<font color=red>ON THE ROAD</font> Marketing Matters

“There has never been a better time to be part of the green industry,” says Judy Guido, owner of consulting firm Guido & Associates, Moorpark, Calif. From the emerging trends of “green sustainability” to the expansion of outdoor living to regulatory compliance, new windows of opportunity are opening for the green industry everyday. Guido discussed how landscape contractors can capitalize on these trends during her Professional Landcare Network workshop “Markets Worth Trillions: How to Differentiate Yourself from the Competition and Profit,” held Oct. 24 at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

Guido’s first point when discussing the profitable potential of the green industry was the recent acquisitions of the industry’s three largest companies: The Brickman Group, ValleyCrest and ServiceMaster. “People are realizing this industry is a smart place to invest their money,” she says.

These companies are attractive to outside investors and because of their reoccurring revenue and their strong brands. Guido’s two criteria of a good brand are awareness, or how many people know about the company, and a great reputation. 
 
Every landscape company owner should strive to create his or her own unique, solid brand, Guido says, and can do so by first having a comprehensive business strategy.

No matter how large or small a company, all business strategies are analyzed with three main factors. The first, processes and systems, includes sales, marketing, hiring and firing. The second, organizational structures, involves placing the right people in the right positions within a company. The third, and perhaps most important, factor is surrounding a company and partnering with the right people. Some smart partnerships for landscape companies include industry associations, interior designers, engineers, architects and environmentalists, among others, Guido says.
 
Only 9 percent of landscape companies currently have a marketing strategy, a statistic up 3 percent from the past two years. The plans can be simple to create, and there are many free resources, like bank economists and associations like PLANET, that can help along the way. “You don’t have to be brilliant to be great in the green industry,” Guido says.
 
Because the average American is exposed to approximately 31,000 pieces of visual stimuli every day, a company’s marketing efforts really need to stand out to be effective, Guido says. Unfortunately, too many landscape companies fall into the “vanilla crowd,” with the same white trucks and green shirts, and are easily forgettable. “Instead of ‘thinking outside the box,’ just forget the box,” she said.
 
Marketing a company’s education and professionalism is a great way to develop a respectable reputation, as well as to dispel the notion that the landscape industry is “just a bunch of 16-year-olds mowing lawns,” Guido says. “Contractors should use the terminology and nomenclature that show they’re educated in fields like agronomy and horticulture,” she said. “Strive to be the person everyone imitates.”
 
To ensure effective marketing, contractors should understand the message they want to send, the medium they’d like to use and the market they’d like to target, and then present themselves in a clear, continuous, consistent and compelling way. All marketing should communicate the company’s product, price, place or location, promotions and its positioning or brand.

Guido discussed two of the most powerful markets in business today and why it’s important to understand these individuals. “By understanding your customers’ lifestyles, needs and value drivers, you’re getting into their heads, hearts and, ultimately, their wallets,” she says.  

The first group, women, now brings in more than half of all U.S. incomes and buys 80 percent of all household goods. Women spend more time contemplating purchasing decisions and aim to not just buy a brand, but join a brand. Because they communicate three times more often than men, they are also the most powerful source of word-of-mouth advertising. “The average male refers 2.6 customers, while the average woman refers 21,” Guido says, adding that this can work either for or against a company, depending on the woman’s perception of the good or service.

The second group, the baby boomers, is no longer “the gray-haired grannies sitting in rocking chairs,” Guido said. Since 2001, the U.S. population over age 50 has held 69 percent of the total U.S. net worth, and has decades of free spending after retirement. “Boomers pack a financial punch,” she says. 

With the opportunities that abound, Guido stressed that now is the time for landscape contractors to identify what their company stands for and differentiate themselves from the crowd.