Guide to lawn care marketing

Marketing has become a central component of any lawn care business. Landscaping businesses can consistently miss out on potential customers without a clear, integrated and effective marketing strategy.

Importance of creating an online presence for your lawn care company

Lawn care service providers are often so busy with the day-to-day activities of running a small business that creating robust and effective marketing strategies can often be pushed to the side. However, without digital marketing and lead generation tactics, small businesses can miss out on new lawn care job opportunities.

Homeowners and small businesses in your service area use search engines to find landscapers to work on their lawns. They want to be able to read reviews, get referrals and find your contact information, such as a phone number or lawn care website, to reach out to you.

Additionally, having online testimonials is incredibly helpful in acquiring new customers. Word-of-mouth is still one of the most powerful tools for getting new business, and it is all happening online.

Lawn care marketing tools

Creating an online marketing plan for your lawn care services will generate more leads and help you build your business. Here are a few lawn care marketing tips for your marketing strategy:

Mobile-friendly website

One of the first and most important things you can do to market your landscaping business is to have a mobile-friendly website. Often, new leads search for service providers on their mobile devices and your website should be easy to use, quick to load and clean. Moreover, if your website is mobile-friendly, Google will show your website higher in search results.

Blogging

Having a blog on your website can be a great way to share helpful landscaping information while creating better search engine optimization (SEO). Writing blogs that have essential, highly-searched keywords will help your website rank higher on search engines and directories.

The free tool Google Keyword Planner identifies the right keywords to use for a particular business. Creating a content marketing strategy for your landscaping business can also include other channels, such as YouTube.

Social media marketing

Using sites like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, business owners can create landscaping marketing campaigns that engage potential customers. Appearing in search results organically with helpful content is important, and landscapers should aim to use multiple social media platforms, if possible.

Local search engine optimization

As a business owner, you need a lawn care website. Being searchable in your local area is one of the best ways to get discovered by new customers. When building or updating your website, make sure you’re building it for SEO.

If potential customers search for lawn mowing or landscaping in your area, you want to show up as one of the first options for them to choose from. Using local SEO, you’ll rank higher in the search results.

Google Business Profile

Make sure your lawn care business is listed on Google using Google Business Profile. This helps you manage your business listing on Google and is free. If your business is already listed on Google, you should claim it and control the public information and respond to customer reviews.

SMS Marketing

SMS marketing, or text message marketing, has become a critical part of building landscaping companies in recent years. Almost every single person has their cell phone with them at all times. Using text messaging marketing, you’re almost guaranteed to reach your potential customers where they are, instead of hoping for the best when reaching out to them through other channels.

Email marketing

Email marketing offers one of the highest levels of return on investment (ROI) of all the marketing tactics. Before you start email marketing, you’ll first need to focus on collecting emails from potential, current and past customers.

If you offer incentives, like discounts or free guides, you can ask for emails in return. When sending email campaigns, you’ll want to show up regularly in inboxes. Commit to a cadence that feels achievable for you and your team and stick to it.

Maintaining strong relationships with lawn care customers

While a marketing strategy is important for future business, maintaining strong relationships with current and past lawn care customers is just as important. Your past and current customers can be your best asset in finding new customers.

Importance of customer retention

It is much cheaper and easier to retain customers than it is to invest in finding new customers. If your lawn care company provides great service, customers will want to come back when they have future landscaping needs.

Because you have an existing relationship with the customer, there is trust and goodwill already established. Providing excellent customer service and great communication will help you retain customers and spend less time searching for new business.

Online reviews

As mentioned earlier, word-of-mouth and customer testimonials are crucial to take your business to the next level. Providing great service, then asking your customers to leave reviews is an important practice to adopt. For some, this can be laborious but there are great companies out there to help you manage this process from start to finish.

Web Chat

Being available immediately when customers need help leads to higher customer satisfaction and thus, customer retention and referrals. Web Chat enables you to instantly answer questions about their current landscaping job, a future lawn care need or billing and payment. It allows you to have direct conversations with your customers when you already have their attention.

Online advertising

While online advertising does cost money, it can be a great strategy for business owners who want to ensure they rank higher than the competition on common search engine platforms. Online advertising should be used in conjunction with local SEO efforts. It should also be noted that when running ad campaigns, business owners need to create the ads themselves.

Google Ads

Landscapers can use Google Ads to target specific search keywords and phrases that your leads may use while searching for a landscaper on Google. Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) model, which means you pay each time the ad shows up on a Google search.

Within the Google Ads platform, business owners can create a very specific target audience so that when your ad is served, it is only shown to high-quality, qualified leads.

Facebook Ads

Similar to Google Ads, landscapers can use Facebook Ads to target specific audiences in their local area. Facebook is still a huge platform that many people use to search for local businesses. Facebook is a cost-per-click (CPC) model, meaning you pay a certain amount each time a lead clicks on your ad.

Lawn care marketing FAQ

How do I generate more landscaping leads?

There are a lot of ways to generate more landscaping leads, many of which are covered above, however, here are a few key tactics:

• Direct mail
• Local SEO
• Facebook and/or Google Ads
• Content marketing
• Email marketing
• Industry-specific directories

How do I improve my landscaping business’s reputation?

Your business’s online presence and reputation go hand-in-hand. To improve your reputation, you should focus on trying to get more online reviews from your customers. One way to do this is with a referral program incentive.

This may mean the referrer gets a percentage of any confirmed customers they bring to your lawn care business. You may also want to work with a company to help manage the review process, like Broadly.

Where should lawn care companies advertise online?

If money were no object, it would make sense to advertise everywhere you possibly could. However, most businesses have budgets, so Google Ads and Facebook Ads are both great places to start advertising. Business owners can set spending limits on both platforms, helping them to manage their marketing budgets effectively.

Grow your lawn care business with Broadly

Broadly helps lawn care business owners build a strong, lasting online presence and reputation. Supporting over 6,000 local businesses, Broadly helps businesses improve their customer experiences, online marketing strategies and lead generation tactics to grow their business and maintain powerful customer relationships.