Gone are the good old days when telemarketing was the sure-fire way to drum up new lawn care clients.
But with the advent 2003’s National Do Not Call Registry, telemarketing has gone the way of the dinosaur for lawn care operators.
Eliminating telemarketing as a relatively cheap and effective marketing tool was a shock to the lawn care industry, says Sam Lang, president of Raleigh, N.C.-based Fairway Green, who was a big fan of telemarketing. But at the same time, Lang adds it benefited the industry because it evened the playing field for everyone providing chemical lawn care services – from the little guy to the big nationwide company.
“TrueGreen used telemarketing so well that they were the experts as using it,” Lang says. “It was hard to compete against those guys because they were such pros.
“But like with anything, you can’t hang your hat on just one thing,” he says.
Lang, like many lawn care operators throughout the country, began experimenting with different marketing venues and selecting those that showed promising returns.
According to Lawn & Landscape’s Lawn Care Report research, nearly a quarter of LCOs rely primarily on direct mail and nearly another quarter put their faith into traditional print advertising, such as the Yellow Pages, newspapers and community circulars.
However, the data indicates that more than half, roughly 54 percent, experience the greatest success in generating new business from word-of-mouth referrals.
But word-of-mouth business can stem from more than just client recommendations, says Jeff Wollum, the owner and CEO of Emerald Lawn Care in
For example, Emerald Lawn Care employees are uniformed and are not permitted to smoke on a job site. In addition, vehicles are regularly cleaned to project a pristine appearance as they travel throughout the community, he says.
“Quality all the way,” Wollum says. “That makes word of mouth spread. Projecting a lean and clean image to public sells us quite a bit.”