You may think that who reads local newspapers and magazines these days, but you'd be surprised to know that local papers still serve as a news source for a lot of people.

Most of these people are those who have been reading these papers their whole lives, so they rely on them. Plus, advertising in local papers and magazines isn't that expensive, which makes it ideal for a budding cleaning business.

It's the best way to reach out to the middle-aged and elderly population, who are the majority homeowners. So your advertisements will go where they matter.

Another rather overlooked benefit is that you help a local business that has been part of your community for a long time. Local newspapers are slowly dying off because of digital media and big news companies, so you can also help them by way of buying advertisement space.

Short on a marketing budget? Flyers and posters are the answer.

This is a good way to advertise your business in the area you serve. Whether you're a residential cleaner, commercial cleaner, or specialty cleaner, distributing flyers and putting up posters can help you find new customers.

Flyers are particularly great for residential cleaners. Even if someone doesn't need a cleaner today, they might save the flyer for when they actually do. That can't be achieved with an online ad or a billboard.

This advertisement strategy is ideal for those who may not be so tech-savvy. You don't necessarily need a website or social media presence to create a flyer (although you should ideally have those things).

Make sure to be actively involved in the designing of cleaning services flyers. You can really have a lot of fun with these as there are many creative options such as door hangers, tear-away posters, and pamphlets with all your services and rates listed.

Where to get cleaning business flyers? You can use any local design or marketing agency to have it designed and printed for you.

An alternative, cost-effective way is to use a freelance graphic designer. You can look up for one online on platforms like Fiverr and Freelancer. Get your poster or flyer designed by the artist you find best and within your budget. Then find a printing company to print them for you.

Pay Per Click or PPC ads are one of the most common advertising tools for digital marketing. These ads are hosted on a search engine, with Google being the most popular one.

Google Ads is the PPC advertisement service by Google. It allows you to display those ads to your target audience. For instance, the ads may only be displayed to people in the locations you serve.

You should have a website or social media business page set up that the ad would lead to. Pay per click ads revolve around keywords, so you'll also need to search for relevant keywords. For instance, for a residential cleaning company operating in Sydney, some relevant keywords could be house cleaning in Sydney, Sydney house cleaning, house cleaning services in Sydney, etc.

As the name indicates, you only pay when a person clicks on the ad and ends up on your cleaning website. These ads show up for queries related to the keywords you're targeting or on other websites. The ads are displayed through an auction process, so you have to bid on those keywords.

The actual money you spend varies depending on the keywords you're targeting. However, you can set limits and keep a humble budget. Most small businesses start with $50 on Google Ads.

You can run multiple PPC campaigns at the same time and target different keywords with each campaign. Make sure the ad contains a call-to-action for the audience to feel motivated. It should also display your business name and a short description or tagline.

Social media ads are slowly taking over PPC ads on search engines, as social media ads can be more targeted.

Obviously, to run social media ads, you'll need a business page on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. These are the top social media platforms worldwide, so you'd want to use at least one of them.

For a cleaning business, Facebook is the best choice. Facebook Ads account for more than 9 percent of digital advertising and over 18 percent for mobile advertising, according to Invesp.

These are PPC ads essentially and don't cost a lot. The average cost-per-click (CPC) for Facebook Ads is $0.97. It can be an effective way to get potential clients to visit your business page or website.

You can also advertise special offers and bundles on your cleaning services through social media ads.

The reason why social media advertising is so powerful and sought-after is that it combs out your target audience for you. You can customize your ad campaigns to target the people most likely to be interested in your service.

You can choose things like:

• Location (Country, state, county, city, etc.)
• Age group
• Gender
• Interests

Another great thing about Facebook Ads, in particular, is that you can also advertise on Instagram directly from the Facebook Ads Manager portal.

Again, standing out from the crowd is really important. After nailing down the target audience specifics, you should invest some time into what actually goes into your advertisement.

Here are some tips:

• Make sure to add a call-to-action button, as that can potentially increase the click-through rate by 2.85 times (Nextroll).
• Use a catchy ad title to attract your audience.
• If you have a budget or technical capacity to make a video, use videos in your ads as videos outperform any other type of media.
• Create professional graphics with relevant images.
• Display your contact information such as email, website address, or phone number in the ad.

If Facebook Ads are too much of a hassle for you or simply out of your budget, Facebook Groups are the next best thing, and they are free to advertise on.

There are many different kinds of Facebook groups you can use to market your cleaning business. For instance, every town or neighborhood has some sort of Facebook group for the community to interact with. Many small businesses use these groups for advertising their Facebook business page.

You'll need to search for such groups for the neighbourhoods and areas you serve. Similarly, there might even be groups directly related to house cleaning and other home services.

Most of such groups may be private, so you'll need to send a request and perhaps even take permission from the admin before posting something.

Sunday is typically a good time to post as user activity on social media is high. You can also offer exclusive deals or discounts to members of those groups in order to generate sales.

Follow the same good marketing practices as discussed for Facebook Ads. Display all relevant information, including your contact information and operating hours. You may also post your rates for the services you offer and any discounts, for that matter.

Email marketing is yet another cost-effective way to market your cleaning business. It's simple, organic, and, most importantly, relevant.

You should work on monthly newsletters, special offers, or general email blasts about your services.

Now, there are two ways to go about it. In order to launch a successful email marketing campaign, you need an email list. Some businesses buy email lists while others create their own over time by sign-up options on their website and social media and using emails of their existing customers.

The latter approach is much better, as those are typically the audience that's interested in your services. Such email list, however small, results in less bounce rate. In other words, people actually open your emails and check them out.

A good marketing email shouldn't be just text, it should be media-rich. So use a lot of images and graphics, placing big and bold call-to-action.

This is again free marketing, especially if you can design emails in-house. Otherwise, there's always the option of hiring a creative freelancer at affordable rates.

Running your review pages as an advertisement is a brilliant way to attract new customers, especially you do have rave reviews.

Platforms like Yelp have this option as they feature your reviews page on search result pages. So people looking for cleaning services would immediately be able to see your review page.

It also promotes social proof, which is another powerful marketing tactic. People like to hear what other people have to see about a service or product before buying it. So these reviews serve as testimonials for a good service.

This means that you'll also have to work hard to ensure you have very positive reviews. If you have any negative feedback, make sure to deal with it in a professional manner. Perhaps resolve the issue faced by the customer or offer them compensation for whatever complaint they have.

Even if you don't spend on advertising your review pages, your positive reviews will serve as earned marketing. Earned marketing is what you don't pay for and get anyway.

For those sole traders and startup cleaning businesses that have a shoe-string advertising budget, decals on vehicles are a great idea. They are cheap and incredibly effective.

As a cleaner, you most likely have a vehicle you use to get to jobs and transport your equipment. Why not use it as a marketing tool?

You should write your company's name, brief info, and most importantly, contact information. Keep it bold and vivid, so people actually notice it.

It's essentially advertisement on wheels, and that too for almost free. Even when you're parked in parking lots and streets, a passerby can see your ad and contact you if interested.

An added bonus is that a branded vehicle will add credibility to your business, make things more official.

You'll need a graphic designer to design the decal for you and then have a company that prints them print it for you in the size that's appropriate for your vehicle. So before you do anything, measure the area of the vehicle you'll display the ad on.

It's a one-time investment that will go a long way in advertising your cleaning service.

For those  with a little higher marketing budget, YouTube ads are a great way to bring your business forward and promote it. YouTube is the world's biggest video platform, with billions of views generated every month.

Similar to PPC on search engine and social media platforms, YouTube ads can also be customized for your targeted viewers. For instance, the ads can be played in the region you're located in. Similarly, the videos can play before and during videos relevant to your field, i.e., the cleaning industry.

YouTube ads also offer a wide variety in terms of content and costs. You don't necessarily need to produce a full-fledged video ad; you can use a simple graphic with some music for a few seconds. However, it would be great if you could make a nice video.

There's so much room for creativity when it comes to video advertisements. You can also run the ads in conjunction with a YouTube channel where you can post videos related to cleaning to promote your business and maybe make passive income on the side.

Other than video ads, you can invest in bumper ads that display on the videos. These non-skippable ads are maybe even more effective for a cleaning business. Then you also have the option of banners and over-lays, just how ads appear on other websites.

YouTube can also cover mobile marketing for you, as most users access YouTube videos on their mobile devices.

Referrals also serve as free marketing for your cleaning business. Your existing clients can help market and advertise your business to other potential clients.

In the cleaning business, word of mouth is everything. This business is intimate to some extent as you're going into someone's personal space. So clients tend to hire only those cleaners they can trust.

You can also use referrals as active advertisements through special discounts and offers. If a client refers someone, they can get some kind of discount on their next house cleaning session.

You can also actively run referral offers on your website.