So, you’ve started your lawn care business. Now for the hard part: winning and retaining the customers that will sustain it.
Whether you’re a first-year lawn care business owner or a long-standing lawn care company, this article offers tips and tricks to help you expand your lawn care services to new customers. Continue reading to learn how to:
- Build Relationships With Your Current Clientele
- Identify & Understand Your Target Market
- Use Cutting Edge Tools, Equipment, & Lawncare Supplies
- Train Your Staff & Build a Strong Company Culture
- Use Proven Marketing Strategies For Your Landscaping Business
- Promote Your Lawn Care Company
Get started now.
Build Relationships With Your Current Clientele
Growth starts with nurturing the customer base you already have. Research suggests that winning a new customer can cost 5 to 10 times more than retaining an old one. With that in mind, building relationships with your customer base can go a long way if you want to improve your profit margin.
Listed below are a few ways lawn care professionals can build relationships with customers:
1. Communicate Consistently
Schedule bi-weekly emails (i.e., newsletters, discounts, lawn maintenance tips, etc.) to keep your lawn mowing or landscaping business front-of-mind. If you have a blog, provide helpful information demonstrating your authority within the lawn care industry and building trust between you and your customers.
2. Don’t Forget To Upsell
If you’re offering lawn care services that genuinely help homeowners, apartment complexes, and businesses, there’s no need to be shy about them. Examples of lawn care services you can upsell include but are not limited to the following:
- Snow removal services
- Tree and brush trimmer services
- Weed control
- Pesticide & insecticide
- Tree and stump removal
- Seed spreader services
- Mulch refresh
- Leaf removal services
- And more
In most cases, a successful lawn care business is much more than a mowing business. The more additional services you offer, the better conversion opportunities your sales reps have in their service area.
3. Make “Above and Beyond” your standard
There are a host of “little gestures” that show your customers you value them and their experience. A few examples include but are not limited to:
- Including a discount for additional landscaping services (i.e., weeding, seeding, pressure washing, etc.)
- Sending customers personalized ‘Thank You’ cards after invoicing them
- Recognizing and thanking long-term customers
This can be an excellent way to get more unsolicited testimonials for your website and social media profiles.
Identify & Understand Your Target Market
If you have your own lawn care business, you likely identified your target market in your business plan. However, if you’ve just started a new business, now is the perfect time to clearly identify your customers. Once you know their pain, needs, and lawn care desires, you can offer them the best services at the best times.
Use Cutting Edge Tools, Equipment, & Lawncare Supplies
It can be tempting to keep costs down when you invest in your tools, especially when you’re a start-up or new small business owner. However, one area you shouldn’t cut costs on is your equipment. Having the top of line tools, equipment, and supplies can help differentiate your business, lower maintenance costs, and improve efficiency.
Train Your Staff & Build a Strong Company Culture
Fostering a culture of professionalism and providing a work environment that rewards landscaping staff is fundamental for any lawn care service business with aspirations of profound growth. Generally, happy employees are more likely to treat customers better and represent your business name with a sense of pride.
The landscape business can suffer notoriously high staff churn, but there are steps you can take to minimize it, like offering competitive wages, bonuses, incentives, and a clear job progression path.
These simple steps show respect for their skills and efforts, and they are usually rewarded with better work and more loyal staff. A motivated staff is worth its weight in gold; an unmotivated staff can cost you business.
Use Proven Marketing Strategies For Your Landscaping Business
You must separate yourself in a competitive marketplace like the landscaping industry. All the skills, equipment, and customer service in the world won’t do any good if potential customers don’t know you exist.
There are many tried-and-tested marketing strategies for landscaping companies. Therefore, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just apply them to your own lawn care business.
If done correctly and consistently, they will increase your brand awareness, build trust and generate the volume of leads you need to take your landscaping business to the next level.
If you’re interested in building your offline and online presence, consider the following tips:
- Set up your Google Business profile
- Make a search-engine-optimized (SEO) business website
- Look for content marketing opportunities
- Consider paid advertisements (digital, paper, and radio)
- Make a Facebook business page
- Build an email marketing strategy
- Distribute flyers or door hangers
- Start a customer referral program
How Do I Promote My Lawn Care Business?
Lawn care promotion is just as much an art as a science. With that in mind, there are many ways to effectively “get out the word” about your lawn care services.
There’s no right or wrong way to promote a landscaping business. There are just effective and ineffective methods. What works best for your service area, specialty, and desired clientele may differ from the next company.
If you’re unsure where to start, conduct several competitive reviews of successful lawn care companies in your area. Find out what’s working for them, and take what you can use from their marketing strategies.
Take Your Lawn Care Business to The Next Level
The tips and tricks in this article can help facilitate the continued growth of your lawn care business for years to come. For more information about growing your landscaping company, check out our blog: “Market Smarter Not Harder: Tips for marketing your lawn business.”
If you’re interested in exploring different ownership options for your landscaping or lawn care business, Green Group helps companies like yours every day. Click here to learn more.
