Lawn Care Advertising & Lead Generation (With Direct Mail)

Landscaping and lawn care services currently have an estimated market value of $176 billion in the US. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its lingering effects, the industry grew 9.7% on average between 2017 and 2022.

Regardless of labor shortages, economic downturns, and higher work-from-home initiatives, the demand for landscaping and lawncare services remains as strong as ever. 

While landscaping is typically seen as a luxury, basic lawn care is absolutely a necessity for most households. Targeting the right audience assures long-term business growth even during an economic downturn.

But with a large market and an even greater marketing potential, the added factors of uncertainty of the post-pandemic era have shaken many businesses across the country. 

In general terms, two types of audiences hire residential lawn care services: 

1.) Households with limited time/desire to do their own lawn care

2.) Older households with a higher demand for services due to physical limitations

Remote positions mean that more people have extra time throughout the day to take care of home maintenance. Working from home also means a higher earning potential if one is no longer limited by their location.

Instead of moving across states, employees can live from anywhere and be hired by any company within the country to increase their salary. 

These factors have rippling effects when it comes to finding ideal landscaping leads. It is now more necessary than ever to have a clear marketing strategy and only cater to your ideal customers to maximize your ROI. 

Why Direct Mail for Lawn Care Leads? 

Direct mail is an exceptional channel for most B2C industries, and lawn care services stand to benefit the most by adding this medium to their marketing portfolio.

By reaching customers based on addresses, your business has complete control over who receives your mailers. 

Targeting to everyone within a specified district may be a start, but the truth is that not every homeowner will need or want landscaping services.

It is a marketer’s job to find actual leads using data modeling based on the complete customer profile. 

With the right strategy, your direct mail campaign is clear, intentional, and highly targeted to help you find the most suitable prospects for your business. 

1.) Target the Right Prospects

Veteran marketers will tell you demographics do not tell the complete story. Two people with similar income levels can live vastly different lives that shape their overall behaviors and spending habits. 

For example, say a landscaping business wants to target $100,000+ income households. Household A brings in $150,000 annually; and Household B earns an estimated $100,000 income.

Without looking at any other data besides combined income, you’d assume that both households are decent prospects. 

But that is not always the case, as basic demographics do not reveal the entire story. 

Perhaps Household A spends a lot on necessities such as daycare, significantly limiting their overall budget. Maybe Household B’s residents are nearing retirement age, but because their children are no longer dependents, they actually have more disposable income than Household A.

So despite having a lower income – they are actually more financially stable and because they may not want to deal with strenuous outdoor activities, are actually a better prospect than Household A.

See how behavior predicts the likelihood someone will purchase a product or service? Not every household making over a $100,000 income will be a fit for your company.

With a proper direct mail strategy backed by data modeling, your campaigns can identify your ideal audience – and ignore everyone else.

Conversely, if you only focused on basic demographics and not the behavior – or worse, just sent mail to everyone – your campaigns could target thousands of households with no need or desire for your services, increasing costs without increasing sales.

2.) Custom, Personalized, and Memorable

Along with finding your most suitable prospects to target, your knowledge of who your customers are AND their spending habits can help you appeal to that individual’s tastes.  

Direct mail already excels at custom messaging by default because every postcard, business reply mail, or marketing flyer already contains the name of the addressee and their place of residence.

And do not underestimate the power of addressing a person by their name, as “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” (Dale Carnegie) 

Addressing a person by name is the first step. After this, there are a multitude of ways for markers to customize their message. Since direct mail can be any size, dimension, material, or even medium, there are plenty of unique ways that companies can add a “personal touch” to their campaign mailers. 

For instance, a handwritten note is extremely personal to the receiver. Unlike a mass-produced postcard, a written document shows character and more importantly, tells the receiver that a business took more effort to reach out directly. 

Think about it – is it more impactful to receive a mass-produced postcard or a handwritten note? 

It is possible to replicate this handwritten effect through a printer, giving both the advantages of personalization without having to write each mailer individually. 

But the customization does not end there. 

Through data modeling, you can better reflect your buyer persona in the ad’s look and offer. The two examples below feature houses of different home values. 

Can you identify which audience each mailer is targeting? 

These two companies that offer landscaping services are each trying to appeal to their chosen audience. Through data modeling, companies can better understand their customers and reflect that in their advertising. 

3.) Avoid Non-Applicable Addresses

Would you want to spend thousands of dollars marketing to households that will never buy your services? Of course not! 

That is why when a marketer begins planning their direct mail campaign, he or she needs to actively remove addresses that are condos, HOAs, and rented locations. 

Places such as condos or HOAs contain homeowners with lawns, but these properties often hire landscaping services for their entire residential community.

Because of this, there is no benefit to market to these households as they lack the need for individual services. 

Rented homes and apartments are another issue for landscapers. While these places have lawns, the person dwelling within those homes often has no say in their landscaping (depending on their lease details).

And there is a lower likelihood a temporary resident would pay for extensive landscaping services either, as there are often rental limitations they must abide by. 

4.) Referrals and Re – Targeting Leads

Because services are rendered at a customer’s household, there is ample opportunity to network within that neighborhood to find similar prospects.

A referral bonus is a popular strategy to find landscaping leads and businesses can benefit by incorporating them in their marketing offers. Especially since you are incentivizing previous customers into becoming long-term advocates for your business.

Re-targeting these customers every year is also a common tactic. Depending on a client’s needs, they may need year-long care or only maintenance during the spring and summer months. 

Direct mail is a great way to build brand awareness before the busier seasons, especially for those familiar with your services. 

5.) Your Business’ Longest Marketing Lifespan

Often called marketing’s “longest lifespan”, direct mail continues to market to customers long after the initial campaign. Some reports state that direct mail lives within the home for up to 17 days, while other studies claim that 27% of mail is still “live” within the household after a month! 

At DK Solutions, we often get responses to mailers that were sent out 6 months, or even years ago!

Since the average mailer gets passed around 1.2 times within the home, and read 4.2 times by each person, think about how many additional touchpoints multiple mailers sent to the same location can be. 

Your marketing campaign can have an enormous impact, especially if you intentionally target those most receptive to your message.

Since many interested people may keep your marketing mailer for later reference, your mailer creates a powerful – and non-intrusive – presence within the home. 

Thanks to our TargetList methodology, DK Solutions has changed the direct mail industry with its custom data modeling approach. Focus on building custom campaigns for the customers that matter – those that look, talk, walk, and spend like your current client base.