In this episode, I have an important lesson to share from a new friend of mine in the digital marketing space on the power of Facebook and Google. Eric Laylon is a consultant with ReachLocal. He understands the online landscape more than almost anyone that I know. He's a new member of the MCBA networking group and had a chance to share a presentation on his work. I asked many questions as I wanted to understand a little more of the trends he's seeing in 2021.

• Google drives 85% of all online traffic and still dominates the online search landscape. Bing is #2 because Comcast uses them as a default, but they use Google ad platforms. Google will continue to dominate. If you're not visible on Google, you're not visible.
• Google My Business is a free way to create SEO for your business through images, reviews, articles, and deals. Ads are an excellent paid option to generate leads.
• Eric says you should be investing 3-5% of revenue into marketing for average returns. 8% is aggressive and 3% is slow growth. Invest 60-70% of this marketing budget on digital. This is what the large companies are doing in 2021!
• Facebook is similar to google. They have 223 million users in the United States alone out of 331 million people. That's 67% of the US is on Facebook. A business page is free and allows you to create interest for your product or service for free. Ads (like Google) are an excellent paid option as well.

Thank you Eric for teaching and sharing the trends and stats for 2021! My takeaway is simple. If you ever want to be found in your cleaning business, you have to be on Facebook and Google as they represent 67% of the country and 85% of all online searches. And you can access both for free through a Facebook business page, personal page, Google my business profile.

That was quick and to the point! Let's dive more into my own solo cleaning business. I have used digital marketing to grow my solo cleaning company in 2020. I tried everything, but focused on Facebook and Google My Business digitally while attending local networking to round out my marketing strategy. I didn't use any paid advertising and grew my company by $60,000 in revenue in 2020. Going forward, I plan to continue. I did get an idea this past week that I had originally planned in 2019 and never did it. I am the only cleaner in a 300 - 400 member chamber of commerce. Many members know who I am now since I've been helpful in leading webinars for the chamber, but I figured that the majority do not know me. I could cold call them and try to fleece them for business. I don't operate like that. Here's what I'm going to do. I'll make a list of the members that have an office that is a good fit for my office cleaning company. These are buildings under 5,000 - 6,000 square feet that need cleaning weekly or less. Once I have the list completed, I'll send emails with personal videos to the owners or contacts through the chamber to say hi and introduce myself. From there, I'll see who has any interest in connecting more with me. I'll schedule Zoom calls or breakfast meetings with the ones who want to know me. Then I'll add these new friends to my twice-monthly newsletter. I am guessing that 150 of the members fit into my demographic out of 400. Out of the 150, I wouldn't be surprised if I can connect and add 30 to my newsletter. Who knows from there. Those 30 could be 10 clients at $500 - $800/month in the future, which is over $60,000 of annual revenue! Either way, I make new friends. Win-win.


Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website