Lawn Service Marketing

I would recommend using a geo-tracked QR code where you can push to a mobile optimized lead gen form and you can actually see on a map where people are scanning the QR codes and make personal follow ups by phone or email.

Will you be offering landscaping as well or just lawn mowing?

I saw something that I thought was genius for lawn care. They went door to door hanging out little customized flags and a flier stating their business information then a 3 month agreement / 6 month agreement / 1 year agreement then with the 3 month you got 1 free tree / 6 month 2 trees and / 1 year was 4 trees. You went and put the flags where you wanted the trees and then they would come put them in.

I worked in the neighborhood and saw a exponential increase in flags placed. Day one there were 2 flags in the 4 block area I was in. Day 2 there were 4 flags. Then in the next few days it seemed like every other house had them.

I believe the reason this worked so well is because the neighbors thought that if their neighbor was using them they should use them as well.

I have been in a wholesale nursery before and the trees they were giving for free were less than $2 when you purchased them wholesale.

Good luck!

Did a quick Google search and found this gem haha

Don't hire a beg mega lawnscare (and use the "scare") business until you read these 7 tips that will help decide who will be cutting your lawn!
Bomb the hell out of the neighborhoods you want to target.
Keep in mind - once you tell everyone you will be personally on every job you will be stuck!

FYI

Dont over think this. Right now people are looking for someone to handle their lawn work for the year. If you are basically just looking to find enough clients to keep you busy it wont be that hard. These multi step approaches with qr codes and such are not really necessary.

Just get a piece out and get ready for the calls. People just want to know that you are going to do a good job and continue to show up.

If it were me I would take a picture of myself and put out a simple message like
Do you need an honest and reliable person to cut your yard this year, If so call me and I promise to take care of you.

Thats all you really need, this is not some complicated sale and it does not appear like you are trying to build an lawn empire so just get your ass out into the streets and fill up your books.

Got to agree with Eddie.

My cousin has owned his own landscaping biz for at least 15 years now. When he first started out all he did was flyers and keep his painted truck parked so people could see it as he was mowing. What he did was pretty smart actually. He spent about 5 years building up his customer base. Then one day decided he only wanted to focus on wealthy neighborhoods, so he got rid of all is middle/low income customers.

He is able to make 6 figures a year now with only 5 accounts (I should mention he has never had a website in the 15 years he's been doing this). And he does the same people every year. He has got to the point where he drives out with 2-3 college kids, tells them what to do, then goes off fishing for most of the day. Although some days he does definitely work. And when he does, he charges $60/hr for himself, and $40/hr for college kids (of which he keeps $30/hr for the biz). He also puts the hourly rates in the bill. So it slowly weens the customers to getting use to him not being there. Since they SAVE MONEY when he doesn't work. Its actually really smart now that I think about it.

I have asked him if he had to do it all over again, what would he do different.
And he said he would have scrapped the first 5 years and started targeting upper class neighborhoods immediately. The best part is all 5 accounts now are within a few miles of each other. I've also seen one of the homes he does it has to be worth at least 10 million. The guys property is MASSIVE. No idea what the acres are but its like 4-5 football fields combined together.

Anyway I'm just ranting. But maybe you can learn something from his business model. These types of customers need lawn care everyday, and are willing to pay a high price for high quality work. Plus he is really good at random "add ons". No idea how he does it but he's always innovating new crap to do for the same customers.

The best part about it however, it frees up his time to run his second business. Which is selling italian ice in high traffic areas. He told me he made $4,000 in 1 day and I nearly shit my pants. Apparently there is lots of money in italian ice (during the summer of course but I still had no idea you could make that much).

Anyway, I'll shut up now.

-Red

What about offering periodic service? I don't mind mowing my lawn and can't bring myself to pay for a regular service. However, there are times when life gets too busy and the lawn starts to get too long or the weekend I can do it, we have people coming to visit. I know on one occasion last year, just before my son's birthday, I had one of the neighbors that was part of a lawn crew squeeze it in between jobs.

Great idea Ewen. Out of curiosity, did you ever have to pay up? Or almost?

And what was the question?

ewenmack - very interesting idea on the guarantee. Like you said, the customer doesn't care if your equipment broke down. They just know that their lawn wasn't done on time.

I would have to imagine though that you had a rain/bad weather clause in there somewhere.

This is only a rough draft idea, but you could try the following:

Send out a mailing to any of the houses that drive by your maintained house on the way home. This will take some effort create the list the first time.

"Sorry if you we are making you work harder to maintain the best lawn in the area. Save yourself and don't compete with you neighbor who uses ABC"

"Can you spot the neighbor which uses ABC Landscaping?" "Be the envy of the neighborhood just like them by using us without any of the back-breaking work."

Then if you get a second client in that same area, you can create another small postcard run and change the wording slightly to show that you are servicing more clients. "Join your other 2 neighbors in being the envy of the neighborhood."

You probably will get really good replies if you post this in the copywriting forum.

You already have a lot of good elements that can be used in your copy. The fact you're offering more of a personal lawn care service. The fact that your equipment isn't the big, heavy duty stuff that will do damage to the yard, etc...You're on the right track, you just need some professional help putting it together.

-Go to fiverr.com, get a craigslist image ad made for 5 bucks
-Set up Craigslist 4 accounts. Verify with family members and friends phone if needed
-Post at least 10 times a day

This should get you at least 10 good leads a week!

@Ewenmack - Its hard to beat a USP Guarantee like that.

Thanks for the awesome share (as always).

Regards

Los

When all else fails, drop in on people with overgrown lawns.