How to Advertise Without Scare Tactics

How to Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Angela Brown, Savvy Cleaner
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How do you advertise without scare tactics for your house cleaning business post-COVID-19?  Today we look at ways to advertise in a way that promotes confidence, not fears. Take a matter of fact approach to cleaning and rely on your training to inform your clients.

How do you advertise without scare tactics for your house cleaning business post-COVID-19? 

Today we look at ways to advertise in a way that promotes confidence, not fears. Take a matter of fact approach to cleaning and rely on your training to inform your clients.

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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.

How do You Advertise Without Scare Tactics?

Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Worried Woman and ManHow do you advertise your cleaning business without the common scare tactics? One house cleaner wrote in with this problem. “With this pandemic, my customers are all afraid to have me come in. I am doing all the residential cleaning. I need to know how to advertise and what to say to drum up some business that will encourage them to use my services and not walk in fear. Thank you.”

Advertising coming back after the COVID-19, you can call it a distraction. It’s been a huge distraction. Everybody stayed at home. They’ve all been watching the news. They’re all walking in fear. They’re all scared. Do we need our houses disinfected?

And the things that they’ve seen have burned and etched images in their mind of people in hazmat suits. People with big masks and walking in with these fogging machines and all this stuff. Well, how are you going to compete with that? And how are you going to advertise to that?

Don’t Pretend Nothing is Going On

Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Blue GlovesLet’s not pretend that nothing’s going on. Something big is going on. The way of cleaning has forever changed. And so instead of people cleaning something up and brushing it off and calling it done. Now everybody’s aware of sanitizing and disinfecting.

People are now aware of personal protective equipment. There are a whole lot more issues we have to address. So as a house cleaner, what are you going to say that’s different?

Don’t Lead By Fear

Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Little Boy and Bear Wearing Face MasksFirstly, don’t lead by fear. Everybody’s already afraid enough. They don’t need your help. So, instead say, “Hey, we are going to be in your neighborhood and we’re going to be doing walkthroughs. And we’re going to be explaining the differences in the old way of cleaning and the new way of cleaning.

Do you want to set up a free estimate so I can check with you and share with you what is different? Then I’ll also give you a price on your house and let you know if you’re currently overpaying with the house cleaner that you have.”

That will allow you to get into a lot of doors that you haven’t already been in. Maybe they have a house cleaner, maybe they don’t, but it will give you a chance to kind of rebuild your business closer to home.

Ask Your Customer if They’re Afraid

Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Woman Arriving at Front DoorThe next thing is when you get to the customer’s house, you have to have a conversation. What is the conversation? Are they already afraid or are they not afraid at all? There are two schools of thought in this pandemic. There are people that are like, “Eh, it’s no big deal.”

And then there are people that are so close because they’ve lost family members due to the virus. It is very real to them. There are people that want their homes disinfected. There are people that are like, “Hey, sanitizing is good enough, right? Sanitizer kills 99.9% of the bacteria. That’s good enough.”

And so when you hit all the hot points in the house, you hit all those touchpoints with sanitizing, that might be good enough, so there has to be a conversation.

There are Companies to Train Cleaners for COVID-19

Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Woman on ComputerBut as far as marketing goes, if you have any kind of training whatsoever. And there are lots of professional industries that train house cleaners. They have COVID-19 training where they will walk you through all the different steps of what’s old and what’s new.

They know what you have to do to be COVID-19 compliant, then when you complete it you will have a certificate. And you put that on the flyer that you’re sending out because you can say, “Hey, I’ve been through the training for personal protective equipment. I’ve been through the training for COVID-19. I now know what the differences are and I would love to share them with you.”

Get People Back to Their Comfort Zones

Advertise Without Scare Tactics, Woman Wears Mask Using Hand SanitizerIt can be a very matter of fact and not be this big deal.  However, people are led by fear, and people are already afraid.  We don’t need to enhance that.

What you want them to do is get back to the comfort zone of hiring you back again now that everyone is back from the stay-at-home issued mandatory thing. So, this gives you a chance to get back in the market with confidence, with a matter of fact approach that is helpful and not afraid and scared and all that stuff.

Be wise about the words that you choose. But it also gives you a chance that you can reach out to the customers that you have and the new customers that you don’t have. And who knows, maybe you pick up a whole new set of customers.000 Savvy Cleaner Spacer Bar 2020Resources

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