If you’ve reached the point of wanting to advertise your cleaning business, Facebook ads can be a great choice. Unfortunately, if you advertise in the wrong way, you could end up wasting a lot of money. In this post, you’ll learn how to get clients for a cleaning business with Facebook ads
Facebook Advertising VS Google Ads For Cleaning Businesses
Two of the most common forms of advertising for cleaning businesses are Google Ads and Facebook advertising. Most cleaning businesses tend to choose Google Ads. Google Ads are powerful, but often they can be more costly, and highly competitive.
A key difference between the two platforms is the types of ads you’ll run on each platform. For example, Google Ads are based on specific keywords that people are already searching for.
This means you have to bid on terms and keywords that you think your ideal customers may be searching for. This can definitely prove challenging and expensive.
Often you’ll find the cost per click for a residential cleaning service could be anywhere from $6-$15 a click. For a commercial cleaning business, it could be as high as $100-$200 per click!
Now those could still be profitable depending on how your website is set up, and your customer value. Unfortunately, most people don’t set up their cleaning business website correctly either.
Check out this post on properly setting up your cleaning business website. How to Set up a Cleaning Company Website that Actually Gets Cleaning Clients.
Google Ads Can Create More Competition Over The Same People
The reason Google Ads tend to be more expensive is that you are competing with a lot of people over the same keywords. The goal is to put your ads in front of people that are likely to buy. That means that you need to bid on keywords that are linked to specific buyer intent.
For example, as a commercial cleaning business, you might bid on the term, “janitorial services near me.” This kind of term is something that people might use when looking to hire a commercial cleaning business.
Unfortunately, that same term could very well also be used by someone in “research mode.” Someone who is simply looking for information on various local commercial cleaning services.
Certainly, getting them to your website is better than nothing. At the same time, it could cost anywhere between $50-$200 per click. Even for a commercial cleaning business, it adds up fast and can make it hard to be profitable.
Also, there are a limited number of terms for most cleaning businesses that focus on the buyer’s intent. With that being the case, the only way to get to the top of the pack is to spend more per click than your competition.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should stop using Google Ads, however, understand that they may be an expensive option. With a limited advertising budget, Google Ads may not be effective.
Facebook Advertising For A Cleaning Business Could Be A More Profitable Option
Another thing to understand about demand generation ads, like Facebook ads, is that not everyone who sees your ads is ready to buy. This is because the ads are focused on generating potential interest. This is different than targeting people who are ready to buy. With demand generation ads some that see may be ready to buy, others may not.
This is where remarketing and building an email list from these leads is crucial. When you do that you can continue to remarket to them on an ongoing basis. From there when the timing is right, those leads come to you rather than a competitor.
With that in mind, often getting leads through Facebook advertising can be cheaper than from Google Ads. On top of that, you can also use Facebook ads to remarket to your leads. This can help convert site visitors and leads who were in research mode.
Google Ads is starting to introduce remarketing aspects, but they aren’t as powerful as Facebook remarketing capabilities are. Another advertising strategy is combining your Google Ads and Facebook remarketing ads.
If you are spending money on Google Ads, you could put a pixel on that page and then remarket to those who didn’t buy over on Facebook. Often people need multiple touches from your business before they buy directly. Facebook advertising can be a cost-effective way to do that.
You Are Selling Your Cleaning Services Not Just Informing People Of The Features
Another common mistake many cleaning businesses make with their Facebook advertising is they only list their features. Features are certainly important, but they are only one part of the story.
It is much more beneficial for you to promote the benefits of your cleaning services. Since Facebook ads are demand generation based, the people seeing the ads may have never considered hiring a cleaning service. Talking about features likely won’t convert someone who never considered hiring a cleaning service before.
For example, as a commercial cleaning business, you could talk about the benefits of having low turnover rates. This happens thanks to your cleaning service because the tenants like staying in a clean building. You could also talk about things like the efficiency rates of your cleaning business and how that can help lower the cleaning costs of facilities compared to your competitors.
As a residential cleaning service, you could talk about how hiring your cleaning service could help people get their time back. Another option could be talking about the stress reduction of taking cleaning off of someone’s busy hectic schedule.
Overall, you can talk about features, but you need to do so in a way that shows why that feature is an advantage for hiring your cleaning service. Then explain how that advantage gives someone specific benefits that they actually care about.
How To Get Clients For A Cleaning Business Starts With Building Trust
All things being equal, most people will become your cleaning clients when they know, like, and trust your business. This is especially important when promoting a residential cleaning business on Facebook.
The concept is similar in both residential and commercial cleaning businesses. The only difference is letting someone into your home could be more personal than letting someone into your business. However, in both cases, it is important to establish this trust with the people you are advertising to.
One way to help build this trust is through having actual employee photos and videos in your advertising. When people can see who is potentially coming into their home or business it can go a long way to establish trust.
People’s homes are a private space, and their businesses can have a variety of valuable assets as well. In addition to photos and videos of employees, you can speak to the background checks and training you provide to your employees.
Again, don’t just state those things without explaining the benefits. For example, you could say something like, “All of our employees have been thoroughly vetted through strict background checks and have continual hands-on training. What this means to you is you get a highly trained and efficient cleaner that you can trust in your home or business.”
Use Customer Reviews And Testimonials To Build Trust And Establish Social Proof
Another form of building trust and method of how to get cleaning clients for a cleaning business is with using customer reviews and testimonials. Positive reviews can make or break your cleaning business. Certainly, people will tolerate a few negative reviews, but if the vast majority of reviews are negative or if your reviews are non-existent, good luck.
People almost always believe a 3rd party source of information that doesn’t have a vested interest in the sale compared to the person or company selling. Customer testimonials and reviews can sell your products and highlight the benefits in a more believable manner.
Plus as the old saying goes, “facts tell and stories sell.” When you use customer reviews and testimonials, your customers will often share their stories in addition to highlighting the benefits they received from hiring your cleaning service.
This can be an extremely powerful way to get cleaning clients for your business. If a customer had a problem, reached out to you and you solved it, and now their life is better, that is a great selling strategy.
If you are asking customers for testimonials, we recommend following this format and guiding your customers through the testimonial process. A testimonial that rambles on and that is off point isn’t effective to get new cleaning clients.
Instead, prompt your customer to follow the format of their name, where they are from, what they were struggling with prior to hiring your, why they hired you, what you did for them, and how their results are now better. This format can be one of the best selling resources for your cleaning business.
Types Of Facebook Ads For How To Get Clients For A Cleaning Business
There are a variety of different types of Facebook ads you can use to promote your cleaning business that is effective. Some advertising methods are more hands-off, but they are also less likely to convert a lead.
You first need to determine to what degree you or your staff will be willing to follow up and sell to these new leads. If you aren’t going to put any salesmanship into the process your conversion will likely be lower. You’ll still generate leads, but if you just send people to your quote page or tell them to call you for information, the chances those leads convert will go down dramatically.
That being said, there are various ads you can run from direct traffic ads to your quote page, a messenger ad, or a video views ad. You could also run conversions ads, but those are a bit more complicated to set up and you need different landing pages for quotes before and after.
We’ve found Facebook Messenger ads work well for our clients for generating leads at a reasonable cost and it also engages the potential client automatically for the first few questions of the conversation.
How Much Information You Collect Can Impact The Number Of Leads You Generate
One thing that could be impacting how many cleaning client leads you are getting for your business is dependent on how much information you are asking for in your Facebook ads. Certainly, the more information you gather on your end for a quote makes things easier, but the more you ask for the less likely people will give you their information.
For this reason, one suggestion you can use to get more cleaning client leads is to ask for less information upfront and then gather more later on. For example, many of our clients only ask for the name, email, phone number, zip code, and approximate square footage of the home or business.
Likely with this information, you can give a semi-accurate quote, or at the very least you now have the option of getting contact with these leads and adding them to your email list.
This is where the salesmanship comes in. You can get more leads asking for less information and spend a bit more time getting follow up information, or you can ask for more information upfront and get fewer leads. The choice is yours.
Either option can work, but the more you can engage with the leads and have an actual conversation with them, the more likely they will be to convert.
Targeting Is Essential For Getting Cleaning Client Leads From Facebook Ads
Targeting is where most cleaning business owners drop the ball on their Facebook ads. Now at the very least, you should select the service areas that your cleaning company serves.
With this in mind, there is a setting that you need to be sure to set when you are creating your Facebook ads. That setting is that you need to select “people who live in this location.”
If you don’t pick this option you might end up advertising to people who are just passing through your service area. This could lead to a lot of wasted ad spend because you are targeting people who would never be one of your clients.
Use Lookalike Audiences And Custom Audiences For Targeting Your Facebook Ads
In addition to that, another major foundation for advertising a cleaning business with Facebook ads is using lookalike audiences. This is essential to get your targeting on point because if you don’t, you’ll end up wasting money advertising to the wrong people.
Certainly, you could pick out some demographic data of people who you think would be interested and that fit your ideal customer avatar. If you have nothing to go on yet for an audience that’s a good place to start.
One of the most expensive things about advertising on Facebook is the initial data-gathering phase. The best strategy is to start out with multiple ad sets and versions of the ad and run them all at the same time. From there you will continually adjust and remove underperforming ads.
You can think that you have an ad that people will like and that will convert, but the reality is that you only know for sure once you test it. Testing is the name of the game in running successful Facebook ads for a cleaning business.
With that being said, you can skip a lot of the data gathering process by simply uploading your existing client list and building a lookalike audience from that list. By doing that you already will hone in your targeting by letting Facebook base audiences on a list of buyers.
We’ve found that this often gets our clients the cheapest leads the fastest, compared to directing ads at a purely cold audience or demographics-based audience.
Use Content Marketing Or Traffic Ads To Build Custom Audiences As A Method Of How To Get Clients For A Cleaning Business
Maybe you don’t have a huge customer list or your ads aren’t converting as you would hope. Well, thankfully there are still options to create a targeting audience that will be more likely to convert.
You create this through content marketing, pixels, and traffic ads to build your custom audiences. Understand this process does take a bit longer because you need to gather more data, but it can still become a great audience to pull from for your cleaning business Facebook ads.
With Facebook pixels, you can track and build an audience from people who visit specific pages. If you don’t yet have a customer list, you could start with tracking people who visit your free quote page.
Another great option is to create a “Thank you” page that every lead goes to after they request a quote and then build an audience from that. These obviously take time to build as not everyone who visits your site will become a lead, but once this list is built up it can prove to be very profitable.
If you are just starting out and not getting any leads on your site you could also create a blog post or piece of content and drive traffic to that with a Facebook ad. Likely the people who visit that piece of content will be interested in a cleaning service if that’s what the post is about.
Once that audience gets big enough, you can create a lookalike audience from that and target those people with your ads about getting a free quote.
Monitor Your Facebook Ads On A Regular Basis
Finally, you want to monitor your cleaning business Facebook ads on an ongoing basis. Facebook advertising has its ups and downs, and one week your best-performing ad set could become your worst-performing ad set.
Typically you want to let an ad set run for a week or two and see how it performs before leaving it on or turning it off. Unless the ad set is drastically underperforming it takes time for Facebook to do its magic and calibrate your ads.
This is where a lot of people jump ship too soon and end up abandoning Facebook ads and say that they don’t work for a cleaning business. The reality is that when you know how to set up the ads and give Facebook time to gather enough data, Facebook advertising for a cleaning business can be one of the most profitable methods of marketing.
How to get clients for a cleaning business doesn’t have to be a challenge when you follow these Facebook advertising tips. Implement the strategies above and you’ll have a lot better results promoting your cleaning business with Facebook ads.
Also, we know all of this Facebook ads talk can be a bit confusing and overwhelming for some people, and that’s why it’s one of the services we perform for our clients. If you’d like to learn more about our team running Facebook ads and more for your cleaning business, fill out this quick survey so we can learn more about how we can help you grow your cleaning business.