Start A Lawn Care Business

Make money with a lawn care and landscaping business.

Posts Tagged flyers

Lawn Care Flyers On Car Windshields

Feb 9

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

When it comes to advertising a lawn care business, I’m a fan of pounding the streets and knocking on doors. I believe the way to build strong client lists is through face-to-face contact. As such, I tend to shy away from flyers on telephone poles and advertisements on doorknob hangers. These advertisements, along with business cards taped to the outside of mailboxes seem to be an intrusion into your potential customer’s private space.

lawn care business flyer under windshield wiper

I saw this flyer under a windshield wiper recently. I could only think of negative connotations about this flyer.

1) It always ticks me off when people put flyers on my vehicle.

2) I never look at flyers that have been left on my vehicle. I tear them up and throw them away immediately.

3) There are probably rules against placing solicitations on vehicles in this parking lot.

4) If a windshield wiper gets damaged, will the lawn care company have to pay the repair bill?

5) If a strong wind blows the flyer away or the car’s owner tosses the flyer to oneside, can the lawn company be charged with littering?

While I am not 100% AGAINST flyers on cars and private property, I do believe LCOs should be very restrictive in their placement of such flyers.

There are too many legitimate outlets for advertising to risk the downfalls of improperly placed flyers.

If you want to learn correct forms of advertising and advertising that REALLY WORKS, look at our business program located at our main website: StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Tags: , , , ,

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

Tags: , , , , , ,

Timing your advertising.

Mar 26

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

I was asked tonight:

“When is the right time to advertise my lawn care business? I’m sending out flyers but I want to hit the timing just right.”

That is a great question. A common mistake is to make an advertising run a one-time shot.

If you are sending out flyers, resist the temptation to send all your flyers out in one huge mailing. A smarter tactic is to ease into your advertising campaign so you can learn from your mistakes and refine your approach.

As an example, let’s say you have the budget to mail out 1000 flyers to potential lawn care clients. Do not send them all out to 1000 different addresses at the same time.

Choose 100 addresses to target in your first mailing. Give it a few days and judge your response. If you don’t receive any calls, you know you need to tweak your flyer. If you do get a few calls with this first mailing, ask them constructive questions. We discuss constructive customer questioning in our lawn care business program available at: StartALawnCareBusiness.com

The answers to these constructive questions will help you tweak your flyer to grab the attention of the recipients of the second 100 flyers. Follow the same procedure. Once you have tweaked your flyers again, mail a third hundred to the same address as the first 100 were mailed to. If you have successfully redesigned your flyer, your results for this round of mailing should be dramatically higher than the first round.

If you are pleased with your results, double your next mailing to 200 brand new addresses. As your results continue to improve, you can mail to larger numbers of recipients. Each group of potential customers should receive a minimum of two mailings. This will help you correctly judge the effectiveness of your refined flyers.

Never spent your entire advertising budget on a one-time, do-or-die advertising campaign.

Our Lawn Care Business Program includes the complete marketing guidebook to successfully advertising your lawncare / landscaping business.

Tags: , , , ,

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

Tags: , , ,