Landscaping Marketing to Increase Revenues & Grow Your Business

Landscaping Marketing Strategy Basics

Finding potential customers and winning them over is getting harder for a landscaping business. In the current economy, fewer homeowners have the means to improve or revamp their backyards. The competition is getting more fierce.

It’s time for your company to change how you promote your services and win new customers. This guide on proven strategies for landscaping business will help you in several ways:

• grow traffic to your website
• attract your ideal customer
• increase conversions
• grow sales and revenues.

Buckle up, as we have tons of information to unpack.

Building Landscaping Marketing Strategies Step-by-Step

Planning is the cornerstone of the success of marketing strategies. It will help you optimize the use of your time, efforts, and budget. It will also help you achieve your goals more efficiently while avoiding basic mistakes. The steps in strategy planning are:

1. Define marketing budget
2. Set attainable goals for your landscaping company
3. Choose marketing channels
4. Set KPIs and a clear timeline
5. Plan activities for each marketing channel
6. Assign roles within your marketing team
7. Acquire tech stack
8. Analyze and change the strategy.

Digital Marketing Strategies for Contracting Businesses

This guide is created by the marketing and SEO experts of dNOVO Group marketing agency. We’ve prepared a series of guides to help contracting businesses build marketing strategies and improve client acquisitions. Check out other marketing materials in the series:

• Roofing Marketing
• Roofing SEO
• Contractor Marketing
• Contractor SEO
• Construction Marketing
• Construction SEO
• Landscaping SEO
• Home Remodeling Marketing
• HVAC Marketing
• Plumbing Marketing

Essential Components of Digital Marketing Strategy for Landscaping Businesses

The essential components of landscape marketing include:

1. Developing a landscaping website to attract and impress potential customers
2. Landscaping SEO to increase website traffic
3. Content strategy to support SEO and educate potential clients
4. Social media marketing to reach out to your target audience and build community
5. Paid Advertising to boost the outreach to potential customers
6. Email campaigns to warm up leads and retain existing customers

The next sections of this guide are dedicated to these components and talk about them in detail.

Landscaping Website as the Basis of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

In many cases, your website will be the first thing your potential clients will learn about your landscaping business. That’s why you need to make sure it provides all the necessary information to the visitors.

When planning your website, remember that your website should achieve several goals:

1. Provide all the necessary information about your business to potential customers.

To attain this goal, you need to list the landscaping services your company provides, your service area, and your contact data.

2. Convert visitors to leads.

You need to place CTA buttons, leave your telephone number in highly visible places and make it dialable on click, and create book consultation widgets for people to set up an appointment easily.

3. Attract SEO traffic.

You need to SEO optimize your website and your content.

4. Establish your landscaping business as an expert in the field

You need to create high-quality content showcasing how you work and your completed project.

5. Gain the trust of prospective clients.

Share your rating on a ranking website, an online review of a satisfied customer or a testimonial.

Key Elements of Landscaping Websites

Here we discuss the essential elements of a good website for a landscaping business.

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Home Page

As a room of thumb, the home page provides a short version of your website to our potential customers. We suggest listing the services you provide, your service area, online reviews, contact data, and FAQs.

Menu

The menu helps you navigate your website more efficiently. Remember to list all your pages on the menu (except for individual blog posts).

Landscaping Services Pages

Create a separate page for each landscaping service you provide. It will help your potential customers understand what they can get from your business as well as support your SEO efforts.

Service Area Pages

If your business operates exclusively within a certain location, your company website needs to provide this information to a prospective customer.

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To make the most of it, create a separate page for each large municipality within your service area. It will boost your SEO and help local customers find you more easily.

Gallery

Landscaping customers expect to find photos of the projects that your company has completed. Apart from before and after photos, we also suggest placing a couple of videos of your working process and results.

Contact Us Page

Encourage customers to contact your landscaping company by leaving your contact information all over the website. We also suggest having one page with all the contacts and a book appointment widget as it is still a popular step in a buyer’s journey.

Search Engine Optimization for Landscaping Companies

SEO is one of the most efficient strategies of landscaping marketing to win more customers. It includes several techniques to promote website ranking in Google searches and increase the discoverability of the website on the Internet.

There are 5 main areas of SEO efforts:

• Keyword Research
• Technical SEO
• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO
• Local SEO

Finding the Right Keywords to Promote Landscaping Services

People use keywords to search for products and services online. That’s why it’s critical to find the right keywords for your website. You choose the keyword you want to rank for and then build content around it.

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Marketers analyze keywords using 3 main characteristics:

• Volume (the number of monthly searches)
• Difficulty (what’s required to get to the top)
• Intent (what type of content people expect to see)

You need to analyze all three characteristics at once in order to determine whether you are going to work with a keyword or not.

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For example, high volume is desirable. However, if the difficulty is too high, getting to the SERP top will require too many backlinks from high authority websites and you don’t have the budget or time for proper link building. This issue can be solved by finding a synonym with lower volume and difficulty.

The intent will identify the type of content you will build for a keyword. Blog posts are great for informational intent. Service pages and home pages are recommended for commercial and transactional intent.

Don’t forget to pick LSI keywords for your content piece. These are keywords that you usually expect to find in a text on a certain topic.

For example, if you write about natural stone, keywords like outdoor space, backyard, and paving are LSIs. Words like marketing materials, business card, and brand recognition aren’t.

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On-page SEO

Your content should be SEO-optimized to rank higher in Google and ultimately attain your landscaping marketing goals. This process is called on-page SEO. The practice is to add the focus keyword in the following places:

• the first paragraph of the text
• every 100 words of text
• first-level header (aka content title)
• at least one second-level header
• metatitle and meta description
• alt text of images
• URL.

Implementing Technical SEO

Apart from keywords, Google crawlers expect to see high-quality website performance and exceptional user experience. This includes:

• easy website navigation
• logically organized architecture
• no orphan pages
• high download speed
• no broken links
• redirects, where necessary
• no broken images or videos
• no duplicate content
• mobile-friendly website version
• good interlinking.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the practices that help you establish your domain authority. Mostly it’s the work to increase your brand recognition as well as getting backlinks to your website.

Apart from general domain authority, backlinks help you rank higher in search engines. Checking the keyword difficulty with tools like SemRush will enable you to see how many referring domains you need to get to appear at the top of Google SERP.

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Not all backlinks are good for your website SEO. There are plenty of shady websites. The backlinks from them will decrease your domain authority. Luckily, you can disavow them altogether.

Winning Local Customers

The last but not the least is local SEO. Generally, SMBs operate in a limited area. So, ideally, you only want to get local customers from this area.

There are two main practices here. First, you need to create and optimize pages for local searches, i.e., containing keywords with the names of particular geographical areas. For example, garden pavement in Toronto.

The second practice is for local landscapers to create Google Business Profiles. It will help you win new clients in your area. You will have your business page in Google and it will also appear on Google Maps along with the essential business information (like opening hours, contact details and reviews).

Content Strategy to Engage and Convert Landscaping Customers

As mentioned above, content must align with your SEO strategy. Creating web pages and blog posts around specific keywords can help you get to the top of search results. Consequently, it will drive more traffic to your website.

However, good content goes beyond SEO purposes. It can help you convert website visitors into new customers.

Content Tips

Tips to create high-quality content for your landscaping business:

1. Understand your customer

One of the best suggestions is to create a buyer persona, a short description of your ideal customer. It should include demographic data (age, marital status, income, etc.) and pain points.

This information will help you adjust your tone of voice and deliver more valuable content for your prospective clients.

2. Apply storytelling

When people hear storytelling in marketing, they are often confused associating it with creating a complex plot with multiple twists. In reality, it’s quite straightforward (as it should be!).

Talk about the problem. Next, talk about the ways to fix the problem. Finally, talk about your company as the best way to fix this problem.

3. Build buyer journey

Content should convert website visitors into new customers. Even the best and most convincing article will not work if you do not provide the opportunity to make the next step. It can be a link to a service page or to an article further down the sales funnel.

Don’t leave your readers with a feeling they’ve got everything they wanted from your website. Show them there’s more your website can offer.

4. Reuse content

If you go multichannel, you can use the same content pieces across multiple platforms. However, not all content can be reused. You can reuse videos and photos on other platforms.

However, written content should be unique since Google punishes plagiarism. The three exceptions are using canon tags, in emails that Google doesn’t “read,” and in the gated content.

Content Marketing Ideas

We saw a number of landscape companies struggling to find the right topics to write about or share on social media. This is a common problem for SMBs.

Professionals often lose the sense of novelty in their sphere. The common cognitive bias is “others know exactly what I know.” That’s why it might be hard to share the “landscaping tips” because to you they seem obvious.

In this section, we provide 5 content marketing ideas for your landscaping business:

1. Landscaping ideas & trends

In many cases, people start their buyer journey with a nagging feeling they want to change something about their backyard. Many want to keep up with trends or simply see something new and exciting. Give them just that.

A long read with the current trends you saw online and from your previous and current projects can do good.

2. Design & build how-to

Many people start with DIY projects in their backyards. However, not all of them go through with it and even fewer get to finish. A good step-by-step guide on installing a fire pit in the garden can dissuade even the most eager people.

Finish your content piece with a detailed description of how your landscaping business can help them install the fire pit. You have good chances to convert right then and there.

3. Maintenance tips

This is a good content idea for local businesses providing maintenance services. Write the best ways to keep the lawn evergreen and then offer your lawn care services. It works in a similar way as design & build tips.

4. Your work process

This type of content is mostly videos but it can also be a blog post from the standpoint of one of your workers (or yourself if you work the projects for your customers). People love seeing others work. Many would watch for best practices. However, the majority consumes this type of content for the sheer pleasure of it.

5. Before & After

Last but not least is before & after photos. They are the proof of the high quality of your work. Also, images attract people’s attention.

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Social Media Marketing Strategies for Landscape Business

Social media marketing works well for a landscape business since there’s a lot of content that has sharing potential.

Several social media platforms will be good for promoting your landscaping company. Facebook is best to reach out to baby boomers and millennials. Instagram will work well for millennials. Finally, TikTok is great for millennials and Gen Z.

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Benefits of social media marketing

Social media presence can benefit landscaping businesses in several ways:

1. Harness the power of sharing.
2. Tag your customers to get views from their social circle
3. Reach out to your ideal client at the early stage of their buyer’s journey
4. Work with negative feedback from unhappy customers
5. Amplify the positive feedback of your clients
6. Get backlinks to your website
7. Get traffic to your website.

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Content to Share on Social Media Platforms

Here are the main types of content that work well with socials:

1. Special offers
2. Work progress
3. Project results
4. Client testimonials
5. Announcements (like participation in community events).

Pay per Click Ads to Win New Clients for your Landscaping Company

PPC advertisement is a type of online banner ad where you pay per click (hence the abbreviation). It has become the most popular type of online ads and many companies use it to promote their services.

The general practice is to create a specific landing page for the banner ads. However, many companies use their home page or service pages.

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Benefits of PPC:

1. You get website traffic.
2. You get backlinks from high-authority websites.
3. Your website gets to the top of SERP above organic results.
4. You get high-quality leads that are searching for your services.
5. You can target a specific audience.
6. Your brand gets exposure even if people don’t click your links.
7. PPC campaigns have high ROI

There’s a risk with PPC that your competitors can hire people to click on your ads and drain your ad budget. We’ve seen such practices used against our clients a couple of times.

The best way to deal with it is to analyze the click reports. If you see many similar clicks, you can report it to the ad provider and they will not charge for these clicks.

Types of PPC

The most widespread types of PPC are Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads appear on Facebook social media.

Google Ads is one of the largest banner ads sellers in the world. Your advertisement will appear:

1. In Google SERP
2. In YouTube search results
3. On various websites.

We suggest that you first try only one type (e.g., Google Ads) and monitor its performance. Once you’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t, you can add another type.

Email Marketing Campaigns for Landscaping Companies

A marketing manager uses email campaigns to attain several goals. In this section, we discuss these goals and explain how landscaping businesses can attain them.

Lead Warm-up

Marketers send emails to warm up leads. If you aren’t familiar with the term, here’s what it means.

In any sales process, there will be this category of people who showed their interest in a product or service but haven’t converted yet. The premise is that these people are more likely to convert (since they are already interested in your services).

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Businesses acquire contact details from companies selling emails and phone numbers and from the widgets on their website. Next, they send emails promoting their landscaping services, sharing landscaping tips & tricks, and informing on special offers.

Customer Retention

Marketing experts love customer retention. We operate in the paradigm of a customer acquisition cost (CAC), i.e., how much money a business spends to acquire one paying client. The lower the cost the better.

If your landscaping business has previously worked with a customer, it will be less resource-intensive to win them over again. You can skip several stages of the sales funnel and focus on persuading the client to buy again from you.

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If the customer’s experience was good, all you need to do now is to remind them about your services with a nice email.

Now, in landscaping marketing, it works only if you provide services that a customer needs on a regular basis, e.g., lawn maintenance. If your business doesn’t do it, you can try the upsell.

Upsell

This sales strategy focuses on selling a product or service that the customer didn’t inquire about.

For example, your landscaping business built a new backyard deck for your client. Your team did a decent job but you see that there’s still some room for backyard improvement. Now, you can offer them to add soil& mulch, install landscape elements or plant some trees.

You say it directly, however, the client isn’t interested in any backyard changes now. You can feed them with valuable content in your email for some time. Then you can send them a special offer for fence installation.

4 Landscape Marketing Tips

This chapter lists 4 landscape marketing ideas that will help you reach out to your ideal client and win them over.

Traditional Marketing

Local businesses can succeed in traditional marketing strategies. Some of the ideas of traditional marketing tactics:

• Promote your business at community events.
• Conduct direct mail campaign.
• Disseminate printed materials (e.g., hang lawn care flyers) around the neighbourhood.
• Use community boards to promote your services.

Business Listings

Business directories are a great way to promote your landscaping business. They give you valuable backlinks, drive traffic to your website, and ultimately convert visitors into new clients. We suggest creating profiles on listings for specialized landscaping companies,

Referral Program

Create a satisfied customer referral program. It can help you boost the word-of-mouth promotion for your landscaping business. People will be more eager to suggest your services to their families, friends, and coworkers if there’s a promise of referral rewards.

Hire Landscaping Marketing Agency

Doing landscaping marketing in-house can be hard, especially for an SMB company. That’s why many landscaping companies hire a professional marketing agency with experience in this industry.

Are you ready to take your landscaping business to the next level?

Book a free one-hour consultation