Many strategies can be used to generate pest control leads. We can mention SEO to Social Media Marketing and mostly digital options that tend to be more cost-effective in today’s marketing efforts. Although traditional lead generation strategies like direct mail and networking continue to work.
We actually recommend them, companies that don’t build an online presence or bet on inbound marketing won’t go anywhere, hence, why you should be paying attention to digital before anything else.
But with so many options, where should you start? With the basics yet crucial elements? Or go every lead generation strategy you can?
Here, we will simplify the options you should prioritize and can add to your marketing plan now and later.
Thus, for more quality leads, focus on the info below.
Identify Your Target Market
When it comes to lead generation, the first step is to identify your target market to ensure your efforts aren’t going o waste. Without knowing your target market, marketing is not possible as it will be too general, and the people you’re reaching aren’t the actual potential customers you expect.
You need to identify your target market and where they are located. You can identify it by doing research on pests, rodents, and insects.
Pests thrive in areas where there is moisture, warmth, and food, such as restaurants, bakeries, and cafes. Once you have identified your audience, you are going to be able to set parameters for your next lead generation efforts.
Create a Website for Your Pest Control Business
You will always need a website where your prospects or any sales-qualified lead can land to generate leads. There, they will get to know about you, your services, and why they should choose you.
However, keep in mind that a website is more than just a page where people will read about you. If you want to convert traffic or visitors into leads, you need to focus on optimization.
The first part for this is usually mobile optimization, which is basically making sure visitors can access using their mobile devices without issues. The importance of this aspect lies in how many leads you will get from those users, which are many.
On the other hand, websites for pest control businesses should be unique, easy to use, and include all relevant information. Include a “Services Page” that lists all of your pest control services, as well as a contact page with an address and map.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Going over what optimization actually is, we will be starting with SEO. This is the process of improving your website’s ranking in organic search results. This method of generating leads for pest control helps you to attract more qualified leads and ensure you don’t spend hundreds of dollars buying them.
Although SEO can take some time since it is a matter of building and ranking with time, you get many leads once you optimize every part of your site properly. Thus, it cannot be omitted in any optimization plan.
Now, SEO has two main components:
1. Keyword selection.
You must choose keywords to use SEO. To find the most effective keywords for your campaign, you will need to conduct keyword research.
As a piece of advice, focusing on long-tail keywords is the best way to select effective keywords.
These keywords contain three or more words such as “pest control companies Los Angeles” and similar ones that aren’t as competitive as short-tail keywords (one or two words only).
After you’ve chosen your keywords, you will need to incorporate them into your website. Google crawls your website looking for keywords that will help them understand the context. To help your page rank higher for specific topics, you should use the correct ones.
This is known as keyword optimization. These keywords can be integrated into your page’s titles, headings, meta descriptions, and text. This will improve your site’s ranking for these keywords, which can help you to generate more quality pest control leads.
2. Backlinks.
Earn backlinks if you want to increase your website’s rank. These links are from trusted sites that link back directly to your page.
Your pest control company will find backlinks valuable because they increase trust in your site.
Credible sites linking to your page indicate that they consider your information valid and useful. Google considers this a positive sign and will increase your website’s rank to make it more accessible to more people.
Content creation is the best way to get backlinks. These authority sites can be invited to view your content. They may choose to use your content as a resource if they like what you have created.
Other factors that could influence your rank in search results include:
3. Website design.
A modern and clean website is essential. Users will not like a website that is outdated and looks old. They will leave it if they feel that it isn’t current and may decide to move on.
Your site’s design is crucial in keeping visitors on it, and it is what they first see when they visit it, not all the elements to convert them. The fun and worst part is that they will judge your services based on how your website looks as well.
Your website should look attractive. Choose a color scheme that suits your business and apply it, but make sure it goes well with the rest of your business settings.
Also, make sure your website is consistent in design. You will make your visitors stay longer on your site if you have a modern and clean layout.
4. Navigation.
Simple navigation is key to a well-designed website. Users shouldn’t have to search for the information they need or go over several pages to do so.
Clean and straightforward navigation is the best. Use headings to explain what the user can find below them clearly. Users can easily find what they need by using simple titles such as “Our services” or “Pricing.”
Visitors will stay longer on your site if they have clear navigation and are able to quickly find what they need and then read more about it. This also sends a positive signal for Google.
Now, going back to our mention about SEO, remember, it takes time.
SEO is not as quick-acting as PPC (pay-per-click). But the benefits it can bring to your business are well worth it.
90% of marketers agree that SEO has been a success for their business, and many of the qualified leads generated are thanks to this strategy alone.
Advertising Via Pay-Per-Click
PPC advertising is another excellent strategy for lead generation for pest control businesses, briefly mentioned during the SEO strategy.
The reason why we always recommend any business to go with PPC, which is a paid option, is because PPC attracts leads most likely to convert, and it is a cost-effective strategy. You don’t pay anything unless someone clicks on your ads.
These paid ads appear at the top search results and are marked with the word “ad.”
The principle of PPC follows the same as SEO. You must choose keywords to run your PPC campaign, and the option of using long-tail keywords is valid, but short-tail ones can also prove to be worth the time and investment.
However, because long-tail keywords have lower costs per click (CPC), you will get more clicks to your PPC campaign. This allows you to get more leads that you can then convert into customers.
After you have chosen your long-tail keywords, you will bid for your place. Your maximum bid is the price you will pay for each click on your advertisement. You can adjust your maximum bid at any time.
Your maximum bid and quality rating will determine your placement. Your ad campaign is now live once you have received your placement.
Because you have full control over your campaign, PPC is a great choice for pest control companies. PPC allows you to set a budget and limit how much you spend on campaigns. Your company will not incur any unexpected or additional costs with it either.
As mentioned before, this method also has the great advantage of only paying when people click on your ad. Impressions are not included in the price, and you can limit the expenses. This means you only pay for the pest control leads who are most interested in your company.
PPC gives your company instant results. It allows you to see whether your campaign has been successful and if any changes need to be made. This is a fantastic feature that allows you to adjust your campaign to achieve maximum results.
Now, is this a good option for every business? It is a good option for your company as long as it is properly designed and you know how to launch the campaign.
To help you understand why we have laid out some of the benefits of this lead generation strategy:
- Budget-friendly
This method is popular because it allows you to control your budget. You can limit your spending to $3,000 on PPC campaigns or even go much lower based on how much you can afford.
You will always know exactly what you are paying upfront, and there won’t be any additional charges later.
- Instant results.
PPC allows you to see results immediately. You can see the number of people clicking, converting, leaving your site, and many other metrics. This allows you to see if your ads are working instantly and make adjustments to improve your ads’ performance.
More qualified leads.
Did you know that 65% of all high-intent searches result in someone clicking on an advertisement from PPC?
PPC is a great way to attract qualified leads because it targets people searching for pest control companies.
Because they are more interested in using your services, people who click on your PPC advertisement are more likely to turn into customers.
Marketing Via Social Media
Social media marketing allows your pest control company to capture leads and establish a relationship. In addition, you improve lead scoring and can work around building trust and awareness.
Your target audience uses social media extensively, so it is crucial that you establish a relationship with them through these platforms.
Social media marketing can be done on many platforms simultaneously, not only one or two. These platforms include Facebook and Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Though, if you don’t know where to start, you can go for Facebook and LinkedIn before anything else.
However, the best platforms for your business will depend on whom you are targeting. Platforms that are frequented by your target audience.
To find out which platforms work best for you, you need to do research on your target audience once more.
Once you have identified your platforms, you are able to post content to encourage leads to your page. You can post photos, videos, polls, infographics, and other types to engage them. This is a great way to get new leads by sharing interesting content.
Your followers can also help you attract new leads to your business. You want your content to be shared, which increases exposure for your brand.
You can make your content easily shareable and encourage people to follow your page. This will help you get more leads for your pest control company.
Email Marketing Isn’t Dead
Email marketing can be one of the most effective ways to attract and nurture leads. Although many people think email marketing is dead, the truth is that it’s still very popular. This method is alive and well, with an ROI that goes over 4000%, and no, we didn’t make a mistake in the number.
For this to work or even start, you need to build a subscriber base. A website sign-up form is the best way to gain subscribers. You can place it in the header, footer, or pop-up boxes on your website.
Signing up for email should be easy to understand and use since it is not something most people want to do. However, it is easy to get people to sign up for your email list by providing a simple bar where they can type in their email address and hit “sign up!” Only two or three steps maximum will boost your efforts.
Don’t buy email lists. Although it may seem like an easy way to build a list of subscribers, it will not give you any credible leads. People will either block your email or go straight to spam.
Once you have a subscriber base, you will want to invest in an email management program. This will automate the system and ensure you don’t spend more time than needed in the process.
It should allow you to send information to all your subscribers. You can send newsletters, coupons, blog posts, etc.
Now, keep in mind that people who are willing to sign for your emails and newsletters are already interested in your services or products.
These leads can be nurtured by sending them emails that are appealing to them and enticed to use your services. It isn’t only a matter of capturing new ones but nurturing existing ones as well.
Consider Content Marketing
Content marketing is compatible with other digital advertising strategies. When you use SEO, it helps improve your website’s rank. You can also send emails articles.
We just want you to know that creating the content and choosing how you deliver it is a matter of creating it. But it covers more than the usual formats and options people think about.
Blogs, videos, infographics, and online guides are all possible content. To drive the right traffic, your content must be relevant to your industry.
Content is intended to offer valuable information to consumers. Consumers search for answers and information constantly.
Many people Google how to control pests near their homes. You have a wonderful opportunity to share that information through content marketing.
When you share information and content about the topics that interest them, people will trust your company. They will regard you as an authority in the field and will believe you are knowledgeable and skilled at your job.
Some users might not convert immediately after reading your content. They will be able to recall your posts and content if they ever need your services. Because you gave them the information they needed, they will choose your company over others.
Google considers how long people spend on your website. This is why content is so important to your website. Google will rank your website higher because they think it is more valuable for consumers.
Connect with Potential Customers
Every business is relationship-driven, even if it’s exterminators. Networking is an essential marketing strategy to help you gain new clients, and as we mentioned in the beginning, we recommend it.
One of the benefits is also the fact that it is easy to get started. You can find events online, or offline that may interest your customers. For example, you can search for home and garden shows for residential pest management businesses.
This networking strategy doesn’t need to focus on face-to-face events only. You can also reach out to your target audience through local Facebook Groups. Ask for a video conference call if you meet interesting leads.
These two tips will help you network effectively for lead generation, no matter how you connect to customers:
- Talk to people. Nobody wants to feel like they are talking with salespeople or robots. Talk about other topics than your job and listen more than what you say.
- Follow up. Once you have successfully collected phone numbers and email addresses, follow up with them at least two days after the first meeting.
Stand Out with Your Brand
You should ensure that your branding is consistent as you are actively generating leads from any source, including in-person networking, local partnerships, and digital advertising.
Branding is a crucial part of helping you gain trust and distinguish yourself from other pest control companies.
Your logo, colors, and fonts are all part of branding. These elements must be consistent regardless of whether your audience engages with you through your website, social media pages, or anywhere else.
They should also remain consistent with providing an experience that makes your brand instantly identifiable.
Branding is more than just visuals. Your company’s values and brand voice can all be part of this process. All employees who interact with customers, including marketing and customer service, should be trained to maintain these elements.
If “responsibility” is a value, then your team needs to know how to show it when connecting with customers and delivering services.
This ensures that every employee is able to deliver the same experience at all touchpoints.
Create Landing Pages
Going back to your website, we cannot forget about how crucial it is to create your landing pages since they can quickly increase your pest control lead generation.
Landing pages are not usually listed in your navigation. It’s more of a space in your site that is designed to convert visitors from search engines or ads into leads.
Having 10-15 landing pages can increase your lead capture rate by 55%. If you have more than 40 landing pages, this number can jump up to 500%. Your website visitors will take action when landing pages are used.
What should a landing page include? It should allow visitors to access contact information easily, such as via a format on the page’s end. A call to action (CTA) should be included on landing pages. It could be “get a quote” and “request an inspection for free.”
Search engine optimization (SEO) is something you should keep in mind when creating landing pages. In order to ensure that your page ranks high in search engines and gives you as many pest control leads as possible, each landing page should focus on a specific keyword.
You don’t have to go out of your way to choose different keywords as in your previous research. However, it would be good to vary them if you want more people landing on your website than the pages you are creating.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Pest Control Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Pest Control Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Pest Control Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.