Direct mail lawn care marketing offers

[Steve]

I wanted to list a bunch of the lawn care marketing offers I am receiving through direct mail. Maybe you can use these in your marketing campaign. Also if you see different offers in your mail, post them so we can see what else is out there. $50 off Spring Clean Up with an clean up over $350. Spring Cleanups 20% off with an annual agreement. Mulch 20% off all dyed 15 yards or more Double hammer mill mulch $19 per yard delivered. 6-10 yard min. Dyed Mulch now $28 per yard delivered. 6-10 yard min. Screen topsoil $26 per yard delivered. 6-10 yard min. Free 2 weeks lawn cutting with annual contract Spring Sprinkler Start-up only $60 plus parts for 1st hour. Springtime planting $500 off any planting job of $3500 or more. Weekly lawn maintenance starting at $99 per month cut & edge. Give us a try. Free first lawn mowing with annual agreement. Free Spring Fertilizer with maintenance agreement. Free Lawn Evaluation Beautify your lawn today $29.99 for your first service up to 5,000 sq ft Get an additional 5% off when you prepay for your annual lawn care program before 5/31 $200 off any job of $2,000 or more. 10% off any job up to $10,000. 10% any job of $2,000 or more. 10% off jobs $250-$2500 with signed contract. $500 off any landscape design or hardscape job of $5,000 or more. $300 off any job of $1,500 or more. $1,000 off any job $5,000 or more. $1,500 off any job $7,500 or more. $600 off $5,000 new landscape job. $300 off $2,500 new landscape job. $100 off $1,000 new landscape job. 10% off all brick paver, patio, sidewalks or retaining wall system. 10% french drains.

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[swstout]

How to get lawn care customers - Vol 2

Originally Posted by Steve I wanted to list a bunch of the lawn care marketing offers I am receiving through direct mail. Maybe you can use these in your marketing campaign. Also if you see different offers in your mail, post them so we can see what else is out there. $50 off Spring Clean Up with an clean up over $350. Spring Cleanups 20% off with an annual agreement. Mulch 20% off all dyed 15 yards or more Double hammer mill mulch $19 per yard delivered. 6-10 yard min. Dyed Mulch now $28 per yard delivered. 6-10 yard min. Screen topsoil $26 per yard delivered. 6-10 yard min. Free 2 weeks lawn cutting with annual contract Spring Sprinkler Start-up only $60 plus parts for 1st hour. Springtime planting $500 off any planting job of $3500 or more. Weekly lawn maintenance starting at $99 per month cut & edge. Give us a try. Free first lawn mowing with annual agreement. Free Spring Fertilizer with maintenance agreement. Free Lawn Evaluation Beautify your lawn today $29.99 for your first service up to 5,000 sq ft Get an additional 5% off when you prepay for your annual lawn care program before 5/31 $200 off any job of $2,000 or more. 10% off any job up to $10,000. 10% any job of $2,000 or more. 10% off jobs $250-$2500 with signed contract. $500 off any landscape design or hardscape job of $5,000 or more. $300 off any job of $1,500 or more. $1,000 off any job $5,000 or more. $1,500 off any job $7,500 or more. $600 off $5,000 new landscape job. $300 off $2,500 new landscape job. $100 off $1,000 new landscape job. 10% off all brick paver, patio, sidewalks or retaining wall system. 10% french drains. I looked into direct mail marketing and decided against it. The average response is 1-2%. If I send out 100 in a mailing my postage alone would be $420.00 not counting the envelope and flyer costs. If I got only 1 response I would be in the whole until I took in about $1,000.00 (my marketing costs + labor costs + overhead). I feel a more direct - talk to the people is much more ecconomical. For $1,000.00 I can talk directly to a lot of potential customers. Steve

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[Steve]

From discussions we have had in the past, if you want to experiment with direct mail you should consider a mailing list of 1,000 to 1,500 addresses to allow you the potential of getting some response without breaking the bank.

Direct mail may be more useful when you have more money than time. However when you have more time than money, you want to leverage your time instead.

But there are many options to go with depending on your situation.

I looked into direct mail marketing and decided against it. The average response is 1-2%. If I send out 100 in a mailing my postage alone would be $420.00 not counting the envelope and flyer costs. If I got only 1 response I would be in the whole until I took in about $1,000.00 (my marketing costs + labor costs + overhead).

Did you consider things like the valupak mailers? Or their equivalent?

[swstout]

Originally Posted by Steve

From discussions we have had in the past, if you want to experiment with direct mail you should consider a mailing list of 1,000 to 1,500 addresses to allow you the potential of getting some response without breaking the bank.

Direct mail may be more useful when you have more money than time. However when you have more time than money, you want to leverage your time instead.

But there are many options to go with depending on your situation.



Did you consider things like the valupak mailers? Or their equivalent?

The Valupak mailers are more cost effective but I still think I can put my business card directly in the hand of a prospect for much, much less. This way I meet the prospect eye to eye.

I get the value packs all the time and basically ignore them. My wife, on the other hand digests them. She however thinks it's my job to take care of the yard and discards it. The Valupak ads arn't seen by the peoson it would benefit!

When I hand out a business card and flyer, they go to the person who would benefit most. How he handles his 'significant other' is another story. I start a dialog, a mailer doesn't!

Steve

[picframer]

I have noticed a few in the mail box recently, a lot offering mowing for $25.00 for up to 3,500 square feet...what a joke.

Personally our focus is on landscaping, driveway grading, removing rocks, drainage, stumps, wood chipping etc. I just added an excavator to the company yesterday (JD50 John Deere) as I have three crews on tractors with all the attachments including backhoe's and we can't keep up. 80% of my days are providing quotes and we are getting obout 92% of the business.

I still have all the lawn gear equipment and when my son finished University next week he can take that over, we have two crews at the moment spraying, we went totally Organic and it has been a major selling feature for us.

Lawn mowing itself won't start here for at least three more weeks, still not great growing weather.

[Steve]

I just added an excavator to the company yesterday (JD50 John Deere)

Oh! Do you have a picture of that! Tell us a little about it.

[picframer]

This was a really tough decision due to the cost, John Deere has an amazing financing program on however I also had to buy a truck and opted for a new 2008 Dodge 3500 with a dump then there is a trailer, we kind of jumped from lawn care to excavation/landscaping.

Reason is there are too many what I can trunk slammers starting a business and doing it for nothing, no knowledge, what I think will happen is customers will see in a few months the quality of the work and then look elsewhere so we have to ride this one out.

Now what has happened here on the excavation side, we are getting 85%++ of our work in an area 35 to 40 min from my house, middle to upper middle class, about 25,000 homes, fairly new area about 10 years old that took off a few years ago.

The RCMP station is in the centre and responsible for a massive area, there are probable 120+ officers that work there, I am friends with the staff Sgt and many of the officers due to my previous job as we worked close together on some operations, my marketing started with one coffee.

I was informed there are 5 landscaping companies in their community, four do poor quality work, one is too expensive and too busy. The guys that I compete with in the city don't bother with this area for some reason, probably transportation but I leave some equipment parked at another friends place as it's massive and high security which I installed, everything I own has a GPS unit on it anyhow so if it's stolen, I will know where it is and it's all motion activated, for example if a machine is to shut down at 6 pm and it somehow moves at 8 pm, I get an email on my blackberry as does the monitoring station I still own part of, we can log in and see if there is actual movement and if so dispatch the police. I even have it on the trailers, cut the line, immediate alarm.

So we ran a small ad in a community newspaper that cost around $17.00, from that I received over 160 emails or calls, we are tracking everything and we are landing the business, a lot of it is fixing mistakes, some is digging rocks out but mainly drainage pipe that either wasn't installed or it wasn't installed right.

So people see the name on the equipment and word travels fast in a small area, they started calling asking about the organic spray, I hired and trained a lady who lives near my home, work at home mom that has personality plus, so she handles all the calls, I do the follow up and quotes.

I also follow up after every job with the client and introduce the lawn care side, talk about the work just completed, in short they must be satisfied.

Anyhow for now my fingers are crossed, we have lots of work when many of the companies I know still have their equipment sitting in the yard as times are a bit tough, anyhow I had to invest and borrow $105,000 for this set up, may sound nuts but like I said, it was a tough call but this unit will bring in $680.00 a day, most jobs are 6 hours or less, we can do a lot in 6 hours, some are a few days but on average I would guess 6 hours so you have some transport time but we have that down to a science, takes about 20 min to load any of the tractors and get going.

I have GPS in every unit for navigation so we are not looking for a house and my system knows where a piece of equipment is so my office lady tells them where to go next generally the closest, it's a balance as you can't make people wait so I started right up front as if we were to busy saying we will be here within two weeks and will call the night before.

For now it's working and yes it is a risk but like I said, you would starve on lawn care alone until things settle out.

Picframer,

I admire what you are doing. being able to grow in adverse condictions is a sign of a strong company. I like your marketing ideas and like the idea of a personality plus person taking the calls. That can be a instant sell. How your employees are deemed to treat your customer is very important. First impressions are everything.

I love the security you have on your equipment. Can you tell us about how much that costs per item to keep in place?

I did some real quick figuring and found that without figuring your fuel costs, labor costs, maintenance, etc. you will have the new equipment (all $105,000) paid off in less than 155 workings days if you can average your estimated $680 daily income from it. That is a very good return on investment in my opinion.

Good luck,
Eli

[picframer]

Eli, Thank you for your kind comments, much appreciated, I give a lot of credit to my working at the bank for so many years and financing so many companies and learning what works and what didnt. On top of that the bank was always sending me on courses, I will never forget one in atlanta put on by these two doctors, don't remember their names but I put their advise to practise and it has worked in every situation, my son who is now 19 has had his own business for 7 years and make a pile of cash doing it.

Anyhow they tought us how to read and mirror a persons personality, it's desperate hard to explain but it involves tone, body language, posture etc. sounds corney but I am here to tell you it has always worked at least for me.

Anyhow it's hard to say what the GPS would cost you as I still own part of the Security Company so I get the products at cost and we buy direct from the manufacturer in Europe, the products can only be sold and monitored in Canada.

That being said I use Garmin in the trucks for finding clients homes, Garmin makes the best GPS mapping for vehicles hands down, I say this as the company I still own part of is the largest GPS tracking company in Canada and the 2nd largest in North america, we track a lot of offenders using a bracelet also.

Anyhow I can google and find a product I would suggest, you need motion activated GPS units, they draw little power, I have seen them on my ATV's and maybe we would not use them for a couple of months and there is no effect on the battery as the shut down until movement is detected.

Something else that I do that shocks prospects, when they send an email from a search or through my website, I get it on my blackberry instaltly and respond within 15 min, this has won me a pile of business. All my employees carry Blackberries, to me it's a cost of doing business but pays off big time.

For example I was set up at the farmers market as we are keeping our woodworking going also, a client emailed with a drainage problem, I replied right away I would have to see it and could I perhaps drop by, they said sure but in their reply sent images, I saw the problem and responded but said I would be over at 3 this afternoon for a personal view. They asked if I was in my office if I could respond and see the images that fast, I said no I am actually at the farmers market but your images come through on my blackberry, their reply was well if your company treats their clients like that then you are a winner, I have had this same type of comment dozens of times. I went to see the property at 3 and got the contract, it's worth close to three grand to us and any contract over 1,000 requires a 50% deposit, they offered to pay in advance the entire amount, I just laughed and said no, 50% and we will not process the payment until the day we arrive on site to start the work.

I could go on and on over funny situations that have landed massive contracts for us, it's working for now and I am a bit tired as my University staff do not start for two more weeks due to exams but we are keeping up.

I actually have to run, I have a deal with a well company if one of their clients has an issue I will go with a backhoe and dig the lines up, received a call while typing this, PITA as I wanted the evening off and I won't call my staff in on a Saturday night.

Anyhow cheers for now

Andy

[Steve]

--> Andy,

With all the experimenting you have been doing with your business, do you have advice for others now how to deal with a local landscape market that might have too many competitors?