Quickly Grow Your Landscaping Business Using Facebook Advertising

When looking to grow your landscaping business... consider this scenario:

You’re a tree service company in southeast Alabama.

March and April, in particular, are notorious for stormy, nasty weather and downed trees.

It’s a key opportunity to gain new customers and reach out to existing ones.

Problem is, by the time you could get a direct mail piece in the works, the opportunity would be gone.

But, what if you could put an offer in front of people within a few hours, generate just as many customers (or more) as you could with direct mail, save a ton of money on printing and postage costs, and track your results in real time?

Seems like a no brainer, right?

Social media allows you to do just that by putting the right offer in front of the right people, at just the right time.

Don’t get yourself in a tizzy.

We’re not saying direct mail is bad. But, it does have a lag time that doesn’t allow you to capitalize on opportunities quickly, which is exactly what you need this time of year.

So, how do you use social media to market your lawn care, tree service, or landscaping business?

In today’s post, we’ll walk you step-by-step through the ins and outs of using Facebook advertising to grow your business this spring and summer.

Before we dive in though, here are six reasons you should use Facebook to grow your landscaping business:

1. Your customers are already on social media. In fact, for each hour spent online, most American’s spend 16 minutes of that time on social media.
2. You can target people in your city, area, or community easily and quickly.
3. You don’t need to be a social media guru to advertise on social media.
4. It’s inexpensive compared to most other marketing channels and efforts.
5. It shows your customers you’re cutting edge.
6. You can quickly and easily engage prospects and existing customers.

 

We'll call our company John Doe's Tree and Lawn and here’s how to get started:

 

Step 1: Click the upper right drop down arrow on your Facebook account to create an ad.

 

Step 2: Choose the objective of your campaign. (NOTE: You can either choose the “send people to your website” option if you have a special offer page, or you can use the “get people to claim your offer” option. Either way, you can target who sees your ad which is what we're most interested in.)

 

For this example, we’re choosing the “send people to your website option.”

In the URL field, paste the URL that has your special offer information.

 

 

Step 3: Select Your Audience (NOTE: We’ll cover how to use the custom audience section in a later post. But, just know it’s a great tool for generating repeat business with existing customers, and all you need is an email address.)

 

 Enter the city and state you want to target in the “locations” tab. We're using Enterprise, Al for our example.

When you create your ad, you’ll notice a gauge on the right side of your screen that says “potential reach.” In our example, our ad has the potential to reach 80,000 people.

This doesn’t mean though, that 80,000 people will see your ad. This is determined by how much you spend on your ad.

Step 4: Create the graphic for your ad.

You may be thinking, “I’m not an artist and I sure as heck don’t have time to learn how to design something!”

Take a deep breath, count to ten…and you’re calm again.

Use a tool called Canva.com to save you LOADS of time and headache. They’ve got a Facebook ad template that requires you to simply input a graphic and some copy, download the image and you’re all set.

Oh, and it's free. Did we mention that?

Next, you’ll upload your graphic in Facebook for your ad.

 

 

Step 5: Determine how much you want to spend on your ad.

 

A word of caution. Do NOT leave the button “run my ad continuously” checked. Make sure you select a start and end date.

Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting a LOT of money. (Don't say we didn't warn you.)

Also, it’s wise to not spend too much money upfront.

A good rule of thumb is to use 10%-20% of your budget for your Facebook ad to do a few ads and see which ones perform better. Then, use the remainder of your budget on those ads that perform best.

Hit submit and presto change-o your ad is submitted for approval by Facebook (which usually doesn't take too long).

It may seem like a lot to take in, but apply these marketing tips and you'll be two steps ahead of the competition and will grow your landscaping business (or tree service company, or lawn care company) this spring.

You’re going to need a way to efficiently schedule all the new jobs you generate from your social media efforts, and using paper and a spreadsheet won’t cut it.

We created Arborgold lawn care software for tree service, landscaping, and lawn care companies to make it easy to manage your customers, crews, and business while on the go.

Learn how Arborgold can streamline and grow your landscaping business.