Even though the end of the year tends to bring a slow down in the amount of work you may be performing on lawns, it doesn’t mean you should sit back and chill out until next year. This is a great time to create some new holiday Howell Lawn Care material to send out and begin the process of drumming up business for next year. Let’s check out how one business owner is doing just that as he shared with us his holiday marketing methods on the gopher Timberline Landscaping.
He wrote “as my mowing season has been slowing down at the end of fall, it’s been a bit quiet here so I thought I’d have a go a updating my website and preparing for the new season ahead.
I’ve tried to keep it simple and basically update my website to promote all the services I offer. I was thinking about adding a feedback section or guest book kind of thing so customers and visitors could add comments or discussion on my work etc.
I’m also about to send Christmas cards and a fridge magnet calendar out to customers and just a card to people who I quoted for but didn’t get the business. The inside of the cards mention to visit my site for a discount, I am offering them 10% off any job they hire me to perform. The promotion ends 3/31 of next year.
I got the fridge magnet idea from visiting homes of customers and members of my family who happen to have fridge magnets from traveling or visits to places as some people like collecting them. This is the first time I’ve tried the Christmas card & fridge magnet marketing idea.
As a result of this I thought what an ideal opportunity for promotion as I figure lots of people like to have a calendar of some sort around the house, so why not a fridge magnet! After all, people are always going to the fridge or need to check the calendar for a date. So every time this happens they’re gonna see my advertisement and are more likely to give me a call first when their garden or lawn gets out of control.
This is another reason why I went for a 12 month ad in the local community magazines as well. People read the magazine all year long and they will see the my ads. If you are there month in and month out, people are more likely to see and remember it more than the advertisement that appears once….I believe this is known as TOMA (top of mind awareness). What that means is if you see a brand or advertisement enough times, your subconscious stores the information even if you are not looking for that product or service at the time, you are somehow familiar when you do require it.
I also sent them out before December as you’d like to be the first Christmas card they get this year and won’t get lost among st all the other ones that land on the doormat for Christmas. As for Christmas cards , it is method of thanking the lawn care customer either for their business for the past year or raising the awareness of those who didn’t give you the job this season. Toledo Lawns.
I designed and ordered the cards and fridge magnets online as there are plenty of printing shops that offer some good deals on cards and magnets at the this time of year.
In order to figure out which lawn care marketing method is performing the best, I do try to keep a track of where my referrals come from, but inevitable I sometimes forget to initially ask. From a quick review of my clients and where they got my contact information from I’d say that most have come from Google Adwords, 2nd would be the advertisements I placed in the community magazines, third is dropping my business card flyer through peoples mailboxes, and finally word of mouth at the current time.