Considering how rapidly the landscape is changing, it’s no wonder so many people are dazed and confused when it comes to marketing their lawn care or landscaping business.  It’s easy to get ‘analysis paralysis’ and end up either spinning your wheels or not doing anything at all.

So, to help cut through some of the clutter, I want to hear from you.  What’re your biggest marketing questions?  What’re your biggest obstacles to effectively marketing your business?

Are you trying to get more traffic to your website?  What about what to do with the traffic once it comes to your site?

Are tired of the same old, boring, ‘generic’ postcards, but aren’t sure what else you could send out that would generate positive results?

Whatever your questions, leave them in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer each one of them.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to login to post your comments, but it’ll definitely help me do a better job of following up to make sure your questions were answered.

So, post your comments below about marketing your lawn care or landscaping business.

A few suggestions to help boost the response you get from your next marketing piece:

• Know your audience inside and out, then speak to their wants.
• Create your materials for the ’scanner’ or the one who simply skims over the copy.
• Focus on benefits, not features.  A feature describes; a benefits answers the question, “What’s in it for me?”
• If writing a sales letter or postcard, add a P.S.  30% of your readers will read it first.
• Use the word “you” twice as often as you use the word “I” or “we”.
• Remember, the average person reads at an elementary school level.

These are just a handful suggestions for making your next marketing campaign a huge success.  In the coming days, I’ll share even more items from a lengthy list I personally use when analyzing marketing campaigns so stay tuned!

There’s been a discussion going on over at the GopherForum regarding telephone advertisements.  Jody, one of the members there was mentioning that an ad rep came across their ad in Craig’s List, liked the fact they donate 10% of their revenue to local charities, and called up to say she wanted to put them on the cover of the book.

A discussion ensued regarding what their ad show say and look like.  As is usually the case, most of the suggestions reflected a lot of the ‘me-too’ style marketing that happens in the yellow pages.  As a result, everyone ends up saying the same thing and there’s really nothing that sets one service provider apart from the others.

Ultimately, the customer doesn’t know who to call so they end up playing ‘eenie, meenie, mienie, moe” to decide.

This is a HUGE shame because close to 60% of all visitors to the phone book can be swayed to call one service provider over the next IF given compelling reasons to do so.

Anyway, here’s a sample ad I put together for Jody to show what a killer directory ad should look like.  As you’ll notice, it includes the same elements that ANY good marketing piece should have:

• Attention grabbing headline
• Benefits the customer will receive
• A killer offer to motivate them to act, in this case, there are 2 such offers (free 1st visit, free soil/lawn analysis)
• A strong, direct call to action - Call Today!
• Risk reversal elements, in this case the satisfaction guarantee
• Third party proof, here it’s the testimonial
• Elements of social proof, in this case the credit card logos

Here’s the ad:

 Now, if you were to compare this ad to almost any other ad you’d see in the phone book, it looks considerably different.  But that’s a good thing!

Anyway, feel free to use this as an example of what a good directory ad should look like and let me know how your results are!

I’ve seen plenty of lawn care marketing materials in my day. Unfortunately, most of them are missing out on quite a few critical elements that could really kick up the response. Here’s an example of a flyer that includes most of the important elements required to create killer marketing materials.

Lawn Care Marketing Flyer Example

Well, regardless if it’s already rolling or not, here’s a quick marketing thought for you to chew on and unfortunately, this one’s based on a number of real-life examples I’ve seen where the boat was missed BIG TIME.

In every single piece of marketing you put out, and I do mean EVERY piece, you should always include some type of offer.  It could be a simply flyer, a sales letter, a billboard, or a radio spot.  ALWAYS include an offer.

What the heck do I mean by that? 

Well, in the examples I’ve seen the only thing that’s been accomplished is to get a name out there.  In most cases, the business owner simply listed the available services although some were smart enough to translate the services into benefits the customer would ultimately receive. 

However, in almost all of the examples I saw there was one glaring omission that dramatically reduced the effectiveness of the ad.  This omission came in the form of no offer or no reason at all to pick up the phone and call. 

Here are a few ideas for offers that these businesses could have included, which I believe will dramatically improve their results:

• Get your 1^st service visit FREE!
• Get 10% off when you call us by Friday.
• Call now and we’ll give you a FREE bed cleanup.
• Claim your FREE consumer guide, ‘5 Secrets To a Beautiful, Lush, Weed-Free Lawn’, just for calling.

So, before you send anything out or sign off on any marketing contracts, give your pieces one more check to make sure you’ve included some type of an offer.  If you do, I guarantee you’ll see your marketing dollars generate a much higher ROI.

If you want to really jack up the responses you get from your marketing materials, make sure they ALWAYS have:

1. A strong, compelling headline that grabs the attention of your prospect and pulls them into your message
2. Compelling benefits that are relevant to your prospects.   They don’t care about you, so be sure to tell them about all the benefits they’ll get by selecting you.
3. Make them a valuable offer.  Give them a reason to pick up the phone or log onto your website to get more information.
4. Include a strong call to action.  Tell them exactly what they need to do to respond and when they need to do it.  Don’t assume it’s obvious what your prospect should do.
5. Provide 3rd party proof such as testimonials, ‘Before & After’ photos,  endorsements, or  some other tool whereby other people brag about your services.  It will carry much more weight if someone other than you is saying how great your service is.
6. Offer some type of risk reversal such as a satisfaction guarantee, bonuses, or premiums to help your prospects feel like you’ve taken away all the risk of buying.  Do this and the barriers to buying will disappear.
7. Create urgency in order to eliminate procrastination.  Tell them you have a limited number of service packages available, or let them know they need to call by a certain date in order to qualify for the bonuses or premiums.

Be sure to include these important elements in your next sales letter, flyer, postcard, or door hanger and I GUARANTEE you’ll see your results sky rocket.