How to Choose the Best Advertising for LawnCare and Landscape Contractors
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- Опубліковано 9 лип 2024
- Which advertising will give you the most Bang for your buck? Radio commercials, flier or brochure drops, craigslist, home advisor, Angies list, networking or web sites. I compare and contrast what has proven to work. Check it out for yourself and tell me your success stories!
The Landscape Business Pro Podcast- The Voice of the Landscaping and Construction Industry.
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This was published in 2015 I'd like to hear an update on how these things are working or changes you may have made
This will be my 5th year running my own business. My first few years I literally just did any FREE advertising that I could, Facebook page, craigslist ads and just word of mouth referrals. Now I'm getting bigger and I decided I need to actually spend money on advertising this year (tax write off!!) So I am running an ad in our local newspaper every week and so far in the course of 3 months I have gotten 17 leads, 10 for weekly maintenance and the other 7 were for big landscaping projects. I landed every lead!! can't beat that
Home advisory is horrible tried them 2 times really ever got good leads rarely got a hold of customers always got billed and didn't always get my money back. I avoid them like the plague now.
I am the owner operator of Connected Lawn Care in Oakville Ontario. We do absolutely fantastic with our flyer distributions. our response rate is in the 1 percent area... but we are able to get a lot of customers in the same area which is a massive key to our success. We also stake lawn signs on all our properties after completing spring projects. When people are walking around the neighborhood and they see an amazing gardening project with fresh edges, new mulch and plantings they are inclined to give us a call. All of our trailers are enclosed cargo trailers with the company logo, services and contact info. All of our staff are uniformed with company logos and contact info... we get a ton of walk by business this way.
Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing.
Flyers are great. I can put out 3k flyers a day & my average return is $3 per flyer.
I used Facebook and it worked very well! Paid a total of $16 and had a reach of 2.5k people. Got about 20 appointments from it and got 12 of those jobs. Super recommend. You make a page for you Company then you create a promotion post and boost it in your area only.
Good advice, thanks !
Where does the post go? If you make a page, post then boost the post where does it end up?
I did Craigslist at the beginning of the season but have no room now. Would get atleast 6-10 calls a day and texts because I know ppl sometimes won't talk on the phone.
Key times to post.
8am,11am,12pm,3pm and 5pm
Every time I would post at those times immediately would get a call or text 5-10 mins after. Sometimes I would post at 12pm and get a text at 12:01 or 12:02 ha.
Walter Rocha Great info- Thanks for sharing!
Walter Rocha So you would just post multiple ads throughout the day? I know kijiji wont let you post two ads that are identical.
Yes exactly the same on Craigslist. Make sure you are always on top or atleast top 3
How do you make sure you are in the top 3?
turdsandwicher Keith Kalfas has a great video on this
Stanley, I have been watching you for a while and have learned a bunch, I do lawncare, gutter cleaning and window cleaning. One thing I learned from this experience, Networking. I was cutting a client's home when a realtor showed up, I didn't know the client was selling the house. Anyways, the realtor liked my work, I gave her my card. Now I cut her duplexes, she gives me all the work she can find from her past clients and new clients, lawn care, cleaning houses before listing them, landscaping jobs ( Im new but learning with you), interior painting, I never say no to any job unless is super out of my league. She is my advertising. 90% success rate. When she sends me a lead, FREE I call or they call me I quote them, get the job, that easy. Thanks Stanley, GC from KS.
Best advertising for me is to look in neighborhoods i want to work in, for really small inexpensive projects that are front and centre, like 2 or 3 hours tops... Knock on doors, do it on the cheap side and do a perfect job.. ive had seasons where ive never left the same street besides taking care of previous customers... My most profitable season was in 2015 where i completed 37 paver driveways and patios basically on the same street... It all started because i reworked a tiny paver platform maybe 6 feet in diameter that a bird bath was sitting on for 100 bucks, took me two hours. Then i did her sons driveway 3 houses over then his next door neighbors driveway, then a few houses down etc... There were multiple vacant lots for staging materials never had to pull my trailers or big rigs out a single time. It trully was a dream season... Itll never happen again because this year was the first ive been fully booked the season prior and now im already fully booked for next season plus 2 dozen jobs im trying to "squeeze" in.
Word of mouth really is the best way to get business! Always take pride in your work, and it'll pay off.
Good advice, thanks for watching !
In today’s age I couldn’t see radios ads being effective. I appreciate your test for us. You’re a huge inspiration sir!
THE ONE OF THE BEST ADVERTISING I THINK IS PUTTING YOUR COMPANY LETTERING ON THE SIDE OF YOUR TRUCKS, MACHINES, AND TRAILERS!! GREAT CHANNEL AND OUTLOOK ON LAWN MAINTIENCE. I WORK FOR A COMPANY IN VA AND WE PUT SIGNS ON RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES
+Michael Giddings I think truck lettering is a great way to reinforce your company presence.
In my first season. And the best form of advertising is doing a good job. My yards look great. And my helper and I look good out there working every week. I lettered my truck last month per Johnny Mows advice. My advice is to do good work. Your accounts and customer leads work. I spend time with my customers. My craigslist ads say so. Green Isles LawnCare is a personal bussiness. Accountable, Responsible, Consistent and Honest. I call it the A.R.C.H. principal. And guess what, that is what people are looking for in the service industry.
+SnakeJones09 Nail-Head- you. That is exactly what people need-they want a great job and the connection with their service provider is key.
Thankyou for all the information that you put up in this post.
I run a Handyman & Property Maintenance business in Queensland, Australia.
We have tried magazine advertising, flyer advertising, networking on social media sites like (Facebook), HiPages (Pay per Lead) aswell as having a website created by a professional.
I have found that the Pay per lead is the best method for getting your name out there. The customer gets you over to quote or estimate on a specific job and before you know it, you are doing a whole list of various jobs for them.
Not to mention that they are also advertising your business on their website for you in the mean time.
Facebook has been the best for me. Better than anything else
Hey call me for lawn care services 972 774 8467 Tall Grass and Tree Limbs
I'm not even in your industry. Just a DIY'er, and find value and interest in every video you post. Thank you Stanley!
Hi I like your videos they are so helpful to me ,I just started my business 2 months ago and I had passed out 2 thousands business cards door to door so far and thanks to God already have 35 customers ,I live in Houston tx and I'm grateful for all the information I'm getting from you ,I will like to see more videos about you lawn care business cause that's what I have ,thanks so much and God bless you.
I did craigslist and have signs but no need to put them out yet. I will be using them in areas I want to work in. I have buddies they put them by a Fred Meyer or close to the Post Office. Many of mine are word of mouth but Craigslist 3 years ago for 3-4 months starting and last year for 2 weeks just for lawn care. I have met and seen many Landscapers use Angies list and home advisor seems pretty popular from what I hear with the customers.
Me and my friend are both 17 years old and r trying to start a lawn care business and we have been watching all of ur videos. We r started by doing little labor jobs to get money to start advertising and buying lawn equipment. A great way we have been getting business is the app called neighbors next door. It's an app for ur town or area u live in and u can put ads on there about anything going on such as business or crime in the area but anyways that is r way of advertising right now
Sounds like you are on the right track! Thanks for sharing
Stay away from HomeAdvisor ignore what he saying. Home Advisor is a scam and they're damn good at it.
I have heard the same thing. I have unsubscribed to their email list at least 15 times and told their sales reps at least 5 times to stop calling with no luck. So just on that front, they are a crummy company.
Cunningham Lawn Care, LLC Same. Email them back with a threat and they will stop. Some dude named lionel kept emailing me from homeadvisor.
If your on the younger side, knock on doors its easy and they can hardly deny a young entrupenur, i get about 10-15 yards in 1 nebiorhood
I am in central NC and my best method has been Face Book posting to all the local groups. Flyers were a bust for me big time. Thumtack was OK but I got off it because it was mostly crappy jobs and tire kickers. I have found Taskeasy to be good, doesn't cost you anything and they call when they get jobs. But the best method for advertising is your existing clients tell someone about you.
***** I have not yet tried Facebook ads for lawn maintenance. Sounds like its worth looking into.
I watched this video when it first came out and I'm enjoying it again once I can breathe after the season is done. Lots of good business advice in this video.
+PrimoLandscaping.ca Thank you!
Home Advisor is like paying for Craigslist leads. What I mean by that is, junk, low-ball customers that want jobs done for almost free. no way you could use HomeAdvisor regularly and not understand their bunk lead return process. It's not simple, easy or smooth. it's like he's paid by HomeAdvisor with his endorsement, because HomeAdvisor is terrible from everyone I've spoken to in our trade.
Our local radio station where I live (which is terrible and no one listens to) wanted me to advertise with the station so we set a meeting. In the meeting, he asked me to do about 4-$5,000 dollars of work in trade for 1-2 months of radio advertisement and then continue the contract for 3-$4,000 a month for radio!!! I wouldn't pay 3-$4 a year for radio, especially from my towns small station. You will have better luck knocking on doors and doing foot work than wasting your money on radio. Good video sir
I knocked on doors and literally knocked on as many doors as I could per day to stay busy everyday . Coupled with the right price rates got me 40 houses in less than a month I had multiple houses on damn there every street in the 85014 . I was so busy I couldn’t expand beyond that zip code unless I started another route. Never had luck with flyers so I started knocking on doors and 85percwnt of the time they would open the door if no answer at door I would leave a small mini flyer with an instant bid on the flyer and I got quite a few from that but most of my residential accounts came from knocking on doors and word of mouth referrals . You have to ask your clients tell them that you are looking for more work and they will have every friend they have willing to spend money calling your phone.
Thanks for sharing and for watching!
Facebook has worked great for our company and it's free! I post ads on several local public groups and the response has been very good. We do "Before" & "After" photos of all of our properties and that is what the majority of our ads are. People love before & afters!
Love your videos Stanley. lots of respect for you and what you do to help us out. In my end home advisor was not a good experience.
Great Vid Stanley! I’ve been debating for 3 or 4 weeks whether to use home advisor and you just sold me on them.
Thanks keep the great vids coming!
Great to hear, thank you Richard !
I live in North Carolina and use homeadvisor, it works ok but I know homeadvisor is sending the same leads to 3-4 more contractors like me and we are competing to win that job so I think we have to provide good customer service and good prices, I really like your videos, thanks for doing them 👌🏻👌🏻🤝
I have found that walking door to door, knocking and talking works best to acquire new clients. Tacoma,WA
Zach Harpel Around here in Minnesota you need a vendors license to talk to people door to door. But you can walk around and place fliers -as long as you don't knock and talk :)
No local landscaping business here have Yelp reviews, or Google reviews so just with a few reviews we've been able to get to the #1 spot in many nearby locations and that's been great free advertising.
I have used radio to advertise. it was very effective, almost to much. I used AM and FM on 4 stations, but that was for my lawn service. i have advertised on radio for another business and it only received a few calls over 3 weeks. Any plans for future growth with lawn maintenance will be with radio, it works here, and for me. Also, flyers are cheap and being simple seems to catch more eyes than trying to look "big". And networking! Talking to people in line for subway just like you've explained gets new business all the time. And a side note to the radio, I used my own voice for the lawn maintenance ad, (nervous and shy) but maybe that's why it was so effective.
Matt Searles I produced a commercial and also had the radio produce one. We then ran both. Hard to say which one was more effective for landing the 2 calls we got haha.
My father was grandfathered into Angie’s list in New York State I do not know if it is different but they told me they want 300 a month to advertise me u can go make a free profile if your a contractor I did that and it has worked wonderfully
Best advertising for me is do the job as perfect as possible, throw the customer a discount, and then they tell friends and coworkers, then throw them a good deal and make them a priority and pretty soon u can't keep up. I get into a neighborhood and most times the neighbors need work and u end up there for a few weeks when u only planned for 2 days. I just put lettering back on the truck for the first time in a few years. I don't even run a phone number. I find quality work at an affordable price fills the books. I also do a lot of jobs that other guys don't want, and those pay way better than new construction. I invested in equipment to get into back yards and jobs that pay 1000 in the front, pay 3000 in the back. It's more work but instead of 6 hrs, it takes 10.
I found Facebook to be very effective in my area. I post about 20 adverts in different areas once a week. I always get a handful of leads and tend to sell the majority. flyers were a waste of time in the past year but going to try with new design n love the channel Stan
Can you post a video going over your flyer design and tips for us on creating one of our own? Thanks!
One more tip for kijiji, I paid for top ad for 7 days and got tons of calls. It definitely paid for itself many times over. I also noticed the number of ad views went up 4 to 5 times. I have actually stopped advertising for the past few days. I'm just trying to get organized and do things efficiently. I found a lot of people want biweekly service and scheduling and routing have been tough! I wasn't prepared. Make sure you are ready once you start getting calls!
James L Scheduling bi-weekly versus weekly can be tough. Eventually you will have as many customers as you can handle and then start to pick and choose. Hence you can refuse biweekly service and only do weekly which will make your schedule easier.
James L kijiji gets a lot of cheapies hence the bi weekly cutting requests or the how much per cut questions. When i first started out we took bi weekly contracts and we would charge 75 percent per month of what we would charge our weekly customers. 4 years ago we cut them all out and no longer offer that service. it wreaks havok on our schedule and if its been a rainy week the grass can take forever to cut and will look like hell when your done. My tips... charge monthly and not per visit... as soon as your schedule is full start dropping the bi weekly accounts. Unless they are commercial contracts they are not worth ypur time
Hey Stanley this is joey and I been with Home Advisor for many years and what I found was they are great I get around 40-50% return but on tree jobs this is good because you make more money per job. I main do lawn care just getting into trees. I am also using flyers too. take care Stanley and happy landscaping :-)
+J&R Enterprise Lawn Care I get a ton of lawn care and landscaping leads from Home advisor. My cost per job lead is by far the greatest.
Good averting at very low cost. Yard signs. I put professional ones on commercial properties we do so nobody steals them. But you also need to be carful on where you put them and how you put them out.
Don Abraham Yes! great idea. Yard signs are the billboards of the neighborhood!
not anything crazy just sharing my experience and motivation. I love helping people and I love sharing experiences and relating to other people's stories. and I can't thank you enough for that mulch bid video where you break it down into a formula.
Your Welcome - Thanks Steve ;)
Craigslist was awesome. If I was doing a direct mailer it would be right now before the season starts.. I think I covered a city of 10,000 people for just under $1000. Go right to the post office. And i got over 40 leads off of it and closed 30. but building rapport is the most important thing you can do.. and becoming a member of things you enjoy. Im in a golf league, pheasants forever, city league softball and basketball. Anywhere you can put your nose into to be noticed. Oh yeah. Don't forget church. 😀
the best advertising for me has been business cards, you can buy about 5k cards for 120-150$ then i put them in door jams .
i do this starting mid feb and go till i cant except any more work i was only able to pass out 3.5k before i had to stop.
I use clist, and thumbtack!
thumbtack had gotten 2 of my biggest jobs this year. But there's lots of quotes that don't go anywhere. I've found out that on thumbtack there's alot of people that get the quotes and then don't do anything.
Home advisor has been tring to get me to sign up for the last year now and I keep pushing them off, I might have to have a conversation with them after viewing this video!
Thanks Stan for the info!
Besides a heavy dose of Ibuprofen for those bench vice head squeezers a solid strike to the top of the foot with a hand sledge will usually make you forget all about that headache.- Even though I have absolutely no use for one, or a place to store it, or the money needed I still want an excavator, if nothing else I can put it on blocks in front of the house, first in the neighborhood with one.
Lawn signs have been working great this season for me, and the BBB generated a lot of customers. This season Im shooting about 90% success on landing all my landscaping jobs and 70% of lawn accounts. I even raised my price a LOT $10 - 15 a hr this season. Not one customer said anything about the hourly rater or my invoices.
Tim Hagan Thats an incredibly high closing ratio. You might want to look at your numbers closer. If customers aren't flinching at your hourly rate you have room to raise your price and put more money in your pocket.
Hey I'm a new subscriber to your channel after watching a few videos I'm in Florida and have a lawn maitanence business and I use home advisor it's awesome to generate leads but majority of leads want one time service or I've had some days that by the time you can call the person (because you get leads 24 hours a day)they've found someone else. I stopped using Craigslist because there was to many weirdos and shady people that skipped out on payment
I've started this year and Craigslist and Facebook is awesome.
Jet Mowing Agreed. :)
Pin business cards and flyers to pin boards at local stores and at the local tag office everyone who lives in the area has to go through the area atleast once a year and also if you can put a signs out at intersections and if people let you put it at yards you do. Your work shows good quality they can see it instantly and will want the same also get in good with banks you'd be surprised how many times people will ask when buying a house if they know anyone good to keep their house up for them I'm just a single guy so most all my business is word of mouth and right now I'm staying busy 6 days a week
Thank you for all your info stan I watch a lot of your videos this is my first year working for myself and so far I'm doing pretty good without advertising but I am trying to find a faster better way to get more jobs thank you
Wow lot of bad reviews and stories on UA-cam about home adviser, glad you are making it work! I will not even talk to them they are hard hard sell all the way and once they get your number they will not stop calling.
HA & ANGIES List are now the same company.
you are the only one to talk good about home advisor on the internet
I love it!
Argos, it's called hidden advertisement. Homeadvisors are crooks
Stan, you could not be anymore correct, I can tell you have been around for awhile. We were in a different type of business so its not the same. We spent 40,000 on Radio Adv. I believe we got 2 jobs, total profit 5,000. Back in the day we used Yellow pages, that cost 1100.00 a month, it was in the book for 14 years, 184,000 dollars. We landed maybe 6 jobs, total profit for those jobs was around 8,000. Dont laugh to hard. But we finally hit pay dirt, costs nothing at all, and we made millions. Took basically no time at all, and the customers loved it. Win/Win. Remember I was dealing only with Business customers.
HomeAdvisor was ok but the customers I met from those leads ended up being too dumb to google or look past the first 4 results. Bang for the buck it got me in front of customers the cheapest.
Nick Stone dude hahahaha
Thank you for the great advice
You're welcome, thank you for viewing !
When I first went into business, I was contacted by Home Advisor. At the time, I thought it was a decent deal. Fast forward only about two months. I was inundated with so many leads that I strongly believe were HA employees just trying to eke money from me, couldn't get any leads returned, paid huge amounts of money and finally went bankrupt from the number of leads I was being charged for, I couldn't get them to answer the phone, stop my lead flow, return any leads, and only had like a dozen ACTUAL customers hire me on. I'm no longer practicing in the area, and have a collection agency after me that's never going to get a cent, and am attempting to pursue legal action for fraud against the company. If I only learned one lesson from that is, if you want to advertise, don't rely on an agency to do it for you, ESPECIALLY if you're new in the field. Word of mouth, a website on something like GoDaddy, a Facebook page for your company, and some signage on the truck, and a uniform. I've netted more customers from a sign on my back window in two weeks than in six months from Home Advisor. Be the go-getter. It'll make you more money than spending it on an ad campaign that would net you maybe a 1% return.
as the owner of Pro painters Inc a high-end residential repaint company in Northern Virginia the leads I got from them we're usually too old and some the jobs had already been completed
Even though this says for landscapers, this advice can work well for any service business! Great tips! I will certainly use this!
I would just recommend stay away from HomeAdvisor... It's a scam.
Thanks , hope the tips will help you out!
SO far these are the best videos about starting a landscaping company... I have been thru a lot of your videos and they teach a lot. what I cant find and I want to see is the video where you talk and show that presentation letter that can be sent to the management companies offering your services.
Reply
I need to make that video .
I have found with patios and decks when I am at a job i just take 5 flyers or business cards very basic just my business name, phone number, and services i do and just drop then in the street I am already in what usually happens is a few days after i finish i get a call and someone wants a quote after seeing the other job i did and i go out and keep it very professional and take photos of the job and it has landed me most of my extra work and best bit is its all close by the other job so if its lawn car it keeps the route tight and less driving set up and pack up time
andreweasty Solid advice. Thanks !
wow i spent $3,000 on radio and didn't get a single call. Spent over $2,000 a month for 6 months on HomeAdvisor and got calls from India!!!!! and other states that obviously I don't work in.
How do you factor in craigslist ads now that they charge per ad?
Ive got magnets on my truck well decals that work and always wearing my business logo stuff
Hey Stan, good video. I'm going to disagree with you in regards to Home Advisor when it comes to lawn care. During my trial period, I would get leads that were way out of my service area. Leads that did not apply to the criteria that set (i.e.- I am set up for lawn mowing and they sent two leads to install irrigation systems and another to cut down trees both of which were in another state.) I also received leads that were sent to many other companies and when I called the potential client they would be very angry with me because they told me I was the 9th or 10th call they received about doing their service. I remember that their promise was to only send these leads to 2 or 3 companies so there was a better chance of closing. When I spoke with the Home Advisor rep that signed me up and told him my concerns, he started to get rude and told me that I must not be serious about my business if I couldn't handle spending money. I did not appreciate this sales tactic and pulled the plug on Home Advisor. The same rep continued to call me several times after this and would literally scoff at me and say, "Oh yeah, I remember you. When you get serious about having a REAL business, call us back." He called two more times after that over the next two months and offered the same crappy attitude. I blocked his number and called to complain with the company that this had turned into harassment. One week later, I received another sales call from home advisor but from a new representative. I just hung up the phone because it wasn't worth the aggravation to yell at anyone over the phone. I'm sure they just transferred my name from one rep to another. I understand that my experience may have been completely different from others that use this service but I just wanted to share. 99% sure I will not ever do business with this company regardless of what they offer.
+Gravel Back Mechanic Holy Crap- That is crazy Bad. That rep needs to be fired asap! By the way whenever I get a bad lead- I turn in a request for a refund. I get bad leads for work I am not interested in -often. I immediately click the refund button-its hidden but there. Once you know where to look I figured out the quick way to use it :). But if they did that bad sales man ship- I would never consider them again.
I advertise by going out anytime I'm not working n while working an ring doorbell on homes that need work. An I give live estimate s on the work I see that need to be done. If no one is home I'll give an estimate flat dollar price. An that's all I do. I haven't really done much with flyers but I do put them out at specific times. An when I am doing work in a area I try to blanket the block or blocks I'm working on.
Craigslist is now charging for service advertisements. Any good free services left?
Home adviser is great and it works, be wear of the knockoffs that sale leads, they don't work as good, I'm not saying you can't get any jobs but compared to home adviser they don't even match up and angieslist is ok, iys not home adviser but iys a good place for your company to be listed, you can make a living on just those 2 sites, but granted I'm in roofing, I'd say sales and being good at sales and a closer will obviously make the difference between winning and losing, a great seller can make a killing without those things but with them you'd be unstoppable
Thanks for the comments!
Crazy success story! when I first signed up with homeAdvisor my very first client I payed $15 lead fee for him. that client ended up bringing in $850 for a 10 hour clean up. and another $2,000 for laying 20 yards of mulch. and on top of that this guy gives me 2 free Quads!! not even joking !
+ivan kravtsov Wow- Thats is a sweet deal. Home advisor has always worked well for me.
You didn't mention Google Ads in this. Have you ever used it? We've done well with our junk removal co on it.
Local Facebook for sale groups are great!
Thanks for the great information
Sure Cut Landscaping inc Thanks for watching!
I haven't had any luck whatsoever with CraigsList. The only people who called were salesmen and women trying to get me to pay for a membership on the apps (similar to homeadvisor) they were representing. One guy even left numerous messages saying he needed multiple yards taken care of in my area and it turned out he was a salesman for Home Advisor. At one time Home Advisor worked, but that was a long time ago. Now they don't care about the home owner or the contractor. THEY WILL SCAM YOU, they've found ways to LEGALLY STEAL MONEY from business owners.
I've used craft Jack, it's okay. I got as many leads as I wanted, but thats as far as I ever got with them. And they weren't too fond of refunds either.
Hey man your videos are awesome I watch you and keith from the employee trap everyday just watching your guys videos and applying it to my service's And busniess mindset I've become closer and closer to being 100% independent and not working for anyone else But me. thank you please keep them coming. I would love to get a coaching session from you 1 on 1.
I might be available this winter to do that :)
Spoting a liar is that you? ha ha ha....! just kidding great video brother thanks.
I have been a member of HomeAdvisor now for about two weeks. And my phone has not stopped ringing. I am in the plumbing business.
thank you this helped
Awesome!😃
Love homeadvisor!
They are pretty good.
HomeAdvisor sucks ass
I made a home advisor account, I got a phone call from one of their sales reps about a day later. I was very interested in their service but I was not ready to sign up at the time. As soon as I said I was not ready yet, they transferred me to an extremely high pressure salesman that would not take no for an answer. I was really put off by this and now I'm reluctant to contact them again now that I have a business that's ready to take on more clients.
They keep calling you too. Pain in the ass.
Do NOT do it. Read my above comment. They ran me into bankruptcy as a company in six months. Avoid them and AngiesLIst like the plague.
Worked: BNI ( immediate payback form joining this group ) Craigslist ( have to post everyday and weed out the PITA customers ) Website ( Like you say it is slow to pick up but does work ) TaskEasy ( Like Brad said very easy to work with and do not have to deal with the customer directly and quick to pay )
Did not work: Flyers have never gotten a return, Facebook have never gotten a return, Thumbtack have never gotten a return
C Breezy Seems like different results for different areas is what I am hearing.
Stanley Genadek Landscape and Construction Business Pro it is very geographical as to what works. My method for advertising in Raleigh want work in Henderson and it's only 30 miles between the 2. Don't pay for FB adds just post for free on the community information pages and like yard sale groups.
Stan I had a call from Home Advisor last week and was a little on the fence about it because I'm a sub for a big electrical contractor and was in the middle of digging. But in the last 2 months a lot has changed and I'm buying my first Excavator ever next week (Deere 35G) and I definently want to expand. I told Kevin@ Home Advisor Id call him back and when I got home that I simply UA-camd "Home Advisor" and was blown away by it being labeled a SCAM!...maybe if you got time you can watch 1 or 2 of the scam videos and reply but then like you said and what those guys are not doing is returning the "match" or whatever it is...So should I call them back and negotiate it?
5:55-6:15 made my day!
Chuyeah Her Thanks!
Even if you had two calls your name was put out quite a bit, and when that audience needs the service your a little higher up on their mind. So then if they search for companies on Google and you pop up, they will likely choose you. In the end I can see a radio campaign being beneficial paired with other campaigns, but absolutely not short term. it's all about being the company on the customers mind when they go looking, not always direct benefit.
I just used vistaprint business cards and word-of-mouth from my customers
Nice! Thanks for sharing.
I really boosted my business with bandit signs. Got calls daily some good some bad.
Nice!
how much work could you generate from advertising your business name and phone number on a t shirt
I went from 0 to 60 customers in less than 3 weeks from 600 flyers and about 50 craigslist type ads. I was able to quit my job only 1.5 weeks after handing out my first flyer.
I do mostly lawn maintenance but some light landscaping as well. I find craigslist gets calls from all over the place. Many of them I have to turn away because they are too far away. It would be great if I could network with someone from other parts of town to refer them jobs for a bit of cash or maybe they could do the same for me. Gotta make some phone calls on my slow days.
I found flyers were very effective for getting customers closest to me. Although the flyers cost money to print and time to distribute the savings in gas and driving time make up for it.
I intend to put up a website asap so it will get indexed for next season. I will also try yard signs, newspaper ads and tshirts with big bold phone number.
James L What type of flyers did you hand out and what did they say? I am planning on handing out some very simple homemade flyers this week. Any tips?
James L What was your flier design like?
Flyers were done on high gloss 8.5 x 11" thick paper not sure of the exact specs but they look pretty high quality. I got 1000 of them printed for about $150. They way more than paid for themselves.
As for the actual design I basically put my company logo a short list of services and an extremely lowball starting price at $20 per cut. I also displayed a large 20% off in a nice eye catching graphic. Then I had a call to action which basically said call now limited openings available.
Really nothing special. I believe most people responded due to the extreme low price. I had a very high response rate though. It had to be over 20% of my small sample size.
The majority of my business has come from free online advertising though. I have been overwhelmed with the response rate to such an extent that I have stopped advertising. I'm growing too fast.
turdsandwicher
Hey turdsandwicher my best tip is just to go and do it now. Don't delay at all. I actually thought I missed the boat since I handed my flyers out a month and a half after everyone else but I went and did it anyway. Nothing to lose.
There are still a ton of people looking for all kinds of work to be done. There are endless opportunities. Even though there are a ton of other guys doing the same thing there is just an abundance of work to go around.
Have a positive attitude and really communicate your gratitude when you receive a call. Be polite and professional and good things will happen. Best of luck to you my friend.
James L I 100% agree with this. I still put up craigslist ads and hand out fliers.
What do you think about Direct Mailing?
Facebook business page I use it and it kinda works
Nice- I heard its effective.
What kind of radio station did you advertise on? Conservative talk radio usually gets results as their demographic is usually older, mature, homeowners, make more income, etc. I haven't advertised yet (but am planning to) but I hear ads from the same companies all the time on conservative talk radio. So if it wasn't effective they wouldn't keep putting their ads on these stations year after year and wasting money. Avoid rock stations, etc.
Best to put a coupon on your flyers so they don't get tossed. I just did 5000. 3 calls, one job. But the return on Google ads and SEO is abysmal too. No school like old school.
here in TN craigslist has work. for lawn care.. free.. cant go wrong...
+Victor Gomez I use it here as well.
Two other good places to advertise are Offerup and Thumbtack
in watertown ct small paper town times
hey im 18 and starting a lawn care business now and im in the process of advertising, do you think in my flyer I should include that im 18 and the local neighborhood kid with a new lawn care business or should I just advertise as any other lawn care business?
+SLDNCK162 Yep- if you want to run with that angle- try it on some fliers and then leave it out on another batch. Color code the fliers so you know which is which and see if one flier has a better return. Then share your results!!!
Here in St. Louis we have a local neighborhood app called Nextdoor and I’ve gained dozens of clients for free
That's great Dalton, thanks for viewing !
When I need advice I got you or Keith!
Radio works well. In fact, every medium works well. What causes a campaign to fail is never the medium unless it is used incorrectly, and retailers are not trained in how to do that. Unfortunately, neither are the reps (that's where agencies who can show you a good track record come in). Absent all that, what causes a campaign to fail is the message: it either does not interest the listener, is incompetently produced, or both. Again, station reps are not trained in scheduling for effectiveness. Agencies are.
The main reason people say "I tried radio (or any medium) and it didn't work" is because they ask customers how they heard about the business. People are notoriously unreliable as sources for where they hear or see something. Just ask a cop. It's not that they intentionally lie to a retailer about how they heard about him, it's that they think it was Influence A when in reality it was Influence B. And, perniciously, people usually don't say I heard your ad on the radio. They do hear it, but if they tell you it was from something else, you're going to think "well, radio doesn't work for me."
When the message is good, meaning it's interesting to listeners (most ads are not interesting because the people who write them are not trained in how to write persuasively, and they riddle the copy with the same cliches they've used since the 1940's), produced professionally (not read by a station announcer), and if it is scheduled correctly, it will work very well. Absent a good message, professional writing, good production values, and competent scheduling, it will almost certainly fail. Most of this is true with all media.
I want to grow my business by adding fence building as a service. How do you advertise for doing fence work?
The same as for other services in landscaping. Look at what other companies are currently doing in your area.
So far no luck with HA. 2 contacts in 6 months, and neither one panned out.
I use thumbtack. been thinking about trying use homeadvisor. Also I would like talk to you personally about an job I have alot on my mind. thanks James Lee
Don't do anything with HA or AngiesList. They're a scam company. Read the reviews online.