Tips For Marketing Your Cleaning Business on a Shoe String Budget
The same is true of the cleaning industry as well.
More often than not, you need the money to live on and pay daily expenses apart from taking the cleaning business off the ground.
Therefore, you won't be competing with large corporations when it comes to advertising your business.
There are no bulk mail drops for you or space advertisements unless it is online and free.
When you set up cleaning business and are looking to make money quickly, you need good creative marketing skills to do this.
Where there is a will there is always a way.
Just because you don't have money and need to take advantage of all the free offers in the market doesn't mean that your cleaning business needs to be compromised.
This is to warn you that the fliers made at home which tend to be cheap and can be handed out in the neighborhood or local mall tend to be more expensive in the long run if you are not a qualified designer.
The assumption that people are going to support your business once the cards you printed at home land on their desks is a deceptive thought.
Do not under any circumstance tango with the ide a that goodwill comes naturally from those who "understand" that yours is a new and fledgling cleaning business.
They don't owe you and will not be obligated to pay for service that they aren't feeling drawn to use.
You need to invest time on the cleaning business venture and thought in the corporate image you would like to present.
Your clientele is made or lost through the initial contact to the business.
This can be by your business card, advertisement on your website or even your own marketing drive.
This is why you need to create an image that shows you mean business without robbing a bank to finance it.
You can do this by taking advantage of your local university or college especially if they offer graphic design classes.
Here you can find students who would like to become an intern to work on serious projects and will provide unique and varied designs for you to choose from.
In replace of payment, you can give recognition and acknowledge that the particular student is the creator of your artwork, website and other designs.
This way you will have handpicked a designer you can work with in future.
You will have also provided them an opportunity to be known and credited for a project that may count towards their grades.
Simplicity is your key to continuity.
It is best to create a very simple look for a logo and business cards and build the image from there as opposed to using the overused designs in the free portals on the internet.
As a business owner, you need to make decisions about the font styles, colors, papers, and overall identity of your business.
The most important bits are company name, tagline, and logo.
Remember you will want to grow so starting out smart by having this taken care off will ensure that you don't need to do a name change or re-invent yourself in the future.
Once you have the designs out of the way, it is good to put them to good use by dropping your cards at strategic points.
Before the importance of detail is overlooked, it is important to give ALL of your contact details.
You never know what mode of communication is comfortable for various individuals or institutions.
However, you definitely want to net all of them as your clients.
The beauty about a cleaning business is that most of the time the clients need not visit your offices.
Therefore, you can operate from home and visit the clients to do the work.
You will need space to store your equipments.
You can easily operate from your garage with your home address and details as the contact place without spending too much in re-designing the place.
Here you can then print the fliers that you were designed for and send them out.
Do not forget to add the tear-off contact details at the bottom.
They look really ugly but they always bring the clients to you.
You can also offer your clients a discount on your next cleaning duty in case they get you another customer within a given period of time.
This incentive will almost always land you some customers without much effort on your part.
The referral is important also, because even without the incentive, a good job will give you free advertising from your clients as they will definitely talk about you to others.
When you get the courage to strike up conversations with strangers and tell them about yourself and what you do, hand them a card.
They might not need your services immediately but will certainly recall your boldness when the opportunity comes up either corporately at their work places or at home.
Initiate a cleaning drive in your area.
Invite your friends and relatives as well as well-wishers to come and help you.
As you do your cleaning, they could hand out free cookies or give you free press to the people convened.
Remember to advertise verbally and through all free media the upcoming event.
That way you can pull in the masses and have more people know about you at once.
Preferably, choose an institution that can do with the free cleaning for example a rescue shelter for pets or an orphanage.
With the assurance of human traffic and various activities on offer, you are offered various options on how to reach20out and touch the customers that you would like.
Given that you already have a few clients and the business is operational, advertising can simply mean standing outside your base of operation to talk to people about your cleaning business.
You could start by creating awareness in your neighborhood by standing outside your gate and talking to all the passers-by.
This is the best networking you will do for your business.
Marketing is not as expensive as you once thought, right?