How to Market Your Landscape Business

If your goals for the future of your landscaping business include growth, you need to fill your sales funnel with high-quality leads. You don’t need to invest tens of thousands of dollars in marketing services to see results in your monthly revenue. 

We’ve pulled together some of the most effective marketing ideas to deliver results as you scale. 

Better marketing campaigns mean more growth

Aspire partners with landscape and lawncare businesses to help them build momentum for ongoing growth. While our landscape business software improves efficiency and streamlines operations, marketing is essential to filling your sales funnel. 

This blog is a collection of some of the most effective strategies for marketing in the green industry.

6 best marketing strategies for landscapers

1. Build a website to showcase your work

2. Share your expertise with a blog

3. Find local customers.

4. Use social media to build brand awareness

5. Create a rewards program.

6. Use paid digital marketing

Identify your market: Who is your ideal target?

Your gut instinct may be to target as broad an audience as possible with your landscape business marketing.  However, just like with fertilizer, more isn’t always better. 

Even if you’ve never thought about it, you probably have a sense of your perfect customer. Consider these questions:

• Are they residential or commercial property owners?

• Where is your service area? Are you getting ready to expand or focusing locally?

• What is the profit margin for this type of customer?

• Is there an opportunity for enhancements and upsells?

• What are the customer’s problems that you can solve?

Some companies find it helpful to consult a marketing firm about developing a buyer persona to give them greater insight into their target audience.

Small business owners who aren’t ready to work with marketers can answer a few questions to build a buyer profile to inform the rest of their advertising decisions.

Create (and optimize) a website so you can be found online

No matter who your ideal audience is, chances are they will do an internet search for landscaping websites if they have questions about the care and maintenance of their property. In fact, 81% of shoppers do some online research before committing to a purchase.

One of the most effective ways of marketing is through your website. Unfortunately, having a website doesn’t mean you’re done as soon as it’s published.

Like mowing grass, once you launch, you need to develop a maintenance schedule to ensure:

• It’s fast to load, and all elements function, i.e., no dead links or inaccurate information.

• You have an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy to help your website appear in response to relevant Google searches.

• It looks up-to-date, with a modern website design and accurate business contact information such as email and phone number.

Plenty of platforms offer drag-and-drop templates to create modern websites. But given the ongoing maintenance and how pivotal a high-quality website is to market your business, consider hiring one of the following:

• An agency for some or all of your website maintenance needs, including publishing new SEO content and pictures of your work

• An in-house marketing team to spearhead branding, paid advertising, social media, and your online presence

Even with a robust base of landscaping customers, it’s difficult to scale without a well-maintained web presence backed by a digital marketing plan.  

Create useful content for prospective clients

Most businesses with websites also have a blog. There are several reasons why they’re important:

• Regularly posting new, search-engine-optimized content helps your website rank higher in search results.

• Customers can read your first-hand expertise in lawn care services, landscaping, and hardscaping, increasing brand trust.

• Blog posts include compelling calls to action with a hyperlink to your services or contact page, driving conversions.

Blog posts are great for lead generation—they continue to work 24/7 after they’re posted.

Written content isn’t the only way to reach prospective clients

• Podcasts are everywhere, as entertainment and professional development. Even a short podcast series is a great way to build brand awareness. 

• Launch a YouTube channel with videos highlighting your landscaping company’s recent work or showing solutions to common landscaping challenges.

• Educational webinars and in-person demonstrations are a great way to find local prospects and build engagement within your existing customer base.

Multi-stream content provides several benefits

• You can direct current customers with questions to your resource center with blogs, podcast episodes, and YouTube videos.

• The more platforms on which your brand appears improve your authority with Google, which raises your rank on the SERP (search engine results page). 

• Effective marketing for landscapers can be as simple as sharing your know-how and showing off your recently completed projects.

Remind viewers to engage with the content by liking, sharing it with their social networks, and subscribing to channels and newsletters.

Connect with local customers in your area

A key aspect of a high-quality lead is the prospect’s location. You don’t want to turn away potential customers because your advertising is too far-reaching. Luckily, Google’s algorithm prioritizes local businesses to meet users' needs, almost half of whom search with local intent. 

Develop a landscaping and lawn care marketing calendar

Changing your advertising with the seasons ensures you’re promoting services when customers are looking for them.

• Spring and fall are the peak seasons for residential clients looking for landscapers to clean up their lawns and grounds.

• In the late fall and early winter, pivot to commercial clients as they set the following year's budget and choose their landscaper.

Invest in print marketing alongside digital strategies

Digital marketing gets a lot of attention, but when it comes to finding customers in your service area, don’t overlook the value of printed media. 

• Find local business associations—and commercial clients—through your chamber of commerce.

• Use flyers and lawn signs with existing customers to solicit more residential business.

• Opt for door hangers over direct mail as they won’t get sorted with other “junk” mail.

It may feel like in-person advertising is less effective in an increasingly online world, but using signs and hangers is a great way to let the quality of your work generate new leads.

Use social media for marketing

It’s safe to say that social media isn’t just a temporary fad. Setting up a TikTok account for your business might feel frivolous, but short videos can help you capture new market segments and potentially introduce your business to thousands of viewers–exposure that won’t affect your marketing budget. 

Even if you’re not on Facebook and Instagram daily, your customers are—74% of consumers rely on social media for their purchasing decisions.

Great content can help your brand trend 

The pros agree; almost 90% of marketers believe social media has increased exposure for their brand. Social sites drive revenue through new leads as well as brand awareness. It’s an opportunity to engage with your customers. 

Each comment, like, and share reinforces brand loyalty and increases your reach within your market. Coming up with daily content can feel like a chore, so keep in mind what would interest your customers:

• Gardening and lawn care tips

• Upcoming promotions and events

• Positive reviews for your landscaping services

• Before and after pictures of your recent work

Finding creative ways to incorporate the latest trends and memes into your company's social accounts is also a great way to keep employees engaged. 

Create a program for referrals and reviews

It costs five times as much to gain a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Many companies only focus their advertising efforts on new customers, but marketing to existing customers also impacts the bottom line. 

Give your customers reasons to promote your services

Creating a referral program is a great way to find high-quality leads—as many as 84% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family to purchase products and services. 

Start by defining the referral rewards, such as:

• Credit on a customer’s account 

• Gift cards for local businesses or online retailers

• Coupons for both the referrer and the new customer

Then, advertise to your favorite customers—those who use high-profit services, pay on time and are great communicators. They’ll help you increase your client base with more high-quality accounts.

Online reviews are a key aspect of landscaping marketing

It’s easy to tell which customers are unhappy—they’re usually vocal about their displeasure, whether to you directly or with reviews on Google and Yelp. Getting the same engagement from homeowners who like your work can be more challenging.

You work hard to avoid negative reviews, but positive reviews and testimonials can significantly impact your marketing efforts.

Nearly half of buyers read reviews before committing to a purchase. 

Give your customers a good reason to leave a review

Make it effortless for your best customers to share their experiences with potential clients by:

• Including a hyperlink to review sites with invoices.

• Send customer feedback surveys by email once a month.

• Add a QR code to your business cards and flyers.

It can feel uncomfortable to ask for praise, but engaged customers are often happy to share their positive experiences. When people post reviews, follow up with them to say thanks and build brand loyalty.

Advertise your business online

After you’ve set up a website and started a blog, you might feel like you’ve created enough of an online presence. But without paid advertising, you’ll miss out on reaching many of your ideal customers.

Invest in paid advertising on your social platforms 

As part of developing your buyer persona, you likely identified the online social media platforms your prospects use the most. Paid media, such as Facebook ads, drops directly into your audience’s feeds as they scroll. Promoted posts are also an opportunity for prospective clients to engage with your brand.

Top the search engine results for relevant keywords

When it comes to search engines, you don't need research or market insights—Google has captured over 92% of the online search market. 

When you use pay-per-click (PPC) Google Ads for the most relevant keyword searches for your landscaping business, you ensure your company will be at the top of the search results (above even organic results) for almost all online searches.

Create a newsletter that customers want to open

Lastly, email marketing offers a higher ROI than any other form of marketing. Don't underestimate the value of reaching out via a newsletter to new clients when looking at the best ways to generate new demand for your landscaping services.

A landscaping marketing strategy is a plan for future growth

Anyone who owns property (both residential and commercial) needs landscapers. Even the most ambitious DIY-er needs occasional professional expertise for lawn maintenance, installations, or color application.

Is your organization ready to scale?

Researching marketing tips may be intimidating initially, but these strategies will help you adapt to an increasingly online world. As marketing fills your sales pipeline, ensure you have the proper operational procedures to handle more customers.

Aspire’s landscaping management software helps both existing and new businesses implement scalable processes from estimates to invoicing to keep operations running smoothly through every growth stage. 

Our end-to-end platform includes the following:

• CRM

• Scheduling

• Aspire Mobile

• Payroll

• Purchasing

• Reporting

• Accounting

Have questions or wondering what kind of return on investment you can expect from Aspire’s software solutions for landscapers?

Reach out to our team for a demonstration or check out the ROI calculator—it takes just minutes to find out how much you could increase your revenue with business management software. 

FAQs

Why is marketing for landscapers important?

Every business owner wants more customers, but these marketing strategies give you greater control over your lead generation. 

Instead of passively waiting for more leads and facing an uncertain future, you can actively develop strategies that fill your sales funnel with the kinds of customers you want. 

There’s a lot in landscaping you can’t control—fuel costs, material supplies, inclement weather—but building a successful business in the green industry means bringing granular attention to every aspect of your operations. 

Aspire’s business management products give landscapers control with software to:

• Increase efficiency

• Eliminate redundancies

• Generate comprehensive reporting

Gain the valuable insights you need to position your organization for limitless growth.

Does marketing for a landscaping company really work?

It can be hard to devote resources to marketing if you’re not confident it will deliver the desired results. 

It’s also easy to experience some of these common pitfalls:

• Trying to market to a broad audience: targeting your ideal customer saves money and delivers a better ROI. 

• Only focusing on the bottom line: loyal, engaged customers provide a higher LTV to landscapers. Invest in relationships with customers to make your marketing efforts go further.

• Marketing during the busy season alone: it might feel weird to advertise maintenance services during the winter, but you want prospects to know your brand before needing your services.

When you use a year-round, evergreen approach to marketing with focused strategies, the results will show up in your lawn care company’s bottom line. 

Does Aspire offer other products for landscapers to manage their business?

Our company is a partner to the green industry, offering a range of software products and Aspire plans for managing landscaping businesses, whatever your annual revenue. 

• Corporate: Aspire’s corporate plan provides businesses with unlimited users and full platform functionality to implement processes and procedures, ideal for companies with $3 to $15 million in annual revenue.

• Enterprise: Get advanced reporting capabilities, custom API integrations, and add-ons with the next level of Aspire, designed for landscaping organizations with over $15 million in annual revenue.

• Crew Control: Companies in early growth stages can supercharge their operations with an easy-to-learn cloud-based platform for business management.

• Property Intelligence: In-platform integrations that use aerial imagery for digital property measurements and enhancement designs.

Wondering what software is right for your organization? Check out our product match form to find the perfect platform for business management at the right price point.