Many landscape companies put a lot of effort into traditional marketing and advertising. But they’re still short on landscape design leads in their pipline. They usually forget that those strategies, although they continue to be effective, aren’t as good as the rest of the options that online marketing brought.
Therefore, they are not generating as many landscape design leads as they should or could, and don’t worry about doing it either because they believe that’s all they can achieve (or just give up once they notice things aren’t going that great).
Well, you don’t have to do the same as long as you are willing to put effort and time into some options that truly work when generating more leads and converting them into clients.
There’s no need to continue looking for the right strategies when we’re here to provide you with them.
Make Sure Your Lawn Care Site Is Well-Designed
Many don’t think about it, but if you want leads to come, your website should focus on meeting two purposes:
Attract potential clients.
Turn website visitors into qualified leads that you can use for your sales team.
Search engine optimization (SEO) for your company will play a crucial role, and it is usually an oversimplified and misunderstood term.
Implementing online strategies on your landscaping website will help it rank higher in search results for hundreds of phrases consumers enter into search engines to find the services, products, or information they’re looking for.
Traffic is important, but it’s also important to convert at least 3% of website visitors into qualified leads.
This isn’t the case for most landscaping companies, and if you are going over the same problem, this could be a sign of major issues with your user experience, images, and copywriting.
Improving those aspects and adding a few more to boost your company’s site is crucial since they will ensure that organic website traffic and landscaping design leads increase over time. It will also help you to achieve long-lasting results.
Now, here’s a question anyone would ask: how can you bring or generate more organic traffic? We’ve got some ideas for you:
- When building a website, it is important to invest a lot of time. Despite what professionals (or yourself) say about getting it done that fast, don’t do it in a day or two. You want to make sure it is well-optimized and with all required elements.
- You can rank for hundreds of search terms by consistently creating long-form, useful blog content over the years. Expertise is essential to create a great content strategy and remarkable content.
- You can create online directories with Google My Business and social media profiles. You should ensure that your company name, address, phone number, and website are consistent.
- Use high-quality and professional visuals and well-written content. You can hire professionals to do these tasks better, but you should stick with what you know best.
- Your website should encourage visitors to take action on every page. Make it easy for visitors to do their research and get a quote.
We will dive deeper into some of those additional tips as we added some to our main list.
Pay Attention to Your Landing Pages
The effectiveness of landing pages is key to website lead generation and to bring more clients to your landscaping design business.
Some landing pages can be used for informational purposes only, and you will find many of them regardless of the niche you decide to search.
But have you ever wondered why do you need to do once the content has been read? It is simple. After it, it is time to convert them. Visitors should be “pushed” to make a decision about hiring your services or not with the right information and content on your landing page.
For this to happen, a landing page that converts is optimized for a better user experience and contains conversion-focused elements. If you aren’t sure about how to achieve this goal, here are some tips we included:
- Anything that does not help you turn web traffic into leads should be removed to avoid making visitors disperse.
- Describe the service that you offer and how it benefits your customers.
- It is important to make it clear what happens when visitors click an element and your website, to begin with.
- It’s important to be clear about where they should click.
- Reduce clicks. They should only need three clicks to reach the destination they desire from your homepage.
Contact Forms Are Great… When Used Wisely
When you create an optimized and clean landing page along with the rest of your website, visitors and now leads will be willing to provide contact information for you to get in touch with them. However, if you want them to sign, make sure you’re not asking for much information.
A B2B website for lead generation can turn a prospect into an actual sales lead in seconds.
Converting a sales lead into a customer can take days, weeks, or months. While lead nurturing and conversion are easier when there is more information, it’s unnecessary to have an email address to start.
Ask for more information if you feel you require it beyond an email address. Make it simple with large fields clearly marked.
If you aren’t sure about what we’re talking about, it is simple: just ask for details and information that is needed, don’t go overboard with the details you need.
Also, remember that the location of the contact forms is crucial, and you should add them where they are most important.
Overall, you will notice that every page on your website has one, but this isn’t always the best strategy.
If you want to track your website lead generation success, make sure to include contact forms on your most valuable pages or those that receive the most traffic.
This can be a blog post that is high-performing or a page with pillar services. You can nurture them by prompting them to fill out a contact form if they have already visited these pages.
Google Ads: Make Smart Investments
While you work to improve your organic traffic, these ads can help increase your website visits and the resulting leads.
Regardless of what other people say, Google Ads are needed and great additions to your business. Of course, you can start with organic traffic only, but they will (eventually) be needed.
Now, there’s something that many people are afraid of when it comes to those ads: the money you will spend.
IF you don’t use the right approach, Google Ads (also known as PPC or Pay-Per-Click) can lead to a poor return on investment. This strategy is best for landscape design services that have a short sales cycle and a high sense of urgency, even when it can work for several businesses in this niche.
Then, how can you manage this strategy?
- Google allows you to budget for at least $1.500 per calendar month, and if you can afford it, you should go up to this amount. Your ads will not appear many times per day if you don’t. This is required in some highly competitive markets like this one.
- Spend 5-10 hours per month with an agency working on improvement. Low management fees could result in an agency sending you an automated report without any insights or strategic changes.
- Try different ad copies and see which one works best.
- To convert more clicks to leads, you can create and refine landing pages (go to the previous strategy).
Advertise Your Company on Local Radio Stations
Radio is a medium that connects thousands of people each day. People who listen to radio on their commutes often consider the local station personalities friends.
Listeners will pay attention when one of these personalities mentions that they recently had their landscaping done locally and are impressed by the company’s work.
Radio ads and endorsements are often overlooked, but with their brand power, they should not be.
Reach out to local radio stations and ask them about airing your landscaping business. This strategy can look “old” for some, but it continues to be quite effective for services like yours as long as you aim for the right stations.
Try to invest some of your budgets in it, and you should be able to get several leads and your ROI as well.
Don’t Forget to Canvass the Area
Alright, this one will sound even older than the previous one.
Canvassing a local area for more landscaping leads or lawn care jobs may be more effective than traditional marketing. However, your ideal customers will be more likely to do business with you and to remember you if they meet you face to face.
Try canvassing after you have completed a local job. You will be able to name-drop your customer and show examples of your work.
To get the best results, you should:
- Even if you don’t get the response you desire, be polite and courteous.
- For each interaction, set a goal: Get their contact information, leave an email address or send them a business card.
- Prepare a script so that you feel more confident during the interaction.
- After obtaining their information, follow up with potential customers to see if you can add them to your emailing list.
Advertise on Facebook & Instagram for More Leads
If you have the right strategy and are familiar with how to use the ad builders, advertising your landscaping business on Facebook or Instagram can be a cost-effective way to bring in more leads.
You might consider hiring a professional to help you set up your ads correctly if you feel this is too much for you or you’ve tried it so far and have not gotten results.
Targeting your ideal landscaping customer can be done by using their location and liking other pages (such as those of your competitors).
This audience can also benefit from your landscape business’s ads. People will remember your name more easily if they see your logo and ads everywhere.
Of course, don’t go overboard with the number of ads, but be consistent with bringing more audience and clients.
Local SEO Is Key (Don’t Forget It!)
Search engine optimization (also known as SEO) is still the king in digital marketing. It will get your landscaping company to the top of Google, and it will keep it there.
SEO can be enough to generate most of your landscaping leads if your campaign is strong enough.
Setting up a Google My Business account is a good start to your SEO campaign. You can then move on to backlinking (linking to other lawn and landscaping sites with high authority) and content marketing (sharing lawn-care-related content with potential customers).
An SEO expert can help you get your campaign started. A professional SEO expert can also make suggestions for improving your SEO campaign’s effectiveness over time and help you with the first strategy that included this topic.
Keywords aren’t everything about SEO, and this is something you might have thought when reading the first part of our blog.
There’s just so much to cover that it is easy to be overwhelmed, but you cannot forget about taking the time with this if you want a future with your leads.
Online & Offline Reputation Must Be Managed
Did you know that 85% of people use the internet to find local landscapers in a hurry?
These same people also research your reputation to see what past customers have to say about your work and your pricing. Are you able to show up on time and complete the task you promised? Can you meet their expectations? What about offering the specific service they need? Those questions need to be answered for them, and they do it by going to reviews and looking at your reputation.
You can also use word-of-mouth offline to your advantage.
Ask satisfied customers to recommend any friends, family members, neighbors, or acquaintances that might be interested in your landscaping design services.
After you have completed the service, give them lots of business cards and ask if they would mind putting a temporary sign in the yard.
You can list your landscaping company online on review sites and ask satisfied customers to leave reviews on Google. This will increase your chances of bringing in more landscaping leads.
A Unique Selling Proposition Will Make You Standout
Your landscaping business must have a unique selling proposition (often abbreviated to USP) in order to be different from other local businesses.
Your USP could include your service level, experience in the industry, and your reputation.
It could also include your prices, employees, guarantees, or your reputation. After you have identified your USP, make sure to use it in your landscaping marketing materials.
If you don’t know where to begin, look at what your landscaping competitors are doing to generate lawn care leads.
How can you match their USP? What is more important to your customers or the people you serve? These are some USP ideas that will help you get started:
- Eco-friendliness.
- Services specialized.
- Specialized commercial equipment.
- Workmanship guarantees.
- Service and friendliness.
- Professionalism in crews.
- Accessibility and affordability.
Listen, monitor, and learn from customers.
This tip isn’t as complicated as it sounds and can make a big difference in the quality and quantity of landscaping leads and lawn-care jobs you bring in.
- Survey: To stay on top of market trends, survey your customers or conduct research about your competitors.
- Listen: To your ideal customers and customers to determine what they need and how you can best serve them.
- Monitor: To determine what is working and what isn’t, monitor market trends and consumer behavior.
Content Marketing Is Always Strong
Another key component of digital marketing for landscaping businesses is content marketing.
Your content has a direct impact on your SEO and social media. It also affects the effectiveness of your website, and your potential customers will appreciate useful content.
Imagine someone looking for a landscaping service in their area for the first time. Think about someone who has never considered hiring someone to take care of their land. They will have many questions about your service and what it entails.
You should make sure your content is informative and useful. You should not be afraid to tell customers how to do certain landscaping services work.
This shows that you have the knowledge and trust to do the job. Trust is an important component of local SEO and brand awareness.
Real Estate Agent and Property Manager: Connect with Them
Although it may seem odd, we’re very serious about this suggestion.
Realtors and property managers are often interested in maintaining the garden of properties they want to rent or sell, but they don’t have the time or the desire to do it themselves.
You can contact local property companies to see if they are interested in having you on their file to call one day before viewings or auction.
It is possible to ask them if they are interested in including details about your landscaping services in their property handouts. This can be a win-win situation for both businesses and can generate great leads.
You might also find property managers who look after strata-titled buildings that require regular gardening and maintenance. This could be an ongoing and valuable opportunity worth exploring and get those designs you need to bring even more interesting clients to your company.
Value Is Everything
You now have a targeted audience reading your valuable content on your website. What’s next?
There is a good chance that someone searching for “ideas” is not at their peak of buying cycles. They are likely in the early stages. It’s a great time to present yourself and offer some value.
This is where inbound marketing begins. First, you will need to create an e-book, white paper, or a 10 step guide to get the reader to sign up for your email marketing/lead nurturing database.
It could be a guide on how to choose a reliable landscape design company, a whitepaper about “How to avoid hiring a contractor who is not trustworthy,” or an e-book about planting a beautiful, long-lasting garden.
These valuable content pieces can be quite difficult to create, so you might consider hiring a professional copywriting company, but it will be worth the investment.
When they click on the call-to-action that invites them to download the document, they can be taken to a landing page that lists all the benefits and features they will receive by downloading the document.
You will need to know their name, email address, and phone number for them to be able to download the prospect’s file. This information can help you categorize them according to their interests, budget, age, needs, or any other valuable information.
Take Care of Your Audience
After you have compiled a list of potential customers that have expressed interest in your service and provided their contact information, it is time to establish some trust.
You can continue to provide valuable information via email marketing and other lead nurturing tools to help them in the buying process.
It’s okay for them to opt-out of your mailing list. You will save a lot of time, energy, and money trying to market to them.
It has been proven repeatedly that people will buy from people they trust and like. Trust can be built by sharing valuable information, which is a sure way to build it.
Don’t Miss the Trust Signals
Social proof is synonymous with lead generation, and it is the best way to communicate that your agency has the right business model.
Trust signals are not only a good way to make your agency stand out in Google’s eyes, but they also give potential clients confidence that you are a trustworthy SEO company.
For it, you will need to go over those factors:
- Collect Your Best Testimonials.
Your existing customers can provide testimonials that will help you lower your lead generation costs and reduce the time it takes to convert them.
Local SEO is a strong message if your agency is focused on building trust among local businesses.
- Share your success stories.
Another way to show social proof is through success stories.
These stories give potential clients a glimpse of the experience it’s like working with your agency and what you have to offer.
Success stories show that you are able to live up to your promises and deliver results that have an impact on businesses.
Visuals can be used to support your content. You can use charts and graphs to display data from your success stories. This is best when you can show results from past campaigns and map your agency’s processes.
Blog Content but Only of High Quality
Creating a blog is often recommended for any company that wants to generate more leads, but the content posted on it must be of great quality if you want to achieve the desired results.
For a few reasons, content works well for lead-generation strategies, and this is something we have covered so far.
However, you need to spend as much time on content promotion as the actual creation. If your prospects don’t see it, then it doesn’t matter what it does for you, and this is something we won’t get tired of mentioning.
Now, think, what is the primary purpose of your content?
Your blog content must be built on relationships. These people are likely to become leads or customers and then convert into clients.
Before you start writing a blog post, take a moment to reflect on your reasons for investing in content as lead generation ideas and how this will be implemented into your business. Answer crucial questions like:
- What problems can we solve through free content for your target audience?
- How can we teach these subjects better than the competition?
- What are the most popular places where our target customers spend their time online? Are they reading blogs? Join LinkedIn groups Google Search? Search on Google?
- What would you rather have: 100 readers who are all from our target market or 1,000 readers with only a few target customers? This will help you decide what topics to write about.
- Are we able to create high-quality content using our core competencies? How can we attract and use the right people if not?
When all this is clear, and you add a few more, it will be simple to come up with the ideas for your blog content in particular.
Ready to Sell Your Services?
Once you go over each strategy, take your time with them and finally work towards a plan with the best ones, you will start generating landscape design leads in no time.
Just keep in mind that this is continuous work. You can’t just start now, work around it for a bit, and then expect things to maintain.
You need to be persistent, consistent and guarantee things are going smoothly in the beginning and later on for your company to succeed.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Landscape Design 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 Landscape Design 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 Landscape Design 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.