Track Your Results Like A Landscape Marketing Expert
Only TRACKING will show you what parts of your landscape advertising creates leads for your business.
So HOW do you track?
Well, that new caller sheet is one way!
Another way:
Google Analytics a that tracks the following:
- Who visits your website
Lets say you mail out 10,000 landscape postcards, and you check your Google Analytics account and notice 6,000 people visited your website with 1,000 people landing and spending 1-3 minutes on your About Us page.
But maybe only 25 people made it to your contact page to actually contact you and become real leads for your business.
Heres an idea:
Why not put a pop-up or lead capture form on that About Us page to capture more of the leads who read all about you and turn them into tangible leads!
Genius!
However the most important metric to track?
Return on investment !
The ultimate measurement of your lawn advertising or landscape postcards is how much sales they generate for your business.
Your response could even be low
But your ROI could be HIGH.
Heres what I mean, by example:
A Texas landscaper mailed out landscape postcards as part of their landscaping marketing plan.
Take a look at their landscape postcard:
After just ONE mailing, heres what happened:
- 15 calls from prospects
- And generated $100,000 in revenue.
Thats a 3,231% return on investment!
If you wouldve judged this landscape postcards campaign by response ALONE, you wouldnt thought it a failure
But $100,000 in revenue is NO failure.
Permits For A Lawn Care Business
Before you start accepting clients and performing lawn care work, you need to plan your business goals and determine what types of permits you need so that you can start your lawn care business legally. Your lawn care business plan should outline which permits and licenses you need to operate legally and safely.
In most states, you need a business license for a lawn care company, which requires a fee. If you file your business license as a limited liability corporation or partnership, you also need an Employer Identification Number to hire employees.
State licensing requirements vary, so its crucial to understand your states laws before going into business. Cities and counties may also have their own requirements, including fee payment based on how much money your company earns per year. Typically, these fees are part of cities and counties occupational license rules.
To find out whether you need an occupational license and to figure out how much you might owe the city, contact your city or county administration for information.
Also, consider business liability and property insurance for your lawn care company. Insurance covers not only you and your employees if you sustain an injury while on the job, but it also protects your clients should you damage their property.
Most locales require current insurance as part of your business operation, so look into this requirement before committing to caring for clients lawns and gardens.
Create A Mission Statement
A mission statement is a short summary of your companys main goals and values. It communicates whats important to you whether that be customer service, the environment, or high-quality lawn care services, etc.
Your mission statement should be short and should clearly define the core focus of your business to clients.
Sit down with your team and think about whats really important to you and how you want people to view you.
Is client satisfaction a big part of your focus? What about community involvement?
Once you know what your mission is, use it to drive your strategy by focusing on initiatives that support your goals and values.
For example, if customer service is a big part of your mission, offer a satisfaction guarantee and use it in your advertising and on your website.
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Create A Killer Lawn Care Website
Your website has two goals, 1) to attract prospective clients and 2) turn those website visitors into qualified leads for your sales team. Lawn care SEO is a widely misunderstood and oversimplified term. The core concept is that implementing certain online strategies both on and off of your lawn care website will allow it to appear higher in organic search results for hundreds of phrases consumers will enter into search engines.
Traffic is great, but you should also be converting anywhere from 1-3% of all website visitors into a qualified lead. If you are finding that isnt the case, it could point to fixing major flaws with the user experience, images, videos, and copywriting. If you do this right, organic website traffic and lawn care leads will increase over time to deliver results for years to come.
Offer Custom Services By Neighborhood
Not all neighborhoods are created equal. Take the time to consider each areas specific landscaping needs so you can tailor your direct mail, emails, or ads accordingly.
Plus, people will notice the personalization. Recognizing the unique needs of an individual can help your business stand out from the competition. Tailor your offerings, and you may see more inquiries roll in than if you ran a one-size-fits-all campaign.
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How Do We Drive Results For Lawn Care Companies
Which lawn care marketing ideas are the best, though?
While every lawn care marketing plan is different, the most successful lawn care marketing strategies include online channels, like search, social, and paid. Keep reading to learn which lawn care marketing ideas offer the most value, plus why digital marketing is crucial for companies like yours.
If you need help marketing your lawn care business online, WebFX brings more than 20 years of experience to the field. Learn how our digital marketing services can help your business by contacting us online or calling us at 888-601-5359!
The Easiest Way To Be A Pro At Seo
Even better than creating an amazing website is creating a website that appears at the top of search results.
SEO is the combination of healthy web practices and keyword usage that puts your website at the top of search results.
Since websites with good SEO get seen first, businesses that invest in SEO are getting over 50% of web traffic.
Good SEO can be several times more profitable than great flyers!
Read our full SEO guide for lawn care to find out more.
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Use Flyers Door Hangers & 9
Print marketing still works.
But heres the problem: Most people dont know how to make it work for them.
When you do it right, lawn care flyers can be a cost-effective way to build your lawn care client base and improve your lawn care marketing.
Flyers benefit your lawn care business in multiple ways:
- Increase your referrals
- Stay at the top of your clients minds
- Get hired from a cheap piece of paper
With almost 100% certainty, I can tell you that new leads WILL see your flyers.
So your main goal is to make sure your leads like what they see.
Investing In The Best Lawn Care Lead Generation Strategies
One of the most common questions I get is, Chad, what do you think about ____? Well, now you know. My opinions have come from spending millions of dollars on marketing and advertising campaigns. At my prior job, my success or failure is what drove my raise, bonuses, and keeping my job. These opinions have been reinforced by what Ive seen dozens of some of the most successful lawn care companies doing. Dont keep wasting your money on lawn care lead generation strategies that get poor results. Learn from all of our mistakes and successes. However, leave room for some experimentation. Just be smart about it. If you prove me wrong, send me an email or . Id love to hear what youve learned. Are you interested in a comprehensive lawn care lead generation strategy? If so, then schedule a meeting with us. Want more candid insights like these? Then . We’ll send our latest articles directly to your inbox. Just add your email to the form below.
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Build A Local Network
Connecting with local businesses is a winning lawn care marketing strategy that creates mutually beneficial relationships and generates referrals.
Leave a few business cards in high-traffic shops and on coffee shop community boards. You can return the favor by picking up a few coffees for the crew or customers at your next job in the area.
Create Your Business Plan
Suppose youre ready to transform your nebulous idea for a lawn care business into a glorious reality. In that case, youre going to need a business plan.
Youll use your plan as a detailed outline to get you where you are right now to where you want to be. Its a must for all business owners who want their company to thrive.
Having a business plan means youll accomplish your entrepreneurial objectives sooner rather than later. Itll help organize every detail of getting your business off the ground, exponentially increasing the chances that your lawn care business will be a smashing success.
If you dont need a bank loan, your business plan can be short, sweet, and to the point.
Just remember:
Your lawn care business plan should accommodate your needs, and not the other way around.
Have it be a reflection of you in all your wonderful uniqueness.
According to the Small Business Administration website, there are two categories of business plans:
- Traditional
- Lean startup
Traditional business plans are what most entrepreneurs use, and they require a ton of detail and work. They can get so convoluted and complicated, that they can be dozens of pages long.
Lean startup business plans are far less structured because they focus like a laser-guided missile on only the most essential facts.
They can be completed in sixty minutes or less, and are usually no longer than a single page. Heres an example of one.
Here are some of the sections you might want to include:
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Jump Right In Even If You Have Little Money
Russell says you dont need much to start your own mowing lawn services.
He says that even if you all you have is a lawn mower and a broom, you can start a lawn care business tomorrow:
He started his lawn care business with only $2,000. He bought a $200 blower and a $150 weed eater out of that money and kept the rest of it in reserve.
Soon, he had enough cash to buy some of his bigger equipment for 0% down financing. This included things like a tractor, a tilt deck trailer, and an industrial bush cutter.
The moral of this story?
Doing excellent work.
Soon, youll have funds to reinvest in your lawn maintenance business. And, remember Russells words if you run into obstacles:
Training Needed To Start A Lawn Care Business
Once you know the equipment needed to perform lawn care and landscaping jobs, youll need to know how to use them properly. Even if you have hands-on experience in lawn care, you may find clients are more willing to hire you if you have official training under your belt, whether from a continuing education school or a local lawn and garden association.
While starting a lawn care company generally doesnt require any industry-specific business licenses, there are several certifications that can also help set you apart from your competition. These certifications arent usually necessary, but they can reassure potential clients of your knowledge in lawn care best practices and give you leverage against your competitors. The National Association of Landscape Professionals offers a list of available landscaping certifications that are available.
Another way to gain valuable knowledge is to be an apprentice at an existing lawn care company. Youll learn not only get hands-on experience in using the tools, but youll gain knowledge about the best way to run your business, manage employees and deal with customers.
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Understand That Referrals Are Gold
Sometimes getting new customers is as easy as asking your current ones if they could recommend you to your neighbors. Some companies offer an incentive like $10 off your next lawn mowing. Others may offer a gift card to a local coffee shop for a local referral. It never hurts to ask for a reference. If the customer says no, maybe theyll tell you why your service isnt good enough for a referral and what you can do to get better.
Start Advertising For Spring Services
The earlier you can go to market at the beginning of the year the better, because if youre not getting in front of your customers early on, your competitors are. The good news is advertising traffic during the slower winter months is down due to the lack of initiative most green industry business owners without a marketing plan have. That means there is less to compete for in the advertising space!
So if youre running pay-per-click or paid social media campaigns, your costs-per-click tend to be less and your impression share trends higher. That translates to more exposure for less money!
The trick is advertising with a sense of urgency, which means market services that are time sensitive based on seasonality. Not only do these services tend to have a higher ROI , but the time to have them done in the spring is limited and so are the amount of hours you have in a week.
When running your spring service ads on Facebook or even on door hangers, stress a sense of urgency. For example:
Grow a thick, healthy lawn this year with spring Aeration and Fertilization10% OFF!
There are actually four elements to this ad copy:
- Intent: I stated the service and what the ad was for.
- Offer: I provided an appealing incentive with 10% off.
- Relate: The ad copy related to the customers need or want for a healthy lawn.
- Urgency: The importance of taking action now incentivizes the customer to call now.
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Letting Somebody Else Find Customers For You
Tip 1: Get listed on traditional online directories . These listing sites can help to drive customers to your site, while you are out mowing lawns. However, it can be difficult to get noticed on the directories that have thousands of listings on them.
Tip 2:Register with expertEasy If youd prefer to mow the lawn and let someone else find your customers, we truely believe this will work for you, expertEasy is a marketplace that specialises in lawn mowing, gardening, landscaping and home improvement. We send customer jobs to you to provide quotes for, and save you having to go out to find jobs on your own to bid on. There are other websites like ours that work a similar way charging for leads. However, usually, those sites send the opportunity for quotes to a greater number of lawn mowing businesses, they charge more per lead and some of them also charge an initial listing fee. We only send jobs to at most three local lawn mowing business, and we have transparent pricing with a satification guarantee.
Reach Out To Local Businesses
Speaking of commercial accounts, the end of the year is usually when businesses address their next year budgets. Late fall and early winter is prime time for reaching out to local businesses. Heres the problem though: you cant expect a local business to reach out to you. If they are having their lawn maintenanced already, there is no need for them to research new lawn care companies. This is when you need to do the legwork and reach out to these businesses.
If youve been doing your networking throughout the year, then this is the time to inquire and pitch a new year contract with that commercial account youve been trying to get.
But remember to be confident and professional in your approach.
Now that you know this is the timing, you may want to check out more ways to gain commercial clients.
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Close Up To 80% More Sales By Automatically Following Up With Leads
Heres the deal:
The majority of marketing strategies for landscaping businesses will not close 100% of the leads on the first attempt. And neither will your BEST sales person.
Makes sense, right?
Take this:
Lets say you receive an email from someone directly from the contact form on your website.
This persons reached out to you with some level of interest
Thats a lead!
Theyve asked you how much your pricing is for gutting some trees from their backyard, and you quickly provide them an answer.
Then
Crickets.
You email them, maybe call them , and still no word back.
No client yet.
Now what?
NOW you follow up with them!
But instead of emailing and calling them every day, you can use email marketing to automatically follow up with this lead for you.
In a free email marketing software, such as MailChimp for example, you can set up a simple campaign to automatically email leads so that youre continually reaching out to them.
Also called an email drip campaign, it works in landscape marketing by sending out emails on a predetermined schedule to prospects in a list that you create.
Instead of you remembering to manually email prospects on a set schedule, have your email marketing system do it for you.
Plus, you can use this same email marketing tool to send out monthly newsletters to your customers, making them feel like you care to keep them updated on things like:
And when someone remembers you, theyre MUCH more likely to BUY from you when the time comes.
Start A Lawn Care Business By Following These 10 Steps:
You have found the perfect business idea, and now you are ready to take the next step. There is more to starting a business than just registering it with the state. We have put together this simple guide to starting your lawn care business. These steps will ensure that your new business is well planned out, registered properly and legally compliant.
Check out our How to Start a Business page.
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