Lead Nurturing Strategies for Commercial Cleaning Companies
The days of hiring a cleaning company from the phone book are long gone. Today, prospects do extensive online research and interview multiple providers before making a decision. And even then, they often stay on the email lists of multiple cleaning companies just in case they ever want to make a switch.
That means building and maintaining relationships with prospects throughout the buying process is more important than ever. This is called lead nurturing, and doing it well is the key to long-term success as a contract cleaner.
Lead Nurturing Starts With The Buying Process
Cleaning business owners and salespeople should understand the buyer's journey; the three-step process that takes someone from first seeking a commercial cleaning company to becoming a long-term customer.
- Awareness: Realizes they have a problem.
- Consideration: Searches for a solution.
- Decision: Chooses a solution.
To move more buyers from No. 1 to No. 3 with your company, you must educate and engage them at each stage along the path. That's the role of lead nurturing.
Need convincing? Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads, according to The Annuitas Group.
Lead Nurturing for Awareness
At this earliest stage, a buyer is beginning to realize they need help cleaning their building. They will turn to Google to do some research, asking questions like: What is this problem costing me? Is it a priority? What are the consequences of not doing something now? What are my options?
Your goal is to offer educational content that focuses on these pain points—not your company. Create relevant blog posts, social media posts, videos, and other non-committal content that address their problem and goal, and that help them understand why they shouldn't wait to take action.
Avoid the temptation to add a heavy sales pitch to your content. Right now, your only objective is to build trust with the prospect and to establish your company as a credible authority.
Brainstorm the keywords your ideal customers might use during this early research phase. Incorporate them into your content so it has a shot at turning up in search results rather than getting lost in the search sea.
Ideas of the type of content that may be useful to prospects at this point include:
- How Your Building's Appearance May be Costing Your Business Money
- 5 Signs You Need to Hire a Contract Cleaning Company—Now
- Why a Clean Office Matters
- Best Practices for Cleaning a Commercial Building
- Hiring a Cleaning Company vs. Starting an In-House Cleaning Operation
- 10 Benefits of Using a Professional Cleaning Service
- The Most Common Types of Commercial Cleaning Services
- How to Choose a Contract Cleaning Services Provider
- Questions to Ask Any Contract Cleaning Company Before You Hire
In addition to web and social posts, consider creating materials like quizzes, infographics, or checklists that can be “gated,” or given only to prospects who “opt in” by giving their email address.
Getting these early prospects onto your email list also means you can begin sending them your regular e-newsletter. This is a great way to continue educating and building a relationship with potential buyers, even if they don't move into the consideration stage for months or years.
If you invest in a marketing automation tool, you can track every action (completing a quiz, requesting a download) and segment the most interested prospects to identify those who are moving into the consideration stage.
Lead Nurturing for Consideration
Once a building owner or manager is convinced that hiring a BSC is the solution to their problem, they move into the next phase of the buying journey—narrowing down their choices.
If they've trusted the content you've shared so far, then you're probably on the list of cleaning companies they'll consider. Now your job is to help these leads understand how your specific offerings can address their particular pain points. You want to position your company as a solution to their problem (but not yet as the solution).
Some of the most effective tools at your disposal during the decision phase include:
- Point-of-view story: Every commercial cleaning company should have a well-developed core story that's documented in the form of a white paper or eBook. This content must dive deeply into what makes a firm different, what the secret sauce is, how the company approaches customer service, and why the firm does what it does.
- Seminars: Today, people want information packaged in ways that will help them get what they want. Presentations, workshops and seminars (online and off) are tremendous ways to provide education with the added punch of engagement.
- Case studies: Building rich examples of actual clients succeeding through the use of your service offerings is a tremendous way to help people learn from other individuals and businesses just like them.
- FAQs: There are those who want to know very specific things about the company or approach, and these learners get the most value out of the traditional "frequently asked questions" approach.
Lead Nurturing for Decision
After narrowing down possible BSCs to just a few, the buyer must now make the actual purchase. Now you want to give them information that will help them choose you.
- Don't just talk about your services, show what you can do. Done well, a service demo or on-site consultation can positively position your company over the competition.
- Rather than bragging about yourself, ask your current clients to sing your praises in the form of testimonials or references. Share their positive experiences of working with you, ideally on video, with the buyer.
- You know the buyer is considering other cleaning companies, so address it head on. Create a table that showcases what you offer that the others don't. This can be a compelling way to illustrate that you're the best choice.
- Help the buyer justify their investment. Create a clear, compelling document that outlines the costs and what they get. If you'll offer any discount for fast action, play that up.
- Create a video that walks them through the logistics of becoming your customer. What is the implementation process? What will happen and when? This will set the tone for the type of customer service they can expect from your company moving forward.
Don't be afraid to keep the conversation going, even if the buyer delays the purchase or decides not to make one. Until they hire a cleaning company, their pain points are unlikely to change. Keep them on your email list so you can regularly, and respectfully, nurture the relationship with additional content.
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