Need a lawn care business commercial?

[Steve]

I saw this lawn care business commercial on youtube and wrote to the production company to see what it would cost to get a video made for a lawn care business. Here is the response I got. So if you are interested in having a commercial made for your lawn care business, send a message to the Ron at the production company. http://youtube.com/watch?v=AvaBhbvjL-w He wrote: Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] ] We have a lot to offer, so price can vary widely. $150 would be a good basic package. If the company would send me good, hi-res photos to work with along with their logo and so forth, and they didn't mind stock royalty-free music for background, we could do a basic commercial for them. For a non-local company, in fact, that's what we'd have to do. Keep in mind that just bacause I say photos, I don't mean slideshows. Lawns don't generally move, so even with good photos, I can do simulated camera moves on them and still have that video look. For things like this, good stills are actually easier to work with. Most of the Grasshopper commercial was done with stills. If I need to go out and shoot video or photos, that will add to the expense. Exactly how much depends on how long, how far, and how many times. For the Grasshopper one, I had to go out on four different occasions to shoot photos and video. That added $150 to the price. $30 - $40 per shoot would be a good estimate. Background music is another possible expense. I have a collection of royalty free music along with a couple music generators, so I can offer something generic and royalty free as part of the basic package. However, there are other options. I can use some recognizable song, but we would have to negotiate royalties first and that cost would be passed on to my customer. We can also produce and record custom jingles. My partners include a couple composers / musicians and my audio guy - complete with audio recording studio. That of course adds a whole new layer of complexity and therefore expense. But it is available.

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[StartALawnCareBusiness]

Lawn care business tips

Steve: Did you call their toll free number? Was that their actual number or was it a lawn care call service like we discussed a few weeks ago? You know how people sometimes buy and sell web domains? Have you ever heard many people doing this with telephone numbers? What do you think it would cost to purchase a number such as the one advertised in the video for a lawn care company? Keith

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[Steve]

Oh you know what? I didn't even notice that. I think that is the phone number we were talking about in a previous podcast.

If it is the same, yes then it's a lawn care answering service.

I have read a lot about how people buy phone numbers too. That does go on.

I don't know what the service costs if you wanted to get that specific company to answer phones but I am sure we could find it out.

Did you like that they were using the number?

Hi! Ron from Mystic Video here. I can shed a bit of light on Grasshopper Lawn's number - at least as far as I know.

Mike told me it was a forwarding service. You essentially rent zip codes. Then when a customer calls in to that number, they enter their zip code. That forwards the call to whoever happens to currently own that zip code.

Sorry but I can't help with pricing or anything like that. I just wanted to pass on what I know about that service.

And if anyone has any questions about video advertising, I'll be glad to try to answer them.

Remember guys, there's the cable market. Regular TV stations often cover too wide an area for most companies - but of course charge for that coverage. Consider cable. It can be targetted to a much smaller region and therefore costs a lot less!

Ron

[Steve]

Hi Ron,

Welcome to our forum! Have you heard anything from Grasshopper as to how effective the commercial was in getting new customers for them?

I haven't heard if it helped or not. In fact, I don't even know if they kept track.

They put it on cable channels and also use it at their booth at home & garden shows.

Ron

[Steve]

Oh! We were just talking about tracking your advertisements a short time ago on here and how important it is.

Did they ask you for any marketing advice when you made this or no? Just the concept of tracking the ads is so very important and new to a lot of people.

No, we're a video production company, and that's as far as it went. They knew what they wanted to do with the commercial. I did kinda edge them on to do something longer for their trade shows, but they wanted what they wanted. So there we have it. We do what the customer wants.

Ron

[Steve]

Hi Ron,

Did you ever think of putting together some generic videos that you could sell and a lawn care business owner could insert their contact information in at the end of the commercial? I bet you could sell quite a bit of those.

That's an intresting thought, Steve. Of course it has to be generic, so my question to the forum is this: What types of generic commercials would you find useful? A complete 20 seconds with voice-over advertising something and leaving you with simply space on the end to add your info? A commercial with just video and background music that you add a voice over to?

I can see it working as long as 1: the company buying the incomplete commercial can finish it or have it finished economically and 2: the incomplete commercials advertise something worth advertising.

I'm a video guy, so I know nothing about what you guys need. If you guys can give me some suggestions, maybe we can put something like this together.

Ron