It’s a question I hear a lot from business owners who’ve got two quite different sides to what they do, and are worried that marketing both under one name is watering everything down.
That’s exactly where one husband-and-wife cleaning business owner was. Their oven and carpet cleaning is residential, personal, high touch. Their regular commercial cleaning is the opposite, it’s all about being so consistent and reliable that clients forget the cleaners are even there. Two genuinely different messages, and he was wondering whether the answer was two separate brands.
I watched his marketing back and here’s what I advised.
No, you don’t need two brands
His brand is strong, easy to spot, recognisable van, the whole lot. Splitting that into two brands would mean building recognition from scratch twice over, plus the ongoing cost and workload of maintaining two identities, for a problem that doesn’t need solving that way. If you’re weighing up the same question, the fix usually isn’t a second brand, it’s being clearer about which message goes where and why.
Work out which service actually gets you off the tools
His stated goal was to grow the business to the point where he and his wife are working on it rather than in it. So the real question wasn’t residential versus commercial in the abstract, it was which service gets them there fastest with the least of their own hours on the job. That’s the number worth working out before you touch your marketing at all, because it tells you where your main focus should sit, without meaning you drop the other service entirely.
His website and socials led with the wrong service
His website called out oven and carpet cleaning specifically, his van did too, and there was barely a mention of commercial cleaning anywhere obvious. Facebook and Instagram were almost entirely residential. Fine if that’s the deliberate focus, but if commercial is actually where the growth needs to come from, your most visible channels should say so clearly. Check where your own priority service is genuinely showing up versus where you assume it is.
LinkedIn – a missed opportunity
His LinkedIn About section talked about the business’s past rather than what it does now, and said nothing about the commercial cleaning that’s probably his best route to the clients he wants to attract. LinkedIn is where commercial decision makers are more likely to find you, so it’s worth an About section that’s current, keyword rich, and genuinely describes the value of working with you today. If your commercial or B2B side matters to you, don’t let LinkedIn be the channel you update least.
Different channels can carry different messages, without needing different brands
Rather than splitting into two brands, I suggested he lean into Facebook and Instagram for the residential side and LinkedIn for commercial, same business, same identity, just the right message on the right platform for who’s actually there. That’s a much cheaper and simpler way to speak to two audiences than maintaining two separate identities.
Real stories make better content than you’d think
He mentioned a pub landlord who hadn’t noticed his team had been in, except the place was spotless, which is the best kind of testimonial there is. Stories like that, plus the fact that he and his wife run this together, before and after photos, that’s the content that connects, far more than generic posts about services. If you’ve got moments like that sitting in a conversation you had last week, that’s your next post.
Go and find out what your ideal clients actually struggle with
For the commercial side, I suggested he get along to hospitality or trade events, not to sell, just to talk to people and find out what really annoys them about their current cleaning arrangements. That’s the fastest way to know what a lead magnet or guide should cover, and it hands you a stack of genuine content ideas at the same time. If you’re not sure what your audience’s pain points really are, going and asking beats guessing!
Have you been weighing up two brands for two audiences? It’s worth asking whether the fix is a second identity, or just being clearer about which message belongs where.
If you’d like your own marketing looked at like this, completely free, you can submit your question for a personalised video review, just like the one this blog came from.
