Residential Target Market

[Kevin]

What would you say is your main base of customers?
What is the Target Market?
For example all of your customers are working moms? You clean for them, they enjoy your service, you in turn enjoy cleaning for them and the pay is good. So now you want to target this group of customers. You change over your websites and advertisements to reflect that you are the one the working mother is supposed to call. Has anyone did just a single approach , a single target market?

[Roman Cleaning Services]

I could use some help in defining a target market. Any ideas as to who I should be marketing to? At the moment I clean for 2 single mothers with kids-outside employment and 2 married couple with kids-both of these moms have businesses and fathers have outside employment. Is there a specific income range and home value I should be targeting?

[AmofOhio]

I, personally, as a woman, like to target bachelours or widowed men.
I clean for a gay couple and their awesome too! lol

But it seems that men aren't as picky as women,and just the littlest things you do makes them happy.
And they pay whatever and tip great too! They tell all their friends about my service, and before you know it you have several clients,just from referrals of 1 job.

I cleaned for my brothers college friend once, and ended up getting 3 more jobs just from cleaning his house once and him bragging about me to his friends.

Then i cleaned for my father's friend who was just recently divorced. he Lives in a tri-level 4 bd,4 bath home. i chraged him $250 for his initial clean and he tipped me $50. then i got 2 more jobs from him referring to his friends.

I also target alot of older people that have vacations homes up here. Around where i live there's alot of summer homes and cottages. People,mostly older folks, come up for the weekends,or summer. they wanna relax and enjoy their time and not worry about cleaning. And getting these type of customer's can lead to year round cleanings as well because even though the home is not in use through the winter,it still gets dusty and needs upkeep.
So i have a couple clients that i do monthly cleanings on their cottages through the winter months and weekly,bi-weekly cleanings through the ,spring and summer months.

[jruner]

I target middle income mostly. Two working professionals without time do there own cleaning. Here Idaho high income nickel and dime you and lower income can't pay me for my exspenses plus labor/time. Middle income is usually good with flyer's and newspaper advertising. Ii have not been in the yellow pages, but will be soon! I find middle income by watching real-estate prices and local construction and advertise directly by door to door and flyer's then use the local paper for name recoginition as well as vehichle signs.

GOOD LUCK!!!

[protime]

I figure that a home that makes at least 75K income is a potential client. You can also consider home value as well. Many town halls will give you (perhaps for a small fee) the tax records in the town which can be a good source for leads. It really depends on the niche you are considering and how you run your company. If you use teams, I would target a slightly higher income level and/or home value, although I think John is right, sometimes the high the income the more demanding the client.

[gailm]

I targeted upper-income, dual income, retirement communities. Then I advertised in those areas and offered referral discounts.

Once you know who your ideal customer is, it's easy to win them as new clients.

[Grizzly]

Well we are different, the commercial , industrial side we target stand alone up to 50,000 sq. ft. businesses. Have found there is better profit margin, less headaches and better cooperative relationships. Residential division we are lucky, we seem to always have a waiting list just from referrals of our present clients. However, we have limited our growth in this area as a result of the difficulty in finding good employees, and the cost of leasing vehicles etc. We stay away from retail and restaurants. Will only consider on a one time C.O. D. at the time the job is finished basis. Are just starting commercial renovation clean ups after getting into a strategic alliance with a local contractor. Seems to be working out.


Bill