List building a service business -- what to email them?

Forget the type of business for a moment and look at who is going to or has signed up for your mailing list. There is no reason why your content should encompass "house cleaning" only. What I am saying is focus more on the target than the actual service. Make the e-mail something that they may actually read vs.. oh great another sales pitch.

I would suggest looking up Gary Vaynerchuk. Specifically look at his material about his book Jab Jab Left Hook. in a nut shell give give sell. If you are always selling, your message will not be read. give to your audience, and slide in the pitch from time to time is FAR MORE effective.

In terms of discounts and the like.. why? I wouldn't.

In terms of what to ask for in terms of referrals... you want them to refer your e-mail, your website, your facebook page. That in itself will refer your business. give,and you shall receive!

Hope that Helps!

Referrals and WOM is a fairly amazing tool. Do you have a website, social media page and are you promoting your business across local community groups online. There was a local pest company (again not a very sexy business) who has been doing a really good job by combining great signage, flyer and marketing materials and offering a 'free' inspection and quote. You might consider offering a teaser to get infront on some new potential clients with an offer and then hopefully when they experience your work you will get a regular cleaning job out of it. Good luck.

And every subscriber counts. Whether you’re gaining one per week, one per day, or one per minute.

You can get some sample newsletters from Joe Polish here. Might give you some ideas...

IMHO you should be focussing on recurring service. Much more profit than one offs.

Businesses like this run off referrals. This should be a primary strategy.

Bonuses and incentives yes, discount sparingly. With referrals you shouldn't need to discount...

My wife and I have been cleaning for 16 years. We have a full schedule for ourselves and along waiting list. WOM is king. We have to tell people to stop telling others about us, lol. We have no desire to swap doing the work for managing and babysitting people. So our business may be different than yours. We are really self-employed, not business owners.

I've used email to let people know when a spot comes open in the schedule back when we had no waiting list. Hey guys, a rare opportunity has presented itself and there's an opening in the schedule. If you know someone that would love our service too please let them know that we have a spot right now. Something to that effect.

I think a huge part of getting referrals for us is creating an awesome experience in our service itself. Under promise and over deliver and make an impression. We do things without prompting. I bring tools and tighten up things like bath accessories on the wall. I recently started bringing little zip-its to unclog most drains. We do carpet cleaning for our customers too and if we see a spot we might just bring a spotter in and take care of it. We've brought kids little gifts or shared tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden. Little things can go a long way when done with sincerity.

We also talk a lot with our customers and let them get to know us, and vice versa. We're Facebook friends with them and we get to know each other as people outside of cleaning. Cleaning is a very personal service and we've built relationships with our customers. How can you do something similar? Maybe your emails can help build those relationships.

My cousin uses a food delivery service and as a customer she's now on their email list.

She recently received an email from the food delivery service that was an offer for a free month of membership to a local spa and gym.

This is a great example of how to use your local email list for engagement of your audience.

The gym/spa knows that a certain percentage of the people who take the free offer will become paying members and giving away free samples to local customers of other businesses is a very inexpensive way to get the word out.

Team up with a local business that could see its customer several times per year and knows the value of giving away something free the first time.

Examples are restaurants, pizza shops, hair, nails, lawn mowing, gyms, spas, coffee shops etc etc etc.

If you get known for having something FREE for your customers in every email you send, they will open your emails at a much higher rate than normal and refer you to their friends.

Be on the lookout for businesses who are already offering free trials or freebies to get you in the door and ask them if you could make that offer to your customer base.

No convincing needed there as they are already giving something away for free.

That ^^^^^^^ is a fantastic idea. I hope the OP didn't just post and run. Haven't seen them chime back in. Hopefully something here worked for them.

I have a service business, dog training.

While dog training is very conducive to how-to, and tips, and case study type emails I've found those don't convert well.

The ones that convert well. The ones that convert well are where I tell entertaining or funny stories from my life and relate them back to dog training at the very end and then a CTA.

Let's give them useful newsletters continuously every day, I think it will improve this huge

You can send useful newsletters to them and hopefully you will be able to attract them with your special news and offers.