Marketing the benefits of landscape services
Marketing can be thought of as all the activities that a business carries out to:
• Identify its target market/segments;
• Determine their potential;
• Prepare promotional material designed to appeal to individuals in those markets;
• Communicate the material in a cost-effective manner;
• Distribute the product or service to the target market.
Marketing is more than advertising
Although many small businesses think of marketing simply as the selling of their product/service or merely the advertising of those products/services, it is much more. The marketing activities listed above also involve research, careful planning and constant decision making — activities that can be quite difficult.
Landscape companies have failed by not applying solid business management practices. Using defective marketing strategies can result in the same consequence.
Focus on service
An important point to remember when developing a marketing plan or program for a landscaping company is that landscaping is an intensely service-focused, rather than product-focused, business. Most traditional marketing training and marketing plans have been developed for product-oriented companies. It is important to note that marketing/sales strategies of product-focused companies are often inappropriate for service-based companies.
The most unique feature of your landscaping service is that it is intangible prior to the completion of the landscape itself. For example, unlike a nursery product, you cannot touch, smell or see the landscape until it is installed. All the activities in the Marketing and Sales Management Module of the CLP program encourage you to consider how to develop a marketing program that will communicate to potential customers the benefits they will receive from your service, rather than focusing on the service itself. This must be done at the same time as dealing with your customer’s concerns.
Customer orientation is key to success
The facts show the need for landscape companies to be customer-oriented. A follow up study in 2000 showed that of the 64,800 landscape companies (U.S.) registered in 1995, only one in five was still in business after five years.
Companies that failed generally knew their work, but didn’t know their customer — resulting in excessive turnover of clientele. When customers were surveyed as to why they no longer dealt with a landscape maintenance company, they responded:
• 2-3 per cent moved away from the area
• 10 per cent found a better price
• 10-20 per cent no longer needed the service
• 60-80 per cent did not like the owner or employees of the company (due to the com-pany’s indifference to their concerns).
