Landscaping contains two businesses with opposite economics. Design and installation is a large, occasional, highly visible project that homeowners research for months and compare on photographs. Maintenance is a recurring contract worth a modest amount every month for years, sold on reliability rather than on beauty. Most operators want more of the first and are funded by the second, and the marketing for each looks nothing like the other.
Work out what a maintenance customer is worth over five years
A monthly contract retained for several seasons is worth a multiple of a single installation, and very few operators have calculated it. That number changes what you can pay to acquire one, and it usually justifies far more spending on the unglamorous recurring work than on chasing the photogenic project that arrives twice a year.
Design-build is sold on photographs of your own finished work
Homeowners choose by looking at gardens that resemble what they imagine, in the same climate and the same kind of property. Organized by style, by property type and by budget range, with a short description of the problem and the solution. Most operators have a phone full of unusable progress shots and no properly photographed finished set, which is the cheapest large improvement available.
The season is sharp and content has to precede it
Demand concentrates into spring and early summer for most of the country, with autumn clean-up and, in snow regions, a winter service that keeps crews employed. Content and campaigns aimed at spring have to exist in winter. Operators who start advertising when the phone starts ringing are entering an auction everybody else entered two months earlier.
Commercial contracts are a bid process, not a search
Property managers, homeowner associations and commercial sites award multi-site contracts through bidding and relationships, and they check you online afterwards. The useful material is insurance, licensing, crew size, equipment, service coverage and comparable sites maintained. It is verification content and it belongs on its own pages.
Publish what things cost, at least as ranges
Landscaping prices are opaque to homeowners and the gap between expectation and reality wastes an enormous amount of estimating time. Ranges for a typical maintenance contract, a patio, a planting scheme or an irrigation system, with what moves them, reach people who are budgeting seriously and remove the visits that were never going to convert.
Questions people ask about landscaping marketing
Should we market maintenance or design work?
Maintenance usually deserves more of the budget, because a retained contract is worth a multiple of a single installation. Design work is more visible, lumpier and the thing most operators would rather sell.
What sells design-build work?
Photographs of your own finished gardens, organized by style, property type and budget, in the same climate as the customer. Most operators have no properly photographed finished set.
When should we start advertising for spring?
In winter. Content needs time to be found, and operators who start when the phone rings are entering an auction their competitors entered two months earlier.
How do we win commercial contracts?
Through bidding and relationships, with search doing verification afterwards. Publish insurance, licensing, crew size, equipment and comparable sites maintained, on their own pages.