Over five years ago, I began a blog post about Janitorial Marketing with the following two paragraphs:
To fail to have a Janitorial Marketing Plan is to plan to fail at marketing your janitorial business. But a plan is only as good as the method(s) it employs. And the best methods are the ones that not only generate the most customer interest and sales, but do it cost-effectively. So where should you focus your limited marketing dollars? Television, Radio, Billboards, Telemarketing, Yellow Pages, Hired Sales Reps, Newspaper Print Ads, Cold Calls, Direct Mail?
Twenty-five years of janitorial business experience has taught me that the best marketing method is (hands down, no close second, leader of the pack) Direct Mail Marketing! It’s cheap and effective and almost always generates a good response.
— Cleanly Run, Inc. – Drake’s Blog – A Proven Janitorial Marketing Plan That Works! – May 2013
Flash forward: I still support those options, but with one crucial addition – Direct Email Marketing!
In fact, Direct Email Marketing is now my number one Marketing Method for contacting a prospective Janitorial Customer about placing a Cleaning Bid. ( My former #1 – Direct Mail – is still a good option, but it’s shifted to a distant second.)
Of course, Email Marketing has a bit of a learning curve in the beginning. You need to build your contact list, create a clear (and personal) message, list a call to action, and link to your website. But once you get it, you’ve got it; Bid Requests Will Happen!
The purpose of this post isn’t to teach you how to create an email campaign – (that’s what Google is for) – but rather to give you some reasons why you should add this tool to your marketing arsenal. So here are my Top 6 Reasons to use Janitorial Email Marketing to grow your Cleaning Business:
- PEOPLE USE EMAIL – A LOT! 85% of adults send or read daily. 99% of those check their email an average of 20 times per day. (I’m probably checking my messages closer to 50 times a day, but that’s just me…)
- PEOPLE ACTUALLY OPEN YOUR CAMPAIGNS: The stats show an average of 21% Open Rate of your Campaign. (In my experience, that stat is spot on accurate.) Adding videos can increase open rates up to 3 times.
- OTHER COMPANIES USE IT: An average of 81% of small, medium and large companies use email as their primary customer acquisition channel (and 80% use it for customer retention). Companies keep using what works.
- DASHBOARD STAT TRACKING: Let your numbers guide you to winning campaigns. Numbers such as who’s interested, who’s not, website clicks, emails opened (and opened multiple times), best day and time to send and many more useful statistics. For example, when you notice that someone has opened your email multiple times but hasn’t replied, you may choose to target a direct mailing to them.
- IT’S AFFORDABLE: You can run multiple janitorial email marketing campaigns for less than $100 a month. Or you can always start small for as little as $10-$15 per month.
- IT WORKS OUTSTANDINGLY WELL FOR ME! Yes, I’m an actual eyewitness to the success of email marketing. My janitorial marketing campaigns result in multiple requests for cleaning proposals (and I typically win a high percentage of these)!
Looking ahead: Once you’ve created a successful email marketing campaign – and you will – the requests for a Janitorial Proposal should start coming in. That’s when you’ll need to create professional, profitably priced Cleaning Proposals to win the jobs… If you’re looking for a proven competitive edge, I encourage you to try a free 30 day trial of CleanlyRun Janitorial Bidware. As a Co-founder, it’s been extremely gratifying to see thousands of companies sign up and win new cleaning bids using my automated best practices!
Check us out at CleanlyRun.com… Let’s grow your business!
