7 steps blueprint that will help you get more landscaping clients
Grow your landscaping business without breaking the bank
Growing your landscaping business with the new immigration law, with the fuel cost going up and big landscaping sharks eating small business owners with lower prices and bigger marketing budgets can be something that might overwhelm you from time to time.
That said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel… In this connected world, people love to buy from people. Now on Google, more and more people search for “landscapers near me”. With Google knowing each person location, if somebody in your area is searching for a landscaper, your website is going to show up if you have a good SEO optimization.
I created a free checklist that will help you assess your marketing efforts and plan what are some of the next steps you need to take to get your business to the next level. There is no optin required, just a download button.
Now back to the blueprint. In this, you will find 7 steps that if followed will make clients call you and ask how soon can you start working for them, not how much do you charge.
Step 1 — Install a business referral program
Happy clients would love to recommend you to their peers. Yet, only 10% of your happy clients do that because you have no system. Having a system is going to make your clients recommending you much easier. This is going to bring you clients without spending money on advertising.
“The best advertising is done by satisfied customers.” ― Kotler, Philip
People like to receive gifts or bonuses. Create an incentive (monetary or non-monetary) and make recommending your business easy for your clients. When you have a happy client, ask them if you can make a video with them where they answer some questions about the job you did. Then send this 3–5 minutes video to their peers and give 10% off or something for free as a gift from them to their friends. Create a script that makes your client feel good about doing this.
Step 2. Use old-school marketing tactics
Right now everyone goes online. People tell you to market over the internet on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google, Youtube and all the other platforms where you can advertise your business. This is a good thing for you? What do I mean? If everyone goes online, then radio, TV, and newspaper advertising have fewer clients so you could easily get ads in front of your audience very cheap.
Step 3. Create a good lead generation website
What do I mean by a good lead generation website? Your website has to generate leads on autopilot. If I go online on Google right now and look at the landscapers’ websites, most of them have a big button get a quote, about us section and some of the projects done. That is not enough to make people email you or call you. You have to make people want to contact you. When someone comes to your website and doesn’t know you, the first thing you should do is to grab that persons attention. You can do that by promising some education material if they leave their name and email addresses on your optin form. Then you have to create a follow-up campaign with 4–5 emails that educate the prospect before you ask them to buy something from you.
Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service. — Brian Tracy
After downloading the Marketing Makeover Checklist, you can schedule a free conversation with me to talk more about your business.
Step 4. Leverage Facebook and Instagram for online advertising.
On step 3 we talked about your website. If you have a web designer you should make them upload a Facebook and Google Pixel on your website. This way, you will be able to follow your prospects that only visit your website once until they subscribe to your list. Doing this is going to help you achieve cheaper click to rates and is going to make your marketing cost go lower. Lower cost per click leads to lower cost per lead. Lower cost per lead leads to lower cost per client. Lower cost per client leads to more profits and more money in your pocket. In marketing, you should always know your numbers and know how to improve them.
If you plan to use Facebook or any other online advertising platform, you should know your clients very well. There is a huge difference between a landscaper who only works with commercial developers than someone who works with customers that have a small backyard that needs improvements. When you define your ideal client profile you are going to be able to write on their language and be able to identify with them. Also, online advertising gives you the ability to target people based on location, interest or demographics. If you only serve a specific area let’s say near Washington, having someone from San Francisco looking at your ads is not going to do your business any good.
Step 5. Up-sell your existing customer base
You probably know that no matter how good you are as a landscaper, if the customer doesn’t take care of the yard, your beautiful work is not going to last forever. Think at a service contract you could sell to your existing customers base, that is going to make their garden or backyard look awesome for the whole warm season.
What are some gardening products or tools you could cheaply source from China and give them to your customers as gifts or sell them on a subscription basis?
Step 6. Brand your stuff
This is a very inexpensive way of advertising that some landscapers fail to put in place in their businesses. They believe that, because t-shirts and pants get dirty often there is no reason to invest in branding them. That is wrong because your people have to be recognizable by the clients. If they always see your logo and your name, they will remember it much easier. If they have to recommend a landscaper to a friend in the future, they will think of you — if you did a great job for them.
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” — Henry Ford
Your equipment, trucks and everything else has to have your logo. When it comes to trucks there is a good way to use that space and a bad way. With the Marketing Makeover Guide that I created, I also offer a free 15 minutes consultation. Click the link below and let’s have a chat about your business and how to improve your customers’ acquisition.
Step 7. Ask your clients to leave you a review online
Studies have demonstrated that online reviews are just as effective as a friends word of mouth recommendation. Set up your Google Business Page, your Yelp page, Facebook page, Angie’s List and everything that is used by your target audience and ask them to leave a review.
The best review you could get is a video review or testimonial, but words work as well. When you finish a job and the client is happy to pull out your smartphone and ask them if they can help you with a video review. Give them 3 questions and invite them to answer them on camera. Tell them that this will help you get more customers and avoid other people get ripped off by landscapers who don’t do a good job or leave them with the job unfinished.
This checklist helped a lot of people discover where they need to improve in their businesses. Because I want this information to get to as many people as I can you will not have to leave your email address and name to get it. You just go to the link below and download your copy.
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