Just real quick…
I’m heading out on vacation to the North Carolina mountain. Summer is a bit much in Florida with all the heat and humidity. If you’ve ever been to Florida in summer, you know what I mean.
Since summer is ending…school is coming.
Here are some postcard ideas to back to school.
* Client mailers.
* And EDDM mailers to NEW prospects.
During a summer lull, this is the perfect advertising to test.
After decades of testing different neighborhood marketing offers and designs, we’ve found some concepts that work better than others.
This neighborhood marketing concept:
* Catches your prospect’s attention
* Makes your offer more believable with social proof
* The reader wants to read your mailer
* Targets the neighbors of your IDEAL clients
See this marketing concept that catches the attention of neighbors.
P.S. If you need ideas on targeting high-end clients, you need to see this video. It’s done with a little twiest and takes EDDM to the next level.
Listen as I interview Jeremy and Stefanie Overturf of Overturf’s Floor and Fabric Care. Click play to listen now or click “Download” to listen later.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
*To download directly from iTunes, Click Here.
I interviewed a couple who owns a cleaning business in Florida.
They started their business from scratch and built it up to be one of the biggest and most respected cleaning firms in their area.
I totally love some of the marketing they do on Facebook. When it comes to marketing to Realtors, Flooring Stores, and their current clients, they do it right.
So I had to interview them.
You’ve got to hear what these guys did to build a successful cleaning business.
How do you grow? Find out what other successful people are doing and then do what they did! It’s that easy.
I almost left the guarantees out!
I was finishing up writing my book on advertising for cleaning companies.
…It’s coming out soon. I’ll keep you posted.
During my final review, I realized I left out a very important component…Guarantees.
I don’t mean a vague “Satisfaction Guarantee.” I mean a compelling, meaningful, spelled out guarantee.
I have several clients in my cleaning company that have told me they use us strictly because of our guarantees. They won’t use anyone else. They’ve tried other companies that did a bad job, had spots return, and the company wouldn’t come back for a follow up service. Because of our strong guarantees, they’ll keep using us and pay a higher price.
I’m not saying you have to do all these guarantees. But the stronger your guarantee, the more you can charge. You want them to feel like they can’t lose if they hire you.
If you make these guarantees, very few people will ever take you up on the money back guarantees. But someone will take advantage eventually. Be prepared for that. However, making such a strong guarantee will attract many more people to your business who are willing to pay your price. It’s worth it.
It’s Summer.
This is the busiest time for buying and selling houses. It’s warm outside and parents can move their children to a new school.
If there’s ever a season to get referrals from Realtors, it’s NOW.
See my action plan to get referrals from Realtors:
Three things to concentrate on:
1. Know what to say when you met a Realtor. Have a quick 60-second pitch memorized. Tell them how you’ll help them sell homes fast with your guaranteed odor removal and stain removal systems. Tell them about your guarantee. Tell them about your referral program that gives them an incentive to refer you. In the referral program, maybe give them a 10% reward of what their client spends on cleaning, give them $20 in cash, or whatever you choose. The main point is to tell them they will get thanked in the form of a gift when they refer you. Keep your pitch to 60 seconds!
Watch this video I did right after a Realtor luncheon.
2. Leave behind literature and cards. You can tell them about your service, but if you don’t leave behind something for them to give to their clients, you’ll lose. Have professionally printed, educational brochures and cards to leave them.
See examples of gift cards…Click Here.
See examples of cleaning brochures Right Here.
3. Go with treats. Never stop by empty handed. Stop in with a gift bag filled with brochures, gift cards, pens, and pre-packaged cookies. Put in a couple of pre-packaged cookies like Famous Amos, Oreos, or Chips Ahoy. Maybe include a few individually wrapped chocolates too. The gift bag lowers their resistance to your sales call. Everyone loves cookies and candy.
Watch this video from last week on what to include in the gift bag.
If you’re going to get referrals from Realtors, right NOW is the best time. Go out and do it!
You’ll be set if you can get referrals from a company who does business with your ideal target clients.
Who are some of these companies that can refer you:
* Carpet and Flooring Retailers
* Realtors
* Interior Designers
* Plumbers
* Vet Offices
I’ve gotten $1k+ jobs and lifelong clients from each of these companies.
Find out the EXACT process I used in the video above.
P.S. Concentrating on getting these businesses to refer you is one of the best ways to make your cleaning company UNSTOPPABLE.
You can use gift cards to target the EXACT clients you want. Use this to get more referrals, commercial work, and clients in high-end neighborhoods.
We LOVE getting referrals. So we do everything possible to get more. The best thing about a referral is the prospect is already sold on using you before they call. Most of the time there is no in-home estimate or price haggling required. Just set the appointment and make money.
These gift promo cards are viewed to be MUCH more valuable than a coupon or even a FREE room of cleaning offer. They look like a real gift card and, for all practical purpose, we treat them like a real gift card. The only difference is we give some special exclusions on the back of the card to keep the offer from getting abused.
1. Pass them out to businesses who can refer you to their clients. We pass them out to flooring retailers, realtors, interior designers, plumbers, maid services, builders, property managers, and other places that can hand you NICE jobs. We pass them out at their office or we’ll send a few to them in the mail along with a letter that gives benefits of how we can help them.
2. Hand them out at networking events. Why give out plain old business cards when you can give out gift cards? Go to networking groups as the bearer of gifts!
3. Distribute them to high-end neighborhoods. We send these out in a letter that gives compelling benefits of our service. We also use these in doorknob hanger packets.
It’s one of the CHEAPEST tools to promote referrals and set yourself apart from the competition. I’m all about setting my company apart from my competitors.
We use them in different dollar amounts…$25, $50 and $100. The potential job that can be referred depends on the amount. For example, realtors normally get $50 or $100 gift cards. A property manager who rents small homes may get a $25 gift card.
These cards are printed up to look like actual gift cards. But they’re really a thick, glossy, larger business card. Upon looking at the card, they look like a gift card. But when you hold it in your hand it doesn’t feel quite like a thick, plastic card. It does the job at an economical price so we can afford to pass out thousands of them all over the city.
2 Ways to Get these Gift Cards:
1. You get the template for this gift card and BIG discounts on printing in my Ad Club. Get details by CLICKING HERE. Get 1000 of these glossy, thick gift cards printed for just $32 + shipping.
2. Or, for a limited time, get this template custom graphic designed with your company info for $99. Then get 1000 of these glossy, thick gift cards printed for just $32 + shipping. Order Info Click Here.
Get in the Google Adwords Training Course FREE when you sign up for my Ad Club. See details here.
Ever wish there was a way to market back to your website visitors AFTER they visit your site?
You can do this even if they don’t sign up for your email newsletter.
And it happens on AUTOPILOT to almost every visitor who comes to your site.
It’s called Google Remarketing.
You can set it up in Google Adwords for usually less than $1 per click.
I shot this video that walks you through the set up step-by-step.
P.S. I’ve heard of some web developers charging $500 or more just to set this up. But I’ll show you how you can do it yourself FREE.
Most cleaning websites suck!
Why? Because they don’t turn traffic into buyers.
IMPORTANT: There’s a HUGE difference between a pretty website and a website that converts lurkers into cleaning clients.
I’ve seen pretty websites that don’t get calls and I’ve seen ugly websites that do get calls.
Your prospects are looking for TWO important things when they land on your site.
Find out how you can use these two important sales triggers on your cleaning website to get more sales.
See this video I just shot now.
P.S. The main hurdle you need to jump over is differentiating yourself from your competition.
If you want to charge MORE than 5 rooms for $99, you have to do some of these things.
The graphic here to the right is how it works in a nutshell.
This is one way to do it that we’ve found to work well:
The keywords should be specific. Sure, it’s still okay to just use Carpet Cleaning as a keyword. But you’ll pay more money for shorter keyword phrases, especially popular phrases like carpet cleaning.
So instead, go after keywords like Best Carpet Cleaning in Atlanta GA (If you serviced Atlanta). Or, go after other specific cleaning services that you do and leave Carpet Cleaning out.
For example, if you do pet stain removal, go after Pet Stain Removal Atlanta.
If you do rug cleaning, here’s a specific list of 30 GREAT keywords we’ve tested and proven.
“area rug cleaning”
“rug cleaning”
“area rug cleaning YOURCITY”
“rug cleaning YOURCITY”
“area rugs cleaned”
“area rugs clean”
“rug cleaning service”
“professional rug cleaning”
“professional area rug cleaning”
“wool rug cleaning”
“wool rug cleaners”
“oriental rug cleaning”
“cotton rug cleaning”
“silk rug cleaning”
“persian rug cleaning”
“sisal rug cleaning”
“rug cleaners”
“rug cleaners YOURCITY”
“area rug cleaners”
“area rug cleaners YOURCITY”
“wool rug cleaners”
“rug odor removal”
“urine removal rug”
“rug dry cleaning”
“oriental rug cleaners”
“persian rug cleaners”
“cotton rug cleaning”
“silk rug cleaning”
“rug hand washing”
“rug washing”
“area rug washing”
***20-to-1 return on investment explained***
Some of the campaigns we’ve done have gotten over a 20-to-1 investment…Some as great as a 40-to-1 return. But your results will differ. Some companies that don’t do Adwords right, get little return.
That’s $4,000 for $100 spent on advertising! Now granted, that doesn’t happen on every campaign. But when it does happen, it’s great.
ONE MORE HINT: Notice the parenthesis around the keywords? When you do this, you’ll get a more refined prospect who is only looking for that keyword phrase.
Get MORE training on how to use Google Adwords in my Ad Coaching Club Here (Get in the Google Adwords Course FREE)
Or sign up for only the Google Adwords Course by Clicking Here.