MARKETING
THEADVERTIBISINGGGEST
MISTAKES
CLEANERS MAKE
By John Braun
BAD ADVERTISING CHOICES CAN
QUICKLY KILL A COMPANY.
After labor, advertising is one of the biggest
expenses for most cleaning companies. A few
wrong choices can lead to thousands of lost profit
dollars. Many cleaning company owners are
afraid to advertise. While it’s possible to grow
your company by word of mouth only, advertising
can get you where you want to be much quicker.
Here are online and offline advertising mistakes
that commonly cost cleaning companies money.
Learn how you can avoid them.
BUYING ADVERTISING
BASED ON A SALES CALL.
Never allow a salesperson to choose your
advertising for you. When a salesman calls, the
best thing you can do is ask him to send or leave
you information. Consider his media the next time
you work on your advertising plan. If it’s the best
choice to get your message out, call him. Plan
your advertising quarterly and stick to your plan!
NO
HEADLINE
IN
AN
AD.
Gross majorities of cleaning ads have no benefit-
20
driven headline at the top. David Ogilvy, known
as the Father of Advertising said, “On average,
5 times as many people read the headlines as
read the body copy. It follows that, unless your
headline sells your product, you have wasted
90% of your money.” If the headline doesn’t
catch attention in a meaningful way, you lose.
Put a headline at the top of your ad that catches
attention and tells your prospect what they’ll get
from reading your ad. When you’re stumped for
a good headline, one good old faithful headline is
the “How to” headline like “How to Get the Best
Carpet Cleaning.”
Mark Church, owner of Master Care in Roseburg,
Oregon says, “I’ve had the fortune of always
having someone who knew to do this for me. After
taking programs from some of the marketing gurus