Service Magic

[andyjoneslawncare]

I googled "sarasota lawn care" and service magic's site was on top. I'm sure someone here has used them. I'm a little skeptical. They asked for all kinds of info from me but they don't tell me anything about rates, how they charge, etc. So how does it work? Has anyone had success with them? I'm getting a check soon for some work done previously, so I'll finally get my website up and spend some cash on marketing. I've been looking over old threads and it looks like yellow pages aren't a big hit for most of you. I have plenty vacant homes I'm doing for realtors that pay me at closing, but I need more traditional accounts for money now and to pay for all that fuel running around doing the vacant homes. So Service Magic or are there other online services I should look into? What have you tried with success? Google ppc, superpages,etc? I don't mind spending some cash but I'd like about 20 more accounts this season.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

That is a very interesting question. I don't see too many members using service magic. I think they take a % of the job? Also I think you have to bid on the job against others in your area that are bidding on the job. We have a bunch of members on here who have shared a lot of their insight on search engine optimization for your website and if you get a chance, read up on some of that for your new site. Some members have found success with adwords. If your website doesnt rank high for your key search words, adwords is something you can experiment with and test to see if it will work for you in your area. What other forms of marketing have you been doing? What have you liked or disliked?

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[XtreemGreen]

A buddy of mine used it a couple years ago.. All I can say if I remember correctly.. It was $100 to sign up and $11 per lead..|He got maybe 1 or 3 a month.. But they were all BS jobs..You know the ones no one else wanted..|I was going to try it, but seeing the calls he was getting, I decided not to..

Oh and they were calling daily asking to upgrade..

[turfmaster]

Originally Posted by XtreemGreen

A buddy of mine used it a couple years ago.. All I can say if I remember correctly.. It was $100 to sign up and $11 per lead..|He got maybe 1 or 3 a month.. But they were all BS jobs..You know the ones no one else wanted..|I was going to try it, but seeing the calls he was getting, I decided not to..

Oh and they were calling daily asking to upgrade..

Stay away from service magic!
Unless you enjoy getting into a lowball bidding war.

We used Servicemagic a few years ago and weren't too happy with their service. They send you leads frequently, but they send the leads to others in the area too. You pay based on the estimate of the job to be done, so if its a $5000 job the price for the lead is higher than for a $1000 job. But you have to pay SM regardless of whether you get the job or not. We weren't too happy with them because we wouldn't always get the leads as quickly as other SM subscribers, so we'd get there late, but we had to pay for the leads anyway.

We looked into it again recently, but decided against them. 95% of their customers are residential, so by the time we paid their fees and all, the payoff wasn't enough for us.

Service magic explained to me that they buy up all the search terms for each zip code on search engines. So if someone searches for lawn care, lawn care 13760, or lawn care endicott ny, service magic always comes up first. It's a pain, but I suspect that the average homeowner isn't willing to navigate the SM homepage (which is confusing) when they can just use the Google business hits.

[Steve]

Hi whodatbandg,

Welcome to our forum!

What kinds of other things have you been doing with your marketing instead of SM?