Many landscaping marketing strategies can attract hardscaping and stonescaping leads, including lawn care flyers and social media landscaping advertising. However, we understand that you are held up with your business since you don’t have all the knowledge about which strategies can work and which others can’t be based on your location and niche. This is why we are here to be part of the process of sharing and going over some landscaping marketing ideas.
The topic is quite extensive, considering that marketing strategies and lead generation evolve each passing day, and what worked two years ago could not work right now.
So, to get started, we want you to take notes of these ideas and consider them for your plan:
- Name recognition will help you become the top-rated landscaper in your area.
- It is vital to have a professionally designed logo for your landscaping advertising. It makes you appear professional and trustworthy. The company logo should be visible on your truck, and the men/women should wear t-shirts in which reading your company name isn’t hard.
If you focus on these essentials, you should be able to get two basic results:
- People will know your name and contact you before others.
- You also look more credible and established.
To efficiently and inexpensively increase your company’s professionalism and branding, you can have your logo designed. Small landscaping businesses often skip this step. However, it is a reason why they remain small.
On the other hand, we want to dive deeper into what lead generation for hardscaping and stonescaping companies involves and how you can be at the top of the game.
To Generate Revenue, Market Your Services Before the Busy Season.
Landscapers have a peak season that varies depending on where they are located, but generally, it begins in spring and ends by fall.
No matter where you stay, there is one truth: people will find other professionals that will take your prospects if you don’t market properly.
There are two rules to winning leads over your competitors, no matter what medium you use:
- Reach out to prospects first.
- More opportunities to reach prospects.
It is crucial to start planning and running lead generation campaigns before spring begins. You need to reach each prospect at least three times with your message.
Landscape advertising is a game of repetition. Because they see your ads repeatedly, they are more likely to trust you as a trustworthy and stable business. This increases your chances of reaching them when they do need you.
So, you should market yourself early and often. This will allow you to stay busy all season and give you more time to care for your customers because your marketing is already taken care of!
To Attract New Jobs, Target Your Ideal Prospects
You must know the difference between the different types of lead generation tools to save money. It can be costly to mail landscaping flyers to all the homeowners in your area, predominantly if it is densely populated.
In addition, you need to know the tools + who your prospects are since not everyone is interested in what you offer.
Reduce your focus. Choose your prospects. Think about this: You deliver landscaping flyers all over town. While most of your jobs are located in one place, you will get calls from very specific people, and others will just throw your flyers because they don’t need them.
This is money, somehow, wasted.
Is it worth the gas and time to drive to another side of town to do one job on your lawn? Most likely not. However, your targeting may not be limited to geography, and this is why research about your target clients is crucial.
You can only target potential customers to generate the best quality leads and jobs! For example, A direct mail campaign that targeted homeowners with homes worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or more would be a good idea.
Finding your ideal sales leads is easy if you do not know their names. You only need to identify your most profitable customers and market to them.
Commercial properties or owners could be good targets as well since they are bound to require hardscaping and stonescaping the most when trying to bring a new vibe.
Time-Tested Marketing Tool Can Generate Return on Investment (ROI).
One of them is definitely direct mail.
Direct mail is still a proven marketing tool for lawn services, even in the digital age. These numbers are worth considering:
- 79% of consumers open direct mail right away.
- 54% of consumers prefer direct mail marketing over other forms.
That is to say: Direct mail works. When done right.
Your message is visible to recipients without them even opening it. Hardscaping and stonescaping postcards are more cost-effective than folded flyers or letters and save money on postage because they are targeted.
Your hardscaping and stonescaping business will receive a substantial ROI with their postcard campaign. You can get an available sample pack of lawn care postcard templates for your company online.
Thanks to the strategy, other options like online advertising and anything that seems profitable based on how many people you are reaching and the number of leads you get will be worth keeping.
To Reach Online Potentials, Update Your Online Listings
According to SearchEngine Journal, 93% of online experiences start with a search engine. Many people who get your postcards will search your name and visit your site. However, others will search for what they want: “Best hardscaping professionals in [your city].”
They will also see tons of listings, including many that are search and review sites like:
- Google.
- HomeAdvisor.
- Yelp.
- Angie’s List.
- Thumbtack.
- Porch.
- Houzz.
You must ensure that you are listed on these sites and that your profile contains accurate, current, and beautiful photos of your work. Or, you risk losing all those prospects to your competition.
It is simple to create an account: Follow the steps by clicking on the signup buttons on the sites. Each site will guide you through the entire process.
Do not just sign up and assume your job is complete. Maintaining your listing means taking the time to update your photos and asking happy customers to leave reviews on the site. After updating your online listings, address your website to get high-quality leads.
You Capture Leads When They Visit Your Website
Your website is more than a place where your prospects can visit you online and see your services. It is an essential part of your lead generation strategy. Take a look at these statistics:
95% of your clients will visit your website before making a purchase decision. Your website should immediately communicate the following information:
- Who are you?
- What services do you offer?
- You’re a legitimate (credible) business.
- How to reach you.
Your website is worth a visit if it has all the required information. Thanks to the pictures of well-trimmed yards and green lawns or any projects you handle in your niche, it should have enough evidence to showcase you as a hardscaping and stone scaping company.
You can also see how the headline clearly explains what your landscaping company does. It should also have a definite call to action. The logo should be in the upper left corner to show WHO controls this website. In addition:
- Enter your phone number in the upper right corner.
- The black lead capture form.
Remember, it should include photos of your work. Make your special offer clear and explain why someone should refer to you. The homepage should also have must-see graphics that are informative about your services, deals, and projects.
If you can, include positive customer testimonials, as 68% more consumers trust businesses that have positive reviews.
It would be best if you fit website testimonials to generate sales-qualified leads. You can also feature your reviews alongside a lead capture form. You can employ experts to help you design a website for your company if you do not have the skills or use one of the many website builders until you know how to work with WordPress.
Fill-In Forms on Your Site to Avoid Losing Your Hard-Earned Leads
Going back to what we were mentioning about forms on your site, you will notice that people won’t call you or request a quote if you don’t make it easy for them to do it.
Thus, you need to ensure your site is full of forms that make it easy but don’t be invasive with them.
You don’t want to lose the leads you’ve earned so far, which is why you, at least, should have one form on each page.
In addition to this effort, you need to identify the potential landscape prospects to maximize your marketing dollars and get qualified leads. This will allow you to follow up with them and keep your business top-of-mind so that when they need you, they call you!
A lead capture form is a way to offer your visitor something in return for their email address as well—for example, a free estimate or tips. Free special offers are worthy, and you can use them for marketing your services.
You can make your forms more fillable if you do not ask for too much information. People are generally willing to share their email addresses, but their phone number is an entirely different story.
You know that your prospects will visit your site, so you want to make sure you have a contact page. Putting your contact details on the site will help your customers reach you and enhance your lead generation process.
To Get Free Leads from Google, Nail Your Google Listing
You need to register for a Free Google Business Profile. This is how you will show up on Maps and other Google searches.
If someone searches for hardscaping or stonescaping (even landscaping) services similar to yours (or your company directly), the first thing Google displays is your Google Business Listing.
Google listings can show photos of your landscaping work and all other information that clients are looking for. This info is pulled from the data you provide in your Google Business Profile account.
This is why you must ensure that you enter the data correctly. The data needs to include:
- The actual name of your business.
- Verify the business.
- 360º photo of the location.
- Phone number.
- Working hours.
- Your business’s category or service category.
You can also manage any Google reviews and respond from your Google Business Profile account.
Ensure that you have all your contact information up-to-date in your Google Business Profile account. Incorrect information can prevent Google from showing your business in search results.
This is not what you want, as Google is the most-used search engine here in the U.S. If your address or hours change (e.g., for holidays), make sure you update it in your Google Business Profile.
Google Maps results also show up before organic results. This means that your sales leads will see Google Maps results first whenever they are trying to find professionals like you.
After the Google Maps results, the first organic listing for a landscaper comes.
Google Reviews Are Trustworthy, and You Can Act On Them
Research shows that prospects are 90% more likely to trust you if they see positive reviews on Google over other directories or pages because it is where most people leave their opinions.
People are inclined to click on a website with positive Google reviews and where people have shared photos or some of their experiences.
Google is like a teacher who teaches us that ratings are equal to stars, and the more, the better! The game is: you can get a lot of five and four-star reviews online for your business!
Here are some options:
- Tell your clients you would appreciate a review.
- Customers should be able to leave a review easily by providing them with a link.
- In your email signature, add a link.
- You can send gentle reminders by email but also via SMS and other channels you consider viable.
After you have finished servicing a client’s garden or space, approach and tell them that you would appreciate a review on the internet if they enjoyed your service.
In all this, positive reviews are key, but you should also take the time to respond to negative reviews, so people see how you respond to unexpected opinions.
Comment and apologize if you see a negative review about a hardscaping and stonescaping service you provided, and approach the person who left the review. You do not want a disgruntled customer slandering your business.
You can make them happy customers by handling the reviews properly.
However, even if the customer is not satisfied with your offer, your online response will show other customers that you care enough and are willing to help.
Google Pay-Per-Click Ads Can Help You Attract Customers
93% of online experiences start with a search engine. HubSpot reports that only 75% will scroll past the first page.
Google Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising allows your business ads to appear above the organic listings in search results for your services. PPC is a great way to make money since you only pay whenever someone clicks on the ad instead of just because it is placed there.
You can bid on keywords with PPC ads like “hardscaping” or “lawn service,” but Google AdWords (Google’s PPC platform) will suggest a bid, but you have the freedom to bid as much as you wish.
The cost per click you pay is affected by many factors, such as your bid and what others offer.
Google will also assess how relevant your website is to the targeted keyword.
Your conversion rate is the number of visitors who take your desired action (e.g., filling out your lead capture forms). The whole process is complicated, but you can slowly learn not to lose money.
If you are starting with PPC, it is good to set a budget of fifteen dollars per day and play around with your ads to find the best results.
It is important to remember that you will not always get the best results if you click a lot. Each click is charged a fee (hence, the term pay per click).
You should create a landing page that is specific to each ad. If your ad states “3rd Mow Free!” but your landing pages only state “Free Estimates,” people will leave faster than you can say “goodbye!”
Your landing page should contain a form to capture leads! You can add call extensions to your ads. This means that people who want to call you can either use your phone number or click to call buttons for mobile ads.
Although managing a PPC campaign may seem like a full-time job, landscaping business owners already have one or five! It is probably worthwhile to hire a PPC professional for this task. Sales teams can also help handle converted leads.
Reach Potential Hardscaping and Stonescaping Customers with Facebook
Facebook marketing is viral, and for good reasons. Research shows that:
- 79% of Americans online use Facebook. This is 68% of ALL Americans.
- 75% of them visit the site each day.
This is an excellent opportunity to advertise hardscaping and stonescaping maintenance, as they are bound to see your business at least once when properly optimizing your profile.
However, the organic reach of many business pages (how many people you can reach free) has dropped sharply. Some people see it as low as two percent.
This means that you will have to pay for an advertisement on Facebook to get qualified leads. It is good to run Facebook ads while you mail your postcards. Your Facebook ad can match your direct mail campaign’s design and special offer.
With this, your prospects will see one cohesive marketing message, whether they get your landscaping postcard by mail or your ad on Facebook. If you send hardscaping and stonescaping postcards to all homeowners in town, you can target them on Facebook at the SAME TIME.
Your prospects will feel that hardscaping and stonescaping marketing is everywhere when you coordinate your direct mail and show matching Facebook ads. It is called Everywhere Small Business. It allows your hardscaping and stonescaping company to target prospects simultaneously:
- Direct mail.
- Google Ads (available on thousands and thousands of websites).
- AND Facebook ads.
Make New Movers in Your Local Area Automatic Customers by Lifting a Single Finger
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that just over 11% of Americans move each year. Many of these people require hardscaping and stonescaping maintenance services. You can reach new movers every month with the lead management software without even thinking about it!
Here is how it works.
- It will ask you about your target audience and area of service.
- You create a postcard for your business.
- It automatically sends all new movers who meet your criteria landscape postcards every month.
- They will call you to redeem your offer. Then, they will be impressed with your services and become new customers.
Landscape postcards can be personalized with the recipient’s name (or customized to fit their demographics).
Your landscaping business can get a steady stream of new customers by automatically mailing to all unique movers in your local area.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Hardscaping & Stonescaping 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 Hardscaping & Stonescaping 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 Hardscaping & Stonescaping 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.