Facebook ads are the answer.
Not 100 percent sure about Facebook ads? If you’ve plastered your company name on vehicles, sent flyers around town, and handed out business cards at local events, you might feel like nothing is getting your pressure washing company the attention it deserves. With unrivaled opportunities to reach thousands of their ideal customers, our home services clients find that Facebook makes all the difference in their marketing strategy.
Sure, Facebook advertising is competitive, especially if you’re in the home services industry—but you can’t afford to sit out. After all, with over 2.89 billion active monthly users, you really can’t go wrong with Facebook marketing. Whether you’re looking to stretch your marketing budget or raise brand awareness, Facebook ads are the fuel you need to ignite your power washing company’s digital marketing strategy.
So, how can you break through all that noise to reach new leads? Here’s a hint: It doesn’t involve throwing marketing campaigns at the wall and hoping something sticks. To get the job done right, you’re going to need to create the best Facebook ads and back your strategy up with a legitimate ad funnel. Here’s how to get started.
Chances are, if you’ve been growing your business for years, you already have a website in place, a few listings on lead generation websites, and maybe even some PPC ad campaigns. Building your online presence can help you grow your business, but without the right strategy, these ads aren’t going to reach the right people.
Enter Facebook ads. Facebook ads give power washing businesses the opportunity to reach thousands of people within their service area in a matter of seconds. In social media marketing, Facebook’s ad funnel is widely recognized as one of the most affordable and effective options, especially for local businesses. You can post images, videos, coupons, and other types of content to your Facebook page, where interested leads can find all the important information about your business to move forward in their journey.
“Facebook provides our home services clients with the ability to showcase their brand in front of prospective customers before they have a need for their service,” says Allison Allen, Manager of Marketing Services at Company 119. “So when a homeowner does need a service like a house or driveway wash, their brand will be familiar.”
So, what’s the secret recipe for creating the best Facebook ads? It all boils down to getting noticed by the right people at the right time. Today, customers are fed a constant stream of content—from Facebook friend updates to national news stories and local business ads. Your goal is to cut through the noise, get noticed by your target audience, and make them stop scrolling for a few seconds to check out your post.
One of the smartest ways to get your business noticed is to use visual content. Besides showing how well you do your job, in-progress videos and before and after photos compare clean areas to dirty areas—whether it’s a driveway, walkway, or tile roof. This visual content gives your target audience something satisfying to look at, which can make them stop scrolling, pay attention to your business, and discover more about your services.
“Facebook is an effective platform to showcase before and after imagery paired with a ‘happy customer’ testimonial to show brand credibility and expertise,” says Allen.
Visual content doesn’t just attract attention—it draws leads and inquiries to your website. It gives prospects information on how your services work, what sets you apart from the competition, and what type of equipment you use. And it shows them exactly how you can solve their problems.
Chances are, your local competition’s Facebook ads are just standard, run-of-the-mill, “we do power washing”-style ads, but you’re going to take your Facebook strategy up a notch. If you’re looking to upgrade your lead generation and get noticed by potential customers, you’re going to need a powerful, compelling Facebook ad strategy.
By taking a different approach—even if it means taking a more challenging road—you’ll stand out from the crowd, grow your business, and maximize your ROI. Here’s how to “win” at Facebook ads so you can step out in front of the competition.
Facebook ads outshine traditional marketing tactics because they target narrow audiences. Instead of advertising to every person in town, you need to determine exactly who you want to target. With a power washing business, there are countless audiences you can appeal to—long-time homeowners, people interested in selling their home, people who have recently purchased a home, and so many more.
So, you should advertise to everyone at once to stretch your marketing budget, right? Wrong. The key is to focus on a single audience and construct an ad campaign that’s exclusive to them. For example, you might create an ad campaign specifically targeting men—specifically those between the ages of 40 and 60, who are long-time homeowners.
Pain points—and pleasure points—are key marketing elements for every type of business, and these apply to pressure washing companies too. In any industry, a great ad should drive prospects away from pain or toward pleasure.
Pain points get people to pay attention to your ads by empathizing with their needs. For example, you might focus on the frustration they experience when they try to wash their driveway themselves with little success—or waste their time and energy without any results to show for it. Some key pain points to focus on include:
In addition, you’ll want to create some Facebook ads centered around pleasure points, such as:
You might have all the ingredients you need to create a successful Facebook ad, but your campaigns are going to fall short if they sound boring or robotic. To create a compelling ad that captures the attention of your target audience, you’re going to need to master the following elements:
Choosing the right approach to Facebook advertising—and putting your marketing dollars in the right place—can feel overwhelming. Even if you’re writing compelling copy, addressing all of your customers’ pain points, and targeting the right audience, your Facebook ads might not get you the calls and leads you want. Why? Because you’re not using the right types of ads.
Whether you’re new to Facebook advertising or searching for ways to fuel your marketing strategy, here are the best Facebook ads for your pressure washing business:
Videos are one of the most affordable and effective types of ads. Think about what type of content you consume when you’re scrolling through your own Facebook news feed. If you’re like most other Facebook users, you’re watching videos on topics you’re interested in, find informative, or consider entertaining. Guess what? If you’re doing that, your potential customers are too.
Most customers will watch a video longer than they’ll read a blog post. Plus, you can say more in a shorter time with a video than you can in a blog post. Facebook video ads boast an average engagement rate of 6 percent, while Facebook videos with captions can boost viewing time by 12 percent. And if you want to take your videos to the next level, a call to action placed in the middle of a video has the highest conversion rate—16.95 percent.
The best part? With Facebook’s advertising platform, you can create custom audiences based on the videos someone watches and how long they’re watching them. This helps ensure your video ads make the maximum impact.
Of course, if you throw a sales-y Facebook ad right in your customer’s face, you’re just going to annoy them. Instead, you need to create content they’ll want to consume. Your goal is to serve ads that provide value, make their lives better, and improve their experience on Facebook.
So, how can you create videos that your prospects will actually watch? As with any other type of content creation, you’ll need to ask yourself three questions:
You’ll use these answers to create engaging video content. If you’re always asked the same questions, you can guarantee that customers are asking your competitors the same questions, or at least typing them into Google. If you’re not giving your prospects answers, your competitors probably are.
Once you’ve gathered this information, create one-minute videos to provide the information your prospects are searching for. Use commonly asked questions as video titles. These videos don’t need to be super professional or polished, but they should be high quality.
Static banner ads are a great way to show off visual content—but they can be boring. With video and other types of dynamic visual content taking center stage, you want to create ads that offer a well-rounded view of your skills and services. Carousel ads showcase multiple images, making it easy for Facebook users to swipe left and right to view your hard work and expertise.
In other words, carousel ads let you tell a story with up to 10 different images. According to Facebook, carousel ads drive 30–50 percent lower cost-per-conversions and 20–30 percent lower cost-per-clicks than static banner ads. That’s a great reward for the opportunity to be a little more creative.
Carousel ads let you share much more information than a banner ad ever could, setting you up to make a strong first impression with potential prospects. Our clients tell us that carousel ads are the best way to explain the quality of their services, the benefits of choosing their company, and even the rave reviews they’ve gotten from previous clients.
So, how can you create visually appealing, engaging carousel ads that make your prospects stop scrolling? Here are some ideas to you get started:
Power washing is, by nature, a high repeat business, so it’s important to build a loyal base of clients that you can rely on. Power wash the driveway? The roof is suddenly going to look dirty in comparison. In a few weeks, clients are going to seek out power washing services again to keep their home looking its best.
If clients are satisfied with your services, they’ll hire you again and again, so offering some kind of incentive can be an effective way to encourage repeat business. With that said, you’re still going to need a system in place to convert one-time purchases into repeat customers—you can’t just sit back and wait for the phone to ring.
This system might be as simple as asking clients if they’d like to pressure wash their roof (after cleaning their driveway). Or, you can always go a step further and call them back a few weeks after their initial service. Even better, you can re-market to them on Facebook using lead ads. This way, you’ll stay at the top of their minds. And when their driveway starts looking dingy in a few weeks, you’ll be there when they need you.
Of course, you can always target new customers with promotions using lead ads, too. Say you’re running a promotion for a free driveway cleaning. The best type of Facebook ad to pull that off is Consideration, with your optimal objective being Traffic. This means you’re focusing on sending people to a destination on or off Facebook to generate leads. You might be sending people to your location on Google Maps or your landing page for driveway cleanings—it’s up to you.
To start attracting people in your service area who qualify for your free driveway cleaning promotion, you’ll need to set your targeting options. This is where the segment we discussed earlier (men, ages 40–60, who are long-time homeowners) comes into play:
If you find yourself looking at targeting options and wondering if there are extra demographics to target, the answer is yes. But, if you want an effective ad campaign, it’s best to target a narrow audience so you can start receiving leads.
The bottom line? Coupons and promotions do work, but only if you have an effective system for targeting leads and converting those leads into appointments.
If you want to maximize your ROI with a powerful Facebook ad strategy, you’re going to need to track your campaigns. You need to know where every single call and web lead comes from—was it a video ad? What keywords did you use? What campaign? Without proper metrics, you’re going to have a hard time creating effective, cost-efficient Facebook ad campaigns.
Fortunately, Facebook offers A/B testing options that let you change variables—such as your target audience or ad placement—to see which campaigns perform best. For example, you might hypothesize that headline A will outperform headline B for your roof cleaning promotion. With A/B testing, you can quickly compare both strategies to see which performs best.
If you’re feeling limited by Facebook’s A/B testing, we have good news. There are countless programs that track every call down to the keyword and campaign for less than $100 per month, so you don’t have to sacrifice any more of your precious marketing budget than you need to. This way, you’ll be able to shine and polish your Facebook ad strategy as needed to reel in even more leads and generate more revenue.
Once you’re tracking the right metrics, you’re free to test marketing campaigns and “cut the fat” of what isn’t working. Then, you can scale up what is working so you can use your marketing budget as effectively as possible.
Facebook ads can get you on the right path toward building a thriving pressure washing business—but they’re only one piece of the puzzle. To guide your target audience through their customer journey and successfully convert your new leads, you’re going to need an effective sales funnel, which should include a well-structured website, landing pages, and powerful calls to action.
Even without Facebook marketing, a well-structured power washing website is integral for the growth and long-term success of your company. To get started, you’ll need to build a beautiful, fast, easy-to-navigate website that reflects all the pressure washing services you offer.
Sure, it might be tempting to create one umbrella page for your services, but Google isn’t going to reward you for that. After all, how is Google going to understand that you’re the expert if you don’t have anything to show for it?
Plus, without individual landing pages, most customers are going to click away from your website because they don’t want to waste time scrolling. If you professionally clean fences and offer graffiti removal services, you’ll need to create landing pages for each of those services.
These pages should be filled with content on why people should choose your services, what your process looks like, what equipment you use, and what sets you apart from the competition. And, most importantly, don’t forget to let Google know where you’re located. Be sure to include your service area on every one of your services pages. Finally, to top it all off, you’re going to need compelling calls to action at the bottom of every landing page.
When developing Facebook ads, most power washing companies go about it the wrong way. Instead of creating low-effort, boring, run-of-the-mill ads, you’re going to take a different approach from the competition. At the end of the day, that’s going to make every dollar count.
Still not sure if you’re ready to get started with Facebook ads? If your brand doesn’t yet have a strong presence on Facebook, focus on building your organic following first by posting engaging and informative content.
“Managing a Facebook presence can be easy and low cost if you begin with an organic post strategy that showcases your brand’s expertise, company culture, before/after imagery, and strong testimonials. It’s a time investment more than a money investment at the start for an organic presence,” says Allen.
Allen also recommends adding “Like us on Facebook,” to your traditional marketing materials or requesting a review on Facebook on every invoice.
By supplementing your Facebook ad strategy with a well-structured website, thorough landing pages, and compelling CTAs, you’ll be able to seamlessly guide your leads down the sales funnel, sell your preferred services, and be found when people need you. Let us know how we can help as you get started with Facebook ads for your power washing business.
