Residential cleaning is a busy industry. In the franchise industry alone, the market size was $1.2 billion in 2022. This is good news for people looking to start their own business, but it’s also a highly competitive industry. Building a solid foundation as a startup and knowing how to grow your business are key factors in being successful in this field.
At Merry Maids, we have experience with both – new business owners and established businesses who convert to our franchise as a way to grow. Here are some strategies for both.
How to Get Clients for a Cleaning Business: Startup
When you’re a startup, the marketing section of your business plan is where you lay out your plan on how to get customers. You can build a base with people you know, but you will need to attract people who don’t know you. Here are some important startup strategies for marketing a cleaning business:
- Be service-specific. Know what services you’ll provide, from regular cleaning contracts to one-time cleaning services. Your clientele can be different for each service, and that will require different ways of marketing.
- Build your image. A professional brand can garner confidence in your services when someone doesn’t know you. If your image looks messy and unprofessional, the perception is that your services will be the same.
- Be online. In today’s world, being online is critical. Your website and social media pages should be up and running early – before you’re officially open for business.
- Join a network. Creating personal connections through your local chamber of commerce, attending business events, and becoming known in the community can help drive referrals.
- Door knocking. It’s time consuming, but reaching out to customers personally can be an impactful house-cleaning marketing idea when you’re starting out.
How to Get Clients for a Cleaning Business: Established
When you’re established and looking at how to grow a cleaning business, your marketing focus changes. If you’ve already completed the items noted above, you have a good foundation from which to plan how to get new clients for a cleaning business. Here are some growth strategies:
- Expand your territory. Take on a larger area of work. This will require adding employees, but it will allow you to focus more on securing business.
- Expand your network. Connect with networks that have a customer base matching your audience. Examples might be seniors’ organizations and women in business groups.
- Invest in technology. Use technology to help with scheduling, arranging meetings, customer communications, and training.
- Purchase a competitor. If a competitor is looking to sell, you can then add their established clientele to your business.
Grow Your Cleaning Business with a Merry Maids Franchise
If you’re in the planning stage of a cleaning business startup, a Merry Maids franchise can be a solid strategy for how to get clients for a cleaning business.
For startups, our business model takes care of the requirements to getting your cleaning franchise open, attracting clients, and managing business operations. For existing business owners, a franchise conversion provides an opportunity to grow with a larger brand.
Consider these powerful reasons to join Merry Maids:
Marketing power. Merry Maids has extensive marketing support to drive business due to the strength of our franchisee network. We manage marketing so you can focus on growing your business.
Brand power. With Merry Maids, your awareness will grow substantially with a national brand that customers find easily when searching for cleaning services. As homeowners become more cautious about allowing people into their homes, a trusted brand is going to be at the top of that consideration list.
Revenue power. Merry Maids territories are built on a certain household income level that is most likely to use cleaning services. This is often information that independent cleaners have not been able to obtain, but it is critical information to growing your business.
Check out our house cleaning franchise FAQ page to answer some of your questions about how our franchise opportunity works.
Explore Your Options with Merry Maids
We understand the challenges of starting, running, and expanding a home cleaning business. We have developed a proven method of how to get more customers over our 40+ years in business, and in doing so, we have also earned recognition in the industry such as multiple years on the Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 list.
Fill out our request information form on the website and let’s have a conversation.