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Creating a strategic marketing plan that results in healthy growth of your lawn care/landscaping business doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. If you take the time to think about the answers to the following key questions, you’ll already be halfway there!
Key Marketing Questions for Lawn Care/Landscaping Advertising
- Who are my ideal customers?
- Where are my service areas?
- What lawn care services do I plan to promote with an offer?
- When should I promote my business?
- How should I promote my business?
Use a consistent message and decide how you’ll track performance – adjusting when needed – for a solid marketing campaign.
Many times, landscaping and lawn care businesses look at marketing as a task that detracts from revenue-producing work. Instead, consider marketing a vital investment in your growing business. Effective marketing with the right agency should free you up and produce more sales.
Let’s answer the key marketing questions. But first, we recently surveyed homeowners about the offers, services and motivation they’re looking for. You can view the results here or at the end of this post. When used in tandem with the following marketing Q&A, you will have all the tools you need to start building your marketing campaign.
Who Are My Ideal Customers?
Your ideal customers are people or businesses you would like to use your services. For marketing purposes, you would define these ideal customers using demographic and geographic indicators.
For example, you might only perform lawn care for residential homes within a 20-mile radius in your county’s northwest. In that case, home ownership may be one demographic indicator. If you’re only interested in high-income homeowners, you might also select a household income level of $150,000 or more. Then, you would define your service area using ZIP codes or boundary lines. The result is a very specific mailing list of leads.
When it comes to targeted direct mail, you would use this mailing list to send promotions to your defined audience. Keep in mind that the more specific your audience, the greater your direct mail costs will be, because postage rates will be higher for targeted mail than for mailing to all households in a delivery route or ZIP code. Often, the response rate will be higher also, but only you can decide if you want to test that approach.
If you truly want to stand out and grab your audience’s attention, postcards are the perfect solution. With postcard advertising, you can reach your target customer on a 1-to-1 level. Valpak has three products that help you accomplish this:
- Customizable postcards are a premium product that puts you 100% in the driver’s seat. You select who receives your postcard and when.
- Neighborhood-targeted postcards are our affordable postcard that mails with, but not inside, The Blue Envelope® to the same high-income households as Valpak’s iconic envelope. It’s affordable and gets results.
- Event postcards are the most automated way to try postcard advertising. A mailing service with an audience of new customers each month: new mover, birthday and Medicare options.
A knowledgeable marketing expert in to your area will be able to help you decide which strategy can give you the biggest bang for your advertising buck.
Where Are My Service Areas?
How far are you willing to go to perform your services? Do you have a crew of workers or do you handle the work yourself? Set the boundaries of your service area based on the distance you are willing to travel to perform work for customers. Once your boundary is set, you can decide where and how to advertise to get new customers.
What Lawn Care Services Do I Plan to Promote with an Offer?
Every business is unique and offers a unique set of services. After you create your menu of services, you can decide which lawn care and landscaping services to promote. Ideally, you would promote a service with low overhead costs so your return on investment (ROI) is healthier.
Consider creating a “first-time customer” discount with a percentage or dollar off the cost of a service. Or, generate ongoing business by offering one service free after 10 services. When you develop your offer, include the amount of profit earned from that service in your marketing and advertising expense for a true ROI. This will help you learn more about direct mail coupon marketing and tracking performance and ROI.
When Should I Start Advertising My Lawn Care Business?
Lawn care and landscaping are seasonal services, but that doesn’t mean you should only advertise during the season. Plant seeds in potential customers’ minds by advertising a couple of months before the busy season. Print advertising is proven to have a higher brand recall and ad recognition than digital ads, so it’s a very effective marketing method.
Repetitive marketing will help ensure your business is the one consumers think of when they need lawn care and landscaping services. If you also provide services that are useful year-round, then change your offer accordingly, but don’t stop putting your brand in front of your ideal audience. Consistency is key and “right now” is always a good time to get your lawn care and landscaping marketing plan going.
How Should I Promote My Business?
Direct mail is still one of the most effective methods to use to advertise your business and promote your brand. The Association of National Advertisers recently found that direct mail has a 4.9% response rate. That’s higher than email, paid search, display ads and social media.
Valpak’s Blue Envelope is a perfect vehicle to grow your customer base, increase brand awareness and generate revenue. With it, you can choose the mailing areas you want to reach with your offer.
When you trust your advertising to Valpak, you reach an audience with more discretionary income looking to spend money with your business. Valpak mails to consumers with 33% higher income and 27% more purchase power. Among the households that receive Valpak, 93% open the envelope and 82% look at every ad inside!
If You Aren’t Marketing Your Lawn Care Business, You’re…
…Helping the Competition
When you only market your lawn care and landscaping business during peak season, you’re leaving the door open for competitors to swoop in and take your customers. Remember when we mentioned consistency? Marketing your business regularly – even during the slow months – keeps you top of mind when potential customers are ready for your services.
…Risking Customer Loss
Marketing is a way of establishing trust and credibility. By not advertising, customers might wonder if you’re still in business. Savvy businesses are regularly visible and if people aren’t hearing or seeing your name and brand through marketing, doubts may seep in.
…Missing Out on New Business
When a homeowner is new to your neighborhood, they don’t know who to contact for lawn care and landscaping services. This is where your marketing will generate fresh revenue. But you must advertise for them to know you exist! New customers will more likely choose the company whose branding and messaging has captured their attention the most.
Where Does Digital Come In?
You can make your direct mail marketing even more powerful by having a digital presence. In the latest “State of the Connected Consumer Report,” Salesforce found that 74% of consumers use multiple channels to complete a single transaction.
Setting up a paid search campaign, or search engine marketing (SEM), is a quick and powerful way to drive traffic to your website – and customers to your door. Speaking of your website, it must be user and mobile-friendly, load quickly and have key design elements or potential customers will lose interest and click away.
Maintaining a social media profile featuring customer reviews is another vital aspect of digital marketing. Nielsen asserts that 84% of consumers rely on recommendations from influencers, family and peers more than other forms of marketing. And where do they go to get recommendations? Social media.
Combining these and other digital marketing methods with a direct mail campaign will boost your brand awareness and increase response. For example, a business listing on valpak.com extends the reach of your offers and makes them available to consumers 24/7.
Know What Your Customers Want – And Give It To Them!
They say, “if you build it, they will come.” Team up with Valpak and build an effective marketing campaign for your lawn care and landscaping business. In January 2021, Valpak conducted a Home Services Consumer Survey, asking:
- What offers homeowners respond to most
- Which home services are the most popular in several categories
- What motivates homeowners to try a new service/switch from their current service
- And more
Take a look at the results and reach out today to have your local Valpak representative contact you to answer your questions.
Sources: ANA/DMA Response Rate Report, current edition. Claritas data with current year projections (compared to the U.S. average). Valpak® Readership Study. “State of the Connected Consumer: 4th Edition,” Salesforce Research.
