How To Grow A Commercial Cleaning Business On LinkedIn Without Ads
Are you trying to get new clients for your commercial cleaning business? Marketing your commercial cleaning business on LinkedIn could be a great option. As a business owner, your ideal customers can be just a connection away on Linkedin. In this article, you'll learn how to grow a cleaning business on LinkedIn without having to run paid ads.
Do you need a business page to market your commercial cleaning business on LinkedIn?
You may be wondering if you should create a business page on LinkedIn for your commercial cleaning company. You certainly can, but it isn't necessary for the strategy you'll learn in this post for how to generate cleaning leads for commercial cleaning on LinkedIn.
The basis of this LinkedIn marketing strategy for commercial cleaning businesses is on networking and attraction marketing. You'll do this through your personal LinkedIn profile.
Having a business page can be helpful to have extra exposure on that page, but it isn't necessary if you are just getting started with marketing on LinkedIn.
Creating a business page on LinkedIn will just help your commercial cleaning company appear more omnipresent online. Having omnipresence online can help you establish more credibility for your business.
However, for the purposes of the LinkedIn marketing strategy discussed below, you can skip the step of creating a separate business page.
Set up your LinkedIn profile to market your cleaning business
The first step to setting up your LinkedIn profile to market your cleaning business is to completely fill it out. It sounds like common sense, but many people don't bother to complete their profile on LinkedIn.
When you have a half-finished profile, it makes you look unprofessional and people will be less likely to connect with you. Check out the picture below to follow along and update your LinkedIn profile accordingly.
Make sure you have a smiling professional picture of yourself. Many people don't have a picture in their profile, and often those that do, the picture is not professional. You shouldn't treat LinkedIn like Facebook, and the platform isn't supposed to be as casual.
The next thing is to have a cover photo picture on your LinkedIn profile. You would be surprised, but most people haven't taken the time to set these up. Just by having a cover photo your profile will stand out significantly when you are connecting with people. This cover photo should also share a bit about who you are and how you help people.
Also, you'll want to fill out a brief description with a call to action. For example, you could list something like, "Owner of ABC Cleaning: We provide quality cleaning with highly trained professional cleaners. Call us for a free quote at: (123) 456-7890."
How to structure your About section on LinkedIn to attract commercial cleaning clients
A further expansion of this concept is what you can do throughout your About section. This section allows you to expand on your small profile description of your business.
You could go into more detail on the services your company provides and some of the key differences of your company. The key here is to not just list your experience and features of your business, but also the benefits of hiring you.
As you can see in the picture below, it says "how does (company) add value to your business?" It also says "we help you concentrate on your revenue by focusing on your building's image."
Both of these statements are focused on your potential customers and how you help them, not just about how great your company is. An effective LinkedIn profile about section should highlight your experience, features, and benefits.
You should finally include a call to action that can help you generate leads. There could be a variety of ways to do this. Some examples could include something like, "Call us for a free estimate at: (123) 456-7890." or "Visit our website for a free estimate and to learn more: xyzcleaning.com."
Another option could be to promote a free lead magnet or download that would be helpful to your ideal customers. This could be a facility cost savings guide, specialty maintenance guide, such as floor maintenance, or whatever else you think would be useful to your potential customers.
Networking on LinkedIn to generate commercial cleaning leads
Now that you have your profile optimized to generate leads for your commercial cleaning company, it's time to start growing your network. The first step to networking effectively is to understand who your ideal target market is.
For a commercial cleaning business, your ideal customers are going to depend on what services you provide. For example, you might clean schools, banks, medical facilities, condos, auto dealerships, and more.
Decide on what kind of service you want to target, and that will determine who you should start networking with. If you aren't sure where to start, a great option is to look for people with the "facilities manager" or "property manager" job title.
How to find the right connections on LinkedIn for a commercial cleaning business
LinkedIn actually makes these people very easy to find. Simply click on the search box and then select "people'.
The next step is to filter your results down to the right people who have the potential to become commercial cleaning clients. The mistake many people make is that they just throw their marketing at everyone and hope they hire them.
When you market to everyone, you really market to no one. Be sure to target the right people and you do this with filtering the people you connect with.
Once you have "People" selected, the next step is to click on "All Filters".
Once you are in the all filters section there are a few settings to fill in. The first is to select the "2nd connections" checkbox. This is important because this means you have at least 1 connection in common with that person.
Look at these people like "friends of friends". They are not quite a cold market prospect, but not a warm lead either, but 2nd connections will tend to connect back with you more often than a person who has no connections in common with you.
Also, don't worry if you don't have very many people show up in this second connection category. For most people, this group will start off small but can start to grow exponentially as people start to connect with you.
The next filter you apply is to add the locations you do business in. Then the final filter you fill in is the "Title". For example, you could put in the title of "facility manager". Then simply hit "Apply" to filter your search results.
(Note: Actual "All Filters" screen is more comprehensive than the picture below)
How to connect with your ideal commercial cleaning clients on LinkedIn
Now that the filters have all been applied you should see a screen that looks like the image below. Your results will be filled with the title you searched for in your area, in this case, "Facility Manager".
Now there are some key things to notice in the image below. One is that you want to start by connecting with people that have a profile picture. If someone hasn't taken the time to upload a profile picture, they likely aren't very active on LinkedIn.
If you continue to connect with people and have too many that don't connect back with you, your account has the potential to get flagged as a spammer. That means you only want to connect with people that have a high probability that will connect back with you.
Another thing you'll notice is that below the person's info, you'll see how many mutual connections you have in common. In the beginning, you probably won't have many common connections, but the more people you connect with the common connections will grow over time.
As your mutual connections grow, the more likely it becomes people connect with you so overtime your success in building connections can grow exponentially.
Also, you should only send about 10-15 connection requests out a day. This will give people time to accept your requests and can help prevent you from being blocked for spam.
Should you send a custom message while connecting on LinkedIn?
A common question is should you send a custom message when you attempt to connect with people or not? Typically, this is not necessary to send a message when you first push the connect button.
You should save your initial message until after someone has connected back with you. Most of the time a message sent immediately can come off spammy and insincere.
Also, if you have too many pending or unread messages you could get your messaging features temporarily blocked for spamming. By waiting until someone does connect back with you, you can know they will see the message and it can limit issues with sending too many messages that are unread.
Most people send messages that are very spammy, and it is a huge turn off to people. Don't send a message that asks for business or tries to sell your commercial cleaning services immediately.
Instead, simply thank the person for connecting with you and let them know what you do and if you have a free offer or link to more info ask if they would like to receive it. Don't just send them the information unsolicited – just ask if they're interested and send when they give their permission.
Sample message to send once you connect with a new contact
A simple message that can be effective that doesn't come off as spammy could sound something like the following.
"Hey (prospect name), I appreciate you connecting with me. I checked out your profile and noticed you are working as a (job title[facilities manager]). I am the owner of XYZ cleaning company and figured I'd reach out and connect since we work with many (job title[facilities managers]) with our company. By the way, if you ever have any questions regarding commercial cleaning, or would like to check out our free (your lead magnet [cost savings guide for building owners]) let me know and I'd be happy to answer them or get you a copy!"
The goal here is to simply plant a seed with your new connections about what you do, and let them reach out to you from there. You initiated a conversation but weren't overly aggressive with it.
The further steps we cover can help with getting your new connections to reach out to you down the road when the timing is right.
How to use content marketing to generate commercial cleaning leads
As you continue to follow the LinkedIn marketing strategy listed above, you'll start to build a significant network. This is powerful because it can give you a lot of free exposure for your commercial cleaning business.
The way to achieve this exposure is to produce value-based content that serves your ideal customers. You can do this through sharing blog posts, or creating articles on LinkedIn.
Both options can be effective, but our suggestion is to spend more of your focus creating blog posts than articles on LinkedIn. The reason for this is that you own your blog and website, but you don't own LinkedIn.
Plus when you create blog posts for your cleaning business, you can capitalize on free traffic through SEO. Either way, as you put out content through sharing posts or articles, your network will start to see them.
If your content is valuable and it solves your target market's problems, they will head to your site to see your content. Once they are there, they can now become leads on your website. Be sure to check out this post on how to optimize your cleaning company website for lead generation.
P.S. If you are struggling to get quality leads for your cleaning business, Click Here to Learn How to Get More Clients for your business with these Top 10 Lead Sources For Cleaning Business Owners.
Copyright The Janitorial Store. All Rights Reserved
FREE VIDEO - Top 10 Lead Sources for Cleaning Business
Click here to get instant access!
Visit our Store for Certification Training Programs
