Product-based businesses and service giants aren't the only companies that can benefit from Facebook advertising. Residential cleaning companies can also sweep up new customers using the popular social media platform.
Many cleaning companies have experimented with boosted posts, but far fewer have taken advantage of Facebook Ads Manager. The learning curve is steeper, but the potential rewards are also far greater.
As an example, MyClean in New York City generated more than $17,500 in sales in 7 months using Facebook ads. The apartment cleaning service promoted a $30 promo code with a link to a booking page on its website. The ads targeted young professionals and busy moms, and MyClean saw increases in website clicks, conversions, and bookings.
Why Use Facebook Ads for Your House Cleaning Business?
There are no shortage of places to spend advertising dollars. So why should residential cleaning companies consider putting money in Facebook ads?
1. Reach: At the time of this writing, nearly ? of Americans (214 million) use Facebook, making it the largest social network, and 74% of those users visit the site every single day. Facebook isn't only popular among young people; 125 million of users are older than 35, which hits the target market of most home cleaning companies. Social media sites like Facebook are also the most commonly used mobile apps, which is important because mobile apps now account for about half of all global Internet traffic.
Advertising on Facebook lets you reach buyers where they spend much of their time.
2. Specificity: Facebook's vast data collection on its users has revolutionized advertising. The site is able to target people by gender, age, location (down to zip code), education level, career type, income, and interests (hobbies, sports, favorite products, industry associations), life events (anniversary, birthday), and more.
Advertising on Facebook allows you to laser-target people most likely to buy your services.
3. Price: Compared to many other forms of advertising, Facebook is relatively inexpensive. Although you may eventually be approached by a Facebook ad rep wanting you to invest in a large monthly spend, the truth is any business can create campaigns for as little as $20 with no long-term commitment. You'll need to spend more than that to see real results, but it's possible to start small and test ads without fear of losing big bucks.
Advertising on Facebook lets you experiment without a giant financial commitment.
Craft a Smart Strategy for Your Facebook Ads
Before we get into an overview of mechanics of creating an ad, let's talk strategy. It's important to have a clear goal in mind for any ad campaign
Facebook offers three campaign objectives:
- Awareness: Ads that get your company name in front of new eyes simply to let people know you exist.
- Consideration: Ads that encourage people to engage with your business page, communicate with you via Messenger, watch your videos, give you their email address, or visit your website.
- Conversion: Ads that persuade leads to make a purchase.
It may seem logical to dive right into conversion ads—after all, who wouldn't want to persuade people to buy? The truth is, if you're new to Facebook ads or don't yet have a ton of web traffic, you should start with awareness or consideration ads.
First of all, each campaign type has a different cost structure, and conversion campaigns are generally the most expensive. Also, it's best to save conversion campaigns for an already warm audience. Building a warm audience begins with awareness, then engagement, and finally web traffic and/or lead capture.
Start by clearly identifying your target audience. For a home cleaning company, the key targeting factors to consider are Geography and Lifestyle. What are the zip codes for your service area? What's the typical age and income range of people willing to pay for house cleaning? Do you want to target only homeowners or also renters? Are your ideal clients parents, pet owners, C-level execs?
It's easy for a novice to quickly become overwhelmed by Ads Manager. In fact, even advertising pros need months or years to fully understand its capabilities.
If you're not sure what will work for your business, you can try testing different campaigns, targeting techniques, and budgets. Tweak future ads based on what delivers the best results.
Hiring a pro can take the guesswork out of Facebook advertising, and deliver a higher ROI.
A final note about strategy: It's also possible to target only Facebook users who have already visited your website and didn't purchase or who subscribe to your newsletter. This is called “retargeting” and can be highly effective. Doing this is pretty straightforward once you install the Facebook Pixel on your website.
With the Pixel in place, you can also create “lookalike” campaigns, which target people similar to those who already on your email list or visit your website. Just keep in mind that you need a certain level of traffic to your website to utilize pixel retargeting.
How to Create Facebook Ads for Your Cleaning Company
First, you need a Facebook Page to create ads. Using a personal profile for business breaks Facebook's rules, and they delete violators. If you don't yet have a business page, log into Facebook, click the arrow in the top right, select “Create Page,” and choose “Local Business.” Add a logo and cover photo, and complete the information. Choose the “Book Now” call-to-action button and link to your booking URL.
Here are the basic steps to start advertising on Facebook:
- Click the arrow in the top right, select “Manage Ads,” and click on your account name. (If you don't have an Ad Manager account yet, follow the instructions to create it. You won't be charged unless you create and publish an ad.)
- Install the Facebook Pixel on your website so you can track visitors that arrive via Facebook. It's just a few lines of code and easy to install (or give the code to your web developer to add).
- In Ads Manager, click “Create Campaign.” Choose a goal (Awareness, Consideration, Conversion) and name your ad.
- Depending on the type of campaign you're creating, you may need to give Facebook some additional information (such as where you want to drive traffic or what you consider a conversion).
- For all campaigns, you need to build an audience. Enter your ideal client demographics (geography, income, age, etc.) and used the “detailed targeting” area to drill down more with things like home ownership, children, pets, career, hobbies, etc. When complete, save the audience so you don't have to re-create it later.
- Set a budget. Again, if you're new to Facebook ads, start low (about $20 a day is good) and set an end date so you don't forget to turn off the ad and later get hit with a sizable bill. Spend a few weeks experimenting and add to the budget when you have a better idea of what delivers the best results.
- Build your ad. You can choose single image, slideshow, carousel, video, or collection. Generally, the most successful is single image (but, again, play around while your budget is low).
- Choose a high-quality photo (you can use the stock photos Facebook offers, your own images, or find free ones on sites like Pexels or Unsplash). Find something that is bold and likely to capture the eye on a busy Facebook feed.
- Keep the headline short (about 10 words) and make it about the user, not you (as in “Get a cleaner home” vs. “We can clean your home”).
- In the text section, talk about why they should hire you (what can you do for them that's unique or special?).
- Add the URL for the booking page on your website (and select “Book Now” as the call-to-action button).
- Publish the add.
Facebook ads have been around for more than a decade, but many companies are only recently beginning to use them. If you're not advertising on Facebook, now is the time to dip your toes in the water.
It's easy and inexpensive to try Facebook advertising, and the potential rewards are massive. This is an opportunity to get ahead of the competition and reach the perfect clients for your specific services.
As a cleaning business owner, you have unique marketing challenges. Having been through many of those same challenges, and having helped thousands of cleaning companies since 2005, Our team are ready to run your entire marketing program.
Get back to running your business and let us help you start growing today!
