Marketing Efforts (online only exclusive): Keeping the Vision, The Morrell Group

Less than 1 percent. That’s how much of The Morrell Group’s overall budget goes to marketing efforts each year.

This Stone Mountain, Ga.-based company is not going to blow customers away with expensive marketing pieces or extravagant gifts. But The Morrell Group has parlayed a clearly defined preferred customer profile and an awareness of the work it does best with a strategy for making sales to establish itself as one of the leading landscape companies in its market.

"I think our sales efforts are a little different from other companies’ sales efforts because a lot of what we try to do is to work with our customer base through different organizations like the Building Owners & Managers Association, the International Maintenance Institute or the Commercial Real Estate Women," related Bart Parker, director of sales and marketing. "Getting involved in groups like these helps us with both public relations and sales, but we also get involved because we want our customers to see that we are truly supportive of their organizations. Attending these meetings regularly also means we’re out in front of these companies at least once a month."

Parker acknowledged that such activities rarely generate direct and measurable results for the company, but he believes the payoff is realized in the long-term big picture when customers and potential customers develop a perception of the company as more of a partner than just another company looking to sell something.

"Just going after somebody’s money won’t work," he asserted.

TELLING THE STORY. Parker is quick to point out that the first step in a successful sales program is identifying the customers you want to pursue. One doesn’t have to talk with many employees of The Morrell Group to realize that its ideal customer is the high-quality commercial property, often professionally managed and preferably one of a series of properties managed by the same company. Residential properties, multi-family accounts and less developed commercial properties are rarely part of the customer mix here.

"Seeing whether or not a company places a value on its landscape is pretty easy to do," Parker added. "Sometimes a company will pleasantly surprise you when they are more committed to the landscape than the current property conditions would seem to indicate, but we really go after a lot of the high-profile properties.

Parker likes to use The Morrell Group’s wide range of services as an advantage to sell to potential customers.

"A lot of our customers really want to have a one-stop shop for landscape services because they already have so much to care for inside the building," he explained. "They don’t want to have to spend time looking for an irrigation contractor and an arbor care contractor in addition to their maintenance company.

THE MARKETING CAKE. A common metaphor sometimes relates an object to a birthday dessert, saying that the object is "all icing and no cake." The implication here is that while the object in question may look to be quite impressive at first glance with its pretty icing, a further examination of the heart of that object reveals it to be low on actual substance.

Sales presentations and marketing pieces can often be described as all icing and no cake with all of the bright colors and pretty photographs that make claims that the presenting company isn’t really capable of backing up.

At The Morrell Group, the cake they have to serve is substantial enough that resources aren’t wasted on unnecessary icing.

The company’s marketing pieces are professional and thorough, but they are not excessive, and there is a reason for that.

"I think the most important part of a marketing package is your reference list with some accounts that are preferably recognizable in the market," noted Parker. "If the properties are well known by name, they should at least be impressive to any potential clients who would happen to go and see them. But that reference list is the first piece I would put together because it means so much to have a client who would speak that highly of you."

Parker expanded The Morrell Group’s marketing package to include a list of the different types of properties the company handles – office parks/office buildings, corporate headquarters, medical buildings, etc. – with a number of example properties for each category.

"I don’t want to include our actual client’s name or phone number because then that’s just information our competition could use," Parker explained.

"Our marketing package also includes some company background information, a list of awards we’ve won, a listing of area contractors by size from the Atlanta Business Chronicle, a description of each of our services, a list of our association memberships and an organizational chart just to let people know a little more about us."

The entire package is usually supplemented with color pictures of jobs The Morrell Group has either installed or maintained.

"When I started handling marketing for the company, we didn’t have any real marketing materials," Parker recalled. "The first thing I did was grab a camera and go out and take a bunch of color pictures of some of our better jobs to be able to show people what we do.

Today, many of these photographs are taken as part of a contest entry in an association’s landscape design or maintenance project awards contest.

"We believe we have a good product, but showing potential customers that your work was judged by your peers to be superior and worthy of an award can be a powerful sales tool," Parker pointed out.

After picking up a new maintenance contract, Parker said he likes to walk through the property with the client and use that time as an opportunity to point out the areas on the property in which the company thinks it will really be able to make a positive difference. The ability to point out these crucial areas comes from not wavering from the company’s target customer profile.

"A real key to our success has been sticking to the areas of work we’re good at because then people take pride in what they do and do a better job," Parker commented. "If you start doing work that doesn’t suit you, no one is happy.

"I think our biggest frustrations have come from going after work that isn’t in our niche, such as residential work," he continued. "We’re just not set up to handle residential work and we’re not familiar with the needs of that customer."

The author is Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine.