Effective marketing can be a challenge for any business, but it plays a key role in running a successful landscaping or lawn care business. Standing out in a potentially lucrative but also competitive industry like landscaping makes this doubling important.
Marketing Yourself...or A Franchise
Whether you are just starting your own business or looking to expand your current operation in new ways, it’s important for your business to stand out from the other landscaping and lawn care companies in your area. It’s important to consider whether you want to build your own business from scratch, or whether you want to license the use of an existing successful brand through a franchise arrangement.
The good news is that whichever way you go, with a few insider tips, you can attract the right clients, develop a healthy client base, and achieve your business goals. Let's take a closer look at the essential marketing you can do and explore how franchise ownership could help you achieve your goals.
Before Marketing Your Landscaping Business…
Before marketing your landscaping or lawn care business, it’s important to ask yourself if you know who you are marketing to.
To identify your target audience, ask yourself: Who needs landscaping and lawn care services in my area? What types of services are they looking for? What services do I specialize in, and how can I meet my target audience’s needs? What areas of the business could I continue to expand and grow?
From there, you can get more specific. For example, if you are looking to gain more business in residential lawn care, landscape design, or commercial grounds maintenance, which audience demographics are linked to these types of services? If you’re not sure, conduct market research or talk to other business owners or homeowners in your area to get a better sense of where you will find your target demographic.
Your next step is to design a marketing strategy that targets the demographic you’ve identified. Your strategy should include not only what the advertising looks like, but also message points and ideal platform or delivery. By tailoring specific advertising to specific groups, you optimize your marketing dollars and minimize the waste of valuable marketing resources on unlikely prospects.
Landscaping and Lawn Care Business Marketing Tips
Today’s businesses need marketing campaigns that align with the SMART goals in your overall business plan. This may mean that your marketing strategy uses various modes and delivery methods, all of which should be tailored to your target audience's needs and preferences.
1. Include Digital Marketing & Website Must-haves in Your Strategy
Having a robust online presence is crucial for any business today, including landscaping and lawn care services. Here’s how to ensure your digital marketing strategy hits the mark:
2. Build a Professional Website
Your business website is often the first point of contact potential clients have with your business. It’s important to ensure your website is professional, user-friendly, and provides all the necessary information about your services. Here are some additional must-haves:
- Clear Navigation: Make it easy for visitors to find information about your services, pricing, and contact details.
- Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website looks and works well on mobile devices.
- Service Descriptions: Clearly describe the services you offer, including any specialties or unique offerings.
- High-Quality Images: Use high-resolution images of your completed projects to showcase your work.
- Testimonials: Include customer reviews and testimonials to build trust with potential clients.
- Contact Form: Make it simple for visitors to get in touch with you for quotes or inquiries.
Benefit of a Franchise: One big benefit of going the franchising route for owning your landscaping or lawn care business is that they set up the website for you and help you optimize to reach the target audience in your area.
3. Claim Your Local Listings
Another essential part of your business strategy is to claim and cultivate your business’s online listings. This may include developing your business profile on sites like Google Business Profile, Yelp, and Angi/HomeAdvisor. In each profile, be sure to include photos and a link to your website, respond to comments and reviews, and update the information regularly.
Benefit of a Franchise: Take advantage of the expertise from the franchisor’s marketing team. They can guide you through the set-up process, ensure that best practices are executed, and answer any questions you have while making sure your local listings are all up to date and functioning correctly.
4. Leverage Social Media
If you haven’t already harnessed the power of social media to promote your business, you need to start ASAP! Promoting a business through social media can include advertising, but it can also look like sharing interesting content and special promotions, not to mention other fun ways to engage frequently with your audience. When it comes to social media, however, there is also a bit of strategy required. For example:
- Choose the Right Platforms: Focus on platforms where your potential clients spend their time, such as Facebook, Instagram, X, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
- Create Engaging Content: Post a mix of content, including project photos, client testimonials, gardening tips, and promotional offers.
- Aim for Consistency: Maintain a consistent posting schedule to keep your audience engaged and informed.
Benefit of a Franchise: Along with helping you set up all your social media accounts, your franchisor’s marketing team will also help you set up local advertising and provide you with branded collateral to keep your social media looking professional. The brand’s national presence also means that messaging can reach a larger audience through the national brand social media pages.
5. Utilize Email Marketing
Along with social media, email marketing is a fundamental aspect of effective marketing. Through email marketing, you can more easily stay in touch with your clients and prospects and build long-term relationships (aka repeat business!) with them.
Some of the top ideas for email marketing content include:
- Newsletters: Send out regular newsletters with updates, special offers, and useful tips.
- Personalization: Personalize your emails to make your clients feel valued. Use their names and tailor content based on their preferences.
- Automation: Use email automation tools to send timely follow-ups, appointment reminders, and seasonal offers.
Benefit of a Franchise: A franchisor will help you manage your customer lists and help you communicate effectively and efficiently with your past customers. The other advantage of a large franchisor, like Neighborly, is the ability to connect with customers of other brands in your area and create a larger network.
6. Explore Other Marketing Channels
Finally, don’t be afraid to explore some of the other marketing strategies and digital marketing opportunities. Explore what you could do through paid channels like Google LSA Ads or PPC (pay-per-click).
You can also use no-cost efforts like local SEO (search engine optimization), and video (YouTube, TikTok) to reach potential clients. This is an excellent opportunity to invest more content creation like vlogging and project highlights to generate brand awareness and potentially grow customer loyalty through content sharing. If these or other options feel a bit out of your comfort zone, consider hiring an experienced agency for assistance.
7. Engage With Your Community
As a business owner, you are an essential part of the community you serve. For landscaping and lawn care businesses you may even be neighbors with your own clients. Engaging effectively with your community can help you develop both respect and brand recognition and make all other marketing strategies even more effective.
Consider participating in community events and related industry shows. Festivals, home expos, your town’s annual holiday celebrations - these are all opportunities to connect with the people in your community and to promote your services at the same time.
If you haven’t already, you should join and actively participate in your local and regional civic organizations like The Chamber of Commerce for your area. This can help you make mutually beneficial connections with other professionals in your area, increase your business leads, and cultivate new referrals.
When you attend any type of event, be sure to have a stack of business cards ready to give out anytime you mention your business. You should also locate any public bulletin boards in your city or town and post them there.
8. Ask for Reviews
Don’t shy away from asking for reviews from your happy customers! Glowing reviews from satisfied customers are hands-down the most valuable form of marketing your business could ever do.
If you have a loyalty program, newsletter, or other communication channel your customers interact with, consider asking for reviews within that space. After completing a service, ask your customers to leave a review online.
You could also send a post-service reminder via email or social media, which may be easier for some people to follow through on. Consider offering discounts or other perks as an additional incentive. You can also encourage existing customers to refer friends and family to your business. This goes for business owners as well as homeowners!
However you choose to go about asking for reviews, the one thing you should never do is underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising. People are far more likely to hire a company recommended by someone they know than from any other type of advertising.
Lawn Care and Landscaping Franchises: Invest or Convert
In the highly competitive landscaping field, figuring out how to advertise your landscaping business can be tricky. Talking about marketing strategy is one thing. Planning it all out and then implementing it is quite another!
If you’re thinking about starting a landscaping or lawn care business, or you have a business that you’d like to grow in new and exciting ways, you should consider the benefits of starting or converting your business into a franchise.
Lawn Care and Landscaping Franchises Have Proven Strategies
Starting a new business from scratch can be risky, even in a relatively low barrier-to-entry industry like landscaping. It can take time for you to build and grow your business while working day and night to make it possible often with large personal sacrifices, but that’s not your only option.
You can invest in a franchisor with a reputable background and brand.
There are many benefits to doing so, including:
- A nationally recognized brand
- Operational support
- Proven business model
- Advanced technology tools
- Comprehensive training
- Networking opportunities
- Professional, world-class marketing materials
- Proven business strategies
- And so much more!
Whether you already have a business, or you are just starting out, a franchise can give you the extra support and processes you need to help grow your business in ways you never thought possible. You don’t have to do everything alone!
The Neighborly Difference
Developing a well-known and respected brand takes considerable time. That’s why many smart landscaping business owners invest in a franchise with Neighborly!
With Neighborly, you have two franchise options in the landscaping and lawn maintenance space. The Grounds Guys®, an award-winning, national landscaping brand. Alternatively, Lawn Pride® is focused on lawn care and is full of opportunity with its scalable model and prime territories still available.
To see if owning The Grounds Guys franchise opportunity is right for you, download The Grounds Guys Franchise Guide today!
Interested in Lawn Pride? Download the Lawn Pride Franchise Guide today!
