As digital marketing continues to grow, businesses are now spending an average of $75,000 a year just on digital campaigns. For a small landscaping business, this is no small figure. If you’re looking to market your landscaping business, you may need to figure out how to use all the best tactics in a DIY manner.
While a professional digital marketing agency can squeeze the most juice out of the fruit that is digital marketing, there’s a lot that companies can do to spend less. By taking advantage of all of the social media, digital ad, and directory services online, you can position yourself to be found by customers without spending much.
To stay competitive, you need to market your landscaping business in a digital space. Here are 10 ways you can kickstart your marketing on your own.
1. Give People a Why
Rather than focusing all of your marketing efforts on just getting your name and your service out there, tell people what they can get from your service. Rather than saying you have the best landscaping service, suggest something a little more emotional.
A huge percentage of buying habits from consumers is connected to emotional impact. Telling people how much more time they could have to do the things they love will be a better selling point than telling them what kind of equipment you have.
2. Use Facebook
You could market your landscaping business using the one place you’ll find two-thirds of the entire U.S. On Facebook, you can connect with your audience, show off your work, target ads to exact zip codes, and much much more.
Giving your customers the opportunity to be in touch with you is another priceless element of Facebook. An increasing number of people under 45 are finding out about businesses for the first time on Facebook. You could be the first company in your area that millennial homeowners hear about and the last landscaping business they ever have to choose!
3. Try PPC
If you haven’t used Pay-Per-Click advertising, it could be the thing that helps your business to take off in the digital space. When someone in your region searches for landscaping services, they might get one of your competitors at the top of their results.
Above those results, there’s a space reserved just for ads placed with search engines. By paying for this space, you’ll be at the perceived top of the list all of the time. Since 40% of search engine users click the first link, you’ve got a great shot at building your clientele with PPC.
4. Clean Up Your Site
If you haven’t redesigned your site in 5 years, you might need to start from scratch. As mobile browsing now outweighs desktop browsing, it’s a must that your site looks great and works perfectly on phones and tablets.
Any site that doesn’t won’t be visited for more than a couple of seconds before your potential clients click away to a competitor.
On top of that, make sure you’ve got great professional photos of your work and your staff. Low-quality photos will damage the perception of your company in your clients’ eyes.
5. Search Engine Optimization
There are free ways to get to the top of search engine results. Search engines rank pages by a handful of factors. Tick off all the boxes and you’ll be at the top.
Search engines like sites that are updated often, with plenty of fresh content. Consider adding a blog to your site and contributing to it at least once a week.
Search engines also like sites that are neatly organized. This is where web design comes in. A site with simple menus that appears well organized will be listed hither.
On top of that, don’t forget to include local terms in all of your keywords and keyword phrases.
6. Email Marketing
Believe it or not, emailing still works in connecting with clients. Email is a way to reach people in a somewhat personal way and get them more information than they’ll see on social media.
Use a call to action button on your website to collect emails. Offer discounts or a free lawn care kit or guide to potential customers in exchange for contact information. This will allow you to follow up with them.
They’ll feel obligated to listen once they’ve gotten something free from you.
7. Get More Reviews
If you’re a new company or aren’t listed in any review directories yet, it’s time to claim your listings. Once you’ve entered your information on Yelp, Facebook, Angie’s List, Google My Business, Yahoo! Local, start asking your customers for reviews.
Send out small batches of emails to your most dedicated and most pleased clients asking for reviews on one site at a time. Once you’ve built up enough views, you’ll build your brand reputation as strong enough to withstand the odd bad review that might come your way.
8. Flyers Still Work
Put together a well-designed flyer and start handing it out. If there’s a big demographic shift in an area, start putting your flyers under people’s doors or into their mailboxes.
People often have to see your name three times before they remember it. Get it out there a few times to a few different people and you’re sure to see results.
Get people to your website and use the analog tactic to build digital traffic when you market your landscaping business.
9. In-Person Sales
As the owner of a business, you’re the number one brand ambassador. Get out there and get to know your clients. Go to events and conferences and shake hands.
If you offer extra services like composite dock decking, carry some samples with you.
If there are any local street festivals, put together a giveaway or a discount contest. Through these efforts, you can meet people to potentially make sales and get email addresses to follow up.
Using a combination of in-person and digital sales tactics can pay off.
Market Your Landscaping Business 24/7
Using search engines and social media, you can be marketing your business 24-hours a day. Try out some tools that can automate tweets and posts so you can set up a seasonal, holiday marketing campaign far in advance.
If you’re ready to kick your marketing efforts into high gear, check out our free web tools to get started.