Update Your Online Listings To Reach 93% Of Online Prospects
As many as 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, according to SearchEngine Journal.
And while many of the people who receive your lawn care postcards will search for you by name and go directly to your website , many of them will simply search for what they need, like:
Best landscaper in .
And they will see a TON of listings, many of which will be search and review sites, like:
- Porch
- Houzz
Make sure youre listed on those sites and that your business profile is correct, up-to-date and filled with beautiful photos of your work
Or you risk LOSING all of those prospects to your competitors.
Heres a great example of a thorough listing on Houzz.com:
Creating an account is easy:
Just and follow the instructions! The site will lead you through the process.
Dont just sign up and think your job is done. Keeping your listing current means setting aside time to upload new photos regularly and asking your happy customers to leave you a review on the site !
When youre done updating your online listings, you need to address your website like this:
Set Up Multiple Social Media Accounts And Post Daily
This is actually a lot easier then you would think. The main accounts you want to set up as listed below.
- Set up a business page. If you do not know how to do this I have a tutorial here.
- Set up a business profile here too.
- Instagram or Linkedin You can use these but I have found that the results are not that great for a lawn care business.
- Google Business Otherwise known as Google Places or Google Maps but you have already done that, havent you?
Now set up daily posts on all these profiles. That might sound like a lot of work but it is not really. All you need is a library and you can have your posts set on recycling then you only have to write a post once and you can post it once a month.
I build my library by writing 8 posts a week for four weeks. I then just add a few new ones every month and my library keeps on growing. I do try to focus on evergreen topics . If you write any seasonal posts then keep track of them and stop them when the season ends.
If you dont want to do the posting yourself the are a few programs you can use. There is the one I use and it will let you post on 3 profiles for free and have a library of 100 posts. That should keep you going for a while.
I manage half a dozen business using this software so if you dont feel up to it you can always contact me and I can do it for you.
Lawn Care Lead Generation Tips With Google Ads
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Budget for a minimum of $1,500 per month with Google. Otherwise, your ads wont show up many times per day. Some competitive, well-populated markets will demand this. And for the smaller markets, its better to have it allocated and not use it than to not show up.
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Pay an agency to spend 5-10 hours per month working on improvements. A low management fee could mean they just send you an automated report with no insights or strategic changes.
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Experiment with different ad copy to see what works best.
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Create and refine landing pages to convert more clicks into leads.
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Offer Package Discounts For Scheduled Lawn Maintenance
Fertilization, aeration, dethatching, mulching and tree trimming, rather than mowing, tend to be your money makers in the lawn care industry. The trouble is, many homeowners want a nice lawn, but not if it costs a lot. Paying to have your lawn mowed is one thing it removes a strenuous, time-consuming and often unpleasant chore from the homeowners honey-do list but many homeowners will simply fertilize their own grass, or skip fertilization and other less regular maintenance chores altogether.
Take some of the sticker shock out of lawn fertilization. Offer package discounts for homeowners who sign up for lawn fertilization, aeration and dethatching package. Youll get more customers willing to shell out for the extra service, and thatll be more money in your pocket.
Get More Referrals From Your Lawn Care Clients
If you do an outstanding job for a customer, ask them for a referral. At first, its uncomfortable asking your customers for their feedback, but you want to get into the habit of asking them.
When you get known online, you can beat your competition and get reviews that build your lawn care business credibility.
You can use these mini-testimonials on your postcards, brochures or flyers as well as on your website. Theyre marketing gold and make you look like a dependable and trustworthy lawn and landscape company owner.
Need help with SEO?
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Take It To The Next Level
Generally, youll need to gain some experience working with residential accounts before you take on the next level – commercial lawn accounts.
There is one stepping stone you can take:
Many homeowners and community associations hire lawn and landscaping maintenance companies to keep residential properties looking well-cared for and uniform.
The key?
Communication.;This is especially true when theyre with a community association, because there are multiple decision makers.
When you pitch a community association, be sure to talk to the property manager.
Even though the board members are the decision makers, the property manager could potentially be an advocate for you with the board. So if you go around them, youre likely to lose a potential advocate.
Contact Real Estate Agents And Property Companies
One of the fastest ways to find landscaping work is to offer your services to real estate agents and property companies. Google apartment buildings and real estate agents in your area and contact them with special pricing .
One word of warning – you dont want this to be a long-term solution. The best money can be found working with high-end clients in nice residential areas.
However, real estate agents and property companies can be great starting points if youre looking to establish income and referrals.
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Can Online Marketing Strategies For A Landscaping Business Work
Many lawn care businesses have a thriving online presence.
Investigate online home care or neighborhood websites. Most of these sites will allow you to register your professional profile. The sites show your profile to people in your area who search for lawn care quotes. Respond quickly and courteously to business leads that come from these sites.
Encourage your current customers to leave positive online reviews. While it’s not ethical to offer discounts or free services for a positive review, you can politely ask satisfied customers to let others know what a good job you do via online and in-person recommendations.
You should also have a professional-looking website. Make sure the website works well on mobile devices and computer screens. The website should give your contact information, services, and pricing. Pictures of completed jobs can help to attract new customers, too.
More than anything, be sure your online business profiles are up to date and have correct contact information. While most lawn care businesses need not worry about extensive blogs or social media marketing, many customers are using social media to locate services, including Facebook’s Marketplace and Google business listings.
Make It Easy For People To Hire You
Once your marketing gets you in front of more people, its crucial that youre easy to contact. Whether someone saw your phone number on one of your vehicles or found your website, the path to conversion has to be as clear and frictionless as possible.Make sure your business is ready to receive inquiries. You might even consider an auto-response for emails outlining how to book a service or answering FAQs to make the estimating process even easier.
Devote an entire page to contact information on your website, complete with call-to-action buttons to learn more, ask questions, or schedule a call.Another way to make hiring you as easy as possible is to create trust between you and your leads from the start. Reduce any fears or hesitation people may have when hiring your company, and make them feel confident and comfortable in their decision by featuring plenty of photos and client testimonials.
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Achieve Your Lawn Care Business Potential With Good Marketing Techniques
The lawn care and landscaping industry are transforming.
More communities are encouraging water-saving landscaping and regulating the pesticides and fertilizers you can use. Make sure your customers know you’re ahead of these trends in your marketing strategies for a landscaping business.
According to;Lawn and Landscape’s 2018 Annual Report, the mean annual revenue for a landscaping business was $1.1 million in 2017. You can achieve growth for your lawn care business with the right marketing, planning, and emphasis on quality and service.
American Landscapes Llc Is On Demand For Its Attractive Landscaping In Cincinnati Ohioyour Browser Indicates If You’ve Visited This Link
American Landscapes LLC. is a top-notch landscaping company that provides quality landscaping services for residential and commercial properties in the Greater Cincinnati Area. The company’s commitment to exceeding customer expectations is reflected through the diversity of its clientele base,
Digital Journal
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Use A Lawn Care Business Software
Using software like Connecteam lawn care business app will help you automate and grow your lawn care business. How so? It makes it easier to schedule recurring shifts, dispatch jobs, track working hours, enhance communication, make reports digital, and much more. Everything you need to manage daily operations is available at the click of a button on Connecteam:
- Time tracking;is efficient as you usually pay your employees by the hour and when your team clocks in and out from their mobile phone, their GPS location is immediately tagged for a more efficient and accurate timesheet and payroll.
- Scheduling is easier to manage and is rich with information like all the job details, location, specific tasks, and even recurring jobs for customers who need their lawn being taken care of on a regular basis.
- Workflows;are automated so reporting all the details about the job, including before and after photos can be done while on the go.
- Communication;is more streamlined through updates, chat, surveys, and more which is super important when youre not right there with your team at every moment.
You need to work as efficiently as possible while delivering amazing customer service, using lawn care business software keeps you on track.
Have Someone Else Get Customers For You
Idea 17: List on various online directories . This way, the listing sites can potentially drive customers to you while youre out mowing lawns. But it can be hard to get noticed on sites with thousands of listings.
Idea 18: Pay for online leads from potential customers. For example, quote-based sites like Service Central and Hi Pages can send you customer jobs to quote on, to save you going out to find jobs to quote on. Sites like these charge for leads, regardless if you win the quote or not . Such sites usually send the quote opportunity to multiple lawn mowing businesses. This option can work well, if you are receiving a regular flow of jobs to quote on, are happy to pay the lead without guarantee of work, and you are winning enough jobs to cover the cost of money spent on leads that did not turn into paying customers.
Idea 19: Approach other lawn mower contractors and ask if they could send their excess work to you, and invite them to keep a commission for referring you the lawnmowing jobs. This system can work well if you partner with lawn mowing providers who are busy and therefore happy to have someone help them. But just bear in mind that most providers will be protective of the customer leads and the customer might never know your own business name in order to refer you to others. This is fine if the work keeps flowing, but not so fine if you have nothing to show for it once you lose that customer.
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Set Up Sandwich Boards
A simple and relatively easy advertising strategy is to set up a sandwich board while youre servicing a property. It should have your business name, contact info, and an eye-catching design.
Knowing that you have done work in a certain neighborhood can help people who live there feel like they can trust you too. Plus, its easy for them to see that you do a good job, and can chat with their neighbours about your services.
Develop An Effective Direct Mail Strategy
Sending postcards can be a great lawn care lead generation strategy. A carefully executed campaign should result in a 1.5 -3.5% return. This means if youre sending 10,000 lawn care postcards, you should be getting 150-350 new lawn care leads. If thats not happening, there is an issue with your list, timing, offer, design, or website landing page.
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Secure Customers With Landscaping Insurance
You’re just starting out getting customers, so why would you need insurance? You can take every step to make sure accidents aren’t likely to happy on your watch, but you never know. We may be able to read a tree’s age by its rings, but we can’t see into the future.
Mistakes and accidents happen despite our best efforts. In fact, 36%-52% of small businesses surveyed reported being involved in a lawsuit in a given year. And even if business owners are found not to be at fault, it’s likely there are still legal fees owed.
That’s where landscaping insurance can come in handy. General liability insurance, also known as commercial liability insurance, typically covers:
- Bodily injury
- Third-party accidents
- And more!
If you had landscaping insurance with general liability coverage, it could help to cover costs resulting in an event like one listed above. Let’s look at an example.
You’re working to help clean up a customer’s lawn in the Fall. You leave a leaf blower in the yard while preparing to leave for the day and your customer trips over it. He’s irate, having hurt himself, and sues your landscaping business for the cost of his medical bills.
Without general liability insurance, you may have to pay for his medical fees out-of-pocket, which could put your company into unexpected debt. With coverage though, you could be covered for the cost of his medical bills, as well as legal fees, up to your policy’s limit.
Invest In Online And Offline Advertising
Today, the most effective marketing techniques include relying on more than one type of lawn care advertising, like direct mail. Customers get their information from multiple sources, enabling you to regularly remind them about your services.;
Thus, youll want to create marketing campaigns that reach your target customers through multiple channels. One of the most effective ways to do this is through digital marketing. Some of your best options include:
- Social media marketing campaigns: Social media lets you advertise your lawn care business through popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. These platforms let you reach thousands of potential customers and showcase your lawn care skills through photos and videos of your best work, effectively communicating the value of your service.
- Email marketing campaigns: Email marketing is very cost-effective and offers a return on investment of $42 for every $1 spent. You can automate your email campaign to send targeted emails at key points before the busy season. With careful timing, these reminders of your lawn care service will make you more likely to convert potential clients.
- Google Ads: More people are turning to online searches to find the services they need. By investing in Google Ads, your lawn care business will appear at the top of Google search results when your potential customers start looking up lawn care services online.
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Your First Client And Beyond
Getting your first few clients when youre a new lawn business owner can be hard when no ones ever heard of you. But you can increase your odds of success by focussing; on the right mix of strategies: Reach out to family and friends, browse the online classifieds, knock on peoples doors, send marketing mailers, and be active in Facebook groups.
And remember: Your business journey really only begins after youve landed your first few clients. From then onwards, youll also need to send professional quotes and invoices, track important job details, communicate arrival times, and make it easy for your clients to pay so they can become repeat customersall of which can be accomplished with lawn care software like Jobber.
Want to keep your customers happy?
Send Out Text Messages
As you take on more projects, ensure that you collect phone numbers and email addresses. Plan on sending out text messages to past clientele every quarter or so. Text campaigns are a highly effective way to get in front of your customers.
Think about it this way – whens the last time you ignored a text message?
Dont just blast off a random text message; make it worth a customers time to read what you have to say. Offer a seasonal discount, send a reminder that they need work done, or just phrase the text in such a way that it sounds like youre checking in.
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