Happy Memorial Weekend All!

I've been expanding my business and looking into new and more effective methods of advertising. I know word of mouth is arguably the best advertising, I've seen first hand. However, what are some other great ways you all advertise? Flyers, car signs, mailings, cold-calling, online classifieds, newspapers, etc? I just wanted to get a discussion started to feed off everyone else's ideas

Thanks all!

I would rate my marketing success as coming from these sources -

1) Word of mouth

2) Web site(s) - pages/ blogs/ links/ ect....

3) Vehicle lettering

Internet hands down.... As part of an overall marketing plan.

Internet is the cheapest with the best ROI.
For me it does not produce nearly enough leads (maybe 8-10 per week). For quality high volume leads, direct mail is the king.

I agree with Ken. One thing about the web it cost more to get in front of the public. If they aren't looking for your service you don't exist. We door hang (Big). We place signs/billboards in areas we get the most calls for a week or two. We drive the customer to us can't wait for the economy to get better.

Door Flyers, are doing the trick for us. We are also offering our customres 25% on next service visit when they recommend someone that actually uses our services. And of course you can not beat the old word of mouth.


Hector Reyes
www.lakescleaningserv.com
lake2.jpg

We use several different forms of advertising such as the internet, placing ads and flyers. One thing I find interesting about flyers is we will get calls for customers from a flyer we sent out 6mos earlier. We have learned to date the flyers so we can determine which one a customer is refering to when they call. Sometimes they will have different pricing due to promotions so it is important to keep up with that information. But it is nice that people hold on to our stuff for so long!

im in commercial cleaning only and best ive found is cold calling..I ask for the manging partner and speak with them and simply tell them my name and what i do. Mailing would be my next best form.

I think you advertising consist of various thing you do consistantly.

repeat the things you do over and over and over. People retain the brand in there memory and if you can be reached or found easily when they need you.

Then you have won the marketing game.

I would say cold calling and following up(persistance) have worked well. Find leads in everything you read, see and hear i.e. newspapers, ads that you receive, companies that advertise on tv and radio in your local area... Grab leads on your trip to the grocery store- jot down a number to a for lease building and make the call.

To echo a lot of posts here:

1. Word of mouth
2. Website
3. Website
4. Website (see a pattern? LOL)

I touch a minimum of 10 business' a day! I also post ads on craigslist and I always hand out a minimum of 3 business cards (word of mouth) I even place flyers on cars and I print all of them here in my office.

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could help me out. I am having trouble coming up with a catchy slogan for my Cleaning company. I am just starting out and could really use the help! Also if anyone has any tips that could help me get my name out there that would be awsome!

Thanks,

Nicole
SunCity Cleaning

"Cleaning everything uder the sun one client at a time" "The names right.. We shine it and make it bright" "We shine it and make it bright... Day or Night" "Day or Night cleaning is our delight" ""Rain or sun we're never done we get down to the nitty gritty"

Being focused on your service quality is not a bad idea afterall. word of mouth goes the farthest and it doesn't cost you a penny. This marketing activity should be on all the time, everybody should know you would do it for them .

Word of mouth
Internet

I agree

Word of mouth

Internet

I like Google Adwords. Hand down its the best online advertising system out there.

If you are in a market like my market, which is the postcard printing market, then it becomes almost impossible to get on the first page of google for the best keywords... and even if you are on the second page, there is still 10+ competitors in front of you absorbing the market.

Now in my company's case, we have industry competitive pricing, and we lead in pricing for quantities of 20,000+, but this DOES US NO GOOD if we cant get exposure.

So what adwords does is, if we can afford it, places our ads on the first page on the right hand side. And people click! And we convert!

We pay per click, "impressions" which are ad renders, are free.

So being the administrator of this advertising department I can tell you that the majority of out sales comes from Google Adwords. And we pay for it... but when we secure a repeat customer that prefers our business, then that cost was well worth it.

This strategy can be successfully replicated for your cleaning industry if you have a nice website that funnels your sales appropriately.

Another reason to get a website huh!? In the mean time my company has amazingly low postcard printing prices for your already proven direct mailing campaings.

Word of Mouth will always be the best and is FREE!

Next to that will be websites. But, just creating a website won't convert into clients. You have to get to the top of the search engines. As adbox says, adwords will get you there, but you pay and can end up paying top dollar if you don't know how to target your keywords properly.

The best thing to do is work on getting your website to the top of the search engines without having to pay for it.

Stacy
http://www.businessformsstore.com/website_optimization

Ideally shes right. Organic is always better than paid traffic.

One more thing though, I've noticed through our studies that the quality of the paid traffic is better. More time on site, lower "bounce rates", more pages looked over. ... I'm not quite sure how to make use of that info just yet, but it seems like something good to know.