Several cleaning companies have taken a bold new approach to marketing their services to customers who have concerns about the health of their family.
It is estimated that less than 50 percent of homes have ever had their carpets or upholstery professional cleaned. The reasons vary, but most homeowners are not aware unseen soil can act as a trigger for allergies and asthma.
To reach homeowners who have health concerns you will need to develop a unique marketing plan that reflects your operation, your market and the prospective groups on which you intend to focus. The plan’s specifics are determined by the individual; however, there are some guidelines that can help you during its development. Customer purchasing motivations are quite varied. However, the health and safety of family members are key concerns of most homeowners.
One of the major reasons people develop allergic illnesses is overexposure to various allergens, especially those found in indoor air from pets and dust mites.
It is now clear that allergies can, in fact, be controlled, and even prevented, by avoiding the triggers that cause them. This strategy is called environmental control.
Your marketing plan may be quite conservative or highly ambitious. In either case, an excellent place to begin is with your own customer base and those that contact your business for the services you currently offer.
Given that almost 25 percent of the U.S. population suffer from allergic illnesses, you will have a large number of current customers and new callers who will immediately identify themselves as potential purchasers of allergy relief services if you ask the simple question, “Does anyone in your household suffer from allergies or asthma?” When you get a “yes” response to that question, you have the opportunity to ask further questions, such as:
These questions are designed to elicit information and create the opening for a conversation about anti-allergen cleaning and treatment. You will need to put together a brief presentation script you can use on the phone to explain these services once you receive permission to explain the program. Use your supplier-provided brochures, which can also be used as mailings and leave-behind pieces, during face-to-face presentations to customers.
When speaking with people who do not have allergy suffers in the household, there is still an opportunity to discuss allergy prevention, particularly when there are young children in the house or a baby on the way.
It will be very important that you can speak knowledgably about allergic illnesses in a general way, and more specifically about environmental control. People with allergic illnesses often know a lot about them, and they are grateful for someone to talk to who can empathize with their problems and possibly offer solutions. Given that allergy relief services need to be provided every 6 months (in some cases, every 3 months) these customers are ideal to offer maintenance contracts. If the customer chooses not to commit to a 6-month cleaning cycle, contact them after the fifth month to schedule the next cleaning.
When offering services as a preventive measure, these same procedures can be followed. Given that there may be less of a sense of urgency when there is no active allergic illness in the household, it may make sense to offer a cleaning package based on hypo-allergenic cleaning materials and allergy-preventive cleaning procedures like mattress cleaning. This will allow you to offer a very differentiated package from your competition, and address the concerns of people with questions about chemicals and toxins in their home. They may be chemically sensitive, but not allergic, to home bio-pollutants.
The key to successful marketing is give people a reason to buy your services that differentiates you from your competition. Most important, this reason must be relevant to them and their needs!
It is very important when marketing allergy-relief services to avoid drastic scare tactics, as this approach has proven to backfire. No one likes to be manipulated, and scare tactics often have this flavor.
The main focus should be images that reflect the removing of pain. Allergic-illness sufferers are often quite restricted in their activities. They miss school and work, go to the doctor’s office far more frequently, and feel pain because their children are suffering.
You will find a good return on your investment of doing well by doing good.