How To Get Landscaping Leads: A 5-Step Guide

In field-based businesses like landscaping, getting leads means getting paid. A local marketing strategy is the best way to generate leads and get results. But how do you increase local traffic and encourage friends and neighbors to choose you over local competitors?

At Arborgold, we develop software for companies like yours with the aim of streamlining marketing and customer engagement. Here, we’ll talk about 5 ways you can get landscaping leads and grow your business.

1. Outfit Your Website for Search Engine Optimization

Your website is the face of your company in the digital world. Just as you wouldn’t let customers see your brick-and-mortar office with a broken sign dangling over the window, your website should be kept up and user-friendly for best results.

Aside from having an easy-to-navigate site, which offers clear information on who you are and what services you offer, you may also want to invest in search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, helps improve your rank in search results. It’s important for landscapers to rank highly in local results. You can improve your rank in many ways, including:

• Listing yourself online through Google Business and similar registries
• Using keywords and keyphrases improve visibility during searches
• Creating relevant, engaging, and consumable content
• Using tags and descriptions
• Designing mobile-friendly content
• Build links back to your landing page
• Focus on analytics and reports which show your current SEO standing to improve your website and copy

Working with a reputable marketing company can help improve SEO. You can also increase your rank by using designated software to help improve content distribution and communication efforts.

At Arborgold, we offer customizable CRM access to schedule blog, social media, and email communication, as well as invoice automation.

2. Create a Customer Referral Program

Despite digital advertising being at an all-time high, word-of-mouth marketing is not dead. In local field-based businesses, especially, word of mouth marketing is still an important tool to gain new leads and for returning customers.

To encourage your current customers to share your business with friends and family, consider a customer referral program.

Customer referral programs offer incentives to current customers to share for discounts, credits, or special offers based on the number of successful referrals they make. Some offers to consider are:

• 10% off your next service
• First service free for new customers
• Buy one service, get one service 50% off
• Discounted services in the offseason
• Free product with new renewing service (Example: Free watering can with bi-weekly lawn care subscription)

A successful referral is one that procures a result. In other words, if a customer refers another customer and that customer calls to schedule an appointment or requests a quote, it is a successful referral.

3. Devise a Direct Mail Strategy

While digital advertising has become a staple in lead generation across a wide range of industries, small or local businesses, like landscapers, often still rely on a strategic direct mail campaign to attract new and returning customers.

Direct mail can be pricey, so it’s important to plan ahead and design mailers with a clear focus. 70% of consumers also believe direct mail has a personal edge over strictly digital communication.

A few tips for successful direct mail campaigns include:

• Clear branding – Ensure your logo is visible and customers can tell who the mailer is from
• Exclusive offer – Mailers with some form of coupon, online code, or discount are more attractive to consumers
• Be concise – Use point form to keep your message tight and on focus
• Get creative – Mailers are all about visuals, so be creative with color, images, and copy

Direct mailers range from $0.26 to $1.00 but can be as costly as $3.00 per piece. To make this strategy effective think carefully about the type of mailers used, the locations they are mailed, and the desired response.

4. Engage via Social Media

Social media has become a daily part of life for billions of consumers worldwide. In fact, to date there are approximately 2.85 users active on Facebook each month. For landscaping companies, you only need to reach a small subsection of these users, as your business leads will come from local social media users. This means targeting local audiences through Facebook business pages, and other social media strategies to get your brand noticed.

Social media is a great tool for:

• Customer engagement
• Sharing content
• Increasing web traffic
• Targeting local leads
• Sharing information
• Communicating with customers

One of the benefits of social media as a marketing tool, is that while there are paid marketing efforts through Facebook and similar platforms, creating a Facebook page to share your business online is free.

Social media lets you connect with customers through likes, shares, comments, and instant messaging. Posts that have more comments become more visible in your followers’ news feeds, so engagement is helpful.

5. Consider Google Ads

Google Ads appear in two different formats, through search engine searches and on collaborating websites. These ads are helpful in funneling traffic to your website. They’re a paid advertisement but have several tools to narrow your targeted traffic by:

• Hobby or interest
• Age
• Active or passive shoppers
• Gender
• Parental status

To set these targets you must log in to your Google Ads account and select “targeting”. From here you have access to “ad groups”. Select “add targeting” and can click the demographics you wish to target.

To begin a new campaign, log in to Google Ads and select “campaigns” and “new campaign”. You will see options for campaign type. Click “display network only”.

Google Ads are a useful tool when combined with other marketing efforts to increase brand awareness, and in the process, encourage new leads.

Why bother with Google Ads? Of global consumers, approximately 65% click ads while shopping for new products and services.

Contact Arborgold to Learn More

Interested in learning more about finding more leads for your brand and managing your landscaping company with custom field-based software? We invite you to take a tour with Arborgold today. Call 1-800-933-1955 to speak to a member of our team.