When leads slow down, many cleaning and restoration business owners reach for whatever is new, and right now that means AI. Dean Mercado, founder and CEO of Online Marketing Muscle, hears the same worried question almost daily: What used to work isn’t working, so where should the marketing dollars go?
Mercado has fielded versions of that question for more than 20 years, from the days of neighborhood flyers and cold calling through Google, SEO and Facebook ads. AI is simply the latest wave.
“The tactics change. Marketing doesn’t,” Mercado said.
Three jobs, one pie
He breaks marketing into visibility, credibility and reach, using an apple pie cut into eight slices. The whole pie is your target market. One slice is visibility, the people who already recognize your name. Credibility gives that slice enough confidence to choose you. Reach goes after the other seven slices, ideal customers who haven’t heard of you yet.
Too many owners jump straight to tactics without knowing which job needs doing, Mercado noted. “The tactic is just an ingredient in your unique marketing recipe,” he said.
Choosing the right ingredients starts with knowing your target market, your numbers, your strengths and weaknesses and what you’ll commit to doing consistently. The first question is always where your target market spends its time.
How customers find you now
The buyer’s path has scattered. A prospect might hear your name from a referral, ask ChatGPT about you, watch a YouTube video and check your reviews before visiting your website or calling. Many now speak detailed requests into an AI app on their phone and get back specific company recommendations.
Build a website worth recommending
Mercado’s first move for any owner is the website, and his rule is “fewer better.” Piling up mediocre pages for SEO no longer helps, he explained.
“AI doesn’t want to come and read volumes of junk. They want to know that if they’re going to recommend you, that you are the real deal,” he said.
A tight five-page site with a strong blog beats a 30- or 40-page site stuffed with filler. He also urges owners to add FAQs that answer questions before customers ask them and to make sure the site converts visitors into leads.
Why YouTube earns a spot
Next comes YouTube, even for owners who hate being on camera. Viewers prefer raw and genuine over polished, and video serves all three marketing jobs. Mercado added that AI tools pull heavily from YouTube titles, descriptions and transcripts.
“If you’re answering customer questions on your YouTube, chances are you might get indexed for that in AI,” he said.
The goal is relative. “You don’t have to outrun every single business on the internet. You just have to outrun your competitor,” Mercado noted.
Give every post a job
Social media still matters, though Mercado cautioned that posting by itself is not marketing. Every post needs a defined purpose, and results need to be measured. Commercial companies will usually find their audience on LinkedIn, residential companies on Facebook and Instagram.
“Don’t just hire a social media company for $1,200 a month and let them post random junk,” he said.
He also sees customers tiring of AI-written content and wanting to hear from real people again.
Own the list
Followers on a platform belong to the platform, and accounts can disappear overnight. Mercado advises moving contacts from YouTube and social media into a CRM you control, then using email to stay in front of them. That means more than a note saying the crew will arrive at three instead of four.
“If you own the database, you’re going to win,” he said.
Where to begin
For owners feeling overwhelmed, Mercado’s order of operations is straightforward: a strong website, YouTube as the content engine linked back to that site, social media for distribution and email to own the relationship. Pairing the site with the YouTube channel gives AI what he called a one-two punch.
Start with an honest audit. Are your paid ads producing? What is a customer worth over their lifetime? An outside set of eyes with no emotional attachment to the business can help answer those questions.
Most of this isn’t new, Mercado acknowledged. The work simply has to be done a little differently now that AI sits between the customer and the search results.
