If you aren’t happy with your lawn care company’s current marketing and branding, remember you have to start somewhere.
“Any downtime is a good opportunity to revisit the brand, but any major changes to the brand need to be thought out and done slowly,” says Vince Torchia, vice president of The Grow Group. “Constantly changing a brand erodes at the value of the brand.”
Because there are a number of lawn care companies out there, it’s important to be able to convince clients to choose your business over the multitude of other options. Part of this is achieved through marketing and branding.
“It is all about your ability to stand out in a sea of sameness,” Torchia says. “It gives you a chance to control the narrative around which your company is thought of and how it is perceived by your customers and your prospective customers. Marketing is you telling them what to think about your company, branding is them telling other people about your company!”
Good branding can bring you the right clients and job candidates.
“Bad branding will confuse the marketplace about what you do or don’t do and will cause the wrong customers to come your way,” Torchia says.
Also, if your lawn care company brand is old, stale or has a bad reputation, it will drive away new hires and new customers.
If you want to see if your branding is solid, take some time to ask who you are as a company and what you want to be known for. Consider how you want to convey your values visually. Any logo you choose to use should be reflective of what you want to be known for.
Your branding should resonate with your ideal client and speak to them. Ask your existing clients why they choose to work with you if you’re not sure what values to home in on. Torchia says LCOs can make their marketing and branding excellent by aligning their brand with their unique value proposition.
“Their brand should reinforce why customers should do business with them,” he says. “It might be your service, your price, and or your quality.”
There are many ways you can invest in branding but Torchia suggests all LCOs consider sponsoring local causes, wrapping their fleet, mailing postcards and using jobsite signs where appropriate.
As for marketing, LCOs need to remember it is an ongoing effort that you’re never ‘done’ with. It’s a good idea to reach potential leads both physically and digitally.
On your social media profiles, make sure there is brand consistency across all platforms so there is no question of which company it belongs to. Customers promote what they love so you can even encourage this with a referral program.
Once you have attracted leads you can retain them by doing what you do best: keeping their lawn at peak performance.
Created in partnership with the experts at FMC True Champions
