This is a great topic on how commercial cleaning and janitorial services can avoid ad burnout and campaigns going stale by rotating advertising messages, values. In this sample we show digital ads because it is easier to show but can apply to phone, print flyers, direct mail, any form of marketing.

Main Company Message versus Specific Message

This can be confusing to cleaners and we want to start with pointing this out. A Main company message is something that would apply to EVERY single account regardless of industry, size, service, etc.

This is a core message or value your company is about, some examples might be: Best service, Communication, Greenest, Lowest Pricing, Family Owned, Been in Business X number of years. These are vague messages that would apply to every client or a company messages.

Specific messages are targeted to specific groups of accounts, some examples might be: Safety, safety is a great one for construction, manufacturing and larger businesses in general but might not apply to a retail or restaurant account.

Employee related messages are generally more important for janitorial or recurring specialty cleaning because they are dealing with our staff on a regular basis. One time jobs they often will focus more on solving the problem.

No Pot Of Gold

Often When I speak with owners and managers of cleaning services they want to see creatives and then they decide arbitrarily “I like this or don’t like this”, based 100% on personal taste. A better way to think about advertising is going into it with 5,6,8 or even 12 different topics to talk about and then just tweak the creative.

Its completely unpredictable how prospects will respond to different pictures, headlines covering multiple services and parts of the country. There is no one size fits all ad that will apply to every prospect.

A better way to think about it is to rotate ads, every prospect has different motivations and likes, we want to bring them all in and that’s why we rotate topics. Over time then we optimize and spend more money on the best performing topics and keep the lower performing ones to 5% or 10% of total ads used in a year, for example.

8 Ad topics We Can Rotate

1. About Us/ Management 10%– this theme can cover several sub topics and is an introduction. This is who we are, how we started, how long we have been in business, what we believe in, etc.

2. Associations/Certifications 5% – in these ads we highlight what organizations we belong to, chamber of commerce, networking groups, trade associations. Also certifications the company or you, employees have.

3. Inspection/Process 5%– This will be a big topic for janitorial and recurring carpet/tile work. Not as much for one time jobs. How do we provide quality control, inspect after the job and follow up with customer surveys.

4. Safety 15%– Again this depends on the type of jobs you are targeting, safety is a big topic in the restoration world but not as much for a restaurant account 1x. Right now safety is a big one because of the virus, so I would highlight it a little more than usual. Large employers, industrial, construction are also prospects that place a lot of value on safety.

5. Service Mix 25%– highlighting the different services we provide should always be a high percentage, prospects need to know if the services we specialize in matches up with what they are looking for.

6. Employee Training 20%– Training is a huge topic for janitorial and a good topic for recurring specialty services like carpet/tile.

7. Employee Recruiting 20%– again this is a huge topic for janitorial, clients always want to know where you are finding cleaning staff and then number 2, how do you train them. Maybe not as much the platforms you use but the process of interviewing, scoring applicants, orientation , etc.

8. Equipment/Technical Problem Solving 10%– this is a category that is big for specialty services like carpet, tile, disinfecting, etc. Prospects often want to know what equipment you will be using, what cleaning solutions and if you can solve their technical problem.

How To Use Metaphors In Cleaning Service Advertising

This is a Sample social media ad where cleaning services can use metaphors for advertising. Often general managers, office, facility managers and building owners feel like its a balancing act when choosing a commercial cleaning service. This is what feeling we are trying to tap into with this social media ad.

This can apply to cleaning services, janitorial service and specialty like carpet & tile cleaning. They are not just focused on hiring a cleaning service but are also hiring dozens of other vendors and mainly trying to focus on their clients.

I like metaphors for commercial cleaning prospects and basically a metaphor in advertising is we don’t literally mean it. We are trying to get a point across, we are trying to tap into how someone feels.

Is finding the right cleaning service becoming a balancing act?

The starting point in social media is with the headline and image, we want to tap into that feeling a manager might have as quickly as possible with the image and headline. This is what draws them in the first place to learn more.

Most professional general managers, facility, office managers and building owners feel like it’s a balancing act keeping all of their vendors on track, on top of all the other tasks they do. If you have a conversation with most, they will say this is exactly how they feel or like they are juggling a bunch of balls in the air at the same time.

Remember they want to focus on their clients first, just like us and maintaining their building is not the highest priority.

Introduction

In this section we introduce ourselves personally, our business and what services we provide. They need to know right away if they even need this service and if they ever heard of you before.

Mission Statement

Here we come up with a mission statement, slogan, message, company value proposition. In simple terms, something that would apply to every business or service you provide. This is a broad, vague statement sharing what you value and believe in, in general.

Friendly service, most referred, most reviews, communication, green, largest, been in business since 1902, etc. These type of broad messages.

Safety

Third paragraph/sentence we are going to plug in something specific. This can be 50 different things and you can change it for different prospects.

In our example we are going to plug in safety, this is a hot topic right now and good time to layer it in after introducing ourselves, plugging in our main company value.

Main Topics To Cover

For this sample social media ad we used a checklist format, mainly because its quick and simple to read. Here we want to plug in some main topics prospects often ask about.

• Meet the team
• Hiring
• Training
• Supervision/ Inspection
• Safety
• Services

These are all the main questions prospects and leads want to know about a commercial cleaning service. Whether they always ask them doesn’t matter, they are in their head for sure.

Rotating Social Media Ads

I am a big proponent of rotating ads, this is what I would consider a general ad, this gives managers and owners an overview of your company. I would want to run something like this 1 week out of every 4 weeks and then cover specific topics the rest.

Call To Action

Last but not least is the call to action. We went with a long one of “ YES, send me more information about your services”. Hopefully this encapsulates how they feel in this exact moment.

Method Clean Biz is an amazing sales & marketing platform for commercial cleaning, janitorial and commercial carpet cleaning services.

We provide a comprehensive solution to getting more high margin commercial accounts through software, sales letters, lead lists, brochures, email templates, landing pages and extensive training when needed.

This content was originally published here.