In this article we will discuss advertising methods most commonly used in commercial lawn care businesses. Though this is just a partial list as the possibilities are almost limitless, we will try to touch on the most common methods of advertising used by new lawn care business start-ups.YELLOW PAGES | PHONE BOOK ADVERTISING:We will discuss advertising in the yellow pages first, as I consider this to be the biggest return on investment when it comes to advertising, as well as the most costly. Even with the internet age, the phone book is still the place were the majority of individuals turn to first when looking for a local business. Having your company listed in the phone books yellow pages is by far the best return on initial investment in my opinion. With the cost of advertising in the yellow pages increasing each year, most phone book publishers have begun offering monthly payments as a means of paying for your company’s ad. With prices ranging from a couple of hundred dollars annually to several thousand dollars depending on the size and location of your ad.When we first started out, we basically had a small display ad (the smallest they offered), instead of running just a text listing. Display ads capture a potential customer’s attention easier and it offers a quick way of letting your potential customer know of the services that you offer. Though you can create your own yellow page ad yourself if you are adept with software such as Adobe Photo Shop. Most phone book publishers have graphic artist on staff that can create your ad based on your company’s criteria.Text ads, though cheaper to purchase, may not be the most cost effective if your rate of return off the ad doesn’t justify the initial publication cost. Try to remember the last time you looked up a company in the yellow pages. If you knew the business name that you were searching for, you probably quickly scanned down the text listings till you found the one that you were hunting for. More than likely though, if you did not know the name of an individual business, and were just looking for say a plumbing business, the display ads probably caught your eye first. Text ads do serve a purpose though, and will help an individual find your business phone number when looking for your name, as well as those individuals who are looking for just a random lawn care company.
Considerably cheaper to purchase, having your company listed only by a text ad is definitely better than not have your company listed at all. I would recommend though that if your finances will only allow you to invest in a text ad that you try to at least spend the money and have the listing in bold. This will help in making your text ad stand out from the others somewhat. Most larger cities now days have more than one phone book available. Check with each one regarding pricing and distribution to determine which book will offer you the biggest bang for your buck.FLYERS:As we have discussed above what I consider to be the biggest return on your advertising investment, flyers would fall into my least return on initial investment and effort scale.
Though you may read on the many different forums on the internet regarding the use of flyers as a means of advertising, the rate of return is generally less than 2%. That means for every 1,000 flyers that you stuff under someone’s windshield wiper blade, or hand out as they are coming out of a grocery store, you will get roughly 20 phone calls requesting quotes. This may seem like a good deal of business on the surface, but let’s put a few numbers to it.First off most copy businesses charge generally a minimum of $.05 per sheet for copy service. At a 1,000 copies, you’ve already spent $50.00. Then you must calculate in at least a day to walk around and pass out the flyers. I remember when I first started out I put a dollar value on my time of $35.00 per hour. Not knowing any better, I estimated this is what it would take to pay myself a decent salary as well as pay for my equipment. This figure was low, but we will discuss that in another section. But just to have something to work with, we will use the $35.00 per hour fee that I estimated my time to be valued at.Well if you consider it will take a good portion of a day to pass out a 1,000 flyers to individuals, at $35.00 per hour that comes to $280.00 for an 8 hour day. Combine that with the $50.00 you spent at the copy center, and your now into your CHEAP method of advertising to the tune of $330.00. That is close to what you would have spent for a text ad in the local telephone book yellow pages.Yes, as we have discussed, you stand the potential of getting 20 new customers so let’s put some numbers to it. When first starting out, and unless the properties are extremely small, you will probably average somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 cuttings a day for residential. Less than that if they are larger properties, or less than that if you short cut and do sub standard work. At 6 yards a day, it will take you roughly 3.3 days to finish mowing your 20 new customers. But to keep the math simple, let’s just assume that you can complete mowing the 20 properties in an even 3 days working 8 hour days. At your $35.00 an hour rate in an 8 hour day, minus the cost of printing and handing out the flyers, you’ve made $370.00.Now if you divide the $370.00 into 3 eight hour days, you’ve actually earned only $15.41 per hour. I can tell you from experience that isn’t enough to pay for your equipment, much less your salary. Now I am not totally against the use of flyers as a means of advertising, as I feel they do serve a purpose and can be a quick way to pick up some new clients. I would not advise stepping off into the green industry business with the idea that all you have to do is go pass out some flyers in order to strike it rich. Also please note, just as a reminder, placing flyers inside a homeowner’s mail box is illegal. Federal Law prohibits an individual from tampering with the mail,and although your only placing a flyer inside a mail box it is still considered a felony.FREE CLASSIFIEDS | PENNY RECORDSJust about any time you enter a convenience store, you’re bound to see a rack with free local classified ads. Though generally nothing fancy, as they are usually in a news paper style format, they do offer a way to promote your business for a reasonable amount. For generally $30 – $40 you can have your business ad run for several days or weeks. These free classifieds newspapers reach a very large audience, and though probably not the first place someone would look to in searching for a lawn care company, you can pick up the occasional individual who might not have been actually looking for a lawn maintenance company but after seeing your ad remembered that their own yard needed to be mowed.LOCAL INTERNET CLASSIFIEDSIf you happen to live in an area that is lucky enough to have a local online classifieds website, this can be used as another source of affordable advertising. Having done both print and internet advertising, you seem to pick up a different class of customer through internet advertising than you do print advertising. Not to try and stereotype anyone, in my experience the customers we have picked up from internet advertising tend to be a little better off financially, a little more up to date on landscaping trends, but generally will not be as tolerant of sub standard work.DOOR HANGERSI really like door hangers, although I have not personally gone door to door hanging them on homeowner’s door knobs. Our technique was that we had door hangers printed up which stated that we were in their neighborhood servicing their neighbors yard and would like to extend our services to their home as well. Our flyers also stated that we had briefly looked at their yard and could offer our services for $xx.xx dollars per cut. The bottom of the door hanger was a detachable business card that they could remove and keep with them. We had our door hangers custom printed by online printing company for around $80.00.MAGNETIC SIGNS | YARD SIGNSI really like this particular lawn care advertising method personally. Having good magnetic signs on the sides of your truck is an invaluable method of free advertising. Not only are you advertising your company as you drive around town from job to job, but it also makes it easy for individuals to see who it is servicing their neighbors lawn. A good set of magnetic door signs will run you around $100.00 for a set, but it ranks second on my list of must dos. Yard signs are also excellent when it comes to prime advertising. Though you will spend probably $150.00 on a set of signs, these can be placed in customer’s yards (with their prior approval), making it again easy for neighbors to see who it is servicing the lawn.In ClosingRegardless of the landscape advertising method you choose to promote your company, a good marketing scheme is critical as word of mouth advertising will only reach so many individuals.
I understand that at first your advertising budget will be extremely limited, which is why I have attempted to list several of the most common forms of advertising methods above. To try and sum up the above though, in my personal opinion, I believe the two most valuable forms of advertising a new start up lawn maintenance company can do is:

Yellow Page Advertising (display ad)
Magnetic Truck Signs – Yard Signs

I recommend budgeting the most you can afford towards good quality advertising, perform quality work, and watch your business grow!

HistoryIn the ruins of ancient Pompeii and Arabia, messages have been found with an emphasis on commercial and political aspects and themes. The Egyptians used a thick paper-like material called papyrus to create sales slogans and wall posters. This material was also used in various forms of advertising, such as requesting information relating to lost individuals and items, and was common in Ancient Rome and Greece. Another form of ancient commercial advertising include the paintings, on walls or even rock, depicting various scenes which are evident, even to this day, in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America. Indian rock art, which dates back to 4000 BC, may well form the basis for this tradition of painting on walls and rocks.With the development of the methods used in printing, particularly evident in the 15th and 16th century, the sphere of advertising expanded to include handbills. In England, during the early to mid17th century, various forms of advertising began to appear, incorporated within weekly newspapers. With advances in printing techniques, books and newspapers had become much more affordable to the wider public. As a result, this early form of advertising using a printed medium was used extensively to promote items such as other books and newspapers. Also, with disease ravaging much of Europe, the promotion of medicines was increasingly sought after.However, the existence of misleading advertisements, which had come to be known as “quack” advertisements, was becoming an increasing problem. Consequently, this brought about the introduction of regulation in terms of advertising content.With the growth of Western economies during the 19th century, this gave a new impetus for the growth of advertising. In the United States, for example, this led to the introduction and success of mail-order advertising.The French newspaper La Presse, in 1836, was the first to incorporate the concept of pre-paid advertising. This additional form of revenue allowed it to lower its price, which resulted in increased readership and higher profits. This led to the widespread adoption by all its competitors.In Boston, around 1840, Volney Palmer was the first to introduce what would later come to be known as the advertising agency. During this period, the French news agency Havas increased the services offered by including, for the first time in France, advertising brokerage. In the beginning, such agencies acted purely as brokers for advertising space in newspapers. However, all this changed in 1869 when N.W.Ayer & Son opened the first full-service agency, in Philadelphia, which took responsibility for all advertising content in respect of its customers.In the early 1900’s, advertising was one of the few career choices for women who wanted to progress in business. Since most of the household purchases were in the hands of women, it was quickly realised, by advertisers and agencies alike, the value offered by women in respect of their insight in relation to the creative process involved in advertising. In fact, the first American advertisement to employ a theme incorporating sexual appeal was created by a woman for a soap product, with copy that extolled the message: “The skin you love to touch”.Advertising – How To Succeed

Whether you are a $500M+ global company in a mature market, or a small startup trying to establish a market presence, marketing and advertising expenditures need to be carefully planned and carefully tracked. In my experience, the former is done 90+% of the time and tracking is done almost 0% of the time.Yet, for most companies, there are few dollars available to waste on uncertain and unprofitable ventures and radio advertising in particular is often put into this category. Why is this?Radio advertising is often misunderstood and when it is used, it is often not tracked properly and thus assumed not to be an income generator. But for many businesses, it is the best medium for generating new business.Radio is stable, personal and has an average of six distribution systems (sets) in every household.It reaches 99 percent of the people every single week. It can be heard while simultaneously doing something else. It’s in most places of employment, most homes and nearly all cars. When executed properly, radio is cost efficient, and produces excellent results for advertisers.If you were to ask a group of top advertising executives to create the ultimate medium, I believe they would say the following:”The ultimate medium would be with all of the people, all of the time. They wouldn’t be able to get away from it. It would have many forms of distribution so that it would continually be around them. It would create a personal connection with them. It would always be with them when they wanted it; they would never have to go out of their way to get it.”Cable, television, print, direct mail, billboards, and on-line services cannot meet all of the aforementioned requirements. But radio can and does.Here are the eight “must dos” for a successful radio advertising campaign, and a word about what doesn’t work:Rule 1. Know what you want to accomplish
Rule 2. Know your demographics
Rule 3. Get tracking systems in place
Rule 4. Harness the power of one
Rule 5. Sell with intimacy
Rule 6. Remember that creativity doesn’t always sell
Rule 7. Prepare NOW for future success
Rule 8. Develop a comprehensive campaignRule 1. Know what you want to accomplishIn determining to add radio to your advertising mix, the very first step is to determine what you want to accomplish. Are you prospecting? Branding your image? Promoting an event? Seeking immediate sales? The energy, style and repetition of an ad is determined by the goal. Whether you are planning a 13-week image campaign or a two-week “blitz” for a special sale or event, start with the end in mind and work back from there to develop the style of ad that will accomplish your goal.Rule 2. Know your demographicsWhat placement you buy and where you buy it depends upon your advertising objectives.Who are your customers/clients? Men? Women? Young? Old? Before you advertise, learn who they are. Radio station selection for your campaign is all about knowing your potential customer.Radio is demographically selective and retains a high degree of loyalty among its listeners. It allows an advertiser to reach specific target markets, at different times of the day with individual messages.Radio is medium-priced. Depending on your market, radio advertising can be scheduled, produced and aired without breaking your financial back.Radio advertising provides for message flexibility. You can pick out target markets, get a message to them quickly with enough repetition to generate awareness and easily change your message depending on your results.Rule 3. Get tracking systems in placeBefore you start your radio campaign, get your systems in place to track its effectiveness – just as you should with any marketing or advertising campaign. Make your staff aware of the message in your advertisements as well as where and when they are airing. When customers call or visit, ask them how they heard about you. If you have a website, ask them there. Get in the habit of surveying. As long as it is not cumbersome or time consuming, most people are glad to know a business is concerned about building relationships and developing services that are helpful to the them.Rule 4. Harness the power of oneRadio is a personal medium. Listeners tune in to hear their favorite presenters. Unlike television, most radio listening is done alone. The presenter is a friend, a companion in the home or in the car, the intimate environment where the advertising message is heard.Rule 5. Sell with intimacyIn your personal life, when you have something very important to communicate to someone, which would you prefer…to show them a picture, write a letter, or talk to them with the intimacy and emotion of the human voice? As we get less and less personal connection in our society, the sound of the human voice becomes more and more important. We remember voices and people.Saatchi and Saatchi funded a research project – The Ironing Board Survey – and found that, even after just one hearing, around one third of respondents remembered the names of the products/services they had heard advertised. Commercials on radio are consciously acknowledged and remembered.Rule 6. Remember creativity doesn’t always sell”Creative” is a relative term. But in media terms, most people think of special effects, interesting sounds and clever dialogue. All of these are commendable elements and certainly have value in the proper context.But the real question for a business owner developing an ad is, “will this piece accomplish my goal?” Remember, you are competing for attention in a noisy marketplace of messages. Creative and clever don’t matter if your message isn’t heard and more importantly remembered and acted upon.More ads would do better to apply the old adage, “less is more.” With technology so consumer friendly, almost anyone who knows computer basics can put together copy with sound effects. It takes experience and discipline to shun the easy route and instead focus on copywriting and production that SELLS, not just entertains.Rule 7. Prepare NOW for future successThe return on your advertising and marketing dollars is determined by how you treat your customers today and how organized and committed you are to your ongoing marketing plan.
Six months from now when you decide to produce a testimonial ad featuring satisfied customers – will you know who to call? When you go to determine what radio stations best address your demographic – will you know your customer demographic? When you are trying to decide what benefits of your business to highlight to future customers – will you know what benefits your current customers value?Your advertising and marketing plan requires consistent attention and follow-up. Regularly survey your customers to find out why they give you their business. Build relationships and approach satisfied customers now about providing testimonials for you whether in print or via audio.
With just a little planning you’ll be way ahead of the competition. Most companies don’t survey their customers and when the do the results are either not reviewed or not used. If they were, don’t you think you would have much better experiences with the businesses you encounter?Rule 8. Develop a comprehensive campaignHere’s the most important tip to larger returns on your advertising and marketing dollars.
With your knowledge of your industry and the feedback you receive from customers, determine the advertising mediums best suited to your business. Then develop a budget that allows you to be consistent in the deployment of your plan.Radio is a very cost-effective way to get potential customers to call or visit. But in addition to budgeting and planning for larger ticket marketing mediums, don’t forget other programs and outlets to support your media efforts.Here are a few often forgotten but effective marketing possibilities:1. Customer appreciation/incentive programs
2. Offering free seminars, consultations and demonstrations
3. Trade shows, exhibits & fairsIn addition to the basic collateral of business cards, brochures and informational web sites, these programs can be useful in developing and maintaining customer relationships.But it can’t be stressed enough, whatever marketing and advertising vehicle(s) you choose, be consistent, plan carefully and test every program for its effectiveness.A word about what doesn’t work…Often businesses first trying radio advertising will want to test it with just a short run of spots – say, 10 to 15 plays. Success in advertising is about repetition and that’s particularly true for radio advertising. It’s better to wait and save for a proper deployment (20 to 50 plays) than to rush into a campaign that will fail and cheat your business out of a valuable revenue generating tool.Are you ready to grow your business? With these rules in mind now is the time to launch your successful radio campaign.