Deadly Lawn Care Marketing Mistake #6

Before we get to today’s ‘deadly’ marketing mistake, I’d like to take just a few minutes to review the things we’ve discussed previously.  Since this is to be the 6th installment of the 7 Deadly Small Business Marketing Mistakes, the five deadly sins we discussed previously are as follows:

  Mistake #1:  Trying to copy ‘big business’ marketing tactics

  Mistake #2:  Confusing ‘branding’ with marketing

  Mistake #3:  Asking your marketing materials to do too much

  Mistake #4:  Not asking your marketing materials to do enough

  Mistake #5:  Not being specific enough with your market or not picking a niche

Today’s lesson is another common mistake made by all businesses, big or small.  This one is what I call the ‘Yellow Pages Syndrome’. Open up your local yellow pages and turn to any section. Upon examining a handful of ads, you’ll quickly notice that the same message is repeated over and over and over again. They may use different words, but they’re essentially saying the same thing.  There’s really no way to distinguish one company from another, other than the phone number.

Don’t be guilty of this sin!  You absolutely MUST differentiate yourself in such a way that your prospects can see that you’re different from everyone else.  You want them to be able to pick your company out of a lineup of all the other lawn care or landscaping companies, otherwise you could get lost in a sea of sameness.  Definitely not a good thing!

Now, by differentiating yourself, I mean find something about your product or service that sets you apart from your competition and then make that the focus of your marketing message. That doesn’t mean that you need to go out and invent some new facet of your business. It simply means you need to find one or two things that really matter to your target market that you do better than anyone else and then you focus your marketing message on those things.

Instead of simply listing all the services you offer, just like every other company does, go into detail about one of the services you provide.  Tell your prospects why you use the equipment you do.  Or tell them how you provide a written report on the status of the lawn after every service call.  Or tell them how you do a free lawn analysis once a month and provide a list of recommended actions in order to help them maintain a lush, green lawn all year long.

So, what if you don’t think you have or do anything special that could set you apart from your competition?  Find something!  If you’re so busy right now ‘mowing and going’, then you need to take a few moments to think about your business, what makes it special from everyone else, and then start focusing on that.  Otherwise you’ll end up always competing on price and trust me, that’s not something you want to be competing on if you want to have a thriving business for years to come.

Finally, at every opportunity you have, tell your prospects how you’re different from the competition, why you have what they’re looking for, and why they should do business with you instead of your competition.  Focus on this differentiating factor in your marketing materials and you’ll soon be standing head and shoulders above everyone else when it comes time for the ol’ lineup.

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