Are direct mails apt for advertising cleaning services? Cause these days, almost all companies use these and other better promotion strategies and there is probably nothing more new and attractive to catch the attention of the customers. What I want to know is, in case I'm using direct mail marketing to promote my business, how can I make it more innovative and attractive and different from the other regular mails?
Need promotional advice.
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email marketing also good if you adopted best marketing strategies, first you need to get the input clients data and then design a email letter that includes your services and package details. If clients found that you are reliable then they may reply to you and contact them. Once the deal is finished ask them for referrals, if your service is good they will give you.
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be creative offer deals. which customer like.
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Have you had good luck with direct mail? I haven't had any luck at all... I would improve your online presence first before spending money on direct mail. How's your website? Is it ranking?
I would have to disagree with this statement. Email marketing although is cheap/free, it is not always effective. Think how easy it is to open your email, see a marketing email like this and delete it or ignore it. Not to mention the programs out there these days that filter out mass emails like this as spam so the intended customer never receives what you send. Now, I'm not saying do not using it but don't rely on email marketing for your business as you'll find yourself with little to do.
I find the best ways to increase your business is by developing a website and reaching out to business face to face. It's a lot more personal and not as easy to ignore like a email or leaving a phone message is.
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Is Facebook a good Marketing technique?
It's a start. If you can't afford to create a website at least create a Facebook page.
Your question is a bit broad and open ended though, yes Facebook is a great marketing tool but I would not solely rely it on for leads and/or marketing.
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Getting leads from Lead Gen Company
My leads have been very very strong using a lead gen company who sends me leads from local search. Pretty cool how they do it and it works. Let me know if you want information and I'll send it to you.
Paul
Hey Nevil,
My leads have been very very strong using a lead gen company who sends me leads from local search. Pretty cool how they do it and it works. Let me know if you want information and I'll send it to you.
Paul
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advertising
Hi All,
Firstly, I am new here and am looking forward to learning and contributing.
When we started our business 5 years ago we used direct delivery of our flyers exclusively. No email, no direct mail, we literally walked the flyers into businesses and handed them to receptionists. All we had to back up our flyers was a nice website we had a guy on Fiverr build for us. We were able to reach about 300 businesses this way, it took us 2 months, and we eventually signed up 12 contracts. About 3 months later we ran an ad on Craigslist for people to distribute our flyers directly, part-time. We offered $10 per hour, and we also said that if we got a contract from a business they had given a flyer to, we would pay them 10% of the profit for 3 months. We interviewed carefully and made sure they were the types of people we would feel okay with to represent our company, that is, appearance, positive attitude, good speaking skills, etc. We ended up hiring 4 people, two dropped out almost immediately, we hired 2 more people, and one dropped out. But we did end up with a good 3-person crew. We sat them down in a room one day for a couple of hours (our bank has a small conference room they make available to their customers, for free) and we trained them as to how we wanted them to approach the businesses, and the types of businesses we were interested in, that is, office buildings, not huge but not tiny, no restaurants, hair salons, bars, etc. They were trained to walk in, smile, hand a flyer to the receptionist, say "Hi, something for you folks to consider - thanks and have a great day!" and then they moved on. No sales talk whatsoever. We gave them very specific individual areas we wanted them to cover, that is, no one overlapping each other's areas, and we limited their time to 4 hours a day = $40 per day. Using this method they were able to give flyers to over 800 businesses in the Seattle area, it took about 2 months, and it really, really worked well. From this project we eventually got 21 contracts, and the project cost us around $2500 for wages and about $2000 for the "10% of profits for 3 months" agreement. Of course some of those contracts did not happen immediately, so the 10% bonus didn't kick in immediately either, but our distributors were okay with that. The contracts amounted to about $23,000 per month. Super simple, effective and very cheap considering the return on investment, as our customers keep paying us month after month, and yet our outlay for the project was a one-time occurrence.
One thing -- your flyers have to capture their attention. At the top of our flyers we have a photo of a frustrated-looking business woman, and next to it we start off with a big bolded question -- "Do any of these sound familiar?" Questions like this are called "pattern interrupts" -- they snap the reader into focus (yes, we did a fair amount of research on how to write effective sales flyers and kept tweaking them as time went by).
Then we made up some quotes that appear below the question -- "Our cleaning service just doesn't do what the contract says". "We can complain about something, it gets better for a while, but then it slips back again". "We have to deal with the cleaning service too often".
Under those quotes we say, "You shouldn't have to be the quality control person for your cleaning service". We call this an agreement -- almost everyone has said at least one of those things at one time or another, and they can relate and agree with those statements.
Then we introduce our company, give a few facts, and include my photo and contact information at the bottom.
Hope this helps!
Hi All,
Firstly, I am new here and am looking forward to learning and contributing.
When we started our business 5 years ago we used direct delivery of our flyers exclusively. No email, no direct mail, we literally walked the flyers into businesses and handed them to receptionists. All we had to back up our flyers was a nice website we had a guy on Fiverr build for us. We were able to reach about 300 businesses this way, it took us 2 months, and we eventually signed up 12 contracts. About 3 months later we ran an ad on Craigslist for people to distribute our flyers directly, part-time. We offered $10 per hour, and we also said that if we got a contract from a business they had given a flyer to, we would pay them 10% of the profit for 3 months. We interviewed carefully and made sure they were the types of people we would feel okay with to represent our company, that is, appearance, positive attitude, good speaking skills, etc. We ended up hiring 4 people, two dropped out almost immediately, we hired 2 more people, and one dropped out. But we did end up with a good 3-person crew. We sat them down in a room one day for a couple of hours (our bank has a small conference room they make available to their customers, for free) and we trained them as to how we wanted them to approach the businesses, and the types of businesses we were interested in, that is, office buildings, not huge but not tiny, no restaurants, hair salons, bars, etc. They were trained to walk in, smile, hand a flyer to the receptionist, say "Hi, something for you folks to consider - thanks and have a great day!" and then they moved on. No sales talk whatsoever. We gave them very specific individual areas we wanted them to cover, that is, no one overlapping each other's areas, and we limited their time to 4 hours a day = $40 per day. Using this method they were able to give flyers to over 800 businesses in the Seattle area, it took about 2 months, and it really, really worked well. From this project we eventually got 21 contracts, and the project cost us around $2500 for wages and about $2000 for the "10% of profits for 3 months" agreement. Of course some of those contracts did not happen immediately, so the 10% bonus didn't kick in immediately either, but our distributors were okay with that. The contracts amounted to about $23,000 per month. Super simple, effective and very cheap considering the return on investment, as our customers keep paying us month after month, and yet our outlay for the project was a one-time occurrence.
One thing -- your flyers have to capture their attention. At the top of our flyers we have a photo of a frustrated-looking business woman, and next to it we start off with a big bolded question -- "Do any of these sound familiar?" Questions like this are called "pattern interrupts" -- they snap the reader into focus (yes, we did a fair amount of research on how to write effective sales flyers and kept tweaking them as time went by).
Then we made up some quotes that appear below the question -- "Our cleaning service just doesn't do what the contract says". "We can complain about something, it gets better for a while, but then it slips back again". "We have to deal with the cleaning service too often".
Under those quotes we say, "You shouldn't have to be the quality control person for your cleaning service". We call this an agreement -- almost everyone has said at least one of those things at one time or another, and they can relate and agree with those statements.
Then we introduce our company, give a few facts, and include my photo and contact information at the bottom.
Hope this helps!
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30 Posts
Agree with kitpatrick to use flyers to promte. Cleaning is local service, flyers is the fastest way to approach customer.
You can face to face advertise your service with your customer.
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28 Posts
Hi Everyone,
Building just a website is ok - but you need to think of the website as a place to convert lookers to buyers.
Facebook works as a starting platform but you need to build out from there.
Paul
Building just a website is ok - but you need to think of the website as a place to convert lookers to buyers.
Facebook works as a starting platform but you need to build out from there.
Paul
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18 Posts
Email marketing is at the same level of flyers, if it is arriving at the right moment it can be successful.
So keep in mind that you will get low conversions rates
So keep in mind that you will get low conversions rates
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28 Posts
Trade Shows
For great and usually inexpensive exposure a Home Trade Show is a great way to get some excellent exposure. Normally you don't see immediate results but you get your name out in the community.
Also when your there network with others to build up relationships as everyone else displaying there has carpets that need cleaning.
Paul
For great and usually inexpensive exposure a Home Trade Show is a great way to get some excellent exposure. Normally you don't see immediate results but you get your name out in the community.
Also when your there network with others to build up relationships as everyone else displaying there has carpets that need cleaning.
Paul
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28 Posts
and . . .
Don't overlook joining your COC in your area (Chamber of Commerce).
For the small fee of $100-$200 or so you get a nice welcome in their
newsletter and then you have the ability to market to those members
or attend networking functions which can go a long way to building a business.
Paul
Don't overlook joining your COC in your area (Chamber of Commerce).
For the small fee of $100-$200 or so you get a nice welcome in their
newsletter and then you have the ability to market to those members
or attend networking functions which can go a long way to building a business.
Paul
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24 Posts
In my experience, Facebook helps you rate higher on google but doesn't necessarily help with attaining customers. Flyers didn't work for us. Radio didn't work for us. Cold calling and word of mouth are probably best but we get a lot of business off of our website
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Love it!
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Facebook is definitely good for promotion, Instagram has paid advertising too. Use them both.
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