Does this happen to you?

[PrimaDonna]

We've been getting a lot of referrals through Facebook, and clients leaving feedback on our Facebook page.

Are you clients raving about you on social media? Do you reply when they do?

Hell, I think we are getting invited to this lady's holiday party next year...now that she feels like we are "family"! Happy she feels this way, because this is what we strive for. It's nice when its acknowledged and we know our efforts are paying off!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Those are awesome comments!

To answer your question, not as much as I would like.

We're actually late in the game participating with Facebook, we just became active this fall.

Lots of catching up to do yet.

 

[PrimaDonna]

Those are awesome comments!

Thanks. We also collect feedback the "old fashioned" way and scan and upload those to our Facebook page. Here's a link to some of them... It's a great way to incorporate the feedback on your page if you don't have a lot of clients that take the time to actually post on your page.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152449982447258.1073741827.319745177257&type=3

 

[Desk Jockey]

I like those, people can see actual hand written cards.

Your whole page is really nice, lots of comments and very active. Nice work!

 

[hogjowl]

Yes

 

[PrimaDonna]

Holy Crap....Marty's only response is "Yes".

Why don't you post some examples of your custy love, Marty?

 

[hogjowl]

Cuz I don't know how.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Meg you have to understand Marty is one very complicated mammal. I could go into great detail but to cut to the chase, he lies!

The custy's love his son, not him.

 

[hogjowl]

Sharon Hogan
September 30 at 7:46am
Thanks for making our carpets look like new! With dogs and grandkids our carpets really needed a good cleaning and you guys did an awesome job! I highly recommend Admiral Clean to everybody!

Note: For some reason, if you click on the date, it brings up the post on my FB page. If you click on her name, it brings up another Sharon Hogan from some other town.

 

[PrimaDonna]

I like those, people can see actual hand written cards.

We have purposely done it this way. Then everyone knows that they are the real deal. Anyone can post a "written" review on their website or get bogus comments posted on a Facebook page or review site.

 

[Mark Saiger]

Facebook has been good for us. It does keep us out there in our small community and we do receive jobs from our postings.

When we receive a compliment or comments we do acknowledge them, thank them for their kind words and tell them it really was our pleasure.

We seriously do appreciate the opportunity of being of service for them.

Honestly, we truly have been very fortunate to have such great clients as I know many others here have as well.

Meg, Nice post and great post to bring up for us all to consider ways to help our business

 

[WillS]

We kick ass on Facebook. Use it right and you can drive a lot of business.

http://www.facebook.com/naturaldry

 

[PrimaDonna]

Wow, Will. What did it take to get over 6,000 likes? That is incredible.

Your before and after photos are fantastic too. What we struggle with is that many of our customers are "high end" and, quite frankly would never let "their" furniture or carpets get that bad. While I can see the value in the before and after photos, when they see thing like that, they think "That's not me. My carpets/upholstery don't look like that"....therefore I don't need THIS cleaner, because that is not "my" problem. Of course this is all sub conscious talk and impressions.

Maybe I'm wrong. Do you find yourself working in the most prominent homes in town or are you more of a rental, lower end, "volume" cleaner? (which by the way is great if that is your business model and you're making money at it)

I just don't think marketing the way you do on Facebook would speak to our target demographic. I'd love to know if your experience is different then what I'm assuming and mayby you are just showcasing the handful of tough jobs you get. (We do our share of them, but it's certainly not the majority). Do tell.....

We kick ass on Facebook. Use it right and you can drive a lot of business.

http://www.facebook.com/naturaldry

Meg

 

[Steve Toburen]

Hey Meg,

Good idea on changing your customer comment cards to read, "May we use your comments on our website?" (I would only tweak it a bit more to "May we post this comment card on our website and Facebook page?" Can't be too clear with these people.) Good job.

Steve

PS So Meg, are you promoting to people that they post on other "review sites" like Angieslist and Google? If so, how? Thanks again!

 

[Shane Deubell]

Wow, Will. What did it take to get over 6,000 likes? That is incredible.

Your before and after photos are fantastic too. What we struggle with is that many of our customers are "high end" and, quite frankly would never let "their" furniture or carpets get that bad. While I can see the value in the before and after photos, when they see thing like that, they think "That's not me. My carpets/upholstery don't look like that"....therefore I don't need THIS cleaner, because that is not "my" problem. Of course this is all sub conscious talk and impressions.

Maybe I'm wrong. Do you find yourself working in the most prominent homes in town or are you more of a rental, lower end, "volume" cleaner? (which by the way is great if that is your business model and you're making money at it)

I just don't think marketing the way you do on Facebook would speak to our target demographic. I'd love to know if your experience is different then what I'm assuming and mayby you are just showcasing the handful of tough jobs you get. (We do our share of them, but it's certainly not the majority). Do tell.....




Meg

You buy them.

The concept is then you can make offers to your network and on average 1% buy every month.
Like every form of advertising you keep buying likes every day. So you start off with 1000, 3000, 6000 and that 1% of buyers just keeps adding up.

Before ya know it the guy is going to have 20k people in his network and 200 buyers every month for a lousy $400 month in cost.
Nice return once you pass the break even point.

 

[Steve Toburen]

Wow, Will. What did it take to get over 6,000 likes? That is incredible.

Your before and after photos are fantastic too...

I totally agree.

Steve

PS It is fascinating to me how "the more things change the more they remain the same." Even with all the "technical tricks" for the internet today if you don't focus on the good old on-the-job Value Added Service "face to face stuff" no one is going to "like" you or give you a great review. What Will is doing is amping up how he displays how people already feel about Natural Dry. Totally great but without Will's employees "Making the Cheerleader" none of the techy stuff would have value.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I think they changed that recently Shane. That is if you are talking about special offers for "likes".

Last month I read they no longer support the software that allows that type of thing. They said they made the change because they felt like the numbers don't reflect real clients but just those that wanted to take advantage the give away or offer.

That's not saying what Will is doing because they could be boosting posts or ad's, that will drive "likes" numbers up too. Nothing wrong or shady about that, in fact Facebook encourages you to do that. Of course they would, its more money for them! LOL

 

[Shane Deubell]

I think they changed that recently Shane. That is if you are talking about special offers for "likes".

Last month I read they no longer support the software that allows that type of thing. They said they made the change because they felt like the numbers don't reflect real clients but just those that wanted to take advantage the give away or offer.

That's not saying what Will is doing because they could be boosting posts or ad's, that will drive "likes" numbers up too. Nothing wrong or shady about that, in fact Facebook encourages you to do that. Of course they would, its more money for them! LOL

Not talking about buying likes from a 3rd party but promoting your page.

You cant even do special offers until you have enough page likes.
So you would do the promote your page option on FB.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Boosting a post or an ad? Yes we do, have a monthly budget for an ad and will occasionally boost a post. Cost is cheap, you set the budget and the target as to who will be served the impression. You are only charged if they click on it so they impression is free.

I'm in the process of doing the same with Google Display Network plus remarketing for specific services we offer.

 

[WillS]

Hey Meg,

We do every end of the spectrum. We could be doing a 5 bedroom move out, and than be at a 6,000sq. ft. property for the next appointment. Since Vegas/Henderson/North Las Vegas have a range of nice vs. not so nice. neighborhoods, we service everything. A lot of those pictures are restoration type deep cleaning. Which we charge additional for. With 3 million people in our service area, we definitely have a weird variety. We have a ton of competition out there, so starting out, we begin servicing whatever we could. Now that our minimum is over $120, it weeds out a lot of apartments, etc. It is also important to note here: if someone who only uses us for a $200 or less service, and we do an amazing job like in the pictures, the word of mouth spreads really well for us. They tell a friend, their boss, etc. and its a chain reaction. Therefore, larger jobs come in from that. We actually scored 8 commercial jobs last month just from referrals of employees that we cleaned their homes.

The comments above about the amount of likes we have on our page, you make it seem like that is a big deal. The likes we don't care about. The amount of people seeing our page, pictures and ads, is the important part. How many people are clicking to our website per post, or "other clicks" is where we are driving the large amount of business. The way we do content marketing is very important. Who cares if we have 20,000 page likes if it doesn't drive business. The cool thing is out of those 6,400 likes, 6,000 of those people are from Vegas. When people like your photo or share it, it is driving organic results. Which is 100% important, unless you want to pay thousands in FB ads. We don't ask people to like our page, unless we are doing a drawing of some sort, that is also when we first started. FB doesn't like you asking users for likes on your page anymore. We can spend $100 on ads and book over $2,000 in business from it.

This works best for us in reaching customers in such a large area.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I agree "likes" don't mean shit. Its the "reach" and especially the "engagement" that count.

The nice thing is that as you build those numbers up, you have far more organic likes and don't need to rely on paid so much.

The amount of people seeing our page, pictures and ads, is the important part. How many people are clicking to our website per post, or "other clicks" is where we are driving the large amount of business.

I agree, its the increases in CTR you're looking for. If you go through your analytic s and you're getting conversions to your website then its a successful campaign.

 

[PrimaDonna]

This is all something I need to learn more about....or hire some college intern to do for me. We are getting a lot of business off Facebook, but not the same way you are. I'd like to grow/expand in to the kind of results you are getting from your type of marketing.

Right now ours primarily comes from a community page that we are involved in. It's a closed group (must be asked/approved to join) for the largest town in the area we service. The admins of the page are very strict in that ALL posts must be positive and helpful. No sharing your feedback or experience with a business if it didn't go well (the idea is they want you to go to the business owner/manager and the them about your experience and let them have a chance to fix it, rather than publicly blast them and have other people not patronize the business based on something people are saying on Facebook). They are very quick to delete negative posts and boot people that don't follow the rules. Sure there are those that complain about that, but it's the admin's page and they have a right to run it anyway they want. The guidelines are posted. Don't like it....then don't be a member. So mostly people post good things about the town, the people and businesses. But a lot of people are posting for recommendations for businesses or services.

Anyway....we get mentioned on this page a lot when people ask for a carpet cleaner recommendation. Many of our customers and referral partners (BNI members) are on the page and they all jump on. It's fabulous to see a thread where 10 or more people have recommended you to others. We joined this group in July and have done 23 jobs and over $11,000 from it. So it's been good, but I'd love to get even more work from Facebook. None of my paid "boosts" have ever resulted in calls or jobs. But then again, I don't really know what I'm doing with that and clearly I'm not getting the ROI.

 

[Hoody]

Richard,

You can still do "Like" campaigns on Facebook by promoting your page. All that does is creates a sponsored "ad" for people to like your page. The idea is to build up your audience and then find creative ways for that audience to promote your brand for you. Having contests, raffles, while telling people to like, share, and comment will help raise your organic reach.

Then you can use your website to create special offers or informative posts to drive traffic to your site (traffic, how long people spend on your site, if they click on other pages, etc) all do factor into your local and organic Google rankings.

Some creative post examples would be:

For carpet cleaners:

Spotting guides
Vacuum performance check list
Filtration soiling info
Indoor air quality notice, change furnace filters, regular cleaning
Spotting products to stay away from

For restorers:

Winter checklists - check/prep outside spigots for winter
How tree roots damage pipelines
Safety checklists for standing water around electrical components
Insulation efficiency - how missing insulation could create condensation because of temperature differences
Facts about mold

If you create ads on Facebook, but sure to follow their 20% text rules or your ad will be bounced back.

The big thing with ads is make sure you are choosing the "people you choose through targeting" option when you are boosting your posts. I keep seeing ads for carpet cleaning companies in other areas of the country. You can also target people who like your page, but be sure you are editing your location settings. I know a lot of us have other carpet cleaning buddies as friends and you want to maximize your exposure to your target market. There is a drop down button that defaults to "Countries" click it and choose Cities.

Some of the clients I help with their SEO and social media we are using specific domains for ads and they do this in their EDDM campaigns too. We create a single page website and it's purpose is to either generate phone calls or capture email addresses. Simple one page sites with click to call buttons and all your other contact info with a special offer.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I hate hate hate the 20% ad rule. You only get 5-boxes.
https://www.facebook.com/ads/tools/text_overlay

However you can work around it by putting your ad in the timeline and then boosting it.

I agree with you Hoody, narrow down your target by city by home-ownership & by age.

 

[Shane Deubell]

The value is not in the page "like" its someone receiving your feed consistently.

The problem is everyone has different personal settings so they may not or click you off. One reason have to be careful of how often you post and what.
Think of it from the other view, if you received alerts from a landscaper everyday how long would it take you to click them off?

A post like does not mean page like, 2 separate categories. So if someone "likes" a boosted post they dont transfer to a page like, only to the specific post.
They wont receive your feed.

 

[Desk Jockey]

We had one post that was served to 30K people, we let the budget run wild for a week just to see what it would do. For 1.3 cents an impression its wasn't a bad deal.

I like that the impression is free until clicked on. So I'm still building brand and it costing me nothing. Maybe its won't work for all services and it might not work in a large metros where I'd be afraid to let it run wild.

However for small markets like us, its another marketing vehicle. I would still spread your marketing budget using other vehicles too.

 

[WillS]

I can see what everyone means by, 2015 is the year of facebook. I'm glad no one used it in our area for the last 2 years. As of Jan 2nd. I browsed through the Newsfeed and seen 6 different company advertising cleaning ads. lol

My favorite, the ads with pictures with guys walking all over the carpet without booties on while cleaning it. Hopefully they will grab the low end customers we get calls from. The next ad, "We clen your carpets good, call us." along with the typo, that's all they wrote. Love it.

Oh and of course, everyone who isn't targeting their ads, so I'm seeing another 5 cleaners from Ohio, Chicago, etc.

 

[Doug Cox]

Don't have a Facebook Page for our biz, but happened to ask a customer where she found out about us. She asked on her facebook and 5 out of 6 responses were for me. Guess I'm doing something right.

 

[PrimaDonna]

Don't have a Facebook Page for our biz, but happened to ask a customer where she found out about us. She asked on her facebook and 5 out of 6 responses were for me. Guess I'm doing something right.

Now imagine what kind of business you could generate if you were more active on Facebook.....

 

[PrimaDonna]

Today's Facebook Love.....