Start A Lawn Care Business

Make money with a lawn care and landscaping business.

Posts Tagged advertising

KISS Advertising for lawn care

Apr 9

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, landscaping, lawn business strategies, Lawn Care Advertising, mulching | No Comments

KISS Advertising: 
Keep it simple, stupid!

If you are anything like me in the early days of my lawn care business advertising, you over-think yourself with your flyers, newspaper ads, and other advertising.  It took me a couple years to realize the beauty of simplicity. 
A potential customer only needs to know two things before they call you:
1) What service do you provide? 
2) How do they contact you?

I recently came across a sign tacked to a telephone pole which, in two words, summed up an entire business concept.

lawn care advertising sign

NEED MULCH?  Two words
sum up an entire business concept.

Your potential customers are smarter than you might think:

Customers do not require overly complicated advertising to explain your offer.  Two words "lawn care" or "gutter
cleaning" or "leaf raking" are all you need to say along with your phone number or website address.  Your potential customers can figure out the rest.

Legibility is important:

How many times have you seen a sign taped to a telephone pole written on a piece of notebook paper with magic marker that has faded or run from the rain?  I have seen many flyers like this.  If potential customers cannot read your sign, they are not going to call you.  A professional sign gives your customers an immediate favorable opinion of you.  Look at the "NEED MULCH" sign.  It is professionally printed and easy to read with bold, black lettering.  I did not need to slow my truck down to be able to read the numbers and make a mental not of them.
 

Professional printing of your lawn care flyers:

How much did the "Need Mulch" sign cost? 
If you buy signs like this in quantity, you can buy them for just a few dollars each.  A professionally designed and printed sign will bring you many more customers than a flimsy piece of paper printed from you home computer.  If you are tempted to print your lawn care signs on a piece of paper think again. 
Pony up a few dollars and have a professional sign company make your signs.
 

No need for area code or additional information:

If your target lawn care customers are in the same area code as you, there is no need to include the zip code. Two pieces of information will satisfy your customers desire for information before they contact you. 
1) The service you offer.
2) A way to contact you.

Professional placement:

I only have one issue with the "Need Mulch" sign.  Sometimes, signs tacked to telephone poles are considered eyesores by residents of the neighborhood.  In many cases, it may also be illegal to tack your sign to a utility pole.  Be discreet in placement of flyers and signs.  Get authorization before you put advertising on public or private land.  Do not let your signs become torn or worn out.  If they weather, replace them.

Advertising for your lawn care business can be much more successful if you follow a few SIMPLE rules.

The Lawn Care Business Program available from
www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com
includes a large marketing guidebook to help you get the best results using the latest advertising methods.  The program covers old school advertising such as flyers and newspaper ads.  It also covers the latest in advertising strategies such as MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook. 

STARTALAWNCAREBUSINESS.COM

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Advertising your lawn care company.

Mar 26

Posted by Lawn Care Business in Lawn Care Advertising | 1 Comment

by: Start A Lawn Care Business

When is the right time to start advertising a lawn care business?

There is an easy answer to this question: If you own your own business, you should ALWAYS be advertising.

When landscaping companies think about starting to advertise their lawn care businesses, they are often referring to the first advertising campaign of the season which begins in February, March, or April depending on where you live in the country.

Companies that don’t start advertising until Spring do not realize that there is more to running a grounds maintenance company than just cutting grass.

From picking up fallen branches, leaf raking, snow removal, and gutter cleaning wintertime is full of business opportunities. We recommend advertising your lawn and landscape business 12 months out of the year.

If you keep your business name in front of your customer all year round, they will find jobs they need you to work all winter. One easy example of a customer that answered a wintertime advertisement of our is a lady who hired us to intall a mailbox and post on her property one December When February rolled around we called back to see if she had a lawn maintenance company for the coming summer. She asked for an estimate and hired us on the spot. It is never too early to start advertising.

Advertising should be an ongoing concern for all business owners. Our Lawn Care Business Package contains a complete Marketing Guidebook. To order the package (on sale right now) visit our website at:

www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Free local advertising through door knocking and bare knuckle marketing.

Feb 26

Posted by Lawn Care Business in Lawn Care Advertising | 2 Comments

Economic times are hard and sooner or later you are going to realize that Knuckle Marketing is your way out of the economic downturn.  Now, before you rush out and start punching people, Knuckle Marketing is not what it sounds like.

If you have been in the lawn care business any length of time, you’ve probably resorted to passing out flyers, putting up signs, and placing hangers on door knobs.  I believe those passive attempts at marketing will become less effective as the economy continues to slump.

Knuckle Marketing is an active form of advertising your business.  Knuckle Marketing doesn’t rely on the customer to react to a passive stimulus.  Gone are the days when a simple classified ad in the newspaper would bring a flood of customers to your door.  Gone are the days when word-of-mouth advertising would fill your roster for the summer.

Knuckle Marketing is the wave of the future. It’s the here.  It’s the now.

I’m sure you’re asking “what is Knuckle Marketing?”  I’m going to tell you.

But first, I’m going to say that Darwinian Economics is in full effect for small lawn care business entrepreneurs this year.  The weak will not survive.  The lazy will not survive.  The smart and the strong and the tenacious will survive and they will position themselves for explosive future growth.  The smart and the strong and the tenacious know the power of Knuckle Marketing.

Knuckle Marketing is simply using your knuckles to knock on peoples’ doors and speak to them face-to-face.  Knuckle Marketers spend the day knocking on doors and getting 9 out of 10 of them slammed in their face.  

When that 10th door opens and the owner agrees to let them cut the grass, Knuckle Marketers have their mowing equipment on hand ready to work immediately.  Once a price agreement is made the homeowner isn’t given a chance to backout by scheduling the work for a future date.

If you’re spending your time waiting for the phone to ring, look at your knuckles.  Are they bloody from knocking on doors? 
If they’re not, you’re not working hard enough.

Start A Lawn Care Business offers a comprehensive lawn care business program and software for new and existing lawn care business owners.
Visit the website: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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A Lawn Care Business needs a GEO Specific Website.

Feb 26

Posted by Lawn Care Business in Lawn Care Advertising | No Comments

The marketing guidebook of our Lawn Care Business Program details a tremendous number of tips and tricks on the art of advertising and marketing your lawn care business.  A healthy lawn care and landscaping marketing plan should include the name of your business as well as a website / domain name.

If you are just starting and have yet to name your business, a perfect correlation between your business name and your domain name should be considered.  Furthermore, a Geo-specific business name and url may be most advisable.

We often receive emails from new LCOs wondering what to name their businesses.  A recent email asked if “Big Jim’s Lawn Care” is a good name. We answered this email delicately (not wanting to make “Big Jim” angry).  If Big Jim is known in his community, this might be an acceptable name.   However, without knowing Big Jim, the name tells potential customers nothing about his business.

We ask you to think about your business name from your (potential) customers’ viewpoints.  Also think about how those customers will search for your business using Google or some other search engine online. 

Just as an example, consider the search terms used by clients looking for a landscaping company in a large southern city in Tennessee.  Will these people search for “Big Jim’s Lawn Care”  or will they search for “Chattanooga Lawn Care?”  More than likely, they will choose the latter or something similar.

By naming your website ChattanoogaLawnCare.com (or whatever your city name is) you are more likely to attract website visitors from your city.  Also, the phenominon of non-search type-in visitors is not to be overlooked.  Type-In visits occur when a person simply types a word into the address bar without searching for it.  If you have yourcitylawncare.com you will be surprised how many visitors will come directly to your site.

When naming your lawn care / landscaping business and when choosing a domain name consider the benefits of Geo Specific names.

We want to thank Craig of GoogleSlam for furthering our knowledge of the benefits of Geo Specific domain names. 

About our business:  StartALawnCareBusiness.com has been associated with the Green Industry since 1992.  Our business manuals and software are some of the best information on starting a  lawn care business.  We have recently released the lastest updates to the program.  The business package is available through www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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