Marketing Blog

One inexpensive way to wow your current customers and turn them into referral machines is to remember them with a personal Thank You!

I take 10 minutes a day to hand write 5 thank you notes to my customers. Over the period of a year thats over 1200 customers that receive a card from me.

I keep it simple:

"I just wanted to take a minute out of my busy day to say Thank You for your business. It is greatly appreciated! Remember, If you ever need anything I am just a phone call away. If you know anyone who may need my services I hope you will pass along one of my cards. Again, Thank You!"

Randy

I enclose three business cards. My customers are blown away by this. I get several calls per month from customers thanking me for thanking them! Needless to say, I also get mega referrals from them. Cost is about $20.00 a week.

My partner and I do it daily to reach each customer once a year. You can adjust your schedule to weekly or monthly based on the number of customers you have.

It is a great investment in customer service and a great way to increase your business.

What is the purpose of your website?

Seem like an easy question and yet most lawn care providers have it all wrong!

If you expect a prospect to find your website, read about your company, look at the pretty picturtes of your work and then pick up the phone and call you, then your website is actually set up to drive good prospects away.

Don’t be confused - the purpose of your website is NOT:

• To inform or educate your prospects.
• To showcase your company.
• To market your products directly to visitors.

I know this goes against what you have been told, but how effective is your website?

The purpose of your website is to make you money!

The purpose is to expand your business through inexpensive customer acquistion. It should crank out new prospects and have them convinced they should do business with your company.

For more information on turning your website into an automatic lead generating machine, go to lawn care websites.

Wouldn't it be great if you knew exactly what your customers were thinking?

Using a survey is a great way of gaining input from your customers. Believe me when I say that when asked, customers will tell you exactly what they are thinking. Sometimes you aren't going to like what they have to say, but if you plan on maintaining a quality customer base, you had better know their thoughts.

You can download my free report "Customer Surveys - How To Make Them Work For You" Download Now

You are sitting in the stands at a hometown football game when at half time they randomly pull you from the audience and ask...What do you do?

A silence comes over the crowd. There you are in front of thousands of potential customers. It is the perfect time to put your best foot forward and get your name out there. You say - "I'm in lawn care", or maybe "I own Green Lawn Care". Immediately the hush subsides and everyone is talking again, ....and its not about you.

You see, none of them care about you! Noone cares what you own. For the most part they only care about themselves or what you can do for them to solve a problem. 

You blew it! It doesn't matter if you are speaking to a crowd or speaking to an individual just introduced to you. You have one or two sentences tops to capture their attention and curiosity. One or two sentences to make them want to really listen to you. It is the most important sentence or two you will ever write, and then use, to help increase your business and gain new customers.

Ok, so maybe only half of those in the audience want or need your product or service. Which ones? Who is your audience? Which ones are potential customers? And how do you "speak" to them directly?

The first thing your sentence or "opening" should do is eliminate who isn't your audience. Don't waste a single moment trying to market to those who have little or no interest in your product or service. The quicker you eliminate them from the prospect pool, the sooner the cream will rise to the top. The sooner your target market will appear.

My target market is homeowners. People who live in apartments, or rental units seldom have need for my service. 

My opening statement always includes "homeowners".

What is in it for them? Ah, there it is the heart of any sale. What can you do for them? The meat of your marketing message.

You can spend hours - even days thinking about your marketing message. You'll test a few variations at first until it rolls out of your mouth as easily as "I'm in lawn care".

Here is my opening, I use it everyday to great success. Can you see why?

"I help homeowners find solutions to problems in their lawns. I teach them how to improve their landscape and work hand in hand with them to keep it looking great all year long."

The test of a truly good marketing message is the reply... "How do you do that?" Or better yet , "Can you do that for me?"

You can learn more about developing your own marketing message in our premium member's area.

True marketing is trackable, and measurable to the penny. The truth is; most "marketing" you are see on television or in ads is in fact simply public relations or building brand awareness. Leave that type of advertising to the Madison Avenue clients with the huge advertising budgets. You and I can't afford it.

Now I am not saying that with a huge budget and brand awareness advertising you can't become the next McDonalds or Nike, I am saying I doubt you have the abilty to spend millions of dollars on advertising if you own your own lawn care business.

To be smart marketers you and I have to know exactly how much it costs us to get a new customer. We have to be careful with every single marketing dollar. We don't have the time or money to build up brand recognition, like Nike or Coke. We have to be much more surgical or fine tuned with laser-like precision.

We must aim precisely at those who are most likely to buy what we are offering, and no one else. We have to know what that customer is going to be worth over a specific amount of time, and we must be able to track each dollar spent with a system.

When we spend money on brand awareness you have no idea what we are getting for our dollars in terms of sales or new customers.

Here are some numbers we will want to track:

1. The number of leads it takes to find a customer.

2. How much each lead costs.

3. What sources of advertising are producing the most leads for each dollar spent.

4. What sources and which ads are generatng the most productive leads.

We must also put all these numbers into a computer database so we can track our progress from month to month.

Here is another benefit to measuring and tracking: Anything we measure will automatically improve. When we stop measuring it decays. Isn't that true in other areas of your business?

Share with employees. Set goals, track the progress and post the results. Employees can't feel they are part of the team if they are kept in the dark. You will also notice that numbers improve when employees know what is expected and what is being tracked.

For more information on Direct Mail or Direct Response Marketing and how to do it properly without wasting your marketing dollars, go to our membership sections.