Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and seeing one… two… three… maybe even four (or more) new cleaning jobs in your inbox.
You check your voicemail and there are another two messages asking for cleaning quotes.
The next day is the same. And the next…
This is only a dream for most cleaning business owners who struggle to generate new clients. However, as you are reading this article, you will see how it has become a reality for a growing number of savvy owners.
This article will show you what it takes to compete — and dominate — as a small local cleaning business in 2018.
Below is the exact process we use with our clients. Use it to grow your business as large as you want.
Exclusive Bonus: Download a PDF of this article so you have the step-by-step blueprint for growing your cleaning business available anytime. (Click here to download.)
And remember:
If you don’t have time to implement all of this yourself and just want us to take care of growing your cleaning business for you, then book a 1-on-1 strategy session with me here.
1: The huge opportunity for growth in 2018
Most of the big national cleaning companies and franchises are spread too thin.
Because of the way they are setup, they have to roll out cookie-cutter marketing campaigns across the entire country. This leaves huge gaps for smart local business owners to exploit.
And because most cleaning business owners are not particularly savvy when it comes to online marketing strategies, the playing field in most areas is wide open. The first owner to ramp up their online efforts has a huge first-mover advantage.
For example, one cleaning company we worked with went from generating zero online enquiries to 30 per month overnight, using just one strategy you’ll read here. I’ll reveal what the strategy was in just a moment.
In the rest of this article I’ll show you how you can use simple strategies to generate as many leads and clients as you want for your cleaning business.
2: How to dominate your local market
The secret is to attack the market one service at a time.
You see, most businesses try to promote every service they offer from day one. They end up spreading their marketing budget too thin, and their resources too wide, and they don’t make progress anywhere.
Savvy cleaning business owners understand the key is to focus all your energy on one area of service, and dominate that area. Then you move on to the next service, using the same system! Soon you are an unstoppable force in your local area.
Look at the image below:
On the left is what most businesses do.
They send traffic to their website, and people either request a quote or they leave. (Usually 80-90% of prospects leave and never come back.)
On the right is the system we implement for our clients.
We send traffic to a very specific page on our website designed to generate leads for an irresistible offer based on what the person is searching for. We then immediately present them with our best offer and get them to schedule a cleaning service right away.
But we don’t stop there…
If they don’t take us up on our original offer, we use a number of different “return agents” to provide valuable content and present alternative offers until they eventually become a client. This is the secret weapon that allows us to bring 80-90% of prospects you could have lost back to your website.
We then feed this information back into our traffic systems to find more people who are just like your ideal clients!
While your competition is still blindly throwing money away sending traffic to their website and hoping for the best, you sit back and relax knowing the system is bringing you more clients on autopilot.
Now let’s talk about how to get people to your website in the first place.
3: Getting cleaning leads who are ready to book now
“Oh we don’t spend any money on marketing, all of our business is word of mouth.”
I’ve lost count how many times a business owner has proudly proclaimed to me they don’t invest in marketing and only get business from referrals.
All I can think is… imagine if you did both!
Word of mouth is great, and you should do everything you can to maximise referrals. But they’re not predictable. And what if you want to grow your business faster? It’s difficult to scale up word of mouth business for any meaningful period of time.
You need a traffic source where YOU control the tap.
Want more clients? Turn on the tap and watch the leads and clients pour in. Need to slow down a bit? No problem, just turn the tap down to a manageable level.
Want to know the most predictable, profitable, and controllable tap we’ve found?
Google Adwords.
Now, most cleaning companies think Google Ads are too expensive.
Take a look at the following ads, both came up during a search for “house cleaning services”:
VS
The first ad is much more common than you might think — generic targeting (there was no mention of office in the search), basic misspellings, and poor copy with zero benefit for the prospect. What a waste of money.
Compare to the second ad…
The headline matches with the search query exactly. There is an immediate benefit “book online in 60 seconds”. And a deeper understanding of what the prospect wants, spending more time doing things they love not stuck inside cleaning. Next, it makes use of various Google Adwords Extensions to show location, opening times, and phone number to draw attention to the ad.
We’re only scratching the surface of what’s going on here, but as you can see there are massive differences between using Google Ads effectively and throwing your money down the drain.
Remember: just because you have tried a marketing strategy does not mean you’ve done it effectively.
4: How to get 4 times more leads than the competition for the same cost
In 2018 a study was done on over 50,000 Google Adwords campaigns. The cleaning industry was a part of that study. They showed the average KPIs (key performance indicators) for a cleaning business are:
- CPC (cost per click) – $3
- CPA (cost per acquisition) – $50
- CVR (conversion rate) – 8%
In other words, 8 out of every 100 people who click on an ad become a lead. The other 92 disappear forever. Keep in mind these are averages, there are many people doing worse than this.
But what if you do things better than average?
What if, instead of sending people to the homepage of your website, you send them to a specific landing page designed for the exact service the prospect was looking for…
THIS is how we get conversion rates of 19.2%… 26.8%… 35.4%… even as high as 48.9% in some cases!
Picture this…
Your competitor is spending $1500 per month on Adwords.
For that, they get around 500 clicks to their website.
But they are sending traffic straight to their homepage, so on average they only get 40 leads.
Now, imagine you are spending that same $1500 per month. And you’re getting the same 500 clicks. However, you’re a savvy businessman and instead of sending people to your homepage you send them to a special landing page. It converts at a well above average 32%.
You now get 160 leads per month!
For your competitor to get the same number of leads they would have to spend $6000 per month.
This gives you a HUGE competitive advantage.
But it doesn’t stop there…
5: How to get cleaning jobs from people who say “no”
What we’ve talked about so far are the basics.
And frankly, you can go a long way just getting this stuff right.
But if you want to step up and really put things in high gear then this is where it gets good.
What I’m going to reveal to you now is what the top 1% of cleaning business owners do.
Getting 4 times more leads than your competition is great. But even if your landing pages are converting at 32%, that still means 68% of people who visit your website don’t book a cleaning job.
Luckily, there are strategies we can use to get those people to come back…
Using return agents:
Think about it, if someone goes on to Google and does a search for a cleaning company, it means they are interested in hiring a cleaner. And just because they didn’t respond to your offer the first time, doesn’t mean they found a solution to their problem.
They might have got distracted or gone off to do some research and forgot about you.
Most business owners will pay for this click and never see the person again.
But now you know they are interested in hiring a cleaning company, and are in the decision phase of who to hire, you can stay in touch with them so you are top of mind when they are ready to hire someone.
We do this using what we call a “return agent”.
You see, Google and Facebook give you a little piece of code that allows you to “tag” people who visit different pages of your website. And you can now run ads to them over the next few weeks.
Of course, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.
Get it wrong and you’ll be seen as an annoying pest.
But get it right and you’re seen as a welcome guest.
So how do you do it right?
The secret is to provide valuable information that helps the prospect solve their problem.
For example, say you provide house cleaning services. You might write an article titled “5 Things You Need To Know Before Hiring a House Cleaner That Could Save You Hundreds of Dollars”. In it you share useful information about how not to get ripped off and what sort of things you should look out for.
You post the article on your website and place links to your offer in and around the article. We run ads to the people who visited but have not yet bought from you. They click on the ad and get helpful information from you, and you have instantly become a welcome guest.
We might then run a second ad, to people who have read the article. It could provide a time-limited discount code or other special offer to encourage them to book a cleaning service this week.
And because they have now interacted with your website a couple of times, and received valuable information from you, it exponentially increases the likelihood of them hiring you!
Of course, ads are only one part of the passive return agent system. If you generate email leads of people who visit your website, you can also follow up with valuable information via email.
Here’s how to do it…
6: Optimise your website to generate leads
Most cleaning business websites use a Yes / No system.
You visit the website and either become a client (Yes) or leave (No).
We use a Yes / No / Maybe system with our clients.
You see, we want to generate as many leads of the people who visit our website as possible. Because we know they are interested in hiring a cleaning company. And while they might be a “No” today, they could become a “Yes” tomorrow. So we allow them to say “Maybe”.
How do we do this?
In exchange for the prospects email address we give away valuable free reports, discount coupons, and other special offers.
There are three primary places we do this:
1. The offer bar
This is a small bar that runs across the top of your website. It’s usually on every page of your website and is a simple way to get your offer in front of every person who visits.
2. The sidebar
This is a larger call to action box placed next to every article on your website or blog. It turns every piece of content you post into a mini lead-generation machine.
3. The exit pop
When someone is about to leave your website we use a little piece of code to pop up a last chance offer. We already know they are leaving so we can hit them with our absolute best offer before they go to the competition. This alone can give you a boost of up to 11% in the number of leads you generate.
Here’s one we designed recently:
Most people popup an offer like this as soon as someone hits your website.
But this can be annoying because the prospect is trying to read your website.
Not only that, you end up giving up margin (via discounting) you might not have needed to.
We’ve found it works best to strategically popup offers like this only when you determine the prospect is about to leave your website.
7: Replicate this system for each cleaning service you offer
If you’ve implemented everything we’ve talked about so far you’re going to be dominating your local area.
You’re generating qualified leads every single day.
People are requesting quotes and scheduling appointments all day long. Business is good.
The next step is simple:
Take this system and replicate it for each service you offer!
At this stage you’ll probably need to bring on more staff to handle all the work. If you only do residential you might think about adding commercial clients. You’ll have the systems in place to get any type of client you want.
8: How to become a national cleaning business giant
Now, at some point you’re going to tap out your local area.
You’ll be getting all the business you can possibly get.
And frankly, most people are happy here. You’re making high six (maybe even seven) figures. You’ve got a long list of loyal repeat clients. You could turn off your marketing machine and sit pretty on referrals and repeat business for months… maybe years.
But if you’ve set your sights on becoming a national cleaning business giant, there are other options.
You could take this system and replicate it in another area. Generate leads for other cleaning companies and get paid for every lead you deliver.
Or you could start building your empire by buying cleaning companies in other areas.
There are no shortage of cleaning businesses. And many owners are more than willing to sell. (Often at bargain basement prices.) Especially those who don’t know how to implement the kind of client-getting systems you’ve just learned about. You could rinse and repeat this system across the entire country.
No matter what you decide to do, you’ll have the freedom to choose.
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this article. Yet we’ve only scratched the surface. There is so much more I want to share with you.
Let me grow your business for you:
Would you like me to implement this system for your cleaning business?
We’ll take care of the ads, landing pages, lead generation offers, return agents, and all the testing and tracking that makes it work.
All you have to do is go to GetLeads.co/apply.
We’ll jump on the phone (or Skype) and I’ll walk you through everything. I’ll take a look at what you’re doing now and give lots of valuable tips and advice on how to get better results. And if you like what you hear, and we are a good fit, then we might decide to work together. Either way you’ll get a lot of value from out time.
So, when you’re ready to schedule your strategy session just click here.
I look forward to speaking with you.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
