Having a sizable and high-quality customer database is essential for success in the commercial cleaning sector. It must include the contact details of potential leads, positions, preferences, and needs. An extensive cleaning business database will be the foundation of any other marketing strategy you implement.
A solid database will help scale your business. You’d rather not leave your cleaning business on autopilot. It’s not going to build itself nor grow on its own. You have to pursue it as a goal.
Here, we will look at a few strategies on how to grow your cleaning database quickly and efficiently.
Why it’s vital to grow your cleaning business database
Your cleaning business will always be running on fumes without a solid database. There are three main signs that show you need to grow your database:
1. You’re spending too much time chasing and finding new clients, or worse, the wrong ones.
2. Your cleaning service is not well-known and requires other people to spread the word about your business.
3. You are failing to meet your sales quotas for client engagement, which means you are missing out on plenty of potential customers that could benefit from your services.
The quality of the database matters too.
The database is a valuable foundation that all commercial cleaning companies rely on to get new commercial cleaning contracts. While having a system in place to keep track of contact information is beneficial, that alone does not constitute a good database.
For a database for a cleaning business to be of high quality, it must:
- Contain accurate information about potential customers and their contact details. This also involves running frequent checks and regular updates.
- Also, have forecasts and predictions of which service or package an individual prospect may go for, depending on their needs and requirements.
- Be fast, responsive, and available to all sales reps and teams.
- Allow all employees to quickly find who the decision makers are and which service they might require.
Unless you put time and effort into ensuring your database is good, all the time you spend following up with your leads and setting up systems to nurture leads and close deals will be for nothing. Moreover, the list size is also not particularly indicative of the quality of the database. Having a database with 10,000 contact details is useless if the information is of poor quality and cannot be used to target the right people at the right time.
For instance, having the contact number of a prospect without decision-making powers instantly disqualifies it as a quality lead. So, while you should always try to grow your business database fast, it should not be at the cost of quality.
And this brings us to the meat of this section:
The best strategies for growing a cleaning business database
Let’s look at some proven strategies that have fueled the growth of databases for hundreds of commercial cleaning businesses across the world:
Establish an online presence.
The first step to growing your cleaning business database is to have an online presence. You need a website that lists your services and prices and has contact information, so people can reach you. You should also have social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter and a blog where you can post relevant content for your audience.
You should also have a robust online presence on platforms like LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube, and Yelp because these are where potential customers are likely searching for cleaning solutions.
Cast a wide net to collect leads.
Next, create a list of people you want to target for your cleaning business. This list should include people who have shown interest in your offer or bought from you. You can use social media, newsletters, direct mailers, telemarketing, and referrals from current customers. It’s worth noting that this strategy focuses more on the quantity aspect. We will narrow it down to improve the quality of the database later.
Fire up the map application of your choice and adjust the zoom level to focus on the area you want to target. For instance, if your business is in Denver, the city should be in the middle of the screen, but the view should be wide enough to include many of Denver’s suburbs.
With your Maps view appropriately set, you can search that area of the map for the types of businesses you want to target. You don’t need to add any geolocation to your search terms because the map will handle that part of the search for you. So, simply type in whatever kind of business you’d like to find and then view the results. If there are too many results to work through at once, consider zooming in on a more specific region and then work your way around the area one smaller search at a time.
You will only have collected a raw list of prospects at his point, but it’s a great starting point to collect more leads.
Create a marketing plan.
Attempting to grow your cleaning business database without a marketing plan is like sailing without rudders. It won’t get you anywhere. Take the time to map out your marketing plan before you start to advertise your service. This begins with understanding who your audience is and what their needs are. Once you do that, it’s easy to pinpoint which platforms will help grow your business and attract customers over the long term. For instance:
- You can tap Facebook, Instagram, Google Search Ads, and YouTube for paid promotion.
- Use organic, word-of-mouth advertising from friends and family, social media conversations, and customer reviews.
- Or engage in Content marketing through publishing blog posts on your website or company newsletters, How-to videos on YouTube, and other platforms.
Once you know who your audience is and where they prefer to consume content, it’s easy to see how the channels mentioned above can be used to grow your business over the long term.
Identify the decision maker.
When it comes to building a solid database fast, the more information you have on where your target market spends their time, what they like, etc., the better strategy you can create for them. Reaching out to as many local businesses as possible and compiling an extensive database is essential.
However, having the company’s name and a phone number that goes straight to reception is acceptable as a first step, but it won’t get you very far.
What’s even more crucial is finding the appropriate point of contact at as many relevant local businesses as possible is a must if you want to compile a useful database. This means identifying the decision-makers who’ve got some sway in their companies. It could be anybody from the top to the middle levels of management. Ideally, you want to get a mix of people from different levels to ensure you’ve covered all the bases.
Once you’ve gathered all the contact information, it’s time to contact them. In some cases, this might mean calling them up or sending an email to set up a meeting; in others, it might mean sending out flyers with your company logo and waiting for responses. The point is that you touch base with the decision-makers and lay the foundation for a good rapport.
Another effective way of finding the right point of contact is through LinkedIn. Once you have collected raw data on businesses that will require cleaning services, look them up on LinkedIn, and find out who among their employees can potentially be a decision-maker.
While it is possible to make some headway using LinkedIn’s free version, you are much more likely to find what you’re looking for by investing in Sales Navigator. Your database will not only be considerably more extensive but also full of high-quality leads.
You can get more appointments and close more deals with the help of this kind of database.
Invest in database services
If you are willing to spend more money, there are various database services from which you can collect the necessary information for your database. There are two excellent database services on the market today:
- D7 Lead Finder
- ZoomInfo
D7 Lead Finder
D7 Lead Finder is a lead generation software that helps you find new prospects from a variety of sources such as social media, online directories, Google Places, or any other source you choose. It lets you find free business leads in two ways:
Targeting by words:
You can use this feature to target prospects looking for specific keywords or phrases on the internet. For example, searching for “cleaning services” will provide you with information on people looking for “cleaning services.”
Targeting by location:
If you want to focus your marketing efforts on a specific geographic area, this feature will help you narrow down the search results based on their location.
D7 Lead Finder’s pricing is flexible, so you can select a plan that works for you based on how many daily searches you anticipate needing to run.
ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is a powerful business directory that can be accessed through a web browser or downloaded as an app. It has over 3 million records on companies, people, and jobs. It’s an excellent tool for finding potential leads with the least effort possible.
You can also use ZoomInfo to find prospects with the following methods:
- Searching by company name and then browsing the list of employees at that company
- Searching by job title and then browsing the list of employees at that company who have that job title
- Searching by location and then browsing the list of companies in that region
- Searching by industry and then browsing all available companies in that industry
But because ZoomInfo is a more comprehensive sales solution, it comes with a hefty price tag and is only worth it for companies that can make that investment and turn a profit.
Key Takeaways
These strategies will surely be helpful to you in the pursuit of improved marketing for your commercial cleaning business because every other marketing or cold reach strategy will be pointless without a good database.
Now, remember:
- You should never take your database for granted and actively take measures to grow it.
- The quality of leads is also just as important.
- Test out different strategies and see what gives the best results.
- Continually maintain and update your database to always have accurate information on your hands.
- Do not hesitate to invest in the right tools to build your database. This investment will only maximize your bottom line in the long run.
If you want to learn more about databases and marketing strategies for your cleaning business, check out our new book! This detailed guide will help you grow your business and get more cleaning leads through a series of practical and proven strategies.
And if you want our help navigating all these strategies, just schedule a free consultation !
