Success Story: Cleaning up With Facebook Ads

8 Aug 2016
Alan Martin

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With the Social Media Success interview series I try to pick different industries in order to show that any business sector can be successful using social media.

This week it is my absolute pleasure to introduce you to Derek Cowan and his business ‘Get it Done Cleaning’ based in Fife. Derek’s company are ‘wiping the floor’ with Facebook ads (terrible pun I know, but I couldn’t resist it). In fact the company’s ads have been so successful that they even had to temporarily stop their campaign because they didn’t have enough qualified cleaners to keep up with the extra demand it was generating.

I am sure we would all like to be in this position, so I went to Kirkcaldy to find out his secret.

*Update* Please note this post was first published on the Chat Marketing website on 8th January 2014, but the strategies and techniques discussed in this interview are equally relevant today. Derek has since sold his business and is currently travelling the world pursuing his dreams and campaigning for various international charities. 

Q. Hi Derek, I was intrigued to hear about your amazing successes with Facebook ads, but first can you tell us a little bit about your business and what your strategy is with social media, so we can get a feel for what it is your company does?

A. We provide a number of different cleaning services but mainly promote our domestic cleaning via Facebook as it connects with people when they are normally sitting in their home. We are currently in the process of franchising ‘Get It Done Cleaning’ and believe that Facebook will be an excellent vehicle to not only generate leads for potential franchisees but also build a following quickly in our franchisees’ new territory.

Q. What social media networks do you use and why?

A. We mainly use Facebook because of the huge number of users and the demographic that we can reach, but we are also active on Twitter and Google+.

Q. Which network has been the best for generating leads and sales?

A. Facebook has generated a huge number of leads for us, occasionally off the back of something completely unrelated too.

Q. How often do you post on Facebook?

A. We try to be as consistent as possible, our intention is to post daily.
Q. How do you go about building up your fan base on Facebook?

A. We mainly build our fan base through engagement on our posts and asking our customers to like us.

Q. How do you measure the success of your Facebook marketing?

A. We are now in a position where we can measure every penny of investment on Facebook, by putting a value on the cost of acquiring a lead. Using Facebook’s inbuilt analytics is a great way to see exactly what works and what doesn’t. Also you have the ability to monitor your likes and your competitors’ likes too, so it’s great to see in one place what your competition is up to.

Q. I am intrigued to find out a bit more about how you measure the ‘Return on Investment’ of your Facebook ads with your cost per lead acquisition model. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

A. Well we are now able to allocate an expense against any ad campaign and use Infusionsoft to track our lead sources, which then gives us a cost per lead and helps us track the performance of our ads.

Q   What advice would you give other businesses that are not having as much success with their social media marketing?

A.  Don’t give up. Like it or not social media is here to stay but it is tough when your posts get next to no interaction, so try changing the timings and/or the content, and you will see an improvement if you persevere and learn as much as possible from Facebook’s analytics to inform your decisions.

Also, make sure you know as much as possible about your clients, so you can target them more effectively. For example if you were a salon owner you could target females of a specific age with particular interests etc. Once you know your customers well, you can also provide them with content they are likely to want to see and engage with in their news feed.
Q. OK, so tell me about the successes you have had with Facebook ads! What type of ads have worked well for you and what kind of things do you advertise?

A. I have used Facebook ads to laser target my specific demographics. Being able to do this means we have highly qualified buyers that are likely to engage with us. We mix up our messages. Doing competitions and giveaways is hugely engaging and less intrusive than “BUY ME” type posts.

Q Do you have any tips for people who are just starting out with Facebook ads?
They should try experimenting with Facebook ads a few pounds at a time, and once they find what works, start increasing the budget until they can’t keep up with the workload. One of my favourite posts netted me £800 for only £20 spent. The ad was only run for 1 evening so was relatively successful. When you run these campaigns you see an increase across the board. That is what makes Facebook so good; it might just spark something in your customer’s head that is completely unrelated to your post but that gets them calling or messaging you.

Q. Wow that’s some ROI Derek! Can I ask what the post was about that resulted in £800 of sales for you?

A. Yes, sure Alan it was a post about a leather cleaning product that we offer. It showed a comparison image of a sofa that we had partially cleaned using the product.

Q. Well, thanks very much for your time today Derek and the insight that you have given us into your Facebook marketing strategy and I very much look forward to hearing about your future successes.

Key Takeaways

1. Post consistently, ideally on a daily basis

2. Ask customers to like your page

3. Measure your page performance using Facebook’s inbuilt analytics, ‘Insights’

4. Work out a cost per lead figure and use this to evaluate your performance

5. If your marketing is not working, experiment with posting different content and at different times

6. Develop buyer personas for your client types

7. Use age, gender, location and interests to laser target your Facebook ads

8. Run competitions and giveaways

9. Allocate a small budget to Facebook ads initially, until you figure out what is working, then you can scale up


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