When the UK Government first announced the Coronavirus lockdown in March we had a lot of nervous calls from clients worried that their businesses would be hit hard. One such call came from long term client Toby Steggal of Pure View Window Cleaning.
Toby was concerned that although he could continue operating, due to him not being able to work from home, he may lose customers who would not want someone coming round to their homes to clean the windows during a pandemic. After a couple of phone calls and video chats we came up with a solid plan that would not only help Toby keep his existing clients, but also hopefully gain him some new ones and increase brand awareness across Sussex (his area of operation). We believed that from a marketing stand point the lockdown granted a lot of businesses some very unique advertising opportunities.
The plan we came up with involved three stages; First, we put a message out on social media informing all existing clients that Pure View was going to continue operating as normal, whilst abiding to social distancing guidelines, unless people contacted him to cancel or rearrange regular work. As it happened, very few people cancelled and to Toby's surprise a few customers even wanted more regular cleans due to them spending more time at home!
Step 2 was a combination of branding and also offering support to key workers. We put ads out across social media, primarily focusing on Facebook & Instagram, offering free window cleans to all NHS workers for the duration of lockdown. These adverts had a modest budget but due to their community sprit message the interaction rate was through the roof and comments thanking Toby for his generosity soon came flooding in. With all the Likes, Shares & tagging people were doing on these adverts it wasn't long before the ads had reached over 50,000 people and Toby ended up doing over 30 window cleaning jobs for NHS staff (28 of which were so grateful they paid him even though he was offering them free of charge!). It goes without saying that the success of these ads put Toby's company in front of a lot of people in a short space of time and the bi-product of people wanting to support a local business who offers help to key workers was huge. Toby gained many more regular clients as a direct result of these ads!
The third and final phase of our plan involved a little guess work. We made the educated assumption that many employed window cleaners would accept the Governments furlough grant and therefore be less likely to be working, and that - unfortunately - several smaller window cleaners would be likely to cease working altogether due to the financial situation. This would give Toby the opportunity to sweep up any customers who were now looking for a new window cleaner. We put another modest amount into direct call-to-action adverts on social media and made sure we put out lots of social media posts with great imagery to ensure maximum engagement. It wasn't long before Toby had gained 10-15 new regular bookings from customers who's previous window cleaner either wasn't working right now or had unfortunately folded.
This plan which was concocted over a 1 hour phone call and took place over the course of approx. 6 weeks not only meant that a small window cleaning business survived a global pandemic that put even multi-million pound companies out of business, but also that the company actually came out stronger than it went in with monthly turnover increasing by over £500!
This is without a doubt due to the power of marketing, branding and a never say die attitude from the business owner. This story is just one of many of our clients who worked closely with us when the lockdown was first announced to ensure we had a credible plan in place to make sure they not only survived but thrived during these strange times.
With our help your business can do the same. Contact us today to discuss any marketing requirements or to discover the power social media can grant your business. You can learn more about Toby and his business by listening to his episode of the If We Can Do It podcast, hosted by us. Click here to give it a listen.
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