Marketing Archives - Green Pro Marketing

Dec 14 2016

7 landscape companies nailing their Facebook cover image

If your lawn or landscape business has its own Facebook page (which it should!), you need to make sure that you’re taking advantage of a big opportunity to make a solid first impression: your cover image. It’s what potential customers see when they first land on your page, and it takes up a lot of real estate – so why not use it to show off?

Facebook cover image rules

Facebook has some basic rules for cover images. You should read them for yourself, but the most important is that your cover image can’t be deceptive or misleading, and it can’t infringe on anyone’s copyright. In other words, if it’s someone else’s image and you don’t expressly have the rights to it? Don’t use it! This is great advice for the internet in general, really.

Facebook has set the size for cover images at 851 x 315 pixels. If you’re not sure how to resize images to fit, or if you just want a simple solution, you can use a free tool like Canva. Canva lets you create images that are sized just right for a lot of social media sites, and you can’t beat the price.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so let it do the talking for you. Barrett’s Horticultural Services offers plant care and horticultural maintenance for estate clients in northern Virginia. Their cover image shows an example of the type of garden they care for, making it easy for prospects to tell at a glance if they’re the right type of company for them.

Terra Firma Gardens is a British landscape company that does beautiful work with a contemporary feel. This cover image nails that, with a brightly lit photo of one of their projects. A client looking for that style will immediately know they’re in the right place.

Facebook used to have a rule that your cover image couldn’t contain more than about 20% text. They’ve backed off that rule but it’s still a good idea. After all, that cover image should have some wow factor, especially for an industry that’s so visual in nature. A little text is good for reinforcing your brand or showcasing a special offer. Here are examples of two landscape companies with very different styles, emphasized with their cover images.

Environments Studio is a landscape architecture firm in Illinois. They do a lot of work with stormwater management and sustainability. They clearly have a different style than Susan Cohan, a landscape designer in New Jersey:

Isn’t it amazing how two simple images can tell two completely different stories? It’s a powerful, powerful opportunity.

For an example of a company using their Facebook cover image to communicate a special offer, Stadler Nurseries does pretty well. They’re a family-owned retail garden center with locations in Virginia and Maryland, and their tree planting sale is a huge promotion for them every year. While I don’t often love the use of stock photos, the bright green is eye-catching and the simple image puts all the focus where it needs to be: on the special offer.

While it’s not a special offer, Kingstowne Lawn and Landscape uses their Facebook cover image to tell us their value proposition: “delivering total satisfaction”. It also shows that a cover image doesn’t need to be just one image. The two inset images weren’t selected by accident. The image of the home they selected appeals to a wider range of customers than the typical mansion-style homes landscape professionals love to feature. The photo of Kingstowne’s team helps put a human face to the company.

What about snow removal? The Grounds Guys is a landscape maintenance franchise with locations around the United States. It’s currently December which means it’s time for customers to think about snow and ice management. The Grounds Guys make this pitch in a pretty playful manner:

The bottom line

What’s the takeaway here? Personally, I think your Facebook cover image is a wonderful opportunity for your landscape company to show some personality. We’ve showcased several examples that each stands out from the competition in its own way. Do you want a potential client calling 5-7 random companies in your area? Or do you want them calling YOU? Like Jules says in Pulp Fiction, “Personality goes a long way.”

Not sure how to make your Facebook page better? Do you need help with your online marketing efforts in general? We’d love to help! Contact us today and we’ll review what you have now and how we can make it better. Your competition will wonder what the heck just happened!

May 31 2016

Amazon Home Services Review: Good for them, bad for contractors

If you search for “Amazon Home Services review” there’s not a whole lot that pops up. It’s a relatively new program and outside of a few niche businesses (PC repair, tv installers) they just don’t seem to be getting a lot of traction. Yet. Don’t dismiss them to soon, though, because Amazon has some serious bucks to spend if and when they decide to really go for it.

This is a first-hand Amazon Home Services review

Even after jumping into this amazing sales and online marketing business for landscape contractors, I kept my little design firm sort of active. We do a handful of landscape design projects a year, and Tony and I can use it as a sort of “marketing laboratory.” In that spirit, I signed up for Amazon Home Services about a year ago. How would I describe it so far?

How Amazon Home Services works

I won’t get into the details of signing up, because it’s pretty basic if you’ve ever signed up for an online lead platform. From what other contractors have said they look pretty hard at your online reviews with Yelp, Google, etc so it’s a good incentive to keep that house in order. There’s an application, a background check, and eventually a congratulations email. It’s when the leads start coming in that it falls apart.

I’m set up for Amazon Home Services landscape design consultations (a custom category), so when someone wants that service I get an email:

Click on the link and it takes me to my dashboard, and I see their more detailed request. It gives me a zip code, their timeline, a brief description, and the prospect can also provide photos of the site. I then have a few options for how I respond:

I can dismiss the request and tell Amazon Home Services why (too busy, wrong area, not work I do). I’m not altogether sure what they do with this info because there seems to be no filter for the leads I do get, but… more on that later.
I can give a fixed price quote to do the work.
I can give a range.
I can tell them a site visit is needed.
I can ask questions.

That’s it. Now, in my sales process I insist on a phone consultation before scheduling an on-site meeting. You can judge really easily how serious someone is in a three minute call, versus emailing back and forth. Here’s the first reason that my Amazon Home Services review is a little harsh: there is no pre-visit discussion option.

Amazon is very explicit that you can only contact your leads through their platform. If you try to put in your phone number or your actual email, the system automatically strips that out of the message. As a result your options are to give a price on a job you haven’t seen in person, or schlepp out to the site with no way of knowing if the lead is even remotely qualified. Because you and I know that the average online shopper homeowner isn’t going to be up for a detailed back and forth messaging you.

I voiced this concern to the customer service team at AHS and they said “well just tell them a site visit is needed.” When I explained that that’s likely a huge waste of time, they told me “you can charge for the visit, you just put that in the field.” Riiiiight. Because charges for the first visit are always so well received, especially in the bargain tier of leads? And it’s hard to sell someone on your value for a paid consultation when this is all they see if they click your profile:

So… no photos, no description of your company, no link to your site. Well shoot, why wouldn’t someone just want to hand me $125 for an initial visit? The thing is, this would be an easy problem for Amazon to fix, at least for me. “Landscape design consultation” is pretty open ended, and most people seem to click this whether they want a landscape master plan or they just want three hostas moved and their townhouse’s beds weeded. So I asked the customer service rep if I could create a packaged product, like a site visit + a basic sketch for $300. “Uh, we hope to have that functionality but it won’t be this year.” So out of all the leads I’ve received, two were for what I actually do. Which leads me to:

Lead tracking SUCKS in Amazon Home Services

I use a CRM for my business. When a lead comes in I log customer name, address, contact info, lead source, etc so I can see what’s working and what’s not. As you’re probably realizing through this Amazon Home Services review, they don’t give you enough info to make it worth plugging the data into a CRM. No biggie, I figured, I can at least track that through my dashboard.

Nope.

If you don’t act on a lead, if you dismiss a lead, or if you make an offer and nothing comes of it, that lead vanishes once the expiration date hits. Poof! Gone. So if you want to track what kinds of leads you’re getting, or you want to see what percentage close, you need to open up a spreadsheet because Amazon Home Services doesn’t want you to have that data in their app.

Holy money for nothing, Batman – the fees!

No Amazon Home Services review would be complete without a discussion of their fee structure. Because boy, do they make sure they get paid. Luckily they provide a pretty clear graphic that lays out their fees.

A pre-packaged service would be something like the site visit + sketch for a fixed price that I mentioned above. In exchange for connecting you with the lead, Amazon Home Services takes 20% of your total invoice. Custom services are if someone contacts you for plantings, and you’re creating a unique design and invoice. That’s a 15% fee. Recurring services are typically maintenance items. If you booked a lawn care client through Amazon Home Services, they’ll take 10% off the top every. Single. Visit. That’s madness.

Naturally, Amazon Home Services sees what we do as a commodity and the only differentiating factor is price. They’ll even send you an email as the bid phase is closing to tell you that if you reduce your price YOU could be the winning bid!

The bottom line

I think it’s important to remember that Amazon is a technology company that wants to broker home improvement services. They’re not a home improvement company. I point this out because it’s clear that they don’t understand how the sales process works, they don’t understand that you can’t just sell more hours for less money and magically survive, and they really don’t care to understand anything like that. What they do understand is that whether you cover your costs or not, Amazon Home Services has the potential to be hugely profitable – for Amazon.

Where do we go from here?

I’ll wrap up this Amazon Home Services review with a positive spin to things. AHS illustrates that yes, people are looking for service providers online. It also shows that people want to have a way of knowing if they can trust their landscape contractor. The great news is that you can be found online and show how great your company is without Amazon Home Services.

We offer website design and SEO (search engine optimization) for landscape business owners just like you, helping you get found by clients located where YOU want to do business. I love writing website copy and I can help you showcase everything that’s great about your company, and Tony can help you get set up with online payment platforms and other tools to help your customers give you their money. Contact us today and we’ll help you grow your business, all without handing over a huge chunk of revenue to Amazon.

Apr 14 2016

Rock your social media with an editorial calendar

Every time I give a workshop on blogging and social media I hear the same thing: “I want to use social media better but I never know what to post!” It’s a common problem with a simple solution: plan it in advance with an editorial calendar.

By waiting until the day you want a post to go live you run the risk of “life happens” syndrome. You have jobs in progress, vendors to call, bills to pay, and now you’re trying to come up with something to say on social media? That’s a lot of pressure that you don’t need to put on yourself. An editorial calendar makes it easy. You decide in advance what you want to cover, and then you just have to show up. Here’s how it works.

Building an editorial calendar for your landscape business

We’ll talk about editorial calendars for landscape company blogs, but the same principles apply for any social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, etc). When we’re planning editorial calendars for our clients we always start big and work down to details.

Step One: Monthly

The first step is to decide what you’ll cover each month. Ideally you want this to line up with what you’re trying to sell at those times. For example. September or October (depending on where you live) may be talking about the benefits of fall cleanups or fall fertilization. November could be holiday lighting. You want to use your social media efforts to help your sales.

Step Two: Weekly

How often are you posting? Let’s say you post once a week. Within that broader topic (for example, holiday lighting) come up with a related topic each week. I might talk about LEDs vs incandescent for one post, best ways to light a roof peak in another, and so on. The idea is to let the client know YOU are the expert. As mentioned, the same principles apply with your other social media platforms.

Step Three: Execute!

Now you just need to write your posts and schedule them. If you choose to do them the day they go live, you’ll find having a plan makes things way easier. Even better though, you can now do batches of social media posts at once. There are tools like Buffer and HootSuite that let you schedule your social media posts in advance. We use CoSchedule because it lets us easily schedule blog posts as well as all our social media posts promoting our posts.

If all this makes sense but still seems like a lot of work, we can help! Green Pro Marketing offers workshops on editorial planning if you want to handle your social media posting in house, or we can do it all for you. Contact us today to learn how we can help you increase your leads and get more quality prospects.

Mar 08 2016

Doing this can KILL your landscape business Facebook page

When you started your landscape business Facebook page, you probably shared it with all your friends and family, maybe made mention of it in an email to past and current customers, and then waited for the lovin’ from thousands in your local area. And waited.

And waited.

How can the world of Facebook know how awesome you are unless they all like your page? And how can you show potential customers you’re the best if you only have 63 people who like your page? This can sometimes lead desperate business owners to make one (or both) of these mistakes.

Buying likes for your landscape business Facebook page

There are websites out there where you can buy thousands of likes for mere dollars. It’s tempting; overnight you can go from zero to hero, boasting 5,000 fans on your Facebook page! But it’s not about just numbers (as you’ll see here in a minute).

Trading likes with other landscape contractors

If you spend any time on industry forums, you’ll see threads where someone gets a brilliant idea. “Hey guys, post your Facebook page links and we’ll all like each others’ pages!” It’s an easy way to fluff up your numbers, but it’s almost as bad an idea as buying followers. Why is that?

How Facebook really works for businesses

Way back in the early days of business pages, it was easy to get thousands of people to see your Facebook posts. Then Facebook made a major change. They would be using an algorithm to determine who got to see your posts. Today, on average, only between 5-10% of your followers will ever see a given post.

Now that’s not an absolute number. It’s an algorithm, which means it’s watching the way people interact with your posts to Facebook. If a post is getting a lot of likes, comments, or shares, Facebook assumes it’s a good post – and more people get to see it. If you have several good posts, Facebook may start showing more people each post to start with. On the other hand, if every post you make falls as flat as a racist joke at a formal dinner party, Facebook may actually show your posts to FEWER people.

Here’s where the quality of your Facebook fans makes a huge difference. Let’s say 100 people from your local area, who might actually want to buy from you, like your page. Let’s also say that you’ve swapped likes with 300 other landscape professionals, and maybe 10 people randomly clicked like on your page as they saw it go past in their feed. That’s 410 page likes, which is pretty good for a local landscape business. Let’s say you create a Facebook post, and that day Facebook shows it to 6% of your followers (which is pretty standard). That’s 25 people.

Facebook isn’t going to select which 25 people see your post by what helps you. Maybe 10 of your potential customers will see your posts. Or maybe everyone who sees your post comes from that group of 300 landscape companies you swapped likes with. Are you going to get business from a lawn care company located 800 miles away that sees your post? Probably not.

How to use your landscape business Facebook page the right way

Facebook is tough as a lead generation tool. That’s not really why people go on social media. They want to see how their niece did in surgery, argue with someone about politics, and catch up with their friends. They’re not there to be sold to. A facebook marketing strategy is a slow burn. Here’s how to do it effectively.

Grow your followers organically. Make sure all your clients (past and present) get an invitation to like your page. Email them a link, because if you just say “find me on FB and like me” they won’t.
Don’t buy followers
Don’t do follow for follow swaps with other landscape contractors
Post content that people want to see, or will want to share! That can be timely lawn and garden tips, great photos or videos of your projects, or other things that will grab someone’s interest and paint you as an expert.
Post regularly, but don’t post garbage just to post something

Still a little lost on how to manage your landscape business Facebook page effectively? We can do that for you! Contact us today to learn more.

Oct 22 2015

How to suck at social media

There are a lot of landscape pros killing it out there on social media. Their posts are tight, they’re engaging, and they make potential clients want to learn more about that amazing brand. That’s what you want social media to do. Social media lets brands connect with people as real, actual human beings, which can shorten the sales cycle and lead to deeper relationships, which means more loyalty and higher customer value. Awesome, right?

But then there are other companies who just don’t seem to get it. We’re not going to name names, but here are some ways to be so bad at social media that you’re inadvertently driving clients away.

"Tell me you didn't post that!" — “Tell me you didn’t post that!”

Post the exact same thing across every platform

I get it, you’re busy. It can be hard coming up with something original for every post, so it may seem like the best bet is to use the same post on Facebook, and Twitter, and LinkedIn, and Houzz, and so on. You know what the problem is with that? A lot of your customers, or potential customers, may follow you on multiple social media networks. If I see the same thing coming from you on Twitter and Facebook, I’m going to unfollow you on at least one network, or maybe both. Why take that risk? Even if you’re linking to the same content (blog post, magazine article) at least change up what you’re saying about it. No one likes to feel like you’re just phoning it in.

Sell to us like it’s President’s Day weekend and you’re a used car dealer

Think about why you go on Facebook. Are you going on Facebook to chat with your friends, read news articles, and slack off a bit? Or are you logging in hoping to see so many calls to buy something that even the Draft Kings/Fan Duel people say “whoa, dude, ease up on all the ads”? Exactly. Here’s a great example of what NOT to do:

Not only are they posting the same sales message over and over, they’re re-sharing the sales message. Crazy! And go figure, this is the last post on their wall:

I’m not saying it’s cause and effect, but I’m not NOT saying it either. Don’t let this be you.

Post random stuff that has nothing to do with your business

I’ve seen lawn and landscape companies that use their company Facebook page like a bizarre clearinghouse for bizarre articles and links. A potential client is liking your page, and therefore opting in to receiving your updates, because they are interested in your landscape company. Posting video game news (seriously, I’ve seen a landscape company do this on their Facebook page) will only serve to confuse and frustrate your readers.

Your posts are “me me me me” all the time.

Social media can be a great place to occasionally share news about a new hire or a project you recently completed that you’re proud of, but with the exception of your mom – most readers just aren’t that into you. If you can share articles, videos, and links that are relevant to your business and interesting, your clients will read them, enjoy them, and SHARE them. Sharing is the Holy Grail here.

What will clients share? Well, I found that a lot of folks will share links that talk about plant pests and diseases. They share tips on simple projects they can do, and how to improve their home’s value. Remember that like Toby Keith says above, your clients are saying “I want to talk about ME.”

Not having a strategy

Not having a social media strategy is hands down the best way to fail at social media. If you plan out what you want to share, where, and when, you’ll always have something relevant and exciting for your clients.

Need help with your lawn or landscape company’s social media strategy? We can help you two ways:

we can manage your landscape company’s social media for you. We’ll come up with a strategy to include content, platforms, and posting frequency and then we’ll handle everything for you. It’s like having an in-house social media manager at a fraction of the cost.
if you want to handle the execution of your company’s social media strategy yourself, but you want help developing and maintaining that strategy – we do that too. We’ll work with you to develop the campaign and have regular meetings to discuss what’s working and how we can tweak the program.

Whichever works for you, contact us today to get started. We’ll make you look good.