Want to up your commercial cleaning marketing efforts? Today Mike brings back one of his favorite guests, Kieran Reed, owner of The Office Cleaners. Kieran has been on the show before and we made such good pod-casting magic, that Mike invited him back to talk about commercial cleaning marketing. BONUS LOVIN: If you want to check out Kieran’s first appearance (on bidding commercial cleaning) CLICK HERE to hear that awesome episode Kieran sets the stage by explaining to Mike that he has been using Chet Holmes Dream 100 concept for his commercial cleaning marketing. Instead of marketing to anyone and everyone, Kieran has identified a very small group (it doesn’t have to be exactly 100 prospects) to focus on. There is a tremendous amount of power in focusing your commercial cleaning marketing, or any marketing efforts. MORE BONUS LOVIN: Check out The Ultimate Sales Machines by Chet Holmes for full details on using the Dream 100 concept for your commercial cleaning marketing All too often, we pursue $500/ mo customers just about the same as we do the $5,000/ mo customers. The problem is, $5,000/ mo customers are ten times more valuable but require nowhere near 10X the work. ONE MORE DREAM 100 BONUS: CLICK HERE for another podcast that goes into the concept of the Dream 100 and Getting Past the Gatekeepers to Market to commercial accounts. Once Mike and Kieran catch up on what he’s been doing since the last show, Kieran explains that he has been successfully using direct mail as a key component to his commercial cleaning marketing. He created a 3 page sales letter and sent it out along with a follow up sequence. Direct mail can be a very effective way to market your cleaning company. It can also be quite expensive. Kieran has dealt with this by focusing his efforts on high lifetime value prospects. Kieran mailed to approximately 250 prospects every 2-3 weeks. He got a 2% response rate to the first piece and almost as good the second and third mailings. Response did drop on the fourth and fifth mailings. A lot of marketers make the mistake of putting all of their direct mail eggs into one basket. Mike coaches that if your commercial cleaning marketing budget is $1500, don’t spend $1,500 on one mailing. Spend $500 on three mailings. People buy when they want to buy, NOT when you want to sell. When you mail three times, you are three times as likely for the prospect to receive your offer at the exact right time for them. NOTE: A 2% response rate for direct mail is very good, even in Canada, where Kieran says the cost of Direct Mail is far higher than the US Kieran asks Mike about his offer. The first mailer offered a week of free cleaning. This caused serious scheduling challenges. As you already know, the first cleaning is typically a deep clean. This is where many owners make a mistake with their cleaning company marketing. They don’t want to do free because it costs so much. Mike does the math with Kieran on why free cleaning can make you money… You should only be mailing to prospects that spend more than your average customer. Let’s assume $2,000/ mo. If you keep that customer for two years, they will be worth $48,000. When you understand this, it makes sense to invest $500 in direct mail and free cleaning to acquire this sort of customers. Even though the math worked, Kieran wanted to see if different offers would improve results and make his scheduling life easier.He also mentions that when prospects take him up on the free cleaning, the work has to be outstanding. Mike offers some ways to make those customers love you and to increase the emotional cost of disconnect for the customer. Because of the tremendous amount of pressure to “wow” the customer with the free cleaning, Kieran wanted to try something new. He changed the week of free cleaning to “try us for 30 days risk free”. That offer produced half the results as the initial offer. KEY POINT: The Offer can make a huge difference in your cleaning company marketing Kieran wants Mike’s coaching on how to make an effective offer that didn’t involve free cleaning. Mike explains there are typically 3 segments of people you are reaching out to with commercial cleaning marketing: The people that don’t have cleaners The ones that are already using a cleaner. In which either offer put them in an awkward position. The guys that hate their people. For the 1st group a free week trial or risk free 30 days is going to be very appealing. The second group is going to have a hard time accepting the offer because they already have a cleaner and there is no easy way to tell them to “take a week off” so you can test out a competing company. It’s too much work and risk to save a couple bucks on a week of free cleaning. For the last group, they will probably switch with any offer and the free cleaning is overkill. When you are making an offer, you want it to be extremely compelling to nearly ALL of the people you are mailing, NOT just one third of them. Also, Mike coaches that often offering “free” attracts the wrong customers. Customers that want something for nothing and are not willing to pay for quality results. So what would be a good offer be… Just like any other commercial cleaning marketing, you need to start with their pain. What would make them switch cleaning companies? What would keep them from making a change to your company? Mike explains that often, prospects aren’t happy with their current company, but the perceived work, stress and headache is far greater than the perceived value of making a change. Even if you take away their risk of a bad cleaning with a “30 day risk free trial”, there’s still risk. From their perpective this risk free trial looks like a lot of work. They have to: Fire the old cleaner (not fun) Change the locks “Sell” their boss on making a change Get a new contract signed Get you keys and alarm code Go over the details of their building with your new team Mike coaches Kieran and Cleaning Nation to create an offer that takes away that pain. An effective offer might be “Take advantage of our no hassle 7 step done for you transition plan”. You could offer handling firing the old guys. You could handle and pay for changing the locks on their building. Talk to their boss and explain the benefits. Have a process in place where they can painlessly get you the details of their buildings. The final step might even be a dinner out for two for them courtesy of your company. Take their perceived pain form a 7 to a 2 and then give them a 12 as a reward at the end. If the free cleaning would have cost you $400, you can spend $200 on a fantastic gift and still come out ahead. Even though Mike and Kieran covered a lot of commercial cleaning marketing ground and ran over on time, there is always time for the…