Excerpt: “I was a ‘mow, blow and go’ guy for 12 years but was never really making enough,” reflected Lerner about his early days in the business. “Then I went back to school for horticulture and landscape design and returned to business with the advice of a marketing guru. Ever since, I have approached the marketing of my business from a higher level.”
This professional approach is key to successful growth, says Lerner. “But patience is required for the pay off.” This “higher level” described by Lerner is a multi-faceted approach based on building customer rapport to create customer retention as well as building value in your expertise as a landscaper.
- Relationship building leads to loyal client base: Lerner's opinion about advertising is that the self-promotional aspect of advertising alone is not optimal. “It's better to make others talk positively about you than for you to talk about you.” Lerner's marketing emphasis is keeping customers happy enough to generate referrals…
- Building value in your expertise: Anyone can sell on price, but to advance your business away from competing on price, you must identify yourself as a specialist. “Present yourself as an expert in a particular area. Develop a specialty — a hook, a branded identity,” says Lerner. This identity helps distinguish you and your business from the masses. It's what will set you apart. “In grounds maintenance, it's easy to surface as cream by defining a specialty.”…
- Marketing tools: Dickerson and Lerner maintain Web sites showcasing samples of their impressive design work and reference letters. Dickerson conducts customer surveys twice annually and also distributes a quarterly newsletter.
Your crew and vehicles can also serve as marketing tools. Professionally maintained uniforms and vehicles with professional signage are important items as well… The Secret to Growth: The Next Level…At some point in the life cycle of a growing landscape company, the “next level” often seems elusive. Many struggle to a certain point and plateau. According to Dickerson, at a certain level, “growth will only occur when you are able to delegate — when you can step back and develop a system to better manage and grow.” The creation of a management team — a team of supervisors — allows you as owner to set and maintain quality standards… Your Plan for Managed GrowthSuccessful business growth requires a careful balance of focused marketing, careful estimating, cash flow management and a professional work environment. Quality, too, is an important element of your work…
Source: http://www.grounds-mag.com/mag/grounds_maintenance_business_proposals/
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Excerpt: No matter what your product, service or pitch, there are five marketing strategies that every small business marketing plan should include. These activities focus marketing efforts on low or no-cost activities that yield the best results. Whether you need to acquire, retain or create loyal customers, try these five marketing strategies today. 1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Search engine optimization should be the cornerstone of nearly all small business marketing plans. A working knowledge of keywords, proper use of keywords, and writing effective copy can boost the search engine rank for your website without spending a dime on marketing… 2. Expert Articles Contribute to Brand Image - While it may seem time consuming to write and post articles each week, submitting articles to various websites, including those read by webmasters seeking content, gets your name and URL out there. 3. Include Viral Marketing Activities in Your Marketing Plan - Viral marketing spreads your message via word of mouth. While most people think of videos, widgets on Facebook or related games as viral marketing, a simple thought-provoking top ten list, properly formatted to share and related to your unique selling proposition, can also act as a powerful viral marketing campaign. 4. Social Marketing Connects You to Others - Social marketing is a must for marketing a small business on a tight budget. Setting up thoughtfully written profiles on various social network sites, posting relevant links, and sharing as well as receiving leads and networking advice provides you with a chance to spread you message. Be sure to reciprocate for others and include some social posts so you don't look like a spammer.
Source: http://marketingpr.suite101.com/article.cfm/five_free_marketing_strategies_that_work
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Excerpt: Landscaping is the most service-oriented business in horticulture. Service industries are growing. Increases in consumer disposable income and discretionary buying power, an emphasis on leisure time, consumers having less time to “do it themselves” and an increased emphasis on family values are all positive points for promoting services. In concept, marketing goods and marketing services are essentially the same. In each case, you, the marketer, must select and analyze the target markets. Then you must develop a marketing plan around the marketing mix (the 4 Ps of marketing): the Product (goods or services), the Price structure, the Place (distribution or delivery system) and the Promotional program. However, some distinct characteristics that differentiate services from goods often create special challenges and opportunities for marketing service businesses such as landscaping firms. The strategies and tactics used in conventional goods marketing frequently are inappropriate for services marketing, and it typically leads to a quite different marketing program… Strategic PlanningTarget-market analysis. As marketers of services, you should understand the demographic factors (i.e., population and income) in your market area because they affect the market for the service. Moreover, the psychological determinants of buying behavior, such as attitudes, perceptions and personality, are more important when marketing services rather than goods because of the intangibility of a service… Planning of Product (your services). The fluctuating demand and inability to store services make product planning critically important to service marketers. You will need to be able to determine what services you will offer, how you will position the services and what attributes (such as branding, images and service quality) the service will have… Pricing of services. In the marketing of services, nowhere is there a greater need for managerial creativity and skill than in the area of pricing. Services are extremely perishable, cannot be stored and demand for them often fluctuates considerably. All of these features carry significant pricing implications… Channel of distribution for services. Traditionally, most services have been sold directly from producer to consumer or business user. Moreover, the geographic markets that you can reach are often limited due to the fact that landscape services are created and consumed simultaneously. This also enables you to personalize the service and get direct, detailed customer feedback… Promoting a service. Among all the promotional activities used in services marketing, personal selling plays the dominant role. Any employee who comes into contact with a customer is, in effect, part of your business's marketing force. When using advertising and sales promotion, direct promotion of the service is often ineffective, and point-of-purchase displays of services are often impossible. Displays of the results of using your service can be a more successful strategy. Service businesses also can benefit considerably from indirect types of promotion including publicity (newspapers, radio and television) and community involvement…
Source: http://grounds-mag.com/mag/grounds_maintenance_service_sells/
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Excerpt: Few businesses do well without a multi-tiered marketing and advertising plan, and one good tool for your small business arsenal that combines elements of both is direct mail. This tried-and-true technique, in which a business owner sends a message or an offer directly to a customer or prospective client via mail, can help boost sales or move a product. But you don’t want your sales or service pitch to wind up just another piece of junk mail. What’s a business owner to do? Before you send out anything, develop a good mailing list. List brokers and direct mail agencies do exist; but if you go this route, be careful to choose reputable ones because the best direct mail piece will fail if it doesn’t reach the mailboxes of the properly targeted recipients. Depending on your goal (bringing in new customers or enticing a regular client for additional business), you likely have an adequate in-house source at your fingertips: your well-maintained customer database. Use it, but only after carefully updating it. Consider augmenting it with other potential customers whose business you’d like to secure by tapping trade and professional groups or incorporating specific demographic constraints to narrow your target audience. Because successful response to a direct mail campaign may fall somewhere in the .05 percent to 1 percent range, it’s important to use a large enough base of recipients to produce worthwhile results. The more personalized your recipient list (i.e., addressed to a specific person rather than “occupant”) the better your chances of drawing in those customers. Once your mailing list is firmed up, you can get down to the business of deciding what you’ll actually mail; it could be a postcard, a flier, a letter, a catalog, a brochure, or a free sample. Start a collection of promotions you have received and think are successful and look to those when you embark on your own direct mail campaign…
Source: http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing/direct-marketing-direct-mail/2596-1.html
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Excerpt: A well-constructed sales letter is considered salesmanship in print, allowing a business owner to make their sales presentation to hundreds or thousands of people at once without ever leaving their office. In today’s high tech world of e-mail marketing and internet strategies, direct mail sometimes takes a back seat to other marketing strategies. But, when done properly, direct mail is still one of the most powerful marketing tactics on the planet for the small business owner. To increase the effectiveness of any direct mail campaign and to get the most “bang” for your marketing dollar, the ad must follow certain rules. Most direct mail ads that clog your mailbox are those “buy now or else we have nothing else to offer you” ads that do very little to educate a customer about what makes a company different or why they should even buy from you in the first place. So exactly, what is 2-step direct response advertising? Direct-response advertising is an ad intent on generating a very specific response from the reader. The two-step approach provides the reader with the ability to take a “baby step’ to find out moreinformation about your company, before you try to sell them. The goal of the ad is to “warm your prospect up” with educational material, not to make the sale…
Source: http://www.smbmarketingguide.com/direct-marketing-strategies/the-6-rules-of-small-business-direct-mail-success/
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Excerpt: First, make sure that the name of the company is catchy, and easy to remember. For my examples I will use Wise Landscaping and Lighting. With your catchy name, you will want a slogan or tagline, I have chosen the tagline "Choose Wise, Choose Paradise!" simple, catchy, and gets the point across that your yard is going to be a paradise all their own! With this step, comes a logo! Make it flow with everything else… …choose to market yourself on linkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other online networking outlets. Also, utilize the advertising specials that come in the mail, for mailers, and hand outs… The last but most important step, talk to some of the home builders in your area. Be persistent. Persistence pays off…
Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_4783472_market-landscaping-company-economically.html
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Excerpt: One of these fresh ideas is hardscapes, particularly patios and walkways made of varying materials that add texture to a landscape. Stephen Jones, president of Pave-Tech, Prior Lake, Minn., believes the growth in hardscapes today is adding a newer, more exciting dimension to landscapes. “There is only so much you can do with the soft landscapes and soft plantings,” he states, “and to make it a real liveable space you need to have the hardscapes, retaining walls, patios and arranged areas.” Today’s Trends. According to Smith, patios and walkways are increasingly popular and homeowners are requesting specific patterns that reflect their personal styles. “A landscape designer should demonstrate to the client that a patio and walkway can preserve and enhance the natural beauty of their outdoor living space while adding to the market value of their property,” he explains. “In fact, some homeowners feel so strongly that these hardscapes are necessary that they are factoring the extra cost of a completed patio/sidewalk/driveway into their mortgages.” James Alfieri, owner of Pave Ohio, Highland Heights, Ohio, has customers not only asking for new features, such as elevated patios, outdoor kitchens and covered terraces, but they are also requesting these areas be built with materials that bring a bit of nostalgia to their homes. “We have seen the hardscape business grow by leaps and bounds,” he says. “Customers want to use materials that recapture the past – our heritage – and certainly brick is part of that. People are trying to recapture the heritage of their area. Downtowns are renovating and upgrading, going back to the brick look – the more Middle America look.” Jones has also seen a growth in the integration of varying materials. “I think this trend follows what has been going on in Europe for some time. The integration of many materials. From natural stone to aggregate retaining walls to interlocking concrete and clay brick paving and natural stone slabs, I see more integration and more materials being utilized in landscape designs. It’s a great opportunity for growth by expanding both the contractor’s offerings in what he does for a project, and the designer’s opportunity because it really opens up a pallet of things they can select to make the designs better.” The trends in colors and textures have also changed in recent years. Customers are getting away from the primary colors and looking more for natural and earth tones. In moving toward the trend in rustic materials, the industry has seen a rise in the use of tumbling and texturing of material products to create these results…
Source: http://www.lawnandlandscape.com/Article.aspx?article_id=10590
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Excerpt: When designing your garden, always begin with the permanent structures. Let the physical area and surroundings dictate the shape and form of your design. Make sure drainage, grading and compaction are properly planned because you don't want problems cropping up after the garden is done. Design the garden, then plan your irrigation. Make sure you have it all worked out before construction begins. Hardscape materials are as varied as your imagination. But for weight-bearing construction, you are safest with tried and true materials like stone, wood, cement and the like. Most folks like patios and shade structures. But even these can be built with creativity, forming them to original designs and choosing imaginative materials. Cement can be colored, stamped or imbedded. Mosaics, pavers, tiles, brick, colored gravel, crushed glass, etc. or a combination of materials can make flat surfaces swirl with interest. Consider adding structures for both usage and beauty. Here are some items that make a yard into something special…
Source: http://www.gardengates.info/Structural%20Design%20in%20the%20Garden.htm
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Excerpt: Falling in love with hardscaping is the easy part, with so many appealing options — from a rustic stacked wall to a trickling fountain and meditation bench to a fully developed outdoor living room and kitchen. Or maybe you just need a couple of interesting elements in that patch where grass refuses to flourish. Once you've decided to act on the attraction, though, you must plan carefully to meet your hardscaping goals… Look at the whole landscape before you start. As much as you can, consider the entire area available to you for hardscaping before you design an element, even if you're just tackling one space for now… Delve into draining issues. Samuel says he's seen more hardscapes messed up by people ignoring drainage requirements than by all the other errors combined… There's also an environmental consideration, says Weston, Wisc. landscaper Susan Murphy. "You should plan runoff so you can capture the water and use it on site, instead of letting it hit that concrete and go down the drainage pipe."… Don't skimp on stuff you can't see. "The most common mistake I see people make is putting in a hardscape element without preparing the site appropriately, which is a sure formula for future failure," says Susan. "If you don't put the correct amount of base material down, or compact it well enough, you risk having a wall sink or settle or a patio settle and heave in frost."…
Source: http://www.hgtv.com/landscaping/dos-and-donts-for-a-successful-hardscape/index.html
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Excerpt: According to public relations firm Garden Media Group, the garden and landscape trends below will shape consumer choices next year… Water FeaturesAccording to the 2006 National Gardening Survey, water gardening is up 49 percent. But today, adding a water feature doesn't mean budget-busting water bills. Homeowners are selecting petite water ponds and fountains. The new, small-scale ponds require a lot less water and maintenance. Fountains that re-circulate water will also be wildly popular in 2008… Landscape Lighting"Lighted features have become an essential element for 24-hour use of the garden," says designer Peter Cilio of Campania International. From stylish table lamps to modern freestanding cast stone wall fountains equipped with a submersible lights, homeowners want dramatic night-time illumination of their landscape…
Source: http://www.landscapedesign-build.com/ldb/Business/Top-Trends-for-2008/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/469190
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