How green is your landscape business? For some lawn care and landscape contractors, business is growing greener daily because they are using a direct mail campaign to attract additional customers.
Savvy lawn maintenance and landscape operators are adding this marketing technique to their advertising mix as they sharpen competitive skills to gain their share of the growing demand for their services. That demand has been fueled in recent years by families with both spouses in the workplace, by graying baby boomers and by concerned consumers’ reliance on route monitoring to guard against the necessity of pesticide use to treat problems that grew through neglect.
A recent Gallup survey of the lawn care industry found that those individuals who gave the highest ratings to the benefits of a well-maintained lawn and landscape have a median income of $30,000; the majority are 30 years old or older and are college educated.
More than one in five U.S. households spends an average of $667 on professional landscaping, lawn and tree care services each year - a $14 billion investment in eye-appealing yards. Lawn care companies estimate they have only penetrated 15 percent of the potential market (23 million households strong), so attracting first-time customers from among the remaining 85 percent of households is an industry priority.
Fine-Tuned Mailings |
Telemarketing today is full of chuckholes and obstacles. From caller identification devices and answering machines that screen calls to recent legislation in Florida that has created a state registry of residents that businesses are prohibited from soliciting over the phone, telemarketing isn’t what it used to be. However, blanketing the neighborhood with flyers isn’t necessarily the answer, either. To help zero in on good potential clients, computers are coming to the rescue. Maris Franke, president, Practical Solutions Inc., Columbus, Ohio, said that some software packages have the ability to take an existing database and provide a thorough analysis of a company’s "typical" customer. They can also provide information on where the best customers reside. This information can then be used to select leads from the databases of companies that provide demographic information on residents of a given area. For example, the names and addresses of residents in the same neighborhoods as a company’s best customers, or residents with demographics similar or the same as individuals designated as best customers, can provide a wealth of strong leads. - Paul Schrimpf |
EYE ON THE TARGET. Historically, lawn maintenance services have advertised to the residential market through flyers, newspapers, yellow pages and word-of-mouth, particularly in neighborhoods where their work is heavily concentrated.
Today, however, cooperative direct mail offers these increasingly professional companies a more sophisticated way to access targeted neighborhoods.
The ability of direct mailers to target geographic areas within the radius of a specified point has never been more precise. It is a marketing mode ideally suited to a neighborhood-intensive business like lawn care or landscape maintenance.
Because the mailer - a discount coupon - shares envelope space with coupons from other advertisers (offering services from a variety of industry sectors), it is extremely cost-efficient - only pennies per household. What makes the offer in a cooperative direct mailer effective for landscape businesses?
- Name and basic information stated boldly to differentiate service
- A coupon with a strong incentive offer
- The word free, such as "free estimate," "free analysis" or "free lawn inspection" displayed prominently
- Name and phone number displayed prominently
- Attractive design utilizing full color
- Dollar, rather than percentage, discounts ($10 off first service)
- Consistency of mail campaigns
John Couch, owner of Green Grass Lawn Care & Landscaping, Atlanta, Ga., utilized some of these tips in his 1997 campaign with Val-Pak Direct Marketing Systems Inc., and he credited the duo-mailing with doubling his business. "I was totally mobbed with calls after the March and October mailings," he said.
In fact, Couch has hired two additional employees to handle the new work generated by his direct mail campaign. Moreover, he bid successfully for a $27,000 contract to landscape a lakeside home after the owner saw his Val-Pak ad. Other contracts followed, and the increased business helped Couch reorient his services to a heavier concentration on landscape design projects - "a much bigger profit center," he noted.
What worked for Couch in his coupon design and message? He used a four-color offer featuring photos of beautifully landscaped homes with offers of 10 percent off landscape services and $35 off the first month of lawn service. His company’s name and phone number were prominently displayed in an eye-pleasing design, and the back side of the coupon included a detailed listing of his services.
Couch mailed again, three times, in the first quarter of 1998 and - to match his service to the winter season when the demand for lawn care is down - he offered 10 percent off tree removals. All of his mailings go to approximately 20,000 households, chosen for their proximity to his business location.
An appropriate first-time plan for a lawn care business might be a test mailing to about 30,000 homes at least three times over a six-month period. The total cost would be approximately $1,500 for each mailing and can return $10 to $12 for every dollar spent.
In Need of Closure |
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Mike Dauer, national sales manager, lawn care division, Americalist, North Canton, Ohio, said that green industry companies have good reason to be direct mail believers. The close rate of direct mail leads averages 60 percent to 80 percent, second only to referrals, he said. What many companies fail to do effectively, however, is close the leads that the direct mail generates. "The major window of the selling season is when the weather has been good for about two weeks," explained Dauer. "Leads are coming in from all of the marketing and contractors have just started round one. Then, two months later, they look at the closure rate and see they didn’t get what they wanted. The reason is, they didn’t spend the time on the leads, making the callbacks it takes to get the sale." -Paul Schrimpf |
Designing the campaign is relatively simple, even for the novice mailer, because direct mail companies put their full design resources at the customer’s disposal. Your account executive will counsel you on every step, and these services are included in the price of the advertising program. You’ll get advice on your ad design and wording, and a professional graphic designer will produce your product. Direct mail companies’ libraries offer clients thousands of photo choices for art work. (Couch used photos from Val-Pak’s files for his first mailing; his second offer included a photo he submitted of one of his landscape jobs.)
Because the new customer must present the coupon to redeem the discount you offer, you can track results - a capability unavailable with many other advertising modes such as newspapers, yellow pages, radio and television.
Direct mail has been proven to be a highly effective advertising medium. According to the Direct Mail Association, each dollar spent results in a return of $11.65 on investment. In addition, approximately 87 percent of Americans use coupons, and more than 10 percent of consumers purchase products and services as a result of direct mail pieces.
Is it any wonder that cooperative direct mail is blooming among landscape and lawn care professionals who want to grow their businesses?
The author is vice president of marketing for Val-Pak Direct Marketing Systems Inc., Largo, Fla.
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