You need to develop a marketing plan to achieve your business goals. Whether you want to upsell more services to existing customers, acquire new customers, or expand your presence in a new area, these lawn care marketing ideas will help you accelerate growth for your business.
Focus on Your Lawn Care Website
If you don’t already have a website, creating one should be a priority. One of the best ways to advertise lawn care is by sending people to your website. You can use a site-building tool or a template to achieve a professional result.
Your site for your lawn care company doesn’t need to be overly complex. The purpose of your website is to provide visitors with some basic information about your business and the services you offer. User experience matters just as much as the content available on your site. Your site should feel and look professional, facilitate navigation, and be accessible for mobile users.
Here are some of the things people should find on your website:
- Your contact information
- Your business hours
- A list of the services you offer
- An easy way for people to book your services, either an online tool or clear instructions
- Links to your social media profiles
- A form to sign up for your email list
You can create a simple homepage with all this information and write strong copy and calls-to-action to generate leads. You can also decide to offer more content on your website by creating a blog section where you provide landscaping and lawn care advice.
Updating your website with blog posts, infographics, videos, and other types of content will give visitors a reason to keep coming back to your website. You can post the content you create to other channels like social media or your email list, and creating helpful educational content about lawn care will help prospects make informed decisions.
Create a unique tone for your website. Focus on developing a human connection with your audience, and use emotions to mention problems your audience can relate to. Storytelling is another excellent strategy to use. You can tell stories about how you help customers solve problems.
Formatting is another thing to pay attention to. Your web pages should immediately draw attention to your main message and be easy to skim.
Google My Business
Google My Business is an online tool that allows you to manage your presence on different Google products, including Google Maps and Google Reviews.
You can claim your landscaping business listing on that service and access different features that give you the possibility to add more information about your business, respond to reviews, and more.
Claiming your business is important because Google Maps results can become a powerful lead generation tool for users who look for a category of services in their area. A Google Maps result will often appear toward the top of search results, and a listing with images and positive reviews will catch users’ attention.
Add your phone number, a link to your website, your hours, and other relevant information once you claim your listing. Mobile users will be able to call your business by tapping on your listing, and the link to your website will drive traffic from local prospects.
Social Media Marketing
We recommend developing a lawn care marketing plan that includes social media platforms because it’s an effective way of connecting with your audience.
Your social media profiles will act as directories for your business if you fill out your profiles with your business information, including a link to your website, your hours, and phone number. Social media profiles can become effective lead generation tools since they will show up in search results, and some users will look for local businesses on social media.
Here are a few ideas to explore for your social media marketing campaign:
- Encourage existing customers to follow your profiles and post updates regularly to keep them informed about your services and special offers.
- Reach out to new prospects by sharing educational content that will help them make a decision about lawn care.
- Facebook gives users the possibility to rate and review local businesses. A page with a lot of fans and positive reviews can help you generate leads.
- Use the Facebook Messenger feature to answer questions, resolve issues, and provide customer service.
- Monitor your social media profiles and respond to comments and questions quickly.
- Create a hashtag for your business to encourage users to share photographs of your work.
- Invest in social media ads to target users in your area.
You will get better results from social media if you post often and are responsive to the comments and questions you receive. You should also look into using visual content since that type of content is 40 times more likely to be shared. Images and videos are more noticeable than a text post when users scroll through a social media feed.
Connect your social media accounts to the other channels you use. Add links to your social media profiles on your website and in your email signature. Give an incentive to follow you on social media, for instance, by using social media to share coupons on a regular basis.
Email Marketing
Creating an email list allows you to stay in touch with existing customers and remind them about your services. This is one of the pillars out of all lawn care advertising ideas. You can use your list to market additional services, provide valuable content to your audience, and help new prospects make a decision.
Email marketing is one of the best investments you could make to market your lawn care business since you can use automation to deliver a series of emails as part of your onboarding process. You can use emails to share special offers and deliver additional value to existing customers by sharing lawn care maintenance tips.
Here are some strategies you should use to get better results with email marketing:
- Use onboarding to send a series of emails when people sign up for your list.
- Write strong subject lines and make sure the content of your email delivers on what the subject line promises.
- Recipients who see your emails on mobile will pay attention to the preview text. Write engaging preview texts that make recipients want to open your emails.
- Use simple designs for your emails. They should load quickly. Keep in mind that 60% of emails are opened on mobile.
- Your main message and call-to-action should be above the fold to catch recipients’ attention.
- Use personalized greetings and segment your list so that you can deliver content that feels relevant.
- You can increase your open rate and deliver value through your email list by sharing incentives like coupons and special offers.
- Use visual content in your emails. Including a video in an email can increase the open rate by as much as 300%.
- Encourage recipients to follow a link to find more content that is relevant to them. Make sure the content they find after following that link is consistent with the message of the email.
- Use A/B testing to improve your emails. You can use that technique to test subject lines, copy, or offers.
Managing Your Online Reputation
Your online ratings and reviews matter because people use them to research local businesses. A large number of recent and positive reviews can help with lead generation.
Popular sources for ratings and reviews include Yelp, Facebook, Google, and Yellow pages. Some consumers will also use Angie’s List, or look up your business profile on the Better Business Bureau website.
Keep an eye on all these different platforms and create accounts on them so you can claim your business listings. Monitor reviews, and take the time to answer the reviews that mention issues with your services.
You should write a genuine apology and offer to contact the person directly so you can resolve the issue. Seeing some bad reviews can cause some potential clients to decide against using your services, but responding to negative reviews and offering to make things right will show that you care about customer service.
It’s also essential to update your business profile on different review sites. Adding your phone number, address, hours, and a link to your website will turn review platforms into lead-generation tools.
If there aren’t a lot of online reviews for your business or if most reviews aren’t recent, don’t hesitate to ask your customers to write reviews. You can ask them in person, or send a reminder email with links to different review platforms after they use your services.
Print Material Marketing
Your lawn care marketing strategy should use digital and print channels. You will get better results if you invest in digital marketing and use print marketing campaigns to increase awareness of your business locally and target potential customers who might not use digital channels.
Your print marketing campaign and digital marketing efforts need to be consistent. We recommend creating a strong brand identity by using the same logo, color schemes, and tagline. Those things will make your business easy to recognize across the different channels you use to market your services.
Print marketing works, and 56% of consumers say they trust print marketing more than other channels. It feels more tangible and can help create a strong connection with a local audience. Here are some strategies you can use for your print marketing campaign:
- Buy ad space in local magazines and newspapers
- Send out flyers and direct mailers
- Hand out business cards
- Install some lawn signs in front of customers’ houses
- Invest in billboard signs
Besides making your business easy to identify, you need to focus on a simple message that encourages people to take action since they might not spend more than a few seconds looking at a printed ad or sign.
Use a short URL that people can remember, a vanity phone number, and give people an incentive to contact you, for instance, by mentioning a special offer. A time-limited offer can be an excellent way of boosting your response rate since it will encourage people to take action right after they see your ad.
If you get positive results with your print marketing campaign, think about investing in additional local channels like TV and radio stations!
How to Market to Your Existing Customers
You need to market to your existing customers because lawn care contract renewals will ensure a steady source of revenue. There are plenty of opportunities for growth if you decide to offer additional services to your customers.
Your existing customers can also help you grow your business through word-of-mouth marketing. Meeting their expectations and making customer service one of your core values will make your customers likely to talk about your business to their friends, family members, and neighbors.
Getting your customers to endorse and promote your business will help you grow because recommendations from people we know tend to weigh more than online reviews.
You can grow your business by developing a campaign designed to inform current customers about the other services you offer. You can do this via email and social media. Make sure you offer an incentive to upgrade their current service package, like a small discount.
You can also talk about additional services in person. You know your customers better than anyone and should have an idea of which services each customer is likely to be interested in. Carry some coupons with you so that you can hand them out and encourage customers to test a new service you offer.
Use automation to send emails that will help customers make an informed decision when the time comes to renew their service contracts. We recommend creating a series of emails so you can deliver that information in a bite-size format.
You should think about creating a referral program that allows current customers to earn rewards or discounts for referring their friends and neighbors. Some of your customers will talk about your services if you meet their expectations, but a referral program will provide an additional incentive to bring up your business.
You should start working on a marketing plan now that you know more about how to advertise lawn care services. We recommend using a mix of the methods mentioned here to maximize growth and get results. It’s also important to set some specific goals and monitor results so you can make a few changes to your plan if needed.
