Episode 789 – The First Steps to Take When You’re Ready to Market Your Business
Welcome to the podcast Cleaning Nation! Today, we have Lindsay Bjorklund chatting with our in-house marketing whiz Jackson Pinkoski. We’re going to call this our marketing 101 podcast. There are many of you out there listening who are just out of cleaning and ready to market your cleaning company online. You’re ready to grow to the next level. It can be confusing and overwhelming to know where to start. Listen in today and Jackson lays out the very first steps you need to take to start moving in that direction.
Take Advantage of Google My Business
Google My Business is one of the number one ways people will find you through organic search. The awesome thing about Google My Business is absolutely free. But if you don’t take advantage of it in the right way, it isn’t going to benefit you or your business very much. If you just have your business name in but not your hours, website, photos, reviews, etc, people are going to be more likely to scroll right through to the next business that does have that information. Taking advantage of the reviews on Google My Business is also a great way to get some credibility with people who are finding you organically. You can go back to past or current clients and ask them to write a review for you to start building up that rapport now.
Some Advice About Where to Focus on Reviews
Often, we have people ask about Yelp. If they should put as much focus there as they would on Google My Business. But the truth is, in our experience, Yelp has an agenda. And if you don’t follow their agenda, they aren’t going to show your business listing. We’ve had lots of clients with really negative experiences with Yelp, so we suggest avoiding it. Also, when it comes to Google, they are always going to show their listings before a 3rd party listing, so if you can create a beefed-out Google My Business Profile that has reviews and photos and the whole bit, you’re much more likely to be seen there.
With reviews comes the likelihood that you will get a negative one once in a while. What Jackson suggests is one of two things. If the review is just not accurate (written for another business, product, etc.) you can report it to Google and get it removed. If it is a legitimate review, the best course of action is to reply publicly to the review and be as calm and non-emotional as possible. Then try to move to conversation off the platform so you’re not going back and forth with a client on your Google profile.
Moving Into Paid Ads
Once you have your Google My Business account looking good, you can start to move into paid ads. Paid ads on Google are great because they are so low cost. For about $500 a month when you’re first starting out, you can have a solid ad spent and direct a lot of people to your business. What’s great about Google Ads is that people have the opportunity to see you twice. Once on your paid ad, once organically from your website when it comes up. Facebook ads are also a great way to go. You can use paid ads that show up on feeds or you can use something people have been having a lot of success with which is having Facebook messenger pop up when they click on your page and chatting with them that way.
Final Advice: Don’t hesitate to get started. So many times, we wait out of fear or worry that we’re going to mess it up, but you always learn as you go. Marketing your business is no different. You’ll discover through trial and error what works for you and what doesn’t. Now is a good a time as any to get started.
Love the idea, but find it overwhelming? Want to learn the next steps like, what to actually say on the call? Jump on a call with one of our coaches and learn strategies on how to grow your cleaning company and start loving your job every day! Book here