How to Get More Clients for Your Local Business Without Spending a Dime on Advertising.

By Creating an Irresistible Offer, Referral Program, and Setting up Your GMB.

Photo by Daniel McCullough on Unsplash

Do you know that many local businesses out there have tried marketing and fail miserably?

It’s true, some even waste a lot of money on inefficient Marketing Agencies but still can’t get the results they want and still be charged a thousand bucks every month.

But word of mouth alone is not enough to grow your business.

In the next step-by-step guide, I will share with you how to attract more clients to your local business without spending a dime on advertising.

Of course, advertising is important. But first, just focus on making some cash flow to your business.

In this article you will learn:

• How to create an irresistible offer people feel stupid saying no.
• How to create an effective referral program that brings more clients to your business.
• How to set up GMB that helps increase your business visibility on Google Maps.

Create an Irresistible Offer

I will take a landscaping business as an example.

Step 1: List all possible problems that your clients might face.

e.g.

• Don’t know how to maintain their yard properly.
• Want a beautiful garden but have no idea.
• Don’t know how to keep their yard beautiful all the time.
• Trees grow too much.
• The lawn grows too much.
• Lack of expertise.
• Lack of time.
• Dealing with pets.
• Dealing with weed.
• Plants could get diseases and die.
• Plants not get enough water because there is no irrigation system.
• The soil might not have enough nutrients for plants to grow.
• etc.

The key here is brainstorming and listing as many problems as you can think of. The more problems you solve the more valuable your service.

Pro tip: Use ChatGPT to suggest more problems that your business can solve for your clients.

Step 2: List all possible solutions to solve all of that problem.

e.g.

• Lawn care & maintenance service.
• Consult service about maintaining their yard.
• Pest & Weed control service.
• Fertilization service.
• Irrigation installation & maintenance.
• Trimming service.
• etc.

Again, the key here is brainstorming and listing as many solutions as you can even if They look quite not helpful.

Pro tip: Use ChatGPT to suggest more solutions that your business can offer to solve the problems for your clients.

Step 3: Package

Choose the best solutions that are high value, and then you turn all of those solutions into an annual package:

e.g.

• Landscape Design & Construction.
• Bi-weekly Lawn care (26 times/year).
• Bi-monthly Trimming (6 times/year).
• Fertilization (4 times/year).
• Pest Control (4 times/year).
• Irrigation System Installation.
• Irrigation System Maintenance (2 times/year)
• etc.

What you are selling them is the Dream Outcome (a Beautiful Garden Year Round) Not the Subscriptions. This means they will more likely buy from you and stay with you longer after seeing the amazing results that you provided.

Step 4: Bonuses

You can take one of the parts in your package as a bonus but still keep the price like you charge the whole package.

For Example: Bonus 4 FREE Fertilization/year.

People want FREE stuff so it will be valuable to have bonuses even buying the whole package.

In addition, it will be best if you apply a discount of 10–20% if they buy the whole package.

Don’t be afraid of losing your money by a discount. Actually, you are making much more money from a client.

If they just use your service per visit, they will churn out after several months.

But with the whole package, they will stick with you for at least one year so you still make a lot more money from them.

And by getting the best result for their garden with a comprehensive package they will be more likely to continue to sign up for your annual package.

So offering a discount of 10–20% to get them to buy is a great choice.

Step 5: Scarcity & Urgency

Make sure that you use real scarcity or urgency if your business can only handle 5 constructions per month so 5 is your scarcity.

If someone asks you about your service. Tell them that you can only handle X clients this month and currently have Y clients, if they don’t make the decision quickly, they might wait until the next month to get this amazing offer.

Another way to add scarcity is “We only offer X Bonuses for the first X clients each month, if you miss this opportunity you might wait until the next month to get this amazing offer”.

So you might ask, they might not care because they have a lot of choices out there.

That’s why your offer is so important. It makes your business differentiate from your competitors so if they want this offer they must use your service. That is the reason you need to make your offer SUPER valuable and sound like a bargain.

Step 6: Guarantee

Applying a guarantee to reverse the risk is one of the most important factors that determine whether your prospect decides to sign a contract with your business or not.

A satisfaction guarantee like “We are committed to your complete satisfaction. If our service does not meet your expectations, we will gladly revisit and address any concerns until you are fully satisfied” will get you a lot more clients.

So you might ask “What if they take advantage of me?”

Don’t worry, of course, there are several low-quality clients who will take advantage of you. But compared to the massive number of new clients this guarantee brings you, these BS clients make no sense.

Referral Program

To get more people to know about your stuff, you can leverage a Referral Program.

Needless to say, word of mouth is one of the main client sources for many landscaping businesses out there.

There are two reasons you don’t get referrals:

1. You are not good enough.
2. You don’t ask them.

I believe that your business is amazing and all you need to do is create a referral program to get them to refer their friends.

You can give them an X% discount for a friend that signs up with your business or Give them more bonuses such as FREE 3 times Lawn Care.

Nothing motivated people like money and FREE stuff, so leveraging discounts and bonuses for referrals is a great way to get more clients rather than just waiting for nothing.

Posting Content

Just ask yourself, the last time you buy something at a premium price. Did you search all on the internet about the business that you gonna buy from to see if they are credible or not?

Absolutely! So making content on social media is super important since it increases the perceived likelihood of achievement and your business appears legit in your prospect’s mind. That is when they decided to go further with your business.

These are topics that you can consider to post on your social media page:

1. Highlight Your Work

• Before / After photos of your latest projects;
• Client testimonials
• Case Studies

=> This is the most important type of content since your prospect will see your previous work to consider before decision.

2. Educational Content

• How-to-guide: Create step-by-step guides on lawn care, planting tips, or seasonal maintenance.
• Done-it-Yourself Tips: Offer DIY tips for simple landscaping projects homeowners can tackle themselves.

3. Behind-the-Scenes and Team Introduction

• Meet the Team: Introduce your team members, their roles, and their expertise to your audience.
• Day in the life: Share behind-the-scenes glimpses of a typical work day or project.

Tips:

• High-Quality Photos and Videos.
• Engage with Your Audience.
• Consistency is key.
• Plan ahead content with a content calendar to ensure consistent posting
• Post at optimal times when your audience is most likely to be active (e.g evening or weekend)

Optimize Your GMB

What is GMB?

GMB is your business appearance on Google Maps. It is crucial for improving the visibility of your landscaping business. As a result, attracts more clients.

Here is a Step-by-Step Guide that I found valuable you can apply to setup your GMB.

Google (My) Business Tutorial 2024 | A Step-by-step Guide

Tips that help you attract more clients:

• Profile Photo: Use your logo or a professional photo that represents your business.
• Cover Photo: Choose an eye-catching image that showcases your work or storefront.
• Photos of Your Work: Add photos of completed landscaping projects, before-and-after transformations, and team members at work.
• Videos: Share videos introducing your services, showcasing projects, or providing tips on landscaping.
• Write a Compelling Description: Use keywords related to landscaping services and your local area.
• Highlight Unique Selling Points: Mention what sets your landscaping business apart from competitors.
• Include Call-to-Actions (CTAs): Encourage potential customers to contact you or visit your website for more information.
• Encourage Reviews: Ask satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on your GMB profile.
• Respond to Reviews: Engage with customers by responding to reviews promptly, both positive and negative, to show your commitment to customer satisfaction.

That’s how you can attract more clients to your business by changing your offer, creating a referral program, and setting up your GMB.

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