On Target: Quality Control, Tecza Environmental Group

A company’s first impression can be its only chance in front of a potential client.

That’s the reason Tecza Environmental Group’s marketing plan communicates a top-notch first impression to potential clients and a repetitive, consistent message of quality to current clients, explained Ed Reier, who handles all the marketing, advertising and promotions for the Elgin, Ill.-based company, in addition to serving as vice president of maintenance.

“If included with a bid or maintenance proposal, a correctly represented brochure, for example, says so much about a company and can answer many client questions,” Reier said, emphasizing that a brochure isn’t the only way to make a good first impression. “Marketing is everybody’s job in the company. It’s the foreman’s job when he smiles as he’s going by the client’s window with a mower or the laborer’s job when he puts on a clean uniform in the morning. It’s the mechanic’s job when he takes pride in that mower or tractor or the receptionist’s job when she answers the phone.”

Conveying this message to the entire company is one marketing scheme that takes little to no money to implement - just time to communicate, in addition to hiring the right people, Reier said. This, in addition to spending 1 percent of the company’s annual revenue - approximately $40,000 - on targeted marketing in the right place at the right time consistently gets the Tecza Environmental Group message out to the right customers.

ONE COMPANY, ONE MESSAGE. What is today Tecza Environmental Group used to be two separate organizations under two separate names; Tecza Brothers Inc. was the maintenance business and Adam Tecza & Sons was the design/build business.

The logo for Tecza Brothers was red and canary yellow, Reier described. Adam Tecza & Sons’ logo was similar but had a blue background. “I simply took a typical red truck that you could buy in stock color and threw on a little canary yellow accent, but it was something non-descript,” explained company President Ted Tecza.

In 1994, Ted combined these two companies under one name - Tecza Environmental Group - to represent its full-service aspect and clear up client confusion about the relationship between the two companies. Today, with a new, bright teal and magenta logo, the company markets itself as one organization to all its current and potential customers (see sidebar above). “We market this way because we feel every maintenance customer is also an installation customer and vice versa,” Reier explained.

Reier started handling marketing early in his 13-year career with the company. As he moved from landscape maintenance sales and customer service to sales management, Reier seemed the obvious candidate for maintenance advertising and promotion manager. When the supervisor handling the same for the design/build division left the company, Reier took over that responsibility.

THE RIGHT PARTNERSHIPS. As Reier climbed up the company ladder, marketing responsibilities, particularly the busy work of coming up with stories for the quarterly newsletter and writing press releases, became too much work for one person to handle. Four years ago, Reier hired a marketing consultant to handle these details. The consultant’s monthly fee, which is typically between $700 and $1,000, not including additional photography or advertising design work, is extracted from the company’s marketing budget.

Reier meets with the consultant once or twice monthly to discuss upcoming plans and make marketing decisions. For example, every month the consultant writes two company press releases (announcing awards Tecza won, changes in the organization, etc.) and sends them to the relevant media.

The marketing consultant also handles all of the company award entries, which includes managing the project photography and writing a description of the landscapes being entered.

In addition to hiring this consultant, Reier employed an Ohio-based communications firm five years ago to take over the design and some of the writing for Tecza’s quarterly newsletter, which the company has been distributing to its clients for 10 years.

“We used to do the interviews and photography ourselves - it was very time consuming,” Reier said.

In this new agreement, Reier signed up for the semi-custom newsletter, which means the firm writes and produces the four-page, black, white and one other color (typically green) newsletter, and sends a version of it to Reier for approval before it’s published. “We can use the articles they wrote or we can change them to fit what we have going on that season,” Reier explained. “The changes are included in the newsletter cost, but you get a credit back if you keep one page as is.”

While the relationship seems more expensive than Tecza’s previous venture, Reier said it actually saves 40 percent in newsletter costs. His only concern was the number of other Chicago-based landscape contractors who were using the same company. “I didn’t want a situation where I’m sending the Tecza newsletter to building managers who receive the same exact newsletter with the same exact articles from my competitor,” Reier said. “The communications firm didn’t assure me this situation would never happen, but they also said this was all the more reason to put some personality into each issue.”

ADVERTISING THAT WORKS. The little advertising that Tecza Environmental Group places is direct and specific to its client niche.

For instance, a substantial portion of Tecza’s maintenance accounts are multi-family structures or residential management companies, so the company places ads in Condo Lifestyles magazine, which is endorsed by the Illinois chapter of the Community Associations Institute, and of which Tecza is an associate member. “Many of our type of clients receive a copy of this magazine, so we know our ads are seen by the right people,” Reier said.

Another example is the Business Connector, which is distributed to Chicago businesses. “This also creates a camaraderie with the other 25 to 30 businesses that advertise in the periodical,” Reier said. “We’ll call them up and say we saw them in the Business Connector and find out if there’s any business we can do for each other.”

Tecza spends little money on Yellow Page advertisements because they generate too many calls from the wrong clients.

SHOW TIME. To get a quality message out to the right clients, Tecza Environmental Group also purchases booths at three annual trade shows, one of which is the Business Exchange Expo that helps Tecza increase its commercial maintenance work.

To brighten up the show floor, Tecza decorates its booth with a truckload of hyacinth, tulip and daffodil bulbs. Having a distinct booth design enables the company to convey a message of quality service. “We probably see many of the same clients every year, but that’s repetition and consistency,” Reier said. “These people know we’re there with a quality booth, and that says something about the services we provide.

“In raw costs, the booth isn’t that much, but it takes a lot of time and effort,” Reier continued. “The attendees see a plant that costs them $10 at the store and we have 50 of them there to give away, but it may have only cost us $150 for the whole display. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s a little extra effort to target the right clients.”