Your Valentine's Day promotions?!

[Steve]

I just saw Patrick's Valentine's Day promotion and I like it! Very creative. When you go to his photo section you see a couple of discount coupons you can use! What are you doing to promote your business for Valentine's Day?

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[Fernando's CleanCut!]

Lawn care business tips

check out mine at cragislist let me know what y'all think! http://spacecoast.craigslist.org/lbs/563071389.html

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.Fernando/CleanCut!.
36\" Scag Kohler 15Hp Walk-Behind
Toro Trimmer
Echo PE-200 Edger
Stihl BG 55 Blower

[All Aspects Landscaping]

20 x 30 weeks lawncare... is $600.00 right... Olive Garden Dinner cost approx $50.00... now you are down to $550.00... Say it takes you 20 mins to cut, trim, edge and blow off the property (by yourself) and your hourly rate is $35.00 per man hour, It cost you $11.67 to cut the grass. After an Olive Garden Dinner, you are getting $18.34 per cut... your profit is $6.63 for those 20 mins. This does not include drive time to and from that job. It also doesn't cover the risk of that customer not paying you for one week. Also it doesn't cover any incidentals that may arise that you did not figure into your budget. To sum it up, for the entire season, you will profit a total of $199.89 from this customer. For every one hundred $20.00 accounts you would cut, you would profit at grand total of $19,989.00...
I am not trying to hurt any feelings, but I feel that there is no room for a $20.00 cut... no matter how small the property. I like the ad fernando, it looks great, but I would love to see you up the price. And even though you have that prices start at $20.00, people are going to expect you to be the cheapest.

Let me know your thoughts please
j

[Fernando's CleanCut!]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (All Aspects Landscaping @ Feb. 04 2008,9:31)]And even though you have that prices start at $20.00, people are going to expect you to be the cheapest.

Well... you are right in one point. "Cheap", I have to say I was thinking of $25-$30 per cut. I will fix the add, im glad that was the first one I put out.
*Quick story, last year I put yard signs out for $20 a cut, I now have some clients with $30-$40 per cut. I've cought their attention, now its time to negotiate. (I thought)*

So what do you think I should do? Post it without price? or say $30 or more, and give discounts away?

-

$50 for dinner? Ouch!. well I have to defend myself on this one, because I work at the OG, so I get discounts, and the dinner goes around $30. (i'm just paying for the Food, not wine and desserts)
Other thing is that I cut 36 times a year, for most of the houses with good grass.
Also I would have to add that with every customer I get, is a potential to do some yard work/ landscape / renovation, stuff like that, so that is going to be some xtra money.

Thanks for the advice.

[justin_time]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Team Gopher @ Feb. 04 2008,5:49)]I just saw Patrick's Valentine's Day promotion and I like it! Very creative.

When you go to his photo section you see a couple of discount coupons you can use!

What are you doing to promote your business for Valentine's Day?

I would probably would have to offer a snow removal offer since there's snow up north over here on Valentine's (usually)

Gonna have to plan that for next year

[All Aspects Landscaping]

Hey Fernando-
Glad you didnt take that the wrong way man.... just a different angle ya know...Honestly, I wouldnt even commit to a price... I would offer the dinner with a "Seasonal Maintenance Contract"... its kinda subjective... some people might assume that they need to have their property mulch in order to get the dinner... or trimming shrubs... or fert... then you can pay for the drinks and dessert!!! LOL! Good Luck & Let me know
j

[Steve]

It's really great when you sit down and think about the figures involved! Playing around with the figures here or there can really make this work.

Also I applaud you for your creativity of taking your connection with the Olive Garden to work with your lawn care business promotion.

Another thing I noticed and I don't know how much of a big deal this is, but I will point it out anyway. Craigslist ads will end up in search engine results if you use text in the ad. But when you use purely graphics in the ad, they won't show up because the search engine has no way of knowing what the ad says.

If a potential customer is looking for lawn care in your specific town, and you have a craigslist ad with 'lawn care' and your specific town's name, then your ad will appear, increasing your chances of reaching out to more people.

So, what does all this mean? Well, it's just my view that if you create graphic ads, as you have, which do indeed look great, you might want to consider having a text description below them so you improve your search engine results.

Here is a screen shot of the ad you put up. Very very creative! Please let us know if you find customers are responding to it.

Also there is nothing that says you can't create two different ads and run one one week and the other the next week. Maybe change the price in the ads and have a special code they have to give you when they call in order to get this ad. Then you will know by the code, how much you offered to charge and what you were offering as an inducement to signing a contract with you.

[All Aspects Landscaping]

Steve... took your advise on the Craigs List... man it worked wonders... I posted an ad for a lawn foreman at 2:30 am on monday night (insomnia...lol) and tuesday morning, i had six inquiries by noon!! Im starting to have faith in the power of Craigs list... although I hate the name!!! lol

[Fernando's CleanCut!]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Team Gopher @ Feb. 05 2008,7:05)]Also there is nothing that says you can't create two different ads and run one one week and the other the next week. Maybe change the price in the ads and have a special code they have to give you when they call in order to get this ad.

I am actually working on one more, not fancy very simple. Also im triying to create my logo.

WOW! Thank you guys very much!

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (All Aspects Landscaping @ Feb. 05 2008,3:58)]I posted an ad for a lawn foreman at 2:30 am on monday night (insomnia...lol) and tuesday morning, i had six inquiries by noon!!

...as a rookie, I miss alot of this detailes, and for sure are important
Next time, If I may, I'll post them here Fisrt and see what you guys think about it before throw them to the public.


**- i have an ADD idea!, since all we see in the News is The Elections, why not make flyers about "chose/vote/elect the right Lawn Care Company" with true promising results- for your Lawn Care Needs...., lol, something ike that.
Any Ideas?

[All Aspects Landscaping]

Yeah man... throw it by us... wed be glad to critique it!!! and we'll be honest with ya...lol