While many industries have been hit hard by the consequences of recent world events, the landscaping industry continues to go strong. Why? Because of people like Joseph Stark of Ground Works Land Design. This article is a dissection of some of the landscape business advice Joe discussed in his recent LMN webinar “How a Marketing and PR Specialist Left The Whiskey World To Tackle The Green Industry.”
If you are a landscape business owner looking to improve the speed of your business development, here are a few ways you can use simple marketing techniques to achieve this goal.
Meet Joseph Stark
Joe is a former supply chain manager at a Fortune 100 food and beverage company, a marketing executive at Modern Luxury in Chicago—and most recently, a director at an independent PR agency that specializes in liquor companies. As a result, all of this multidisciplinary experience has made Joe the perfect fit for his current position as marketing director at Ground Works Land Design.
Furthermore, Joe was kid enough to lend some of his marketing and landscape business advice to the LMN audience who viewed the live stream. Here are a few of his key points.
Landscape Business Advice for Marketing in the Green Industry
Joe’s main piece of landscape business advice? Always be marketing. The target audiences of landscaping companies are constantly changing, so above anything else, it is always important to be proactive.
Busy today doesn’t mean busy tomorrow. Since a landscape business target demographic is forever changing, Joe emphasizes the importance of being consistent and always be marketing.
Website
As a landscape business owner, you should be using your website as a digital brochure. Your website is basically your company’s top salesperson, so it needs to be effective. The average user only has an attention span of about eight seconds. This means you have 8 seconds to retain a visitor in order to turn them into a potential customer. Developing an attention-grabbing website with effective landing pages is one of the best pieces of landscape business advice. Interesting factoid: the attention span of a goldfish is nine seconds.
Social Media
There’s a reason why every company has a Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn page: social media marketing works. The key to achieving landscape business success through social media is to lead with content. Content is king when it comes to social media promotion. Despite what you might think of avid social media users, they can identify a lack of substance very quickly. Videos, pictures, and stories are going to be the best ways to engage new and existing customers. These forms of content should be reflected in a content calendar or social media plan.
Google My Business
With a Google My Business account, you get more than a business listing. Your free Business Profile lets you easily connect with customers across Google Search and Maps. GoogleMyBusiness should act as a second social media handle. Not only does it direct traffic towards your informative and attention-grabbing website, but it also improves your company’s online legitimacy. More Google searches are a result a higher search engine rankings, which translates into more potential consumers. Similarly, almost 50% of all marketers report that organic search has the best ROI of any marketing channel. GMB isn’t just good landscape business advice, it is just great business advice.
The Best Landscape Business Advice for a New Organization: No Ads
The worst landscape business advice anyone can give you is to hire advertisers. If you’re running a business that is just getting off the ground, you likely do not have the budget for this. For healthy business development, you should be limiting your marketing spend to about 3-5% of overall profits—not your overall revenue.
Running a business is extremely difficult. It requires a lot of experience and expertise in a variety of fields. If a landscape business owner wants to adopt some of Joe’s landscape business advice, they may need a little help. That’s why LMN offers a suite of applications and services that are designed to alleviate some of the more manageable stresses landscaping companies deal with, like scheduling. LMN empowers its landscape business owners to be able to focus on their business development.
For more information on how LMN can help you achieve landscape business success, visit our webinars schedule for more free landscape business advice or check out the LMN landscape business management software designed by landscapers for landscapers.
