5 ways to ace your modern lawn mowing business marketing

If you mow lawns for a living, your love of the green stuff and a willingness to work hard are extremely important. But it won't mean anything at all if you don't have lawns to mow.

So how do you get new customers? It's called marketing.

The Oxford Dictionary defines it as the "action of promoting and selling products or services". But if you've been in the lawn mowing business marketing world for decades and your customer numbers are low or dwindling, you're probably doing that selling wrong.

Goodbye physical marketing

You may be looking at this from the perspective of a lawn mowing business owner, but just for a moment put yourself in your customers' shoes. And when was the last time you actually looked at a flyer for a business and did anything other than bin it?

Back in the day, it used to be all about physical marketing materials including posters, flyers, pamphlets and brochures. And then it used to be about putting on some comfortable shoes and getting them all over town.

But these physical marketing materials, including prime real estate in the Yellow Pages, all now belong in the marketing museum. But don't despair: it's actually great news. Not having to get all of this stuff printed and put about the neighbourhood is going to save you a lot of time and money.

There are other traditional marketing techniques that no longer really work as well.

We're talking about things like:

Telemarketing

Just like doorknocking, people really don't like being bothered at home.

Sure, in days gone by, actively interrupting people used to have approximately a 3 in 100 hit-rate, so it was worth it. But these days, when more effective and less disruptive options are out there, telemarketing is actually more likely to simply damage your reputation.

Spam

If you actively get people to sign up for an email newsletter, that's still great marketing. But spam emails that go out to thousands of random people? It's no longer cutting it in 2018.

But although telemarketing and untargeted spam are examples of more modern and technological marketing options compared to door-knocking and flyers, it's still time to acknowledge that the world has sped ahead much faster than that.

Hello digital marketing!

So while your lawn mower may still be made of actual physical material that exists in the real world, for your marketing to get up-to-date, you're going to have to go digital.

In short, if digital marketing is not yet your bread and butter, you're not giving your lawn mowing business its best possible chance of attracting customers and growing in the long term.

It's also possible that your current approach to digital marketing is already out of date. Studies have shown that your customers already seriously hate things like spam, pop-up banners and obviously fake online reviews.

And just like door-knocking and flyers served lawn mowing businesses for many years, the world of digital marketing is also changing and progressing at a pace that you need to keep up with.

Here are a few super-up-to-date digital media strategies that you really should be using for your lawn mowing business marketing.

1. Up-to-date SEO

Having a website that works both on computers and mobiles may be mandatory, but it also needs to be constantly tweaked in order to keep up with Google's fast-moving and ever-changing search algorithm.

People used to 'stuff' keywords in content to boost their chances of appearing high on those Google searches. But now, those keywords need to be integrated with really high-quality content, and updated at least several times a year to ensure your business is still being found by those who are looking for it.

2. Blogging

As well as having a simple, attractive, useful and mobile-optimised website that is full of the right keywords, you really must consider blogging.

First, the Google algorithms love relevant and valuable content. Secondly, when you link that content to your social media profiles, your customers will love your valuable content too. Digital marketing experts agree that customers will feel a lot more positive about your business if your marketing material is actually interesting, compared to stuff they consider to be mere 'advertising'.

3. Social media

We mentioned social media in #2, but it more than deserves its own heading here. In fact, it equally could be #1.

All of your social media profiles are just as important as the last, and together they are probably your most powerful marketing tool. Social media allows you to share content that your target audience really wants, and then gives you the ability to actually engage with them through conversation. An awful lot of enquiries are also going to come via your social media channels, so if you're not prioritising it, you're definitely missing a serious trick.

4. Google My Business

Don't get us wrong - pay per click advertising is still worthwhile, and the targeting and analytical power of things like Google AdWords and Facebook advertising will feed you back a lot of valuable information.

But for a local business like your lawn mowing franchise, there is something even more powerful. It's called Google My Business. Basically, it's a business listing that will come up pretty much first when your customers are searching for a lawn mowing service near them. If yours is ranking prominently, you'll be getting a lot of business without spending a single cent on paid advertising.

5. Online reviews

Online reviews are worth their weight in gold - if you do them right. For instance, if someone stumbles upon your reviews section and everything is five stars with generic comments like 'Awesome!' and 'Love this business', your customers are going to be rightly suspicious.

Real word-of-mouth and actual recommendations are still incredibly powerful for your business, and genuine online reviews are just the modern version. A huge 90% of your customers will have checked out your reviews at various places before booking, because they feel like an actual person giving an honest opinion is worth so much more than a shiny ad.

But those reviews do have to be real. In fact, you may get more value from a negative review that you dealt with swiftly, deftly and honestly than you would have if you had just deleted it.

Final thoughts

This may be where we leave our article today, but that doesn't mean it's where your modern marketing journey ends. In reality, the different ways to grow, promote and monetise your lawn mowing business through modern marketing are almost endless - which is why we're here to help! Crewcut offers a ready-to-go option for those seeking a new start as a lawn mowing entrepreneur, including training, mentoring and (you guessed it) modern marketing support. We have a lawn mowing business for sale just for you, so get in touch today on 0800 800 286.