Just like any other business, marketing is very important in the Landscaping business.
A key marketing strategy can determine whether or not a business is successful or never gets off the ground. Branded Screen Printing has complied a list of tips and important information to help you market your Landscaping business.
Logo Design
While some businesses skip over the idea of putting a logo together, it is very beneficial in the long run of business. Establishing a logo early on will start making your business recognizable and save you money in the long run. Since your company will need business cards, truck stickers, safety vests and other items printed anyway, you might as well have them printed with a logo you intend on using. When deciding on a logo for your landscaping business, it is important to be unique, creative and thoughful when coming up with a concept. Customers that see the logo in the future will have your business to associate with it, rather than having simple text or, worse yet, no logo at all. You don’t want to be the company that is nameless, imageless and brandless and loose business to competitors. Not everyone has an eye for design or is creative enough to come up with a conceptual logo for their company. Graphic design companies can give a landscaping company plenty of options to choose from in many formats. Having this design will give you a competitive edge in the business world, fuel sales and spur recognition with customers previous and future.
Identify Your Brand Image
Once you have a logo set up with for your company, you need to explore your brand image. While the logo should hint to what your landscaping company is about, following the 4 steps below to ensure that your customers know exactly what your company is about. This method can lead to increased sales and well as planting a firm place in the landscaping business scene.
1. Know your prospective customers: it is essential in a landscaping business to identify what the perfect customer would be. What do you offer in landscaping that this customer would need? For example, if you have a tree trimming business, it would be important to identify customers that have over grown trees and would need assistance with this issue. After that, come up with secondary customers that might just need lawn maintenance or Christmas lights. Once you have a good idea of who your customers are, you can start focusing your marketing towards these people.
2. Define your niche: Is there something that your business excels in above any other Landscaping business in town? Does your business offer the best grounds keeping or the most intricate hedge work? Those are important factors to market to your potential customers, they separate you from the competition and gives value to your company. Make sure to include this type of attribute as a slogan or list these special services on your website, business cards or t-shirts.
3. Describe your benefits: What do you have that your customer wants? Explain to customers why they need your service and they should use your landscaping business instead of your competitors. Since your logo has been set-up and your niche has been determined, some customer will already know that they want to use your company. For those that don’t, you can use your custom website to explain the benefit of your company. An example of a benefit would be offering more services, or more customized services. As always, price and quality are important factors that any customer will be concerned with.
4. State your mission: Decide where you would like your company to do in the form of a marketing plan or simply on a scratch pad. Think of where you would like to see your company go in the next year, 5 years or even 10 years. A company should establish their marketing goals early on to form consistency and reinforce your brand.
Social Networking
Most landscaping businesses are hard at work all week long to keep their business going. Business owners may think that they don’t have time to type a status update for Facebook or snap a quick picture for Instagram. Additionally, results from these forms for marketing are not instant, which can be discouraging for a business. Even though these methods can seem silly or inconsequential, they are very important to any business in today’s market.
The first and probably the most well-known social media site is Facebook. Since Facebook is very personal in the first place, it is crucial to engage customers or potential customers in personal ways. For example, instead of posting your ads and just pictures of your recent landscaping jobs, add things that people can share with their Facebook friends. An idea would be creating a top 5 list of popular plants in the area and having them sort them by their favorites or putting a popular landscaping quote that can be reposted. Before posting, consider if the content is engaging, interesting and different than the competition. You can also apply these methods to Instagram, Linked In and various other social networking sites. In order to keep your website high in the organic (not paid) links, you must have many links coming from different sources (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc).
Another useful tool to connect with customers is creating a blog. The blog can be used to provide meaningful content to customers so that they continue to follow your blog. There are many ideas on what to blog, including your recent landscaping works, tips for customers on maintaining their yards in between services, the best plants that grow in the area and the days that they can water. The blog will also contribute to your link backs (links going back to your website) and help your Google ranking.
Once you have content from your posts and blog, you can start putting together a newsletter to send out to your customers. The customers will also see added value in the helpful advice provided by your company. Posting this to your website will add content, helping your website pull away from the competition.
All of these efforts will not be wasted. A thought out social networking campaign may not gain sales immediately, but when your Facebook friends or blog followers need landscaping, they will thing of the amazing company that offered all of the advice and interesting content.
Grow Your Business
When businesses first start it is difficult to spend money on marketing efforts that may not pay off immediately. Most companies rely on word of mouth to get things off the ground. These are good tactics to get initial business. Once you have a few customers established, it is easier to keep these customers rather than going out and finding new ones. Excellent customer service is essential in a business as well as creating a great buzz around your business. The buzz can be reinforced with your blog posts, newsletters and social media content.
To keep your current customers generating revenue, you can offer them additional services at a discounted price. For instance, if you maintain a customers backyard, you can offer to do their front yard at 20% off. Since you are already at their house, their won’t be any additional fuel costs to get there and instead of going to a new house and taking the time out for driving, you can be earning money at the same place. There are also upselling options to offer current customers, such as offering to add shade to an overly sunny yard or adding a flower bed to add value to a house.
After new marketing funds are generated, landscaping businesses can print fliers or door hangers to find new business in neighborhoods that typically use landscaping services. If you are able to have a salesperson, you can look for houses that need landscaping to visit to offer your companies service.
If there are nurseries in your area, you can post fliers in the store to attract customers that may have gotten in over their heads with landscaping, or would like help with maintenance.
If you would like more information about helping market your landscaping business, contact Branded at info@brandedscreenprinting.com or visit www.brandedscreenprinting.com.