As a cleaning business owner, you are probably always looking for ways to get more cleaning clients. Finding ways of generating highly targeted cleaning leads is one way to help expand your customer base. Unfortunately, many cleaning business owners struggle with this. In this post, you’ll learn how to create a lead magnet for a cleaning business and how to use it to get more cleaning clients.
Know your ideal customers and industries you want to serve
The great part about having a cleaning business is that there are so many different industries and niches you can serve. This gives you a large opportunity to generate business from a variety of sources.
In order to attract these customers to become leads for your cleaning business, you’ll need to know what makes them tick. With several possible industries you may want to do business with, it is usually easier to start by researching ideal clients for general cleaning vs a specialized niche.
You can always add other industries and niches as your cleaning business grows, but starting with general cleaning could be your gateway into other industries and specialization. Some key things to note are finding out about your ideal customer’s problems, their common questions, and desires, and needs that your services could fulfill.
When you know this information about your ideal customers it will make creating a lead magnet for your cleaning business much easier.
Position your lead magnet to solve a problem, answer a question, or fulfill a need
Many cleaning businesses try and create lead magnets but when they do, they find out that they struggle to generate leads with them. The main reason for this is that their lead magnets are structured in a way that just shares what they are and now how they help people.
For example, a lead magnet might be something like, “Free ebook on 10 steps to choosing the right cleaning company”. This sounds good and like something people would want, but it isn’t framed in a way that highlights the benefits to your ideal customer.
A better way would be to use this ebook but position it as a solution to your ideal customer’s problems. You could frame it in a way such as “10 ways to avoid hiring the wrong cleaning company and overpaying for cleaning services”. Most people don’t like overpaying for services, so positioning your lead magnet in a way that teaches someone how to avoid that would likely result in more leads generated.
Another example could be something like, “10 cleaning hacks that can cut your house cleaning routine in half”. Most people don’t want to clean or would rather be doing other things, so if your lead magnet helps them save time, it is more enticing to download than just an ebook on cleaning hacks.
Position your lead magnet in a way that highlights “what’s in it for them” for your ideal customers and you will generate more cleaning leads.
Decide on what your lead magnet will be – ebook, PDF, checklist
Once you have a concept in mind of what your lead magnet will be, the next step is to decide how you want to deliver the lead magnet. There are a wide variety of lead magnets you can create, such as an ebook, pdf guide, checklist, video series, and more.
Some styles of lead magnets are a bit more complex to create and deliver than others, but any can work well. If you are creating a lead magnet on your own, a few simple options are a PDF guide and an MP3 download.
Creating a PDF guide is as simple as creating a document in Google Docs and then saving it as a PDF. You can even make the link shareable on Google Drive or your website, and give access to people via that link which you could deliver in an email series.
With most smartphones and computers you can download various free voice recording apps. If you have a concept in mind for your lead magnet you can simply create an audio recording from your computer or phone and upload it to Google Drive or your website.
You can deliver that download the same as you would your PDF guide once people have opted in to list.
Writing/recording your lead magnet
Now that you have decided on what format your lead magnet will be in, the next step is writing or recording your lead magnet. This part can seem overwhelming but there is a simple way to outline your content and get your lead magnet created quickly.
The first step is to create bullet points for each major subject you want to cover in your lead magnet. These might be different tips, ideas, or solutions to problems that you will cover in your lead magnet.
Once you have this general outline for your content, you want to expand on each of these bullet points and write/script out 200-300 words on each point. If your lead magnet covered around 10 points that would add up to nearly 2000-3000 words and would likely be around 10-20 minutes worth of content if you were to talk about it.
The good news is that you also shouldn’t write this lead magnet at a high academic level. You simply need to write in a way that is conversational and easy to follow. This will keep your audience engaged and they won’t lose your message in special cleaning technical lingo.
Once you have covered your topics you simply want to end your lead magnet with a call to action to take the next step in your sales process. This could be something like giving you a call to request an estimate, or to take advantage of some special offer that those who downloaded your lead magnet get access to.
Your lead magnet should educate your potential customers and guide them into the next step of your buying process.
Optimizing your website to promote a lead magnet
Another step that a lot of people skip when trying to generate more cleaning leads is actually optimizing their cleaning company website for lead generation. Simply having a lead magnet isn’t enough. You need a website that is attractive, that drives targeted traffic, and that highlights your lead magnet in its content.
One thing that you want to do is to optimize your home page. Your home page should highlight how your business stands out from the competition and how you can better serve your ideal customers.
Also, be sure to include real employee photos as that can help you build trust and credibility faster with your site visitors. When people trust your business they are more likely to opt-in for your estimate request and the conversion rate on your lead magnets will improve.
You may consider including a popup that promotes your lead magnet as well. Some people say that popups can be spammy but the reality is that how aggressive you are with them makes all the difference.
One pop up that is easily closed and that shows up only one time per a user’s session is far less annoying than one that pops up on every page regardless if a user has closed out the popup before or not. A simple popup to raise awareness of your lead magnet can do wonders to improve your lead generation.
Use content marketing to promote your lead magnet
Now that you have your lead magnet created, the next step is to build a content marketing system to increase traffic to your website. Even with a high-quality lead magnet, without targeted traffic, you won’t be able to generate many leads.
You need a compelling lead magnet offer and a high volume of targeted visitors coming to your website to generate leads. Many cleaning businesses create a lead magnet, but then they never create systems to promote it and wonder why they aren’t generating more leads. If no one knows about your lead magnet, you won’t have people downloading it.
Content marketing is one of the best ways to build targeted traffic to your website because the work done to create content can pay returns in traffic for years to come. Blogging is one effective content marketing strategy you should implement in your cleaning business marketing plan.
When you write blogs or content on your site you should focus on a similar strategy for how you created your lead magnet. Focus on topics that your ideal customers are searching for and that answer common questions, help them avoid problems, and help them to achieve positive results quicker.
Then throughout this content or at the end, as a call to action, you want to promote your lead magnet. Your content will attract targeted traffic, and then your call to action in your content can help you generate more targeted cleaning leads.
Build a lead magnet for each service you offer
Another marketing strategy you can use to generate more leads is to create a lead magnet for each industry and service you offer. This might be more time consuming on the front end, but it can help you improve your conversion rates.
When you offer lead magnets that are very targeted and congruent with the content they are promoted on, you are much more likely to generate leads from them. For example, if you offer carpet cleaning services, and want to generate more carpet cleaning leads, you might create a lead magnet that covers something like, “how to get out the top 10 most stubborn carpet stains”.
Following this strategy, you will also generate more high-quality leads. In the above example, likely someone who is interested in getting stains out of carpets fits your ideal customer avatar for carpet cleaning. So, if that person downloads that lead magnet, there is likely a good chance you will convert those leads.
Higher conversion rates are the main reason you would want to create a variety of lead magnets. However, in addition to that, you will likely also generate more leads because not everyone will be interested in each lead magnet you offer. When you have more options for people to become leads, vs just having one lead magnet, you’ll usually generate more leads.
Actively reach out to your new leads
It would be great if every lead that you generated hired your cleaning service without talking to them further, but the reality is you’ll need to have a follow-up process in place to maximize your results. One method of follow-up is actively following up with potential customers.
The reality is you should never stop doing this method of follow-up unless you don’t need or want any more customers. You will have the best success with converting cleaning leads when you actually pick up the phone and call them rather than waiting for them to sign up for your services on their own.
Today’s market is super competitive and it is easier than ever for potential customers to request quotes on cleaning services from several businesses at once. The company with the best follow-up process is usually going to be the one who gets the sale.
Keep this in mind because actively reaching out to your new leads as they come in can give your business a great impression with potential customers. Time and time again we hear from clients that they got the business from new leads because their company was the only one out of several that actually answered the phone when they called.
Being available when leads call and actively following up sounds like they would be common sense, but many companies miss this crucial step and it could be costing you sales if you aren’t doing it.
Develop a follow-up email series to complement your lead magnet
In addition to actively following up you also should have some follow up processes in place that work automatically behind the scenes. One of the best marketing strategies to implement automated follow-up is with email marketing and building an email series.
An email series is designed to educate your leads on the benefits of your services and to also sell them on why they should do business with you vs the competition. This form of follow-up works so well because it isn’t just offering discounts or selling in a pushy manner.
When your only form of communication with potential clients is pushing your offers and trying to sell them on your services you can actually end up turning people off from your business. You should follow the 80/20 rule, which is when 80% of your content and messaging is value-based and educational and only 20% is sales and promotional based.
When your follow-up email series is built in this way it can help build trust, rapport, and credibility with your cleaning leads. Then when the timing is right for them to choose a cleaning business to hire, they usually choose you over the competition because of the relationship you built with them via your email series.
Send ongoing content that educates and sells
Similar to an email series, you also want to continue to send out content to your email list that further educates them and sells them on the benefits of hiring your cleaning business. As you continue to build out content that also promotes your lead magnets, you want to send this content to your existing list.
Not everyone who joins your list for the first time will be ready to buy from you the day they join your list. Many people that join your list will be in research mode and will be comparing your business to others and are trying to figure out who they should hire.
Typically an email series will last between 1 to 2 weeks for the series to be complete. After that point, some of these cleaning leads still may not have hired your cleaning service.
You need a reason to engage your leads again and get them back to your website if they don’t convert in your initial email series. The way to do this without being annoying is to send them ongoing email blasts that simply share your content and includes a soft call to action.
A soft call to action would be something like ending your email with a P.S. line promoting your services. For example, you may say something like, “P.S. Still looking for a cleaning service to disinfect and sanitize your business? Click here to learn more about our disinfecting services.”
Conclusion
Overall, if you want to generate more cleaning leads for your cleaning business having a quality high-converting lead magnet is essential. Many people will opt-in for a free estimate request, but those who aren’t ready to take that step will often opt-in for your lead magnet instead.
Creating a lead magnet is rather simple and it could be something like an ebook, PDF guide, or even an Mp3 download. The foundation of your lead magnet should be centered around solving a problem, answering a question, or helping your ideal customer fulfill a need faster.
Just creating your lead magnet isn’t enough to generate more leads. A great lead magnet without targeted traffic will struggle to generate leads. For this reason, you want to develop a content marketing strategy in addition to building a lead magnet for your cleaning business.
Finally, with your lead magnet and content marketing strategy in place, you should start to generate leads. However, understand that generating the lead is just the start of the process. You need to convert those leads as well.
The way you convert the leads you generate is by actively following up and by developing automated follow-up with email marketing. Put these marketing strategies in place and you will be generating more cleaning leads in no time.
P.S. If you are struggling to get quality leads for your cleaning business, Click Here to Learn How to Get More Clients for your business with these Top 10 Lead Sources For Cleaning Business Owners.