Cleaning Business Marketing Plan: 6 Steps to Help You Get Paying Clients

A solid marketing plan bridges that gap, helping you to reach potential leads, outshine competitors, and build a base of customers who keep coming back. 

Below, I walk you through 6 steps to create a solid cleaning business marketing plan, and even provide a free template to get you started. 

What Is a Marketing Plan, and Why Does Your Cleaning Business Need One?

A marketing plan is a written guide that covers the A-to-Z of your marketing strategy, including who your clients are, where you’ll reach them, and how you plan on winning them. Here’s why it’s essential to have one:

Gives you direction 

Starting a cleaning business or expanding an existing one involves many moving parts: buying tools and supplies, hiring staff, managing schedules, and more. It’s easy to fall into doing marketing tasks at random, hoping something works. 

A marketing plan gives you clarity and focus. You can see exactly what to do, when to do it, and why it matters, so every effort moves your business forward.

Sets you up for long-term success

Quick wins like ads and discounts can bring in new clients, but true business growth takes planning. A clever marketing plan helps you map out long-term strategies, such as loyalty programs and seasonal promotions, and a calendar to follow so you can stay consistent over time.

It also gives you a chance to outline clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure what’s working and what’s not.

Makes you look credible 

A clear marketing plan shows investors and lenders that you’re putting in the work and have the right strategies in place. This can make it easier for you to get the buy-in you need to kickstart or grow your cleaning business.   

6 Steps to Create a Marketing Plan for a Cleaning Business

Step 1: Identify your target audience 

Even the most well-written marketing plan won’t work if it’s aimed at the wrong people. That’s why the first step is defining exactly who you’re marketing to. This will help you reach them in the right places, craft messages that resonate, and price your services effectively. 

Here’s how to identify your target customers:

1. Define your cleaning niche and services

Do you clean homes, offices, institutions, rental properties, construction sites, etc.? Or do you specialize in something specific, like carpet, window, or post-renovation cleaning? Your ideal customer will depend on the type of cleaning business you run and the services you offer. 

2. Identify typical decision-makers

In your sector, who makes the decision to hire a cleaning business? For home cleaning, it’s usually the homeowner or tenant. For short-term rentals or commercial spaces, it may be a property manager. And on construction sites, contractors may coordinate hiring a cleaning company. 

3. Craft customer personas with a KYC exercise

Once you’ve identified your broad audience (for instance, homeowners), dig deeper and start picturing your ideal customer on a more individual level. Are you targeting working couples? Larger families with children and pets? Luxury property owners with indoor and outdoor cleaning needs? 

Then create customer personas for each by identifying their desires, expectations, budgets, and pain points. A great way to do this is through a KYC (know your customer) exercise:

• Proactively reach out to potential clients (via phone or email) and ask them what cleaning services they may need. 
• Read your competitors’ customer reviews on Google or Yelp to see what clients are happy with and what they’re complaining about. 
• Speak to peers about their customer experiences and lessons learned in cleaning industry associations like ISSA or the American House Cleaners Association.

Here’s an example of what this can look like in action:

• Airbnb hosts you contact say that their top priority is good prices. 
• Competitors’ customer reviews reveal that Airbnb hosts are actually willing to pay more for faster turnarounds. 
• Through industry peers, you learn that several Airbnb hosts are looking for bundled services that include daily housekeeping for guests, not just cleaning between stays. 

In this case, your customer persona could be an Airbnb owner who values speed and convenience, is willing to pay more for it, and wants bundled services.  

Step 2: Use Porter’s Five Forces to study and surpass the competition

Marketing a cleaning business is about telling customers what sets you apart. But if you’re starting a new business, or even growing or expanding into a different niche, you may initially struggle to identify which strengths to focus on.

I recommend using Porter’s Five Forces framework to analyze the external market, identify gaps, and decide how to stand out. It looks at five competitive pressures that shape your industry and how money and profit get split between businesses, customers, and suppliers. This helps you see where you can win and build a clearer marketing plan.

Here’s how the framework works:

1. Existing competition

Who are your existing competitors? (Tip: A quick Google search can help you spot cleaning businesses that offer similar services in your area.) How do they position themselves (e.g., affordable, eco-friendly, etc.), and how do customers rate them on platforms like Google or Yelp?

How it shapes your marketing plan: Knowing how competitors position themselves helps you adjust your messaging. 

Example: If most local competitors boast affordability, but their customers complain about quality, you can market yourself as a business that “doesn’t cut corners.”

2. Threat of new entrants

How easy is it for new cleaning businesses to enter your niche (startup funds, licenses, local regulations)? When entry is easy, new competitors can show up quickly and increase price pressure.

How it shapes your marketing plan: If it’s easy for new entrants to swoop in and “steal” your customers, that tells you to defend your position with branding, loyalty programs, or long-term discounts to retain customers.

Example: Launch a “Members” plan: priority booking + locked-in rate for 6 months + every 5th clean 20% off.

3. Customer power

How much choice do customers have locally, and to what extent can they push prices down or demand more for the same price—especially if switching providers is easy?

How it shapes your marketing plan: When customers have more power, you’ll usually need clearer packaging and stronger value-based messaging. 

Example: Unique niches, like post-construction cleaning, can charge premium prices and focus on outcomes rather than competing on price.

4. Supplier power

How much do you depend on suppliers for cleaning materials, tools, uniforms, etc.? If you rely on just one or two key suppliers, cost or availability changes can squeeze your margins.

How it shapes your marketing plan: If supplier power is high, it indirectly affects your pricing and promises. 

Example: A carpet-cleaning business may offer pet-friendly materials, but it’s risky to base its entire marketing on it if it relies on only one supplier.

5. Threat from substitutes

What could be a substitute for your cleaning services? For example, could customers do it themselves, use a robot vacuum, or hire someone through an app like TaskRabbit? 

How it shapes your marketing plan: This affects how you explain what makes your service hard to replace. 

Example: In residential cleaning, focus on deep cleaning, toilet scrubbing, and post-party cleanups that customers or robots can’t tackle well.

Step 3: Pick a mix of marketing channels

There are plenty of ways to reach cleaning customers, online and offline. Popular marketing channels include:

• Business website. The best cleaning company websites are simple but complete: covering pricing, services, photos of jobs, testimonials, contact info, and a booking form. Remember to add local keywords (like “window cleaning in Portland”) so people can find you easily.

• Professional profiles. Build a Google Business Profile and Yelp profile that include your services, contact info, operating hours, and reviews. These make your business easier to find and show customers you’re legitimate.

• Social media. You can share before-and-after photos, behind-the-scenes content, customer testimonials, and even ASMR cleaning videos on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other platforms.

• Paid ads. Tools like Google Ads and Meta Ads let you reach people in your area who are actively searching for cleaning services.

• Direct outreach and email marketing. Send newsletters, special offers, or quick follow-ups to stay top of mind. You can find leads through LinkedIn, Google searches, social media, or tools like RocketReach that give you access to verified emails and phone numbers. 

• Physical marketing. You can distribute cleaning flyers throughout local communities, place door hangers in apartment complexes and office buildings, or send brochures and coupons via direct mail. 

• Partnerships. Connect with property managers, realtors, contractors, or others in related sectors who can use and recommend your cleaning services. 

Now, you don’t need to use every channel. And you shouldn’t. Start with 1–2 that fit your business. For example, if you mainly serve local neighborhoods, start with physical marketing and partnerships. Once those are working well, you can slowly add more channels. 

Step 4: Calculate and map out your marketing budget

Once you’ve chosen your marketing channels, decide how much you can spend on them. Most cleaning businesses allocate 7–10% of their annual revenue to marketing. If you’re just starting out and don’t have revenue yet, use the same percentage from your startup budget instead.

For example, a cleaning business with $100,000 in annual revenue should set aside $7,000–$10,000 for marketing. Meanwhile, a new business owner with $20,000 in startup funds should plan to spend around $1,400–$2,000 on marketing.

How you’ll divide your marketing budget depends on your niche, customers, and goals. For example: 

• A solo home cleaner just starting out could invest more in printed flyers or door hangers, as these tactics are cheaper than running online ad campaigns. 

• A window cleaning business may allocate more budget to building partnerships with property managers since they often need window cleaning for their properties.  

• A short-term rental cleaning company could pay for targeted ads that showcase its services, before-and-after photos, and client testimonials to quickly generate cleaning leads.  

From here, create a simple budget table that lists each marketing channel and how much you plan to spend on it. (Jump to the marketing plan template to see what this looks like.) I recommend adding 2 extra columns to track actual expenses and see how much budget you have left. 

Step 5: Create PACT goals and a marketing timeline

Many businesses use SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, like “gain 10 new home cleaning clients in the next 3 months.”

But for cleaning businesses, I recommend PACT goals. They focus on testing and improving over time rather than chasing one fixed result.

PACT stands for:

• Purposeful: Tied to a meaningful outcome, not just numbers—e.g., building loyal customers or becoming a trusted name in your area.
• Actionable: Broken down into clear, simple tasks. 
• Continuous: Reviewed and improved regularly instead of treated as a one-time effort.
• Trackable: Measured through KPIs (key performance indicators) such as clicks, conversion rates, or customer acquisition costs. 

For example, your PACT goal may be, “Increase local visibility over the next 12 months by testing different ways to reach nearby customers.”

Once you’ve set a goal, break it down into tasks and add them to a marketing calendar or Gantt-style timeline with due dates to stay on track. 

Using the example above, your timeline might look like this:

• Q1: Create a Google Business Profile and optimize for SEO.
• Q2: Add a “How did you hear about us?” question to client booking forms. 
• Q3: Distribute cleaning flyers in all neighborhoods in the week before Halloween. 
• Q4: Monitor how you’re ranking on Google or local maps and track how many leads heard about you through flyers. 

Step 6: Track marketing KPIs

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) shows you where your marketing is paying off and where you might need to adjust your approach.

Here are a few KPIs to keep an eye on:

• Website traffic: How many people visit your website and take action, such as requesting a quote or booking a service. 
• Google Business calls and reviews: How many customers find and contact you through Google, and what they’re saying about your service. 
• Referral numbers: How many clients came through word-of-mouth or partner recommendations. 
• Cost per customer: How much you spend to attract and convert each new client. 
• Conversion rate: The percentage of enquiries that turn into paying customers.
• Repeat customer rate: How many customers return for additional bookings.

Check your KPIs at the end of each quarter: March 31 (Q1), June 30 (Q2), September 30 (Q3), and December 31 (Q4). That gives you time to test new strategies, see what’s working, and update your marketing plan accordingly.

Your Free Cleaning Business Marketing Plan Template

Use the template below as a sample marketing plan for your cleaning business. It helps you map out your target customers, competitors, key differentiators, marketing channels, budget, and goals. Click the link below, then click “Make a copy” to get your own editable version in Google Docs.

Get your Free Marketing Plan Template for Cleaning Businesses Here!

This is a starting point, not a finished plan. Adjust it for your services, pricing, location, and the customers you want. Fill in the basics first, then expand: add more customer personas, sharpen your differentiators, and build out your calendar with specific tasks. Use the budget table to track what you planned to spend, what you actually spent, and what you have left. Revisit the doc monthly or quarterly and update it based on results.

FAQs

Disclaimer

This article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended as and does not constitute business, financial, or professional advice, and should not be relied upon as such. Connecteam accepts no responsibility for consequences arising from actions taken or not taken based on the information present in this article.