Search Campaign
• Display campaign
• Shopping campaign
• Video campaign
• App campaign

Tip: Paid search terms that include ‘near me’ are a great way to attract a local audience. Google prioritizes these searches in localized areas. Have you registered your business with Google yet? This will help you look legit and attract local leads. 

Click HERE for an in-depth guide on how to set up your first Google ad campaign.

You can also hear our growth manager give a quick overview of the major differences between Google Ads & Facebook Ads here

Facebook and Google are just two big platforms through which you can advertise. There are a variety of platforms you can try depending on who you are targeting. For example, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads, Bing Ads, etc. 

Final Thoughts

Marketing will help grow your cleaning business if done the right way. You will need to invest some time to learn about marketing, test different things to see what is working for you, and do more of it. It takes time but you will surely see success and growth in your business through your marketing efforts.

Bonus Content

We recorded an Ask Me Anything Video (Marketing Edition) with our Growth Manager, Jessica Ruby, and our Founder Michael Brown where they answered some questions from our audience about Growing a Cleaning Business with Marketing.

Tip: For all existing Swept customers, skip to 26 minutes 52 seconds to see how you can use Swept to market your commercial cleaning business.