Cleaning Up in the Digital Revolution

CLEANING UP IN THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION Make a “clean sweep” for your company in the online marketing game

by Robert Kravitz

Most successful cleaning contractors have two key business objectives: first, keeping current customers happy, and second, always being on the lookout for new clients. Of course, these objectives are the name of the game for most service providers, not just cleaning contractors.

The importance of the first objective is something most contractors learn quickly. It’s the second one that can be a bit more difficult. Even with the best service, some attrition is always expected. Clients will leave for one reason or another and will likely need to be replaced.

TURNING TO TECHNOLOGY

To help generate a steady supply of potential new clients, many contractors are now looking into digital marketing. Though it may seem new, its history stretches back to the 1990s, during the early days of the Internet. As online traffic grew, small websites started posting banners on their sites, charging clients every time their banner was clicked. Then Yahoo, the key search engine of the day, took this to a much more formal level, allowing companies to post banners on their sites to give these businesses much greater exposure.

Today, digital marketing is much more than just clicking banner ads on websites. According to HubSpot, a leading digital marketing agency, digital marketing is quite simply any form of marketing that is online. So, along with online banners, digital marketing also includes things such as social media postings, videos on company websites and different video platforms, email newsletters, content marketing, and infographics. The key goals of this strategy are the following: • Improving the search engine optimization (SEO) of a company website • Brand awareness

CONTENT MARKETING STATS

The following statistics are from HubSpot research based on a 2019 survey involving 3,400 marketers and organizations.

70 per cent of those surveyed are actively involved in content marketing.

About 40 per cent say content marketing is “very important” to their marketing strategy; about 24 per cent report it is “extremely important.”

Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) of those surveyed say they plan to increase their content marketing budgets.

To determine if their content marketing program is a success, 23 per cent look to see if it has increased sales; about 18 per cent base success on web traffic.

74 per cent of global marketers invest in social media marketing.

Connecting with current customers to build brand loyalty Connecting with prospective customers to begin the sales funnel Increased sales

For some cleaning companies first embarking on a digital marketing program, it can also mean building a new website enhanced with better search engine optimization, creating a new company logo, or even changing the company’s name.

For example, an established California cleaning company was originally called “Deluxe Building Maintenance.” When they hired a digital marketing agency, they were advised to change their name to something a bit more modern. They dropped the “deluxe,” a term dating back to the 1930s, and rebranded the company as “True Facility Care Services.” Relaunching the brand under this new name helped improve their SEO considerably and better explained to a younger audience what the company was all about.

SHOULD YOU TRY DIGITAL MARKETING?

Many cleaning contractors today may wonder if they should get involved with digital marketing, keeping in mind that while digital marketing can be very effective, it is not the only form of marketing available to this industry. Many companies, for instance, still find the old tried-and-true method of networking and meeting with people such as building owners and managers to be far more effective.

However, that method can be slow, and not all contractors are comfortable with the “networking circuit.” So, if you are wondering whether digital marketing is a practical — and faster — way to reach potential customers, ask yourself the following questions:

Are you looking for more customers? Are you looking for customers in a new area, or looking to service a new industry? When doing local searches for cleaning contractors, does your company’s name come up? If it does come up, are you listed on the first page of the search results?

If you are looking for new customers but your site is not coming up in online searches, as far as the Internet and prospective customers are concerned, you don’t exist. Further, if your company name is coming up in search results but you are not listed on the first page, it is still not working for you. According to Moz, a leading SEO company, 71 to 91 per cent of all searchers never go beyond the first page.

Once again, however, we must remind ourselves that digital marketing is just one form of marketing. It is not the “magic bullet” that can turn a cleaning contractor into a sales machine. Other types of marketing that contractors have found successful include advertising in business and trade journals, public relations, sending out regular press releases about company news, and writing educational articles published in leading trade publications. However, digital marketing has value; for most cleaning contractors, it is certainly worth investigating.

BEGINNING THE PROCESS

Contractors who have decided to take the next step in the digital marketing revolution once again need to ask themselves some questions. Among them are the following:

Who are your key competitors? Research who your key competitors are and then see if they are employing digital marketing strategies. If so, what are they doing that might be helpful for your company? There is no harm in replicating what a competitor is doing, but it’s even better to try and improve on it.

Who are your current customers? The California contractor mentioned earlier found that most of their clients were architectural and design firms. Wanting more of these types of clients, they focused their digital marketing efforts on sites frequented by people in this industry.

What digital marketing strategies should you employ first? In most cases, the first step is to develop a blog or a content marketing program. (See sidebar at left.) This can open doors to many opportunities. Content from blogs can be spread around the Internet, as well as shared on social media, and with links going back to your company’s site, prospective customers can learn more about you and your services. /

Robert Kravitz is president of AlturaSolutions Communications, a communications and digital marketing company. He is also a frequent writer for the professional cleaning industry.