[selectservices]

I am just about to start a domestic cleaning company, I have the legal and admin side sorted but would like your views on the most effective method of marketing.

I have considered the following:

Leaflet Drop's
Local Advertising
Advertising in Shop Windows
Targeted Letter to home owners

I would be grateful for your comments based on your experience.


Thanks

Cherie
 
 
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[mxg]

Cherie

I'm no marketing expert but here is our experience over the last 12 months ie since startup

Leaflet Drops - not very effective

Local Advertising - tried local newspapers and "free newspapers" (although the advertising isn't free!) - generated some response but borderline cost effective when cost of advertising and cost doing the work are taken in to account

Advert in shop windows - not tried as don't think it will do a lot for you unless you get incredibly lucky. However for the cost & effort involved there is probably not much to lose by trying it.

Targetted  letters to home owners - not sure what you mean by this. Targeted in what way ? By name of occupier ? or just by focussing on upmarket/affluent areas that you think are more likely to use your service.

We were rather fortunate to strike up a relationship with an existing company that was getting more business than it could service and rather than expand their own business, they passed a good bit of work our way ................. until our adverts in the directories started to hit the streets.

SO we are now in Yellow Pages, Thomson Local and BT Phonebook - they hit the streets in that order and that is the order of their value to us ie YP far exceeds BT.  I don't think we are unique in this respect. I think it has more to do with the history of the various publications.

Actually another one that was/is good for us is yell.com - you can get on it straight away and don't have to wait on the next  physical directory. If you pay for an enhanced listing you get a more prominent listing near the top of the pile.

Once you get a phone number you will probably receive a lot of calls offering to sell you other internet listings - I am not convinced that these are yet worth the money. I think people still like to pick up a phone book of some size/colour. The day of the internet for cleaning will probably come but at the moment I think the onl people typing "cleaners in yourtown" are people selling internet listings! But even without trying (I'm not sure how) you will end up on various internet listings - try typing your phone number including area code in to google or equivalent and you might be surprised by what you find.

Phew!

Hope this is of some use to you and I would be interested to know how it compares with other peoples experiences.

Mick

[selectservices]

Lots to think about, thanks for the feedback, I had not considered Yell, but will look into it.

I would be interested to hear if any other domestic cleaners have had the same success with Yellow Pages as I had just about ruled it out ( just goes to show the value of the forum eh ).

By targeted I was looking to purchase a list of affluent home owners in the area- West London, and send a named letter, however, a few people have suggested that people who want cleaners want to get rid of junk - not get more through the letter box.

Thanks again for your comments


Cherie

[Jan K]

Hi Cherie!

My dom cleaning business has been going for nearly a year now, and I have to agree with Mick in respect of Yellow Pages and Yell.com. However I haven't tried Thompson Local or BT so no experience there!! I have direct marketed certain profession eg Teachers, Solicitors, Builders and Estate Agents, but that was way bac at the beginning and although I had a good response from Teachers and Soclicitors in respect thatI picked up enough customers to cover my costs and more, the Builders brought in no enquiries and the Estate Agents only brought in a couple! I did change my mobile number (which is the only number I work out of) about 3 months later so the turnover of calls from those months was quite productive!

I haven't tried leaflet drops, so no feedback there I'm afraid!

Ads in shop windows (well I was a bit lazy there as I only tried about 4, very local, shops but did get a few customers from those!

I did have an ad in a local aper a few weeks ago, and altho it was half price it was still £100 plus VAT and has brought me no work whatsover!! And it was as part of a feature they were doing on local businesses relating to household services!! Waste of my hard earned there then!!

Yellow Pages ad went live in January 2005....phone went mad, business took off for about 4 months, really busy.....went quietfor about 3 months, until the summer arrives and its been really busy again.

Yell.com ad was the basic one, but its renewing now so I have gone for the enhanced version and I am having a visit from Yellow Pages websight designer today to build me a site (cost of which gets added to my YP bill and paid overs 10 months, and it isn't very expensive either).

I am constantly getting calls from internet companies offering to boost my business through me advertising with them, and I always tell them I am not interested!! You can advertise just about free with search engines and as I always say, cheap is good, free is better! I try to keep my advertising overheads as low as I can as the business does not make a lo of money out of my hourly rate! But I do have 5 ladies working for me (various hours), 2 of them of WFTC the others just working a few hours a week, so thats where the bulk of the money goes (of course). Having said tyhat I am not having to clean unless its a big one-off and then I will so it with one of my other girls!

One thing to remember.........I find it really difficult to find good, reliable, hardworking, trustworthy cleaners (as most of us will probably agree, staffing causes the biggest problems), so I work pretty much on a Catch 22 situation.....need the customers to give to the girls, but need the girls to look after the customers! 

I really take a chance when I take on a new customers as 9/10 I don't have anyone todo the work, but I am very lucky and someone must be watching over me as it always seems to work itself out in the end!

Sorry it's long, but I am just offering you my (very short) experiences for something to think about. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask

Good luck

Jan

[Mike_Boxall]

Hi Cherie

I think all the methods mentioned can work it's just a case of 'persistance pays'. Leaflets tend to have compound results - the first drops are rarely a big success but as you keep going people start remembering them and their success seems to escalate. However, there is a fine line between being persistant and throwing good money after bad but the advantage with leaflets is that you can usually target very specific geographical areas with smaller quantities at a time.

Have a look at some of the older leaflet topics in the carpet cleaning section for some idea of print and distribution prices.

Regards

Mike

[cleanworld]

Leaflet drops are by far the most useful.  Focus on a catchment area to start with and do the drop on a set day or two. 

Word of mouth is also an excellent idea, perhaps offer a 5% discount to referrals who recommend a friend who is interested in your service.

Do you have a basic website?  That might help if you wish to get listed online.

Good luck with it all

[selectservices]

Thank You,

Thank you all for your help, It certainly answered my questions and a little more as well ! Since recieving the replies I have applied for a Yell listing as it appears to be the most immediate, and talking to Yellow Pages, I have canned the local free press idea and will look at the targetted mail idea.

Thanks again for your help, you may well of saved me hundreds of £'s.


Cherie

[Ian Gourlay]

The problem with leaflets as has been said many times before is that you have to target an area regularly to get results.

I00O LEAFLETS might only produce one job.


One job could be worth £200 to £400 on your bottom line.

There is no point planning on putting out say 3000 you need to plan on 150k a year leaflets dropped.

How are you going to acheive this.


How much etc should all bein the plan.


How long are you going to try it for before you decide it works for you.

Maybee you have a useless cheap. leaflet Flyer.