ABM Account-Based Marketing for Cleaning Businesses Growth

ABM, or Account-Based Marketing, is typically followed by a B2B marketing strategy. In this marketing, both sales and marketing teams collaborate to target specific, high-value accounts. Unlike casting a wider net, ABM strategy focuses on a shortlist of companies that perfectly match their ideal client profile, rather than trying to reach everyone.

So, why are we focusing on such marketing in the commercial cleaning business? The answer is pretty surprising! Even for the cleaning business, it could be a game-changer! How?  It just keeps you safe from chasing low-margin, one-off jobs. And let you secure long-term, high-value contracts with offices, warehouses, medical facilities, and more! If you’re looking for more strategies to generate commercial cleaning leads, this approach could be your best option.

Let’s see the details-

5-step ABM Framework to Win High-value Cleaning Contracts

When you dream of landing big accounts, AMB gives you a practical framework to make your dream a reality. So, follow the core five steps of the ABM framework to win high-value cleaning contracts.

Step 1: Identify Your “Dream Client” – Building Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Don’t just start with vague addressing like ‘offices’ or ‘commercial spaces’. If you want to land the big accounts, you will undoubtedly have to begin with a detailed and strategic Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

The good news is that AMB does it effectively. Here’s how to get specific:

Firmographics to Consider:

Before you start searching for future clients, you need to define a clear profile of the type of businesses you want to work with. That means going beyond the vague level!

Here are three key firmographic dimensions-

Industry: You should target those places where cleanliness directly impacts operations, compliance, or client perception (i.e., medical clinics, technology offices, legal firms, manufacturing units, or logistics hubs).

Company Size: Always focus on a company that has a large footprint. The typical measurements could be (e.g., 20,000+ sq. ft.) or headcount (e.g., 50+ employees). Location: Give priority to your businesses within a 10-30 mile radius or areas where your team can reliably serve without logistical strain. Do not try to compete with the competitor if their location is far from your reach. It’s rarely worth the cost of your per cleaning operation.

Needs-Based Criteria:

While Firmographics helps you find who you should target, the need-based criteria tell you why they would need your services in the first place. Consider this as your practical, situational triggers that signal when a business/company is actively seeking your service or how soon they will need it.

Look for companies with one or more of the following characteristics:

• High foot traffic (e.g., retail stores, banks)
• Compliance requirements (e.g., medical or food safety standards)
• Premium branding needs (e.g., corporate headquarters concerned with cleanliness perception)

Actionable Tip: Analyze your first three clients. Identify the most common characteristics among them, such as industry, size, location, etc.

Step 2: Build Your Target Account List (TAL)

Once your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is clearly defined, the next step is to build a Target Account List (TAL). TAL is to find the real business that exactly matches your ICP. So instead of trying to sell to everyone, you’ll focus only on the companies that are an excellent fit for your services.

So, where to find such companies?

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to search companies by size, location, and industry.
• Google Maps -Try searching ‘Larger offices near me’ or ‘warehouses in your area’.
• Local Business Journals – Local business journals show which companies are growing or moving. So read them daily.
• Chamber of Commerce – Many cities have a list of local businesses by category. So join them accordingly.

Your Goal: Initially, select 20 to 50 companies. Focus on them for the next 3 /4 months.  This way, you can spend more time understanding their needs. After that, you can send them a personalised message to get a positive result. However, you can also try these janitorial industry networking tips to find more local businesses.

Step 3: Research and Map the Account

Before approaching potential cleaning clients, it is essential to gather detailed insights about these companies. The more you know about the company’s structure, operations, and current situation, the higher your chances of winning the account.

Do the following-

Go beyond the company name

Don’t stop at just knowing the business name. Dig into the organization to identify the key decision-makers. These people practically approve and hire cleaning vendors.

Typically, for commercial cleaning contracts, you should look for:

• Facilities Manager
• Office Manager
• Head of Operations
• Property Manager/owner/general manager

Tools for Research: Use a combination of tools to get valuable

• LinkedIn: Search the company name to find their highly positioned employees.HR manager or their authority. As per their role, connect with or follow them.
• Company Website: You can see the About Us page of the company website. Also, team pages are available on many company sites. From there, you can also see who’s in charge of facilities or operations.
• Google Alerts: Set alerts for the company to receive updates on recent news, like expansions, relocations, or leadership changes.
• Online Reviews: Google Reviews, Yelp, or Glassdoor are good sites from which you can get satisfaction/dissatisfaction with current cleaning providers.

Uncover Pain Points

You’ve probably heard that successful companies focus on addressing their customers’ existing pain points. So focus on-

• Expansion or Relocation: Companies moving into a new space often need new cleaning services.
• Negative Reviews: Complaints about unclean restrooms or dirty floors may signal an opening for your services.
• Facility Growth: If they’re hiring more staff or opening branches, they would like to take your service!
• Visible Neglect: If you visit the location and notice cleanliness issues, consider this a better opportunity to offer your cleaning service.

Step 4: Create and Execute Personalized, Multi-Channel Campaigns

Sending one cold email and hoping for a response-these days are gone! Today’s successful campaigns are layered and intentional. Thus, you need to combine digital and physical methods to engage your decision maker to get a better response.

Channel Ideas for Cleaning Businesses:

• LinkedIn Engagement: Start by connecting with your target audience through LinkedIn. Do not try to connect to the LinkedIn profile immediately; just slowly build rapport. Share helpful content. The Importance of a Clean Workspace for Employee Productivity.’ Represent yourself as a helpful expert rather than a pushy seller.
• Personalized Email Outreach: Send an email that is related to the company’s current cleaning situation.

For example: ‘I saw your company was recently featured in the (Local Business Journal) for its expansion-congratulations! As you are now extended, you must  need a reliable cleaning partner to maintain a healthy, high-standard workspace…’

Sending this type of email proves that you have already researched a lot about their needs, and you’re offering a relevant solution to them, too.

• Direct Mail (The Lumpy Mail Play) :

Stand out from the flood of emails each day. Be a high-impact physical mailer. Send a branded microfiber cloth or desk item with a handwritten note-

‘Yes, we are not in a deal till now! Still, we can take care of your small details. Let’s talk about how we can take care of your facility.’

• Hyper-Targeted Digital Ads: Launch ads on LinkedIn or Facebook, which can draw employees from companies on your Target Account List (TAL). Create a compelling message and allocate more ad time.
• Strategic Phone Call: After you have connected via LinkedIn, sent an email, or dropped a package, now follow up with a phone call. Reference your previous touchpoints and say:

‘Hi,  I sent you a microfiber cloth last week as a little preview of our attention to detail. Did you get a chance to check it out? Should we make a schedule for a 30-minute sitting?’

-These kinds of sayings give a natural and special feel, not a random spam feel.

Learn even more in our guide on How to Sell Cleaning Services in Your Local Market.

Step 5: Measure, Analyze, and Optimize

Even the most well-planned ABM (Account-Based Marketing) campaign can ruin itself if you are not tracking it properly. Whereas traditional marketing strategy only focuses on quantity, ABM focuses on quality over quantity. Keep in mind that-

• You are targeting fewer with ABM, but all are high-value accounts. So, the metrics you need to monitor must go beyond simple vanity numbers like clicks or impressions.
• Analyze the correct data. And find what’s working, what’s not, and where to refine your approach.

If you want other ways to grow, check out our Janitorial Marketing strategies.

ABM Metrics to Track for Cleaning Businesses

If you’re unsure which ABM Metrics to track for a cleaning business, your ad budgets are likely to be in vain. Here are the details you should know-

• Engagement: See the engagement carefully. Are your targets opening the mail? Accepting your LinkedIn connection requests? Clicking on personalized content? If the answer is yes, that means your message is working properly.
• Meetings Booked: This is a critical KPI. How many of your targeted contracts have agreed to book a meeting over email/phone or a formal quote request? This gives you a clear picture of how your outreach is converting interest into action.
• Pipeline Velocity: How quickly is the outreach converting into your paying clients?From initial awareness to requesting a proposal? The faster the process, the better your marketing is working.
• Win Rate: So, finally, do the calculation. What percentage of your targeted outreach is closing deals with you? The high win rates tell you to align with your current marketing process (messaging, targeting between your clients and you). A low win rate indicates that you’re targeting the wrong contacts, suggesting your marketing needs improvement.

Putting it All Together: A Sample ABM Play for a Cleaning Business

Now that you have learned well about the five core steps of Account-Based Marketing (ABM), let’s start to implement these into your real-life example.

These five steps will tell you how a commercial cleaning business can apply ABM principles to a specific target account. From the initial decision to making the strategy practical and tangible.

Gradually, you will also learn-

• How to identify the right clients.
• How to execute a multichannel-campaign
• And finally, how to measure your success!

Target Example: Apex Logistics

• Facility Type: 100,000 sq. ft. warehouse and office
• Reason for Targeting: Fits ICP for large-scale industrial cleaning contracts
• Target Account List (TAL): Apex is already included in your Q3 target list.

Step 1: Identify Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Apex Logistics meets your primary condition. They have a large facility, a big industrial operation. Also, they have an in-house cleaning team, which means they place value on the cleaning operation.

Step 2: Build Your Target Account List (TAL)

As Apex Logistics is already in your Q3 TAL, it’s a high-value prospect worth a personalized campaign.

Step 3: Research and Map the Account

Research LinkedIn to get the authority contract list of APex Logistics. Suppose you have John Doe, the Operations Manager, who can approve and hire you. You also notice that Apex is frequently hiring for warehouse and office staff, indicating an immediate expansion of internal maintenance and cleaning services.

Step 4: Create and Execute Personalized, Multi-Channel Campaigns

Week 1: Send a LinkedIn connection request to John Doe. Send a personalised message to him in this way-

Hi John, I have seen that your company is growing quickly, congratulations! I would love to connect with you so that I can learn more about your facility goals!

Week 2: Send a personalized email referencing their hiring surge:

Hi John,

I have seen that your company is growing quickly. Congratulations! As new members are joining your team, maintaining a clean and safe environment becomes even more critical. We help companies like yours to make it spotless and QA compliant.

Week 3: Deliver a ‘Welcome Kit’ via direct mail

You can send a  small package with branded hand sanitizer/a microfiber cloth, with a sticky note:

Clean starts with care. We also love to take care of facilities like yours. Let us help you welcome every new hire with a spotless workplace.”

Week 4: Make a follow-up call to John Doe:

For example, tell him-

Hi John, just checking that you received our welcome kit last week. Can we schedule a 15/30 minute sitting to walk through your facility and discuss how we can help you?

Step 5: Measure, Analyze, and Optimize

Once you have completed all steps above, now measure, analyze, and optimize your process.

• Engagement: Did John open your email? Accept your LinkedIn request?
• Meetings Booked: Did he agree to a sitting?
• Pipeline Velocity: How fast did Apex go from first contact to proposal discussion?
• Win Rate: Did you close the deal or move it forward?

So ABM for APex logistics simply makes you capable of building trust, showing value, and converting high-potential accounts like Apex Logistics into long-term clients. By applying ABM thoughtfully, you not only target your high-value clients but also build strategic partnerships.

Conclusion Summary

Account-based marketing is not a random process; it targets specific individuals. Instead, it is a quality process, which means reaching the right ones with the right message. Especially for commercial cleaning businesses, ABM offers a more focused way to win high-value clients by building authentic relationships and solving specific needs.ABM also helps with creating a Long-Term Cleaning Partnership that lasts.

So that’s all about ABM account-based marketing for a cleaning business.

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