When we checked our mail yesterday afternoon, we had 2 letters from The Davey Tree Expert Company and it made us think...
Mail is funny. It's been around forever and there are 'better ways' such as email, but, something tells us mail will never go away. Since we are an internet business - iGoPro Lawn Supply is an eCommerce store and the owner's background is lawn care/landscaping and online marketing, we don't check the mail that often! Maybe once per week at best. It's usually just junk mail after all.
2 Letters Asking For Our Business
The internet is where it is at when it comes to marketing your lawn care business. It's the best place to invest advertising dollars for most local small businesses. The reason - people realize they want a product or service so they hop on Google and do a search! You want to be found precisely at this time, when the customer is actively ready to buy.
Other forms of advertising fill in the gaps and create a comprehensive awareness campaign for your business. Think about it, no one can do business with a business they don't know exists! And, everyone isn't online.
So, we got 2 letters from The Davey Tree Expert Company at once and it caught our eye. We actually have a worrisome tree we definitely need to address sooner than later as it will eventually fall onto our building!
Timely, Local Advertising
If you are into the lawn, landscape, or tree industry, you probably know about the importance of route density. It's not such a big deal if your company does large landscape or tree projects as you very well maybe at a single location all day or for multiple days. If you are mowing lawns or treating lawns, you know your profit margins live and die based on route density among other key factors such as keeping overhead costs down and pricing each job properly.
The main message of each letter was The Davey Tree Expert Company was going to already be in our area in the next couple of weeks and they would love to provide us with any quotes we may want and could get our job on the schedule quickly as they will already be nearby. It's somewhat difficult to 'hyper-locally advertise' any business online, that's where snail mail can fill a gap.
What Made The Davey Tree Expert Company's Advertising Effective?
There were a couple of things that stuck out to us about the wording (and length) of the letters. First, we'd like to point out we received 2 letters, not just one. One can quickly be thrown away, the second in a short time period is sure to gain anyone's attention at least briefly.
Each letter had a different phone number on it! Same company name and address - different phone number... What's up with that? It's for tracking purposes. The Davey Tree Expert Company wants to know which letter prompted a response! This will tell them which letter's copy (wording/length) was more effective and if the 1st or 2nd letter you received prompted a call.
The letters were short. The entire letter fit easily on a single page. It was easy to consume. They also quickly let us know all of the services they offer and that they are 'passionate' and have been offering these services for over a century. Who doesn't want a company that is passionate and experienced performing their service?
HVAC Companies Use Snail Mail Marketing Still Too
A couple of months ago we received a similar marketing campaign in our mailbox for a local HVAC company. They used a post card that made their campaign much less expensive that sending letters and also included a discount. The gist was the same though.
They wanted to let us know they were already going to be working on our neighbor's properties and wanted to get us a free quote plus offer us a discount because they were already going to be working nearby! We thought the discount took their campaign to the next level and using postcards instead of letters made it harder for someone to miss their message even if just tossing the postcard in the recycle bin, they still would see the advertising message, not the outside of the envelope!
We Recently Mailed 900+ Letters For One Of Our Marketing Clients
If you were not aware, we also offering website, SEO, Google Ads, and other marketing services to local businesses. We primarily work with lawn and landscape businesses, but do work with plenty of other types of local businesses like a local veterinarian.
Our vet client wanted every one of her clients to receive a snail mail letter to let them know of an upcoming change to their business hours and why they made the change. We strongly recommended we simply do this using email, Facebook, and updating the hours everywhere they were found online. And, if she felt a mail piece had to be sent, it should be a postcard, not a letter. She wanted it to be a letter...
About 10 days and $2,000 later, every one of her clients had a letter telling them about the change to their business hours. We feel this was a inefficient use of time and money, but the vet runs a very successful practice so maybe it wasn't to her.
Online Marketing With Other Forms Of Marketing Creates An Effective Marketing Strategy
What should you take from this article? Make sure your business has a strong online presence, but don't limit your marketing efforts to online marketing only!
Focus on your website - it's your business' marketing home base. Each letter or postcard we received also encouraged us to go to their website to learn more, so did the letter we mailed for the vet. You are in full control of your website and it is cheap and easy to maintain plus provides the most exposure or value to your business.
Stay on top of your Google My Business listing. The 2nd most important property your local business has online is your Google My Business listing. Make sure it's complete, up-to-date, and accurate. Add pictures regularly, post weekly, and actively fetch reviews and respond to them promptly. This will do wonders for your business but you are playing on Google's turf.
You're always on 'someone else's turf' when you are marketing your business online but not on 'your website.' Facebook can change the rules at anytime and Yelp can decide to charge for business listing if they want for example. They are important to maintain, but not to focus on.
Get your website and Google My Business right, then look into cheap and effective marketing strategies such as Google Ads and postcards like EDDM. Consider yard signs and door hangers. Sponsor local teams or donate your time on behalf of your business to get noticed offline in your local community.
Not everyone is online, so make sure you 'touch' these people with a marketing message that reaches them offline! Yes - include your website address in this marketing material but also provide your phone number as these people are more likely to call your business.
If you need any help marketing your business we would love to chat. We have the cost of marketing lawn care businesses clearly stated on our marketing company's website.
Ryan Sciamanna
Ryan is the owner and founder of Lawn Crack, LLC the parent company of iGoPro Lawn Supply. He has worked in almost every capacity within the lawn and landscape industry for small local companies, nationwide companies, and of course, owning his own lawn & landscape business which he sold in 2018 before starting selling lawn and garden products online. Learn more about Ryan by subscribing to the LawnCrack YouTube Channel.
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