Okay, okay.  The title of this post might be just a bit mis-leading, because in today’s competitive marketplace, without a website your business is TOAST.  The problem is, most business ONLY GET a website, and that’s it.

While a website can be a HUGE advantage when it comes to marketing your business, without a complete web MARKETING PLAN in place, your website is little more than an online brochure.  And when that’s all your website is, you might as well save your money or invest it in some other way to market your lawn care business.

What you need is a WEB MARKETING PLATFORM.  Here’s what your web marketing platform should include:

• A direct response website that captures the attention of your prospects, offers something of value, and then captures their contact information in exchange
• An automated follow-up marketing system so that once someone leaves their contact information you’re able to continually market to them on auto-pilot
• A traffic generating system that drives truckloads of qualified, interested prospects to your direct response website.  This system should include:
  •  Some paid marketing via Google AdWords, banner ads, or ezine ads
  • Some search engine optimization that drives FREE traffic to your site
• An on-going educational system that continually reaches out to the prospects that don’t respond initially and provides them with additional information, education about your products and/or services, and gives them opportunities to purchase these
• A consolidated effort with all of your offline market efforts, allowing you to maximize the effectiveness of ALL your marketing efforts

Look, if all you’re getting is a website that’s just going to sit there, here’s a little piece of advice:  SAVE YOUR MONEY.  Yes, you might get a few leads here and there, but not enough to make any real difference.

To truly maximize your online marketing dollars, get yourself a true Web Marketing Platform and watch your business skyrocket as result!

As you work to grow your lawn care business or landscaping business, one of the most dangerous blunders you could ever make is relying on one single method of marketing your business.  No matter how well you’ve got your systems down, when you rely on one single method of marketing and growing your business you’re setting yourself up for disaster.

You see, when you rely on just one method, what happens to your business if something were to happen to that method?  Where would your business be without it’s steady flow of new leads and prospects?

So what does this mean for your business?  It basically means you need to diversify your marketing so you’re getting new prospects and customers from a variety of different sources.

A good list of marketing metods and resources includes:

• Direct mail (sales letters, postcards, etc.)
• Flyers or doorhangers
• Signs (truck signs, yard signs, etc.)
• Existing customers (word of mouth referrals)
• Yellow pages
• Newspaper ads
• Magazine ads
• Ads in community newsletters
• Tele-marketing
• Online marketing which could include:
  •  Organic searches
  • Paid searches (Google AdWords)
  • Email marketing
  • Ezine advertising
  • Banner Ads
  • Text link ads

In these troubled economic times, you definitely want to be have as many lines in the water as possible to ensure you’re able to add enough prospects to your sales funnel.  That way, if any one method were to become ineffective you’d be able to continue growing your business.

I wanted to share with you today about quite possibly the biggest opportunity you have to really set yourself apart from your competition and snag an unfair share of your marketplace.

You see, way too many businesses assume that their prospects make decisions based on minimal information AND that they’re not at all interested in reading. They assume that if someone is interested in taking the next step, whatever that may be, that they will take the next logical step without much coaxing, prodding, or convincing.

Unfortunately, not even close.

While providing your prospects with a minimal amount of information might work if you were selling ultra low ticket items like diet sodas, tasteless hamburgers, or t-shirts, because you’re selling something that more expensive and ‘riskier’ so to speak, it requires providing your prospects AS MUCH information as possible to help them make the best decision possible..

You see, your customer’s have all sorts of questions that should be answered up front in your marketing, in one-way or another.

Questions like:

How do I know your product or service will do what you say it does?

Why should I believe what you’re telling me?

How long will it take for me to start seeing the results of your service?

How can I be sure you’ll come through if things don’t work out as promised?

Why shouldn’t I just go with the cheaper option?  If your price seems low, why is it so low? If it seems high, why is it so high?

Now, I could continue on, but hopefully you get the picture.

Okay, so here’s the quiz.

Do you know the top ten questions that are running through your prospects mind about your products or services?

If so, are you answering those questions in your advertising?  Or are you waiting, hoping, and praying either they will ask, giving you an opportunity to explain, or they won’t ask so you won’t have to come up with an answer?

Basically, if you’re serious about really growing your business and making some big time profits, you MUST educate your prospects upfront about your products and services. There’s absolutely no getting around it.

Now, what exactly does that mean?

It means you’ve got to make a commitment to getting your whole story down on paper. And in that story, you’ve got to address all the concerns racing around the minds of your prospects and customers.

I know it sounds simple, but unfortunately, there’s a catch.

You see, you have to tell you whole story or answer ALL of your prospects questions in a way that holds their attention.  You can’t simply start writing and expect things to fall into place.

You’ve got to either learn how to write benefit driven copy, or you could hire a professional copywriter.  You then decide how you can best communicate that story in a way that is effective & cost efficient. You’ve got to account for all the different ways you can get prospects into your sales funnel and what information, or pieces of the story you need to share at the various points in the process.

For now though, just make a commitment to thinking about your customer’s buying process. What are they thinking about when they have a problem YOU can solve? What’s running through their minds when they need what you’ve got?

If you want to make your marketing truly exceptional and powerful, you’re going to answer those questions. There’s no way around it!

So to summarize, forget your fear of telling your prospects too much with your marketing. Instead, concentrate on communicating all of the facts, in a way that captivates their interest & attention. Once you have that, you qualify for their desire & action!

Without a doubt, most marketing and advertising is hollow. Your competitors included. Don’t get caught in the same trap.  Instead, educate your customers and clarify the reasons why they’d have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone but you.

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 fantastic snippet from author, speaker, marketing guru Seth Godin: