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– Tree Service Owner’s Efforts to Rescue their Websites
– Even the Best Tree Service Websites Fall Short
– What’s Holding Back Strong, Content-Rich, Local Websites?
– 1^st Major Problem Affecting Your Website
– 2nd Major Problem
– How Do the Search Engines ‘see’ Large Cities?
– Proof That ‘tree removal Dallas’ only ranks you in Downtown Dallas
– 3 Solutions To Improved Local Business Website Performance

I know many profitable tree service business owners who have worked hard to discover the latent potential of their websites. They’re happy to invest in a channel which generates more tree service leads for their business. Despite this, some have lost patience with this channel and have resorted to expensive paid search and paid social marketing campaigns.

This article explores why the majority of local business-to-consumer (B2C) service websites are like buried treasure, waiting to be unearthed.


Tree Service Owners’ Efforts to Rescue Their Websites

Owners have added separate tree service pages and extra content to their websites, even tree care blogs on occasion. They’ve added videos of completed tree jobs. They’ve made changes to the site so that it works better and faster on mobile phones. Some may even have paid extra for a faster web hosting service. Others go one step further and commission Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work.

And yet the number of calls and leads still disappoints.

Fully 3 in every 5 tree industry websites provide their owners with less than 10 leads a month. We know because we asked you; check out our website effectiveness survey piece. But it needn’t be this way. After all, 1 in 6 tree service sites generate more than 100 leads a month for their owners. So the potential is there to get more from this critically-important digital channel.

Even the Best Tree Service Websites Fall Short

Spoke to a successful tree guy in Tennessee recently. This month and every month, he spends $10,000 on digital advertising his tree business. This includes both Pay Per Click and Local Service Ads. His tree service company is well-established and highly profitable. He is happy to spend this much to support tree service sales of more than $1m a year. The spend seems high but is broadly in line with the U.S. Small Business Administration article on typical ad budgets for a million-dollar B2C service company .

I thought initially that he might not have a website. But he does and it’s an excellent site. It has a detailed About Us section several layers deep. He has several well-formatted and informative service pages. His site even has a page dedicated to glowing testimonials; all presented in an attractive and mobile-responsive design. On the surface, the SEO metrics look great. In fact, the site is so strong that it appears on page 1 of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) throughout most of a small city in Tennessee with a population of around 175,000.

But there remains a problem because his superb website is still not strong enough to rank any higher than the 2nd page of Google in neighboring small cities within his service area. We’re talking about competitive search terms such as ‘tree removal service’ and ‘tree removal’.

Hence, his business absolutely needs the supplementary $10,000 p.m. paid search advertising campaign to sustain sales at a sufficiently high level.

But imagine how much lower his marketing budget could be if his site was visible across ALL his service area in East Tennessee (instead of just 20% of it).

So what’s going on? And what can be done to liberate much better website performance?

What’s Holding Back Strong, Content-rich Local Business Sites?

There’s a double challenge preventing your tree service website from working as hard as you do. We’ll outline these two systemic problems below.

They are quite apart from the steady decline in the space available on page one of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). I’m sure you’ve seen the multiple ads on most page 1 search results PLUS the recently added Local Service Ads PLUS the Maps Results. Despite this land grab, top of page 1 organic SERPS remain highly prized by businesses. This is because the top 3 spots take most of the attention …and clicks …and inquiries. We can’t do anything about this but owners can do something about the two issues outlined below.

The 1^st Major Problem Affecting Your Website

Consumers across the U.S. are looking online for local businesses in increasing numbers. But they want a service provider that’s near them. Check out this breakout pattern of local searches over the last 5 years for “near me” tree services (source: Google Trends):

This trend underlines a big shift in consumer behavior which I believe is, at least, partly driven by voice searches. Because nearly 40 million Americans currently own a smart speaker and 58% of all consumers have used voice search to find local businesses (Source: Review42). It’s now easy to ask a digital assistant (e.g. Alexa, Siri, Cortana) “Hey Siri, find a tree removal business near me.”. So if your business/operations address is neither physically “near me” nor “in my area”, then your website will lose out to geographically-closer tree service companies.

The 2nd Major Problem

There’s another big reason why your tree service website is failing you right now. It’s to do with how search engines ‘see’ your city.

Local websites work reasonably well in most cases. For example, restaurants, cafes, shoe shops, delicatessens and hairstyling salons have a limited catchment area and rely heavily on local foot traffic.

G o o g l e ’s ‘algo-brain’ clearly thinks your tree service business has a limited catchment area too. Who could blame them for not knowing that your service area extends up to 20 or 25 miles or more beyond your operational base address?

Take Dallas, for example. If you’re near the center of Dallas and you’re willing to travel 20 miles to tree jobs, your service area covers 1,250 square miles! So ideally, you want your website to give you complete digital coverage of your service area like this:

But in a busy and competitor-rich city like Dallas, the search engines only ‘allow’ your website to be seen 2 or 3 miles beyond your business address on most occasions. This is only around 13 square miles; something like this circle here:

How Do the Search Engines ‘see’ Large Cities?

Taking a large U.S. city at random, G o o g l e does NOT regard Dallas as a singular, massive metropolitan area. It sees Dallas as a collection of discrete neighborhoods. Not exactly like this but something like it…

This change happened when G o o g l e’s ‘Pigeon’ algorithm update was rolled out July 24^th 2014.

Since then, it sees cities not as whole areas. Instead, it segments cities into hundreds and sometimes thousands of small districts, areas, villages, communities, suburbs, zip codes and neighborhoods. This is because it wants to increase relevancy of search results for users in different locations.

It means that this search engine gives priority only to web pages that have been localized for the area in which the user is searching from. Consumer’s specific locations can be determined with ease. The search engines can do this down to the nearest yard or so from IP addresses and mobile data signals.

Proof That ‘tree removal Dallas’ only ranks you in Downtown Dallas

Ranking #1 for the key-phrase ‘Tree Removal Dallas’ only covers Downtown Dallas. This is a heavily developed, tree-scarce downtown city district of just 1.4 square miles!!

I ran 5 separate searches on G o o g l e for these phrases:

• Tree Removal Dallas
• Tree Removal Downtown Dallas
• Tree Removal Red Bird Dallas
• Tree Removal White Rock Dallas
• Tree Removal Wolf Creek Dallas

Then I listed the top 10 organic search results from the 1st page and tabulated them below.

The results highlighted in green show an EXACT correlation between the top 10 results for Tree Removal Dallas and Tree Removal Downtown Dallas, albeit seen in a slightly different order in the search results.

There was no such correlation between the search results for 4 other neighborhoods of Dallas.

Please note that I am not based in Dallas so had to add the city name/ area to the search term ‘tree removal’ to simulate the search results for those real people living in those areas. You can easily check the validity of the above table as you roam around different locations in your own service area.

What about other cities?

I tried the same for the smaller City of St. Louis MO and obtained very similar results. For the sake of brevity, I won’t include the table here. However, do contact me if you want to see the detailed results.

In conclusion, even if your SEO guy can drag your tree service website kicking and screaming to the 1st page of Google for ‘service + city name’ searches, the chances are that it won’t appear anywhere else other than the small area in the center of the city.

3 Solutions To Improved Local Business Website Performance

There are only 3 ways…

1. Basic level of localization is to list by name all of the areas and neighborhoods you cover within the city, together with all of the ZIP codes in your service area on each of your service pages. It will get you a little more profile in these areas in the search engines (but not if the competition is strong). CARE – Some SEO experts say that this practice is no longer as effective as it might have been in the past.
   
   Alternatively, customize each of your separate service pages to a different city within your service area. Add relevant local tree care tips to each page mentioning the area to increase local relevance of your services to both consumers and the search engines.
   
2. Advanced level of localization is to have a dedicated web page for each community in your service area. Each page should have its own unique title, unique meta description, tailored content, specific geo-location signals, latitude & longitude data and unique schema. It is possible to create such pages but it’s a lot of hard work.
   
   Have someone you trust create unique web pages for every urban and rural city and community in your service area to the above brief. Sounds reasonable but this can be prohibitively expensive for anything more than a handful of pages. We’ve seen some agencies charge between $575 and $1275 for such pages. They would charge you up to $96,900 to create pages for all 76 locations just in Dallas County. And a minimum of $138,575 for all 241 locations in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County.
   
   Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way.

3. Ultimate level of localization is to get tree service leads professionals like MarketingDirector.com Agency to help with the work in point 2). For a tiny fraction of the prohibitive costs mentioned above, we will work steadily to build a large number of community pages specific to each suburb, neighborhood or city in your own service area. Each new location page will have its own unique meta titles, descriptions, content, unique geo data and unique schema. They will be internally linked to build authority in your static service pages too.

As a result, your digital service area grows by a factor of up to 100 times! This means that your service inquiries will climb at least ten-fold. This is especially true if you’re one of the 3 in every 5 tree service website owners that see less than 10 customer inquiries a month.

Your digital footprint in the organic search results pages can now match your actual service area.

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 20-50 NEW customers per month. He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary digital marketing methods. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the U.S. tree care sector.

If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business with high-quality sales leads then click on blue button below.

The post The Treasure In Your Tree Service Website first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

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– What Happens In Fall?
– You Want To Rest, This Winter? Or Are You Still Hungry For Business?
– Our 22 Tree Service Marketing Ideas This Winter
– #4. Call New Customers – Local Prospecting
– #12. Offer Winter/Spring Service Extensions
– #22. Become A Prime Bidder for a Long-Term Government Contract
– Referrals from General Contractors and Construction Companies
– Another Reason to Align With Contractors
– Referrals from Landscapers and Lawncare Companies from March onwards
– Combine 3 or 4 Tree Service Promotion Ideas to Start – an example

Can tree service marketing make a difference this winter? Can tree service marketing help to reduce the annual drop in business at this time of year? We give a resounding ‘heck, yes’ to both questions. Get it right and you can buck the national trend of lower seasonal business. It can also set your firm up for a great leap in business in early spring.

What Happens In Fall?

Customer phone calls are slowing down now for tree service companies in most U.S. states. The Google Trends graph below shows why. Searches on Google for ‘tree service, ‘tree removal’ and ‘tree trimming’ have been tracked over the last three years and the national results revealed above. The graph reveals a distinct and repeated annual pattern for searches by customers wanting help with their trees.

Tree service business slows down sharply in the winter months except for our southernmost States. Customer demand for tree removal and tree trimming work in December drops to less than half its peak summer levels. Searches are also slow to pick up in January and February. Don’t be fooled by the upward blip in the graph early January. This is linked to Christmas tree removal/disposal rather than everyone dropping large oaks in the New Year.

This trend may seem inevitable. However, there is much you can do this winter to keep your business going, your crew employed and your income stable. Use a sensible combination of a few of our 22 tree service marketing ideas together. This could make all the difference to your business fortunes this winter.

You Want To Rest, This Winter? Or Are You Still Hungry For Business?

Some of you may be grateful for the respite in work. Others will be hungry for business to keep up payments on machinery and keeping your best team fully employed.

The success of your business is in your hands and there’s many options to pursue. To save wasting your time, we have rated each idea in terms of time involved and financial cost. Don’t just do one idea – combine several you feel are best for your business in your stage of development and in your geographical location.

Our 22 Tree Service Marketing Ideas This Winter

1. Door-To-Door Hustle

Target an affluent neighborhood in your service area and make sure you have leave-behinds such as fridge magnets or business cards available for you and your crew. Alternatively, once you have finished a job, ensure that you at least ‘cloverleaf’ homes immediately next to and opposite the work site. Be sensitive to residents’ concerns about COVID-19 and wear a mask abd keep a respectable distance. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low

2. Send out Postcards

Multi-purpose use explored in detail here. DMA confirm response rates of postcards is 9 times that of email and paid search.  Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Medium

3. Call Previous Customers – Customer Relationship Management

They know your work and are warm to you. Offer seasonal tree care advice e.g. pruning/tree pest control. Ask if they need anything done with their trees. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low

4. Call New Customers – Local Prospecting

Call builders, construction companies, golf-courses, realtors, apartment landlords, property maintenance companies, property-flippers. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low

5. When Prospecting, Offer a Value-Add e.g. Free Inspection

A value-added offer will make your local prospecting more effective. Time Cost – Low; $ Investment – Low

6. Check Your Local Listings

Update local online directory listings. Explore online bid listings including for State Department of Transport (DOT) & your local city municipalities. Get found! Time Cost – Low; $ Investment – Low

7. Move to Southern U.S. States or Coastal Areas in Winter

Stuff still grows there in winter. Caution – competition heavy there too. Care – high promotional costs. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – High

8. Hang Out with Your Truck at a Busy Gas Station

Passive Prospecting! ‘Ambush’ passing builders/ construction companies. Works best if you have reflective or illuminated vehicle signage as detailed here. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low

9. Refresh/ Illuminate Your Vehicle Signage

Regard your trucks as large mobile billboards. Pick out your brand & telephone number in reflective vinyl or Electro Luminescent (EL) materials. Both options explored in depth here. Time Cost – Low; $ Investment – Medium (investment higher depending how many trucks in your fleet)

10. Network with General Contractors/ Real Estate Developers 

At least 10% of construction/remodeling work involves some form of site preparation/tree removal. Forming business relationships with a few general contractors is a great way to increase business in winter. This paragraph below explains why this is a huge opportunity for tree service owners to increase and even out annual cash flow. Time Cost – Low to Medium; $ Investment – Low

11. Improve Your Website

One in 6 of all tree service websites generate more than 100 leads a month. We place websites at the heart of the ideal tree service marketing model shared here. BUT only half of all listed tree service businesses have a website. And of the 50% of all tree firms that do have a website, only a third of these have one that generates more than 10 tree leads a month. We know because you told us. See our recent tree service website effectiveness survey for the facts.

If you have one, use this quiet time of the year to review your website and list the areas you want to improve. For example:
a). Location Pages – You may have great visibility in your home town. But can you be found easily online in other nearby communities? If not, add location pages.
b). Service Pages – Do you have comprehensive web pages on your site for all your services?
c). Examples of Your Work – Are examples of the tree jobs that you are proud of shown on your site?
d). Customer Testimonials – Are your customer testimonials up-to-date?
There’s a lot you can do yourself if you have the time. Time Cost – High; $ Investment – Medium

12. Offer Winter/Spring Service Extensions

Without diluting your main tree services offer, consider offering related winter tree services such as fruit tree pruning, elm tree pruning, oak tree trimming, tree pest control etc. Combine with 3. & 4. above. Ideally, start promotion in fall for a full winter appointment book. Add service pages to website, adjust citations/listings. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low

13. Offer 24/7 Emergency Tree Removal

Prepare for winter storms/ gales. As a minimum, add service page to website, citations in directory sites e.g. Yelp, Manta, Angies List. Use MarketingDirector.com (us) to push you to the front of the queue for emergency tree service type live calls. Time Cost – Low-Medium; $ Investment – Low-Medium

14. Offer Firewood For Sale

Need dry cords of wood, storage and marketing e.g. service page, citations, listings. Care – low margins. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low-Medium

15. Offer Line Clearance

Does Asplundh give their thousands of staff the winter off? No. They keep them busy, for sure. Call the state power companies. Check online bid listings. Care – dangerous work (even more so). Need Line Clearance certification. Begin with power line work for residential tree trimming to gain credibility and valuable/life-saving experience. Need new service pages on website displaying new capabilities and certifications. Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – Low-Medium

16. Offer Snow Removal

Requires additional heavy equipment, service page, local listings, municipality/DOT listings etc.  Time Cost – Medium; $ Investment – High

17. Hire Marketing Manager

Bold and expensive step for a new business. Check local marketing experience, successes, training and qualifications very carefully before hiring. There are better, lower cost, pay-as-you go options especially for a young company.   Time Cost – Low; $ Investment – High

18. Hire a Lead Generator

Paying just for live phone calls on a pay-as-you-go basis works well for many tree service businesses. Hire us! Time Cost – Low; $ Investment – Low-Medium

19. Hire An Advertising Agency

Uber-expensive in most cases. Agency will recommend an array of offline/online media, creative & digital solutions to ensure success. Not all channels will work. Time Cost – Low to Medium; $ Investment – High

20. Become a Marketing Expert

Learn the ropes of local marketing yourself. Takes time and you need calls now. Not all solutions will work. Not all learning course will be worthwhile. Beware ‘shiny object’ syndrome! Time Cost – High; $ Investment – Medium

21. Obtain and Display Trade Certifications

ISA and TCIA are most well known and respected. ISA needs study & exams, TCIA doesn’t. Display widely on all materials and signage for credibility and customer trust benefits. Time Cost – Medium (ISA requires study time); $ Investment – Low to Medium

22. Become a Prime Bidder for a Long-Term Government Contract

There are just over 400 long-term (i.e. lasting >12 months) tree service-only government contracts that exist in U.S.A., based on our count for 2019. But getting just one of them either as prime bidder or teaming up with a larger tree service firm will make a huge difference to your winter cash flow. On average, each is worth $385,400 p.a. …for several years. Much more detail here including ‘how to’ in our separate advice article. Time Cost – Medium-High; $ Investment – Low

Referrals from General Contractors, Construction Companies and Real Estate Developers

The timing in Idea 10. Business Referrals deserves a fuller explanation.

Notice the blue line on this Google Trends graph. It represents a stable online search pattern for general contractors year-round. If there is a small dip in December, there is a much faster bounce back in early January. It’s the same for construction searches. National inquiries for tree removal (red line) are far more seasonal in nature.

Regardless of whether the construction work happens on green field, brown field sites or as renovation or as property extensions, the site will still need clearing beforehand. Position yourself for this work correctly i.e. ‘Lot Clearance’ and you could see yourself busier than most of your competition earlier in the year.

By position yourself, I mean adding a relevant page to your website for Lot Clearance, adjusting your listings and seeking referrals from local contractors and construction outfits.

Another Reason to Align With Contractors

It’s not just about seasonality. From our research into the Business To Government (B2G) market, there is another strong reason why tree service owners should form relationships with local contractors and construction companies.

Our calculations reveal that the number of new government contacts awarded in 2019 for Tree Services alone was just 1005 across whole of U.S.A. Yet, the number of construction contracts awarded by the U.S. government in 2019 was 51,722. Even if just 10% of these involved some form of tree removal or replacement, such construction contracts number more than 5 times the number of pure tree service contracts available for bid. Surely, that potential work is worth a few phone calls and visits.

Referrals from Landscapers and Lawncare Companies from March onwards

We suggest that before March and April, you switch your attention towards getting referrals from landscapers and lawncare firms. You’re right, their business is even more acutely seasonal than tree service. However, both customer searches and demand accelerate more sharply for them in April and May. Check out Google Trends for yourself to see this and other waves you can ride.

Most landscapers and all lawn-care outfits won’t have the right experience or kit for heavy tree work beyond light trimming of small trees. So they will rely on a tree service company to help them out. Of all the 60 or so competitors in your county, let that tree service company be your own! The way networking with landscapers in Spring can accelerate your season this summer is covered in our special article on the topic here.

There’s No Single Magic Bullet in Tree Service Marketing

By all means adopt one of 22 the winter marketing ideas listed above. And do it well. But bear in mind that it won’t work well just on its own. Customers can find you in many different ways. They respond differently depending on the approach, media or message used. Some will rate online reviews higher over a personal message on their doorstep and vice versa. Also some new prospects will need to hear from you between 7 and 20 times before they call you. So it’s best to make an intelligent combination of several ideas working harder together.

Combine 3 or 4 Tree Service Promotion Ideas to Start – an example

A multi-idea approach will work best. For example, the following selection could work well together:

1. Hustle door-to-door

3. Call previous customers

4. Call new prospects (local prospecting)

10. Business referrals

1., 3., & 4. will have an immediate impact to increase your sales. Idea #10 is a slower burn but ideal if you want sales to pick up faster in January and February.

However, note that some local builders and construction companies may be looking for something in exchange if they are to give you referrals in the New Year. After all, what’s in it for them? It’s unlikely that you can reciprocate with a bunch of building leads. So how about offering to take their business card with you when going door-to-door (1.)? This shows that you’re serious. It also builds a lot of goodwill with your construction referrer.

Also, when phoning new customers in your service area (4.), offer to come round and look at their trees to see if any of them need attention.

Review the 22 marketing tactics and decide which combination would work best for you in your city.

John Hackwood

If you don’t have the time or inclination for all the hustle, maybe you need some assistance with your tree service marketing.

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 15-40 NEW customers per month. He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the U.S. tree care sector.

If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business with effective and high-quality tree service leads then click on blue button below.

The post 22 Winter Tree Service Marketing Ideas first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

Tree Service Website Survey Reveals Wide Performance Range

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– Bad News – Most Tree Service Websites Provide Less Than 10 Leads A Month
– Good News – A Well-Sorted Tree Care Website Can Deliver More than 100 New Sales Leads Monthly!
– What Business Income Does a Strong Tree Service Website Add?
– NET $ Benefit of a Tree Service Website with 100 leads a month
– Can These Strong Websites Be Made Even Stronger?
– Appendix – Results Tables

In early November 2021, we asked our friends in 6 separate tree service-related Facebook Groups how many sales leads they were getting. Groups are listed in the Appendix section.

62 tree service business owners responded to the poll. The results are very revealing, albeit indicative only with this modest number of responses.

Bad News – Most Tree Service Websites Provide Less Than 10 Leads A Month

Nearly two thirds (62%) of all tree service business owners claim their websites generate less than 10 sales leads from prospective customers every month. Some of these owners may be a little disappointed with their sites. However, to continue operating, they are likely to have a good alternative supply of calls and inquiries e.g. word of mouth, social media, paid search, truck signage.

Yet at the other end of the scale, 18% of owner responses say their sites deliver more than 100 leads each month.

The stark contrast between the well-performing sites and the majority of others reflects the ‘winner takes all’ dynamic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A web page ranked #1 in the search engines will attract approximately 30% of visitors looking for a related search term. At the bottom of 1^st page of search engine results, that percentage will usually drop away to 2% of all searches or less.

Good News – A Well-Sorted Tree Care Website Can Deliver More than 100 New Sales Leads Every Month!

With Google Ads, Google Guaranteed listings and Google Map results taking up much of the 1^st search page real estate, building and nurturing a tree service website seems hardly worthwhile. But our simple survey clearly indicates otherwise.

It appears that nearly one in six of all tree websites (18%) deliver impressive levels of new business introductions.

What Business Income Does a Strong Tree Service Website Add?

First, some assumptions:

1. Website targets a service area with a population of 300,000 or more (i.e. counties and/or medium-size cities)
2. Conversion Rate of leads to estimates delivered c. 90%
3. Conversion rate of estimates to agreed tree work c. 45% (our clients convert between one third and 85% of all estimates, averaging in the high 40s)
4. Average of $650 per tree job (mostly tree removal or trimming/pruning work)
5. You get paid for all your work!
6. Your retained income is 33% of gross

Calculation:

• 100 leads a month
• 90 estimates a month
• 40 paid jobs a month (45% conversion ratio)
• total additional gross income $26,000 per month from 100 leads a month
  
  

NET $ Benefit of a Tree Service Website with 100 leads a month

$8,500 additional net profit i.e. after expenses, fuel, equipment depreciation, wages and insurances (33% of gross income)

Want One?

Can These Strong Websites Be Made Even Stronger?

Yes, Sir!!

The Best Tree Service Sites Haven’t Reached Their Full Potential

We took a peak at some of the websites of owners telling us they were getting 100 leads or more from them. Most sites are ranking #1 for key phrases such as “tree service theircity” and “tree removal theircity”. This is great as far as it goes. But not one of these “100 leads a month sites” is at or near its full potential. This is because even the strongest sites perform poorly in key neighborhoods within the main city in their respective service areas. You know, the leafy suburban neighborhoods where the living is easy, at least for some of your competitors! This is especially the case in large cities and is also noticeable in smaller cities.

Why Is This and What Is The Solution?

It’s not your fault. It’s because of Google’s ‘Pigeon’ search algorithm update way back in 2014. Google now sees local businesses as restaurants, shoe shops and barbers in relatively small, defined geographic city neighborhoods. This is fine when improving local relevance for these type of businesses.

However, this doesn’t help home service businesses like yours which have extensive service areas extending 20/30 miles out in all directions. We’ll reveal this observation in more detail here soon.

A Great New Tree Leads Service Soon

We’ll also share an advanced tree leads solution which explodes your monthly lead count no matter what stage your tree service website has reached. As we write this, we’re building example tree service websites under a brand new and exciting architecture. These examples will prove and illustrate our new approach.

In the meantime, check out our other tree service marketing idea articles summarized here.

Note:  For the market research geeks, the survey comprises a self-selecting, non-adjusted sample.

Appendix

Tabulated results as shown in above chart

Raw Responses from each Facebook Group (as at Nov 17^th 2021)

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service business owners get new customers. He is an expert at helping them get tree removal leads and tree trimming leads using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree service sector.

His agency, MarketingDirector.com, only serves the US tree service industry. MarketingDirector.com’s marketing solutions drive quality tree service leads from prospects in specific local areas direct to tree service clients.

If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post Tree Service Website Effectiveness Survey first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

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– The Role of B2G in your Tree Service Marketing Strategy
– How Big is the B2G Market for Tree Service firms?
– Small Tree Service Businesses are Favored by Government Procurers
– Pushing On An Open Door
– Where to Find Government Tree Service Bids
– What Type of Government Contracts Are Available?
– FIRST B2G Tree Service Marketing Strategy as Prime (Main) Bidder
– Follow These 5 Steps for B2G Success
– SECOND B2G Tree Service Marketing Strategy – Subcontracting
– 3 Major Subcontracting Opportunities for Tree Service Business Owners
– Meeting Prime Bidders For Subcontract Tree Work – Best Practice
– Overcoming B2G Tree Service Marketing Challenges
– Appendix 1. US Federal B2G Tree Service Market Size

News stories like the one above are very rare indeed. If accurate, the enormous contract invitation amount of $450 million dwarfs the total value of ALL US government-commissioned tree work across Federal, State and Local departments in 2019. Does such a report give false hope to tree service firms struggling to find business? Or is there more to the B2G market than meets the eye?

Why would you want to include government work in your tree service marketing strategy? Our comprehensive reference article answers these questions and explores the B2G market for tree firms in some depth.

We’ll also reveal a smart way to take advantage of government contracts that NO-ONE is talking about.

The Role of B2G in your Tree Service Marketing Strategy

We believe that the B2G opportunity for tree service businesses is far bigger than implied by recorded contract awards to the industry. We firmly believe that the B2G opportunity dwarfs even the unusual contract award story pictured above.

The B2G opportunity can help tree firms pursue both these valuable marketing aims:

1. Even out the seasonal nature of your tree service business cash-flow by becoming a prime bidder

2. Target specific inter-industry collaboration opportunities by subcontracting – HUGE!

Make Hay!

It’s summertime! Nearly everyone in the tree service industry is busy (at least 82% of you from my mid-May research) despite COVID-19. Your diaries are full to bursting. Make hay while the sun shines safely, I say.

At some point during the long hot days at work, some tree service business owners might be wondering what is going to happen in late fall when calls start to fade. Will that ‘war chest’ be enough to get you by in winter?

What else can your business do in the winter? In the Northern States, there’s always a spot of snow removal to do in the darker months of the year. But tree firms located in states in the mid-to-southern latitudes suffer. This is because phone calls from customers and prospects drop by around 40-50% across USA on average, come wintertime. Yes, trees grow all year round in Florida with their semi-evergreen oaks and whatnot. But is it practical to move the business ‘lock, stock and barrel’ to Orlando, say, for the winter?

Long Term Contracts Beat The Winter Slump In Business

Instead, what if you had a good, long term tree maintenance contract to keep the cash flow rolling? What if you could look forward to a few more jobs to help pay winter bills and keep your crew together?

And some of you may be looking ahead more strategically and asking ‘How can I take my business to the next level?’, ‘Can I provide my tree services to the Government to grow my business?”.

But getting government work is not for every tree service company. Let’s be clear; it takes time, treasure and there will be disappointments. A dose of reality was sent my way when I spoke to a lady from Govwin.com. She confided that small businesses in general are successful in bidding for government work in only 5% of cases. So you’ll need help to shorten those odds.

Below, we’ll share no less than 6 free and paid sources of tree services bid information and hands-on advice to boost your chances of bid success.

How Big is the B2G Market for Tree Service firms?

The Government Contracts are attractive in terms of financial value. The long terms contracts will also help even out cash flow throughout the year. But, they are modest in number.

*¹ Extrapolated from US Federal Contracts sourced from 2019 data supplied by the official https://www.usaspending.gov website. Raw data for Federal-only spend on tree service shared in Appendix 1

*² US State and Local spend data calculated at 45% of total spend (cf. 55% for Federal Government spend). So all government spend and contract numbers calculated by applying a factor of 1.81 on federal spend on tree services.

*³ ‘Long term’ government contracts for tree work that are still current in 2019 but were commissioned and awarded before 2019. Long term contracts calculated by deducting New Contracts data (row 1) from All Government Contracts data (row 3).

With an estimated 183,000 US businesses delivering tree services across USA (ref. IBISworld) and a 5% win rate, are 1005 Government new contract awards each year worth fighting over? Maybe not.

However, the figures reveal the longer term nature of much higher value Government contracts for tree services – see ‘Long Term’ Gov Contract in the middle row of the above table. Yes, there are only 407 of them in any one year but each contract’s $ value is 5 times the average contract value of new contracts. Their benefit to any tree firm is multiplied further by their longer term nature.

So when considering whether it would be worthwhile to spend time and treasure pursuing government work, bear in mind the potential future value of those tree contracts that last longer than just one year.

Just One Long Term Contract Will Help Smooth Year-round Cash Flow

Just one of these 400, longer term contracts could end the highly seasonal nature of tree work for your tree business. Know that 39% of Government contracts MUST be awarded to smaller business concerns (SBCs) like yours. Your chances of success are increased further as many of these larger contract awards are conditional upon the prime (main) bidder subcontracting some of the work to SBCs.

Small Tree Service Businesses are Favored by Government Procurers

The vast majority of US tree service firms are *small businesses employing two or three people. With this in mind, it’s comforting to realize that the Government places much emphasis on making sure that smaller enterprises get a fair ‘crack of the whip’ when bidding for government work.

The Program Office of the Government’s Small Business Administration (SBA) has your back in at least three ways:

1. It’s law – The Small Business Administration (SBA) ensures that small operators always win their fair share of Government Bids as the main (prime) contractor. In fact, 39% of all government buys are destined to be awarded to Small Business Concerns (SBCs) of various types, as enshrined in the Small Business Act.
   
2. Subcontracting quotas – In addition, many Government bids stipulate that the prime bidder must subcontract a portion of the work to SBCs.
   
3. Positive Discrimination – The bid system also actively favors other small business categories for such work. SBC’s run by disabled veterans (SDVOSBs), socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses (SDB’s), women-owned businesses (WOSBs) and HUBZone small business concerns are positively encouraged to participate in bidding for federal, state and municipal projects.

Bid Quotas – Which Small Businesses Benefit the Most?

The breakdown of the small business types favored by the US Small Business Act to receive no less than 39% of the total value of all prime contracts awarded in each fiscal year is as follows:

• Small Business Concerns (SBCs) – Not less than 23%
  
• Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Small Businesses (SDBs) – Not less than 5%
  
• Women-Owned Businesses (WOSBs) – Not less than 5%
  
• SBC’s run by disabled veterans (SDVOSBs) – Not less than 3%
  
• HUBZone Small Business Concerns (HUBZone SBCs) – Not less than 3%

These percentages apply to all government contracts (federal, state and local).

*Small businesses in the US tree service sector are defined as those having an average annual sales turnover over the last three years of less than $8,000,000 p.a.

Pushing On An Open Door

There are reports that Federal, State and Local Government sometimes fail to meet the 4 smaller quotas listed above. So if you’re a small business in these minority categories looking for government work, often you’ll be pushing on an open door.

At the time of writing, the General Service Administration which oversees the government’s various procurement programs is streamlining the bidding process. No less than 10 online resources are being converted into a ‘one-stop-shop’ website for businesses interested in supplying their goods and services to the government. This new and important US government website can be found at https://beta.sam.gov .

Where to Find Government Tree Service Bids

Your starting point should be the US government’s newly consolidated database (#1 in the list below).

It’s a tricky database to search manually with its many search filters. And when you do figure it out, the search results often leave a lot to be desired. For example, there’s a contract invitation for Runway Rubber Removal in the search results for the phrase “Tree Removal”.

Despite the database’ shortcomings, it’s important that you interact with the information available. Register your business too, if you’re serious about B2G tree service marketing. Right from the start, you can set up notifications and watch-lists so you can see what contracts are being awarded nearby. The tricky-to-use government search site is probably why there are several paid solutions which do a better job of presenting government bid search results, presumably using the same data. These are numbered  2 to 6 below.

6 Ways To Access Government Bid Information

1.  The FREE, official database of awarded and new government contracts can be found at                     
                     https://beta.sam.gov/search
   
2. https://findrfp.com – lists 400 tree service RFP’s, Bids and Government Contracts across all states in USA over the last 10 months.
   
3. ​https://governmentbids.com – contains comprehensive bid information info but some of their written articles need updating owing to recent government restructuring in this area. You can sign up for free bid notifications tailored to your business. But to access information about each bid, you’ll need a monthly subscription.
   
4. ​https://www.bidprime.com/bid/category/tree-maintenance details 56 separate tree service projects from federal, state and local government sources where bid invitations are currently active.
   
5. https://bidcontract.com very simple user interface, searchable by type of work and by state too.
   
6. https://govwin.com – they help aspiring vendors to identify relevant, expiring government contracts. This advanced notice gives the vendor time for ‘business development’ to boost chances of winning bids. Govwin says that tree firms should start to share their business capabilities with local and state decision-makers before the bid comes up for renewal. This could be a useful tactic to identify higher-value, longer term tree work contracts before they come up for renewal.
   

What Type of Government Contracts Are Available?

GovernmentBids.com states that their Grounds & Landscaping bids category is the 3rd busiest of all. This is where you will find land clearance, tree removal and tree trimming contracts. There were over 11,900 Grounds & Landscaping bids published last year alone. Within this category, tree removal, tree trimming and tree service work comprises the 3rd busiest cluster of bids.

Governmentbids.com also show there were 653 tree removal bid(s) published in the last 365 days as at end June 2020. 28 of these are currently open. There are 418 tree trimming bid(s) published in the last 365 days, of which 26 are currently open. Note there is some overlap between the two. For stump grinding contracts, there are 85 bid(s) published in the last 365 days, of which 4 are currently open. Arborists have a total of 65 bids in the last 365 days, of which 9 are currently open.

Interestingly, government construction bids is the class which has the most bids of all with 176,500 bids in the last 12 months, albeit in the very broad construction, electrical and roadway related fields. We’ll return to the area of structural & facilities construction contracts, specifically, later in this article. This is because tree service business owners can benefit greatly from subcontracting opportunities here.

FIRST B2G Tree Service Marketing Strategy as Prime (Main) Bidder

You should pursue this first strategy if you want to be the main (prime) contractor for specific government contracts in the tree service market.

For you and the government to come together and make a contract, there must be joint awareness of the value of each party to another. Put simply, the government needs to be aware of your tree service business and your capabilities as an interested service provider. And you need to become aware of the various bidding and contract opportunities that prevail in your county state and federally too.

Compiling the information for the bid online can be time-consuming. However, unless you’re ready and aware of the opportunities, you will have little reason or motivation to submit your business details in order to bid. So start with the easy stuff and work your way into B2G at a pace that suits you. Remember that you’ve ‘got to be in it to win it’.

Tree service owners interested in contracting with the government must have an active, valid, and complete SAM Registration. Bear in mind that this registration is good for only 12 months. After this, contractors must re-verify their information and renew their registration annually. Tree firm owners who let their SAM registration lapse also risk delays in getting paid for the contracts they have performed and completed.

Follow These 5 Steps for B2G Success:

1. Register your business in the right place. Go to https://beta.sam.gov and punch in your details. Complete your System for Award Management (SAM) registration as a business for federal contracting or grants here:   https://usfcr.com/sam-registration/ 
   
2. Set up notifications of upcoming bids in your field. Your NAICS code is 561730. It covers landscaping as well as tree removal, trimming, arborist, stump removal. Even if you cannot bid directly for landscaping work, there could be many indirect and subcontracting opportunities for your firm as we’ll explore in a moment.
   
3. Explore the Small Business Administration (SBA) website for advice and support: https://www.sba.gov/federal-contracting    They ARE your friends in the battle to win valuable government work. They have quotas to meet SO they want your small business to win as many of the contracts as possible.
   
4. ​Talk to or meet your local procurement expert at your nearby ‘Procurement Technical Assistance Center’.  To find one near you check out:         https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance/find/?type=Procurement%20Technical%20Assistance%20Center&pageNumber=1
   
5. ​Prepare all the information you might need to make a winning bid. The https://beta.sam.gov site has relevant points of contact for help and support here, in particular. Use this information before your competitor does to give your tree firm an advantage.
   

SECOND B2G Tree Service Marketing Strategy – Subcontracting

This is the bigger tree service marketing opportunity in my view, especially for smaller tree firms. First of all it’s a great entry strategy to the B2G market. By registering yourself as open for subcontracted work, it opens more growth possibilities for your young business. For the first time in the tree service industry, we have estimated the massive subcontracting opportunity for service providers with real numbers. The following graphic reveals the scale of the opportunity compared directly with prime bidding:

Remember, too, that the larger tree removal bids are often shared with tree firms that are SBC’s (Small Business Concerns).

Here’s a recent example of a shared tree removal contract in Placer County, California:

3 Major Subcontracting Opportunities for Tree Service Business Owners

1. Network with Larger Tree Service Companies

Using the resources already outlined, find out which large tree company is winning the lion’s share of government tree work in your area. Then explore whether you can team up as a registered subcontractor on future bids. Their bid can be strengthened by having an SBC on board. Also, mark your registration in the System for Award Management as being open for subcontract work where possible.

2. Network with Landscaping Bidders

Check out the bottom row in the Appendix below. See how much government work there is for ALL Landscaping Work? Yes, US$ 2.46bn spread over 10,500 contracts. That’s 10 times the value of government contracts for specific tree services only. So if you’re interested in picking up subcontract work for the tree element of many of the landscape bids, use the government database and notifications available here to find out the landscapers in your service area who are winning local, state and federal landscaping bids.

We know that the landscaping profession covers a multitude of services from lawn-care to cemetery maintenance to indoor landscaping and land clearance etc. Some landscaping activities will have tree care elements to them for which the landscaping bidder is not equipped as well as your firm. Remember too that sometimes bids lazily use the one-word ‘landscaping’ descriptor to cover a range of services that include tree work once you delve into the bid invitation wording. This has the effect of understating the tree services element of government work and concealing it from immediate view.

3. Network with Construction Bidders

This is huge. There were 51,722 US government contract awards specifically for “construction of structures and facilities” in the past year according to beta.sam.gov/search site. This is 36 times the number of government contacts specifically for tree services in the same period.

To state the obvious, there is often a tree work requirement to many construction projects. Mature trees may need removing, protecting, moving or replacing depending on city codes, the construction site and the project itself. Construction companies themselves will not have a full-time tree crew at their disposal so will often subcontract this work out to local tree experts. IBISWorld state that the year-on-year growth in the tree service industry over the last decade is partly due to strong economic activity in the construction industry. So the mutual dependency between builders and tree service firms is clear.

Find local construction bidders by accessing and searching…

…the https://beta.sam.gov/search database. Discover which local construction firms in or near your service area are winning some of the 51,722 US Government building and renovation projects every year. Use this data intelligence to list specific building firms in your city and nearby counties. If the government trusts them to build their buildings, then you should trust them to pay you, right? Well OK but before reaching out to them, suggest you run your credit management checks to be sure. Then when you’re comfortable doing business with them, introduce your firm and declare your willingness to accept subcontract work for your tree services when they are next awarded a project.

Meeting Prime Bidders For Subcontract Tree Work – Best Practice

Whether for tree removal, landscaping or for construction contracts, the subcontracts can be sought either before the bid is made or after the contract has been awarded. It depends on the prime bidder and any conditions made by the government.

The prime bidders (main contractors) could be VERY interested in listing your small business firm as a subcontractor to an upcoming bid. For example, if the subcontractor is one of the special categories mentioned earlier – WOSB, SDBs, SDVOSBs then this will strengthen their chances of winning the contract award. This applies even if the prime bidder itself is not a Small Business Concern as they are still helping the government (SBA in particular) meet sometimes difficult to meet award quotas.

Essential Preparation Before Meeting Prime Bidder

• Be Clear About your Meeting Objective e.g. seeking tips for bidding success, contributing to an upcoming bid of theirs, sharing your firm’s capabilities . Prepare accordingly.
  
• ​Do Your Home-work on the Prime Bidder (Main Contractor) e.g. check the bids database beforehand for relevant bids, find out some of the government contracts they perform/ bid on, check the prime contractor’s website, talk to other subcontractors they work with.
  
• ​Know Your Company’s Value to the Prime Bidder e.g. be clear about how your firm can benefit future bids by the prime contractor, be aware of your SBC category, what cost advantages can you bring to the party, up-to-date training and certifications, knowledge of local tree removal codes, crew size and flexibility, compliance with OSHA and CDC guidelines etc.
  
• ​Take An Ethical Approach e.g. if the meeting discussion turns towards a bid where you are already teaming up with another main contractor then steer the conversation to another topic and explain your conflict of interest. Your ethical stance will be appreciated and your business reputation enhanced.
  

Overcoming B2G Challenges

The main challenge that some tree service owners have told me they face is that they or their teams do not have enough time to compile effective responses to Request for Proposals (RFP’s) or Requests for Information (RFI’s).

The answer lies in taking the necessary steps at a pace that suits you. First, build up your registered profile and create your online bid notifications and watch-lists. Then get all the information you can and talk to local experts as advised. Build up the bid information likely to be sought beforehand steadily. In this way, you’ll be ready to act when the perfect bid drops in your lap. Again, your local Procurement Technical Center can help you with many local contacts, information and can help you shape your company’s Capability Statements in a way that will help your bid stand head and shoulders above your competing bidders.

Appendix 1. US Federal B2G Tree Service Market Size

Government Spend Data extracted from usaspending.gov:

*¹ Tree Work includes mention of specific tree services in the contract award description

*² NAICS Code 561730 includes Landscaping, Lawncare, Mowing, Grounds & Cemetery Maintenance, Roadside Vegetation Clearance, Land Clearing, Arborist, Tree Removal, Tree Trimming, Tree Pruning and Stump Removal

*³ US State and Local spend data calculated at 45% of total spend and 55% for Federal Government spend. So all government spend and contract numbers in row 5 calculated by applying a factor of 1.81 on federal spend on NAICS Code 561730 services in row 4.

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service business owners get new customers. He is an expert at helping them get new business using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree service sector.

His agency, MarketingDirector.com, only serves the US tree service industry. MarketingDirector.com’s marketing solutions drive live phone inquiries from prospects in specific local areas direct to tree service clients. The high-quality leads are raised by a unique cocktail of digital marketing tactics.

Unlike other lead generation companies, MarketingDirector.com only sells the live calls to singular clients in each ‘fenced’ geographic service area. In this way, every client enjoys exclusivity in their own area, safe in the knowledge that their calls will not be addressed by their competitors.

The service is suitable to those tree service companies wishing to add more customers and grow their business. If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post B2G Tree Service Marketing Gets You Government Contracts first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

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– Early April Networking Opportunity
– Strategic Networking Opportunities All Year Round
– Landscapers Can Be Golden For Tree Job Leads
– What’s In It For The Landscaper?
– How Can I Network with Landscapers?
– Act Now For More Tree Trimming Leads

There is a calendar-sensitive business growth opportunity for tree firms right now, this Spring. We thought best to share it before it evaporates in the summer heat. If you’re a tree service company and want to start your season early with more tree service leads, read on.

Despite being lead generators on commercial terms, we’re always on the look-out for ways to help U.S. tree service businesses get great tree service leads for free. Sure, we understand that the most sustainable business model in our industry is to grow a tree company on the back of great work. It cultivates repeat business and reduces marketing expenses. It also makes sense to let your customers know that you would appreciate referrals if the opportunity ever arose. 

However, if you’re starting out or want to expand your business, you will need other sources of tree trimming leads and tree removal leads; other sources of referrals. So if you have a little time on your hands, need more business and the budget is tight, the suggestions below are for you.

Since writing this post, I see that the guys at the Tree care Industry Association (TCIA) have also begun to share the value of networking in the industry. Their December 2021 podcast on the topic of Networking can be heard here free of charge. They talk in general about the role of networking in the tree service sector and how it has benefitted them personally and in business. They also delve lightly into examples of networking techniques that have worked for them individually.

We know the following two, specific networking opportunities will also work because we’ve taken a close look at government contracts across the U.S. The numbers are compelling.

Early April Networking Opportunity

Between now and the end of May, something remarkable happens every year. Calls from U.S. homeowners to landscaping and lawn care businesses more than double in volume. This beats the slower rise in calls to tree service companies. Check the trends for yourself with the Google Trends tool.

Hardscapers get a lot of attention too at this time of year. For example, interest in fire pits ballooned this time last year as people chose to extend their living area to the outside during ‘stay-at-home’ orders in 2020. Same looks to be happening in 2021 as well.

Here, I use the term ‘landscaper’ very loosely. By landscaper, I mean any contractor who creates amazing outdoor living spaces or who mows lawns or tends to shrubs and flower beds, or even make fantastic park vistas in people’s yards like Capability Brown.

Strategic Networking Opportunity All Year Round

Not many tree service owners know this. But there are 2.46 billion additional reasons why tree service owners should network with their local landscapers.

The sheer scale of landscaping contracts issued by federal, state and local government departments is little known amongst small tree firms. For example, in 2019, some 10,498 landscaping contracts were in operation. All told, they bring in US$ 2.46 billion to the green industry every year. That’s $234,398 for each contract each year on average. Whilst some contracts relate to pure landscaping work such as cemetery maintenance, mowing government land etc., a significant proportion ( we say at least 20%) of these government contracts will involve tree work, land clearing, vegetation management. The landscaper may not be sufficiently endowed with the necessary heavy equipment – which is where your tree service business can make a difference.

A full explanation of this chart and how to find local landscapers active with government bids and contracts is detailed in our separate Business To Government (B2G) Tree Service Marketing article here. In it, we detail no less than 6 ways to find government bids information whether it’s for local, state or federal contract.

Landscapers Can Be Golden For Tree Job Leads

Landscapers and lawn-care owner-operators are going to see a lot of home-owner yards in the next couple of months; at a much faster rate of climb than you will. So wouldn’t it be great if they could act as your look-out for tree work for your business at this time of year? They could be your eyes and ears in your service area at a time of the year when your trade is still relatively slow, albeit growing steadily.

So if they wanted to, landscapers have the power to bring forward the start of your tree trimming and tree removal summer season. Such referrals will come in two forms:

i). Opportunistic Referrals For Tree Trimming Leads

The landscaper has noticed a problem tree in their customer’s yard that they can’t deal with on their own. Their tree loppers can only reach so far, after all. For sure, most landscapers will be able to trim small trees. But how many will have a bucket lift at their disposal?  They won’t have your large tree felling skills or even have the insurance coverage for such dangerous work. Tree service businesses are the one with the heavy equipment, the credentials and the insurances.

Back to the tree problem seen on site by your landscaper; she can ignore it or suggest a tree service company as a solution or she could subcontract your tree services. You want to be on his list.

For this scenario to work in your favor, you’ll need to let the landscaper know you’re available at relatively short notice to fix a problem tree or remove it, as appropriate. You could also brief the landscaper on what to look at for – a particular pattern of tree damage caused by a local tree pest, for example. Perhaps you want them to identify dead tree limbs for attention or branches scraping against their customer’s property.

ii). Strategic Referrals For Tree Removal Leads and Tree Cutting Leads

This is where the landscaper needs your help and involvement with a series of private landscaping projects and government contracts either repairing, planting, moving, removing, replacing or trimming trees. Such relationships can be great in the long term but rarely happen without them being comfortable with your company and confident with its abilities, skills and resources. So start with soliciting opportunistic referrals from landscapers to build confidence in your business.

What’s In It For The Landscaper? 

Her season will peak at the end of May/ early June. However, the remaining 7 months of the year is a different story. Consumer interest in landscaping slowly dries up until the trough in December, as will phone inquiries to her business. So the landscaper’s challenge will be how to remain busy for the rest of the year after the early June business zenith. How can she extend her season?

That’s where you come in.

Seasonality affects the tree care industry of-course but the calendar pattern is different. The summer season for tree services is less peaky and lasts from May to August in most states. For example, calls from people needing a tree service will rise between now and the end of May but the rise is much more gradual. Interest tends to plateau from beginning of June and doesn’t start declining until the end of summer i.e. mid-September. In essence, the season is longer and later in duration for tree firms.

Reciprocity

If the landscaper helps boost the growth in your business between now the end of May, what can you do for her in exchange?

Your seasonality gives you something of value to offer landscapers. You can be the ears and eyes for landscapers in your service area later in their season. You’re a U.S. tree service owner out in the field delivering various tree services with intimate knowledge of the customer’s yard. How often do you notice that a property-owner could benefit from some landscaping? You must see bare patches of sod, poorly-tended lawn and uninspiring-looking yards all the time. This on-the-ground intelligence has real value in the right hands.

From the landscaper’s perspective, what type of landscaping projects are suitable for later in the year? What type of work is she looking for? How can you help her later in the year in exchange for tree removal leads or tree trimming leads now?

It’s worth a discussion, isn’t it.

The Deal

The potential for a mutually beneficial business relationship between a landscaping business and tree business is clear.

She helps to start your season off with a bang and you extend her season for the rest of the year.

Now it’s up to you to pick up the phone or pop by the landscaper’s yard in person.

How Can I Network with Landscapers?

No need to over-complicate this. There are 4 possible paths to follow:

i). On The Phone

Call your local landscaper saying you want to pop by for 5 minutes to “see if there are ways we can help each other”. You’ll want 3 or 4 good referrers on board for the exercise to be worthwhile. So to end up with this number, you’ll need to call a fair multiple e.g. 20 or 30 in your city. Use Google Maps to locate the ones nearby and those with better review profiles. Call a bunch at a time. Aim to follow up the call with a visit to show you are serious. 

ii). In Person

Nothing is stopping you from rocking up to your local landscaper’s yard out of the blue, of-course. But they may appreciate a little prior warning. Respect social distancing norms when you’re in front of your landscaper. Try and turn up in your bucket truck if you have one. Alternatively, take your chipper-body truck. This will quietly (or not so quietly) reveal what heavy equipment and resources you have. This will reinforce the difference you can make to their work and reputation by having you available on site in case of need.

After exchanging pleasantries, tell her the ‘deal’ i.e. you can help her later in the season if she notices anything between now and the end of May for you. Repeat for other landscapers nearby.

ii). Live Networking Groups

Post-COVID, Business Network International (BNI) has completely changed its local networking model. Their weekly meetings are now online. So no more meeting at dawn in a stuffy room. To find landscapers ready to deliver and receive referrals in your city, select the ‘Advanced Search’ function on BNI’s page here: https://bniamerica.com/en-US/findamember . Then punch in “landscape” (without the speechmarks) into the keywords box and include your City name in the City box too. Using this simple method, I found 5 landscapers in Dallas and 3 in the Houston area. Then ask to attend an online meeting to see what it’s all about. They may let you in to a couple before having to pay the subscription fee. You can at least break the ice with your new landscaping contact.

Also check with your local chamber of commerce to see if they have an online meeting equivalent. Ask the chamber if there are any landscapers, fencers, general contractors and property managers in attendance so you can judge if the event will be worthwhile.

iii). Via Social Media

LinkedIn:

Reach out and connect to landscapers in your area through the LinkedIn platform. Engage with them through regular and relevant content. Send messages after you get to know your LinkedIn contacts.

Alignable:

This platform is designed for sharing referrals online. It’s a type of electronic BNI but without the costly sub or the early morning meets. It’s easy to target specific business niches such as landscapers and lawn care franchises. On Alignable, you can easily build your profile and say what type of referrals you’re looking for (and also what reciprocity you are prepared to offer). This helpful article tells you more:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-alignable-should-you-join-martin-brossman/

Act Now For More Tree Trimming Leads

Remember that this opportunity window is only useful to you if you act in the next week or so. After the end of May, landscapers will be less useful to you in the short term as their business will begin to fade away once it peaks. Even after May, you can still build relationships by giving them referrals so they repay the favors early next Spring.

Another way to bring forward the start of your peak season is to use us. We’ll deliver high-quality tree removal leads and tree trimming leads on an exclusive basis and at modest cost. All year round!

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service business owners get new customers. He’s an expert at helping them get tree removal leads and tree trimming leads using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree service sector.

His agency, MarketingDirector.com, only serves the US tree service industry. MarketingDirector.com’s marketing solutions drive live phone inquiries from prospects in specific local areas direct to tree service clients. The highly-qualified live calls are raised by a unique cocktail of digital marketing tactics.

Unlike other lead generation companies, MarketingDirector.com only sells the live calls to singular clients in each ‘fenced’ geographic service area. In this way, every client enjoys exclusivity in their own area, safe in the knowledge that their calls will not be taken by their competitors.

If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post Want More Tree Trimming Leads? Try Networking first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

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– Dramatic Turn-around in Tree Industry Business Activity
– Fewer Tree Service Businesses Doing Badly
– How the May 2020 Survey Compares with March
– Why the Rapid Recovery? 3 Main Reasons
– Better Retention of Tree Crews
– The Same Question 6 weeks On
– Extra Questions Included By Respondents
– Raw Results in Full May 2020
– What Is MarketingDirector.com Doing About COVID?
– Get More Customers

Dramatic Turn-around in Tree Industry Business Activity

United States tree service firms and their workers are leading the bounce-back in the home service field of the US domestic economy. New research conducted by MarketingDirector.com shows that over 4 in every five (82%) US arborists and tree business owners are no longer being negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of arborists not being adversely impacted (82%) is a big improvement on the 42% number surveyed at the end of March 2020 in a near identical poll.

Actually, almost one in three of all United States participants (30%) mentioned that they were busier than ever. Since the research fieldwork was completed on May 10th 2020, restrictions in numerous States have been eased further. This bodes well for the continuation of this positive news.

Fewer Tree Service Businesses Doing Badly

Despite the good news, almost one in 5 tree companies (18%) say that their business is still being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to their detriment. However, this number is down from 58% at the end of March. Once again, this is a great improvement.

The new May poll drew interest from 141 US tree company owners and arborists alike. The survey was conducted within two separate Facebook Groups on Saturday May 9th and Sunday May 10th 2020. This compares with 212 participants at the end of March 2020 in a very similar round of polls. As in March, non-US respondents have been removed out of the survey results.

How the May 2020 Survey Compares with March

A comparison of March and May results is shared below:

The new poll in May shows a remarkable turn-around in the fortunes of the tree service industry. This has to place arborists and tree service owners at the ‘cutting edge’ of US economic recovery following the Corona virus pandemic.

March Survey Results

For ease of reference, the full article explaining the separate March 2020 survey can be viewed here:

Why the Rapid Recovery? 3 Main Reasons

There are 3 main factors for the fast bounce-back, in our view:

1. Most tree services have been declared part of the range of essential services that are exempt from various closure orders and stay-at-home notices.
   
2. With more domestic consumers at home in lock-down, more people are spending time in their back yard noticing various tree problems including late Spring tree pests and limb damage from winter storms.
   
3. In many States there is a seasonal rise in demand for tree services at this time of year peaking mid-to-late summertime.
   
   

Better Retention of Tree Crews

Let’s remember that the US tree care industry employs nearly 300,000 individuals. With this latest survey news, most of these jobs now look a lot safer now than they were before. The fact that 30 million US citizens now declare themselves as unemployed could ease one of the tree industry’s perennial problems. Retention of trained crews is always a difficult for this seasonal trade. We predict that with fewer alternative employment options, tree service owners might find employee loyalty improve somewhat.

Research Methodology

The research was once again carried out making use of the polling facility in 2 different Facebook Groups. Both Groups used are prominent amongst tree service company owners and arborists alike. Respondents were once more presented with a single question and 6 alternative answers. To ensure comparability of results between end of March and May polling rounds, the exact same methodology was used from 6 weeks formerly with one minor exception – see ‘Extra Questions’ below.

The Same Question 6 weeks On:

“As a Tree Service Owner, exactly how Is your company being impacted by COVID-19 in your solution location? Please pick one of the adhering to choices that ideal defines your company scenario:”

6 Business Scenarios From Which Respondents Could Choose Just One:

1. “Not Affected, all tree work regarded as an Essential Service here.”
   
2. “Not Affected, we are free to carry on unhindered here.”
   
3. “Adversely Affected, as I Can Only Do the TCIA/ISA list of Essential Services In my area.”
   
4. “Adversely Affected, not because of regulations but because I have fewer tree work Inquiries from customers/prospects.”
   
5. “Shut Down, I voluntarily chose to stand down my crew and business to reduce the chance of spreading COVID-19 In my community.”
   
6. “Shut-Down, I am prohibited from doing any tree work here.”
   

Extra Questions Included By Respondents

The May survey differed only from the March survey in that we permitted respondents to add a response option of their own. This was done to ensure a true reflection of the current business climate was captured. In each Facebook Group poll, respondents included two additional questions each making 4 in all. Here they are:

Raw Results in Full May 2020

Statistical Relevance

Results from polls in two separate Facebook Groups, popular among tree service owners, were combined. In absolute numbers, 141 participants is a respectable sample size where the results are statistically relevant. When extrapolating the results to build a national picture, some caution is required. This is partly because the respondents have self-selected to answer the poll. In professionally-commissioned research, respondents would be chosen from a large sample ‘pool’ to ensure that US tree service companies of various sizes, types and locations would be fully representative of the overall business population in this service niche.

What Is MarketingDirector.com Doing About COVID?

All staff at MarketingDirector.com are taking physical isolation and social-distancing recommendations seriously. Unlike our tree service clients, we are better able to work from home as best we can, albeit in isolation from one another.

We remain open for business for all tree service and arborist clients. After all, most of our digital marketing work can be conducted through computers from any location. Live call volumes from local US prospects needing tree work are higher in some areas and lower in others.

We we have also switched on two additional digital sources of live calls in order to generate more live calls for clients.

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get new customers every month. He is an expert at helping them get new business using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree service sector.

His agency, MarketingDirector.com, only serves the US tree service industry. MarketingDirector.com’s marketing solutions drive live phone inquiries from prospects in specific local areas direct to tree service clients. The highly-qualified live calls are raised by a unique cocktail of digital marketing tactics.

Unlike other lead generation companies, MarketingDirector.com only sells the live calls to singular clients in each ‘fenced’ geographic service area. In this way, every client enjoys exclusivity in their own area, safe in the knowledge that their calls will be kept away from their competitors.

The post US Tree Service Businesses To Lead Post COVID Economic Recovery first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

Jump To Section

– What is Happening to Tree Service Businesses?
– What is the Impact of COVID on tree service firms?
– 14% Performing Only ‘Essential’ Services
– 21% Opting For A Voluntary Pause in Operations
– 22% Experience Fewer Customer Inquiries
– How Do You Recover Lost Business?
– 42% of Tree Firms Unaffected By COVID-19
– Research Methodology & Tables
– The Poll Question
– 6 Poll Response Options
– Statistical Relevance
– The Joint ISA & TCIA Statement – a reminder
– Which are the ‘Essential’ Tree Services?
– What is MarketingDirector.com doing?
– Get More Customers

Tree service crews cannot work from home. Technology might one day send a self-driving truck without crew to attend to a problem tree via robotic link. The robo-truck would then remove and chip all brush and then self-drive to the next job remotely. But such virtual tree work is not currently feasible. Tree work needs human intervention on site. If a tree service crew is not on site, they’re not earning.

The joint statement by International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) and Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA) was published mid March 2020. It clarified which type of tree work can be regarded as essential and non-essential to government authorities and members alike. The statement also encouraged tree service companies to review their bookings and bring forward ‘essential’ tree work. The statement also recommended that tree firms postpone non-essential tree work. A reminder of the statement’s key contents is shared at the end of this article.

Tree Work Is Low Risk

Tree contractors are low risk spreaders of COVID-19 according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). But we began to hear from several tree service clients that they were closing their businesses temporarily. How could this be? After all, the vast majority of tree firms are authorized to perform their essential services.

We wanted to know more about how other tree service owners are being affected by the pandemic. After all, the industry now generates some $24bn in revenue each year and employs 284,000 individuals (Ibisworld). Besides, we are always looking for ways to improve our own marketing support for tree service clients.

What is Happening to Tree Service Businesses?

Our 29th March research among 212 tree business owners shows exactly their reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in North America. We outline 6 separate effects on the industry at this difficult time.

Our study shows that 58% of tree firms suffer from complete or partial loss of business income following the pandemic. As a consequence, of the 184,000 US tree businesses trading in 2020, more than 100,000 are losing significant income.

Our study reveals that owners are facing at least 4 new influences on their business fortunes associated with the emergency.

• Necessary measures applied by federal, state and local county government to tackle the Corona Virus pandemic.
• ​Voluntary decisions by many owners to protect their communities at significant losses to their businesses.
• Fewer inquiries from customers
• ​The Joint ISA/TCIA statement
  

What is the Impact of COVID on tree service firms?

A tabulated summary of the results of our research poll is shared below:

It shows the rainbow of responses to a simple question (see head of table) on Saturday March 28th and Sunday March 29th. No less than 212 US tree enterprises responded.

The statistical relevance of our research is considered at the end of the article along with a breakdown of the response numbers.

14% Performing Only ‘Essential’ Services

14% of tree firms are prevented from doing non-essential work presently. Non-essential services include tree pruning, vista pruning, tree fertilization, tree irrigation and non-invasive tree pest control (ISA & TCIA). The proportion of ‘non-essential’ tree work will vary from tree business to tree business but it commonly forms between one third and one half of gross revenues. This percentage is likely to rise if further government restrictions are brought into force to deal with the virus pandemic.

21% Opting For A Voluntary Pause in Operations

An incredible 1 in 5 (21%) owners in the tree industry have voluntarily stood down their service operations and crew even though they are not legally compelled to do so. They are doing this expressly to reduce the chance of spreading the COVID-19 virus in their respective communities. On this basis, nearly 60,000 tree workers in the industry are not working at present.

This remarkable self-sacrifice shows how closely some businesses are bonded to their respective communities. Whilst there may be an element of self-preservation, many in this category must be conscious of their reputation in the community once the pandemic is over. ‘Doing the right thing’ will come at a heavy cost, however. How long they can stay closed without suffering from severe financial loss remains to be seen.

22% Experience Fewer Customer Inquiries

More than two in every ten firms (22%) relay that no virus-related federal, state or local state notices affect them directly at the moment. And yet their business is still being adversely affected. The problem arises from a reduced number of inquiries by customers. Clearly, some property owners are being cautious about exposing themselves to possible viral infection from tree contractors. Alternatively, their residential and commercial customers may be conserving financial resources to cope with the national emergency in the weeks to come.

How Do You Recover Lost Business?

Firstly, we recommend that tree service businesses make their revised health and safety measures clear in order to reassure nervous customers worried about being infected. Outline your amended working practices based on OSHA recommendations here  and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) whose interim guidance for businesses can be found here.

We also suggest that improved marketing efforts could help to replace lost business and gain a greater share of available local work opportunities. Be ready to bounce back when the pandemic is over. Use the downtime to overhaul your company’s marketing strategy and tactics. The majority of ideas mentioned in our previous blog posts are low-cost; so choose which are relevant for your business size, goals and location.

For our part, we are trialing a different cocktail of digital channels to ensure that live calls continue to be sent to clients at previous if not greater volumes.

Image Reproduced With Kind Permission of Aerial Arborists, Tampa

42% of Tree Firms Unaffected By COVID-19

More positively, 42% of tree service businesses mention that their business income is presently unaffected by the Coronavirus pandemic in USA.
Thankfully, only 1% of tree firms are so far being compelled to shut down operations by business closure orders, sometimes referred to as ‘shelter-in-place’ orders.

Research Methodology & Tables

The Research was conducted using Facebook Polls in two separate tree service-related Groups. Polling started on Saturday 28th March. Respondents were presented with a simple question and 6 options from which they could self-select one that best described their current business situation. The question and the responses are listed below. At midnight on Sunday 29th March 2020, the results were collated after some 212 US tree service owners had participated. Responses from international participants were removed from the reported totals to improve survey relevance to the United States.

The Poll Question:

“As a Tree Service Owner, How Is Your Business Being Affected by New COVID-19 Regulations in Your Service Area? Please choose one of the following options that best describes your business situation:”

6 Poll Response Options:

The 6 permitted response options:

Statistical Relevance

We combined the responses from polls in two separate Facebook Groups, both popular among tree service owners. In absolute numbers, 212 participants is a respectable sample size where the results are statistically relevant. Caution was exercised when extrapolating the results for the national picture. This is partly because the respondents have self-selected to answer the poll. In professionally-commissioned research, respondents are chosen from a large sample ‘pool’. This ensures that US tree service companies of various sizes, types and locations would be fully representative of the overall business population in this service niche.

The Joint ISA & TCIA Statement – a reminder

The International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) and the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA) issued a joint statement last week in relation to the viral emergency and the tree service industry. Commendably, it sought to clarify and include the vital elements of the tree industry’s work within the category of ‘Essential Services’. It also sought to encourage the US government at all levels to provide clear directives that ensure tree care companies and arborists can continue to provide vital services in this time of national emergency. The full statement is here in this pdf document.
  

Which are the ‘Essential’ Tree Services?

Essential services are those which ensure the safety of people, the protection of property and the treatment of trees affected or at risk of infestation by invasive tree pests. Hence, hazardous tree removal, hazardous tree limb removal, utility line clearance are all permitted. The fuller list outlines 11 discrete tree-related commercial activities.

What is MarketingDirector.com Doing To Combat COVID-19

All staff at MarketingDirector.com are taking physical isolation and social-distancing recommendations seriously. Unlike our tree service clients, we are better able to work from home as best we can, albeit in isolation from one another.

We are still open for business for tree service clients. This is because most of our digital marketing work can be conducted through home computers. Business is about 15% higher than normal for the number of calls generated from home-bound local prospects needing tree work. We have also switched on a secondary suite of digital channels to generate more calls for clients to account for any call volume volatility.

*Ibisworld confirms there are 184,256 “Tree Trimming Services” businesses in the US as of 2020. Ibisworld’s definition includes residential and commercial tree service businesses offering a full range of tree-related services including removal, pruning, stump-grinding or removal and tree pest control.

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get new customers every month. He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree care sector.

His agency, MarketingDirector.com, only serves the US tree service industry. It specializes in using a unique cocktail of digital marketing techniques proven to drive live telephone leads direct to tree service owners. Its clients enjoy highly-qualified tree work inquiries from prospects in local service areas created for each client on a bespoke basis. Live phone calls are provided on an exclusive basis because they are not sold to anyone else.

If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post Impact of COVID on Tree Service Firms – Survey Results first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

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– Start a Tree Service The Right Way – Why Does It Matter
– 10 Most Important Factors For Tree Service Business Success
– #10. Start with No Debt
– #6. Anticipate & Plan for Unexpected Events
– #2. Get Proper Tree Climbing & Tree Cuttings Skills!
– The Role of Customers in Your Business
– ‘Done For You’ Lead Generation Service
– Get More Customers

There are multiple success factors behind starting a new tree service business and keeping it going. A new tree service owner needs to juggle no less than 15 critical success factors. But which are more important? And why does it matter?

Start a Tree Service The Right Way – Why Does It Matter

It’s so important to get the best possible start to your new tree business. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics report that of the 653,000 businesses started in March 2015, only 330,000 survived to March 2019. That’s a success rate of 50% in 5 years. Winners and losers exist in the tree service industry too, at the same rate.

According to IBISWorld’s report published in May 2019, there are currently 181,400 tree service businesses in operation across the USA. Couple this with the fact that the average lifespan of a small business in USA is around 10 years according to the US Census Bureau, Business Dynamics Statistics, 2014.

With total numbers of tree service businesses reasonably stable, the above statistics mean that around 18,000 brave young men and women will venture into tree service business ownership every year in USA.

10 Most Important Factors For Tree Service Business Success

All 15 success factors were put into a poll hosted by a major Facebook Group of 24,000 tree professionals. Established tree service practitioners then voted for the 10 winning success factors. So here are the critical success factors ranked in reverse order. You MUST focus upon these if you want your young tree service business to survive and flourish:  

In reverse order of importance according to real-life tree service business owners/arborists

10. Start with No Debt

Tree practitioners recommend that you limit your exposure to finance, initially at least. Your expenses and outgoings can be made even more formidable if you have payments to make on machinery, for example. There is no guarantee that you can build your income quickly enough to cover your business expenses further elevated by monthly loan payments.  

Instead, save up for a good quality, new chainsaw and rigging equipment. Start with a reliable, second hand truck and second hand trailer. Then when you can afford it, replace with new for even more reliability. A chipper can come later as can a chipper body truck too.

All the time, save up for a second-hand bucket truck but only when you can afford it and predict a reliable stream of big jobs that would warrant such an expense.

9. Create and Use Proper Bid sheets and Terms of Service/Payment

Don’t copy a dubious template from some other tree firm (who probably copied it from someone else and so on). And never do business on a handshake. Get a decent bid sheet created by your attorney so that your written proposals are expressly linked to your terms of service and payment. In this way, your customer agrees to both the price and your payment terms when they agree and sign your quote. Acceptance of both your price and your terms is vitally important to form a strong contract between the parties (you and your customer). It will give you significant leverage before going legal because a good contract is so much easier to enforce in the courts.

Share your professional training marks and other credentials on your bid sheet. TCIA and ISA membership gives your customer more confidence of getting a professional job. When competing for work, this will help your bid stand head and shoulders above the low cost, uninsured operators out there who might be competing with you for the same job. Result: a higher hit rate of bids to jobs completed and fewer problems when asking for payment.

8. Plan your Business Carefully with a Written Business Plan

A systematic approach is best otherwise your enthusiasm could get the better of you. Get as much advice as you can. Get advice from your local Small Business Administration. A lot of the advice is free. Many SBA’s will even appoint a mentor for you to help with your business planning. A written plan will also be highly beneficial if you do end up seeking finance for heavy equipment.

7. Bid for Profitable Work

The basic principle is bid to make a profit rather than bid to win the work. Work backwards from your expected outgoings & expenses recorded in your cash flow forecast. From this you can work out what you need to earn every month, week and working day.

6. Anticipate & Plan for Unexpected Events

When running your own show, expect to get curve balls thrown at you on a regular basis. Expect your truck to break down at the most inconvenient time, expect a slower than expected start to your business fortunes. Anticipate that you may get injured at work. Assess the impact of each on your cash flow and make due allowance. Either that or put enough savings away to survive a couple of lean months. Also work out what you will do if you get a sudden rush of business. Will you intend to hire more crew, or subcontract the work out to another firm or decline the work. Try and figure out your preferred option and anticipate how you would carry it out if called upon.

5. Be Fully Insured

Aim to start your operation fully insured. This means Workers Compensation Insurance and also General Liability coverage of at least $1million. An insured operation will be much more attractive to a homeowner and it’ll win you more work. It’ll also help with industry accreditations. Insurance is also an essential qualifier if you intend to bid for municipal and utility work. This, in turn, leads to even more business. Yes, insurance can be expensive in view of the 200 tree work related deaths and even more serious injuries each year. But not being insured will slow your business growth and catch up with you sooner or later.

4. Look professional, Be Professional

Take care of how your business is presented to your customers. When doing work in neighborhoods, you will often be under close scrutiny from residents, some of whom could be future customers. As well as professionally-drafted bid sheets, think how else to put your best foot forward.

For example, have you and your crew decked out in clean, branded work wear. Get a logo designed for your firm and print it on t-shirts, overalls, jackets etc. Invest in communications gear for your hard hat so you are not shouting at your ground crew in quiet neighborhoods. Instead, you are whispering to them softly into your microphone. Pay attention to your vehicle signage too as covered in point 1 of our separate article here. It needs to be noticeable from some distance at least your brand and phone number. Add your credentials as you have done on your bid sheets. Result: quiet, efficient, professional looking work and crew increasing your chances of word-of-mouth referrals.

3. Hire & Retain Great Crew

Your crew can make or break your business. Take care to choose and train the right team that works well together. Doesn’t matter if they are groundies or climbers. It’s dangerous work and they have to gel as a team.

Retention is as important as recruitment. It’s tough to hang on to good staff, in this industry. Problems can multiply in winter when trade is slow, especially in the northern U.S. states. Luckily, we have 22 winter tree service marketing ideas for you to keep the phone ringing in the quieter months. This will keep your crew gainfully employed in your tree business year-round.

2. Get Proper Tree Climbing & Tree Cuttings Skills!

Proper tree climbing and tree cutting skills will give you more work, better profitability and fewer work mishaps because a decent skill-set will:

i). Reduce risk of personal injury

ii). Cut lost business days inept operations and injury

iii) Improve your market reputation as a safe, competent operator

No-one argues that tree removal and tree trimming is not one of the most dangerous trades in the country, even more hazardous than roofing. There are countless online examples of failed tree felling incidents, horrible injuries and worse unfortunately. TCIA records around 200 deaths from tree work every year.

Start In Someone Else’s Tree Business …Not Yours

So you must have tree climbing and tree cutting skills to reduce the risk. Personal injury will stall your business progress and put its future at risk. So you simply must get professional training. Go work for the best operation you can find, absorb as much as you can and study for the ultimate ‘climbing arborist’ qualification. This approach will give you the best possible foundation for your young business. Join your local Arborist Society too to network with the professional independents and pick up more, best practice in the industry.

If you’re not allowed to climb trees on the job, show that you have studied the basics to accelerate your learning whilst employed.

As well as reducing the risk, a well-honed skill set will enable you to do a better job for customers. It’ll help you decide when to climb and when to use the bucket. Better service for your customers is the key to a long term, durable business. Build your reputation from the start and it’ll build your business for you …almost.

And Now For The Most Important Factor to Get Right when Starting a Tree Service Business…

1. Build Your Reputation for Excellent Service

This is the top-voted factor of them all. This is because it’s the most sustainable way to achieve tree service business success. Build your reputation for good work and good service. Customers love polite, smiling crew who respect their property whilst working and clean up afterwards. Go the extra mile if it doesn’t make you late for the next job. Set up your job to improve chances of a referral. At the least, make it easy for the customer to leave a testimonial on your website. To accelerate your reputation build, direct the negative reviews to your email inbox and the positive ones to Yelp or Google.

If something goes wrong with the work and it will, make it right so that your customer has little opportunity to leave a negative review. Get this area of reputation management right and your customers will eventually do most of the heavy-lifting to promote your business through positive ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising.

The Role of Customers in Your Business

This simple poll confirms the supremacy of the customer in your business. Of-course, you don’t have a business until you have a few customers. For example, you can’t build a good, local reputation for your business unless you have customers; even then, it takes time to build. You can’t hire and retain the best crew unless you have paying customers.

And you can’t pay yourself, the number 1 shareholder, executive chairman and CEO.

So you’re going to have to get the word out to get the ball rolling when starting a tree service business. The low cost activities include creating an active Facebook Page, Yellow Pages listing (but a small ad can cost between $250 and $450 per month), free Yelp listing. A rudimentary website from a low cost page builder can amplify your efforts. From there, you can consider press ads, radio ads and digital marketing. There are many options from which to choose.

‘Done For You’ Lead Generation Service

If you’re starting a tree service business, you’ll need paying customers. You’ll want a reliable stream of live phone calls from prospective customers in your local service area. Therefore, you should consider a ‘done-for-you’ lead generation service. Compare how well-qualified the calls are, the cost per qualified call, whether the inquiry is exclusive to you or sold to 4 other businesses and whether you can listen back to the calls. Our own phone call service competes strongly with available options as you can see here:

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 15-40 NEW customers per month. He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree care sector.

If you’re interested in learning how John’s tree service leads can help you grow your tree service business, then click on blue button below.

The post Starting a Tree Service Business the Right Way first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

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– 7 Reasons Why Generating New Business Is Problematic
– Get More Tree Service Customers – 7 Choices

Watch out, men. It’s official. More and more women are joining the tree care industry and training to become arborists. The lady in our image today is clearly missing her PPE gear though. Any complaints? Didn’t think so.

Lady arborists – I salute you! OK let’s focus a bit harder and get down to business.

Getting more customers is a challenge that many tree service owner-operators face, especially when they start up or want to increase the rate of business growth.

Based on what we see in this industry, there are 7 common reasons why tree service business owners cannot find customers easily. Generating new business is an all-too common problem area. We shall tackle these 7 reasons first of all. Then, we will outline 7 choices tree service company owners have when implementing marketing and business development in their businesses.

7 Reasons Why Generating New Business Is Problematic

1. High Competition

There are 3,700 tree trimmers and tree removal firms in every US state, on average. What can you, as a tree service business owner, do to rise above this seething mass of competitors? And how do you know whether your marketing intentions will work?

2. Marketing Mistakes

Only half of all small businesses will make their 5th birthday, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The tree service industry is no different. 14% of all small business failures relate directly to marketing problems according to CB Insights. But marketing-related issues such as market need, competition strategy and pricing mean that, actually, more than two thirds of small and medium enterprises fail due to marketing problems.

3. Tree Work is Labor-Intensive

Tree firms employ no more than two employees on average which means the owner probably has an active, hands-on role in the firm. This will leave little time in the day for attention to marketing.

4. Seasonality

In most states, tree firms are busy in the summer and quieter in the winter. So in the summer there’s less perceived need for marketing by the owner. And in winter there’s less money coming in to cover overheads and salaries so there’s less resources to invest in marketing.

5. Media Saturation

The average person in US receives more than 2,900 messages every single day according to Firesnap. So even when the proprietor does something, the results can be drowned out and the results disappointing.

6. Cost of Marketing and Agency Fees

These can be prohibitive once totaled up. A new website alone can easily top $5000 if you get a reputable agency involved. Then there are additional costs of sending paid visitor traffic to the new website. Even Search Engine Optimization can take months before any appreciable impact to be seen. Then there’s the cost of outsourcing your content marketing program. For a new firm, especially, these high costs and slow results can be both daunting and dispiriting.

7. Unknown Power of Integrated Communications

It has been proven time and time again that deploying a select number of media channels at the same time and in a coordinated way has a much better chance at reaching your target audience. Even if tree service owners are aware of this principal, how does he know which of the many non-digital and digital channels to choose and knit together? By the way, we have suggested a stack of relevant non-digital and digital channels to be used as a cohesive whole to flush out considerable benefits of synergy between each channel. Our article entitled “A Digital Marketing Model for your Tree Service Business” available here details a powerful integrated approach specifically for tree service businesses in USA.

Get More Tree Service Customers – 7 Choices

If the above 7 customer acquisition problems resonate at all with your own tree firm, you have 7 clear choices as to how to progress:

1. Do Nothing Different

Not really a viable option because your business will die sooner or later. If you have low overheads, I suppose your COULD survive with a small number of customers. But who wants a business that’s just ticking over. Unfortunately, I have seen many tree businesses that have gone under. As I’ve checked and reviewed contact lists, it’s heartbreaking to see the number of closed websites and abandoned email addresses for closed tree firms.

2. Trial Non-Digital Promotional Channels

There are many ‘old school’ marketing tactics that you might try. However, I have personally picked out 5 that I know still work great in the tree service industry. Consider them as traditional marketing with a modern twist. We detail these 5 channels in detail in our post here. Do just 3 of these together and you will move your business forward – no doubt. By the way, if any tree service firm out there does begin to use Electro Luminescent (EL) truck signage then PLEASE let me know. You’ll be the first in USA and a local hit in your service area.

3. Rely on ‘Word of Mouth’ Advertising

This is also known as Reputation Management whereby you focus more on customer service and customer care. Of-course, you should be doing a good job already if you are serious about the long term survival of your business. But the Word of Mouth route is notoriously slow. Your reputation will take time to build organically. In the meantime, your more proactive competitors have overtaken you. A more active form of reputation management is included in our ‘ideal’ digital marketing model for tree service businesses. This works much better as part of an integrated marketing approach.

4. Take a Crash Course in Digital Marketing

Choose a digital marketing course, study and then implement the unique digital marketing model that we discussed in our popular post here. You will save money but you will still have data, media, hosting and of-course training costs to pay. Most of all, it will take time to study and time to implement it all on your own. This is by no means impossible. However, the balance between training, working on trees for paying customers and putting those digital marketing lessons into practice will not be the faint of heart.

5. Pay Someone To Set Up The Digital Marketing Model

Pay upwards of $20,000 to get someone else to set up the digital marketing model for you. There will be ongoing costs for data, creative, photography, hosting. There will also be copywriting costs unless you’re a natural writer. Bear in mind, your agency won’t write content for you in a hurry and there will be website updates and reputation management elements to build and include too. You’ll need even more resources if you want the agency to do your search engine optimization, search engine marketing (paid search), content strategy and social media posts/ads for you too. An expensive and time-consuming route to take.

6. Hire a Sales and Marketing Manager

Spend at least $25,000 each year to employ full-time marketing help. Someone on the payroll could run your marketing and drum up business. This is the base price of-course. Add to this any media costs, digital channel costs, creative costs and production costs.

7. Engage the Cost-Effective Services of a Ring Master

The boys and girls here at MarketingDirector.com are masters at making the phone ring for your business. No large ‘sunk’ costs; you pay only for qualified calls. It means we take care of new business and you take care of your customers’ trees. Click on the blue button below to find out more and access some free training. Choose this option and you’ll be getting more customers to call your business on a cost-effective basis within 24-72 hours.

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 15-40 NEW customers per month. He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree care sector.

If you’re interested in learning how John’s supply of quality leads can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post Why Can’t Tree Service Business Owners Find Customers Easily? first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

Jump To Section

– An Effective Model For Tree Service Companies
– Great Marketing is Key to the Success of Your Tree Business
– The Digital Marketing Model Explained
– 1. Your Company Website
– 2. Local Target Audience Files
– 3a. Direct Mail
– 3b. Other, Non-Digital Sources of Business
– 4. Email Marketing
– 5. Retargeting
– 6. Telephone
– 7. Reputation Management
– 8. Google My Business
– Outline Costs of the Digital Marketing Model
– Want Something Better and Faster?
– Get More Customers

As discussed in our first blog post, tree service business owners face a stiff headwind when drumming up business locally. We’re familiar with the 6 main reasons why a proprietor in our industry faces difficulties in attracting a steady, reliable stream of customers.

But I don’t want to dwell on these 6 problems. Instead, I would like to propose a comprehensive solution. Let’s say that our simple, pay-as-you-go lead generation service did not appeal to you. We’ve taken a long, hard look at what would work instead for a busy tree service business owner like you.

An Effective Marketing Model For Tree Service Companies

In order to overcome the seemingly intractable problem of securing more customers for your tree business, we propose a bold, new digital marketing model specifically for this industry. It is summarized in the above graphic at the head of this article. 

This tree service marketing model is unique and you won’t it anywhere else. At best, you might come across a random list of digital channels to think about. Ours is different; it is an integrated, workable approach which means that the individual elements support, reinforce and multiply the effect of each other. 

Our model is based on our experience, latest analysis of the tree service industry sector and right up-to-date digital marketing techniques. We have purposely omitted some digital sources of traffic to your website and business phone because they take time to bear fruit and you can lose your shirt in marketing costs if inexperienced. For example, Search Engine Optimization is very much a long term game nowadays and paid search (Search Engine Marketing) can be an alarming money pit in untrained hands. 

Great Marketing is Key to the Success of Your Tree Business

Let’s look at business viability through the lens of a banker for a moment, as I used to do in fact. The three essential pillars keeping a successful business afloat are good finance, solid operations and sound marketing. I have shown before that finance requirements are at ‘low to moderate’ levels compared to other sectors. And operational proficiency is an absolute must for safety reasons. This leaves marketing. 

There’s every reason to believe that the marketing ‘pillar’ is the one that can make or break a tree firm. Marketing excellence will make a tremendous difference to the success of your firm. It has the power to elevate you above the *3,700 tree trimmers and tree movers clamoring for attention and business in your state. (*Source: Ibisworld). 

For those tree service firms determined to grow a dependable source of sales leads, this stack of digital media channels should be considered and deployed in line with the above model. It represents the means to secure exponential growth in your tree service business. We detail each element of the model below.

Impartial Marketing Advice

Let me be clear, at the moment we do not offer any of the digital services mentioned in the model. So I have no axe to grind here. I simply wanted to offer a viable marketing alternative to my pay-as-you-go lead generation service. Then you can make up your mind armed with the best possible information with greater confidence.

The Digital Marketing Model Explained

I will briefly explain each aspect of the model briefly and summarize its potential impact and an outline of costs at the end of this article:

1. Your Company Website

A website is an essential element to your digital marketing endeavors. It’s the main conduit between our suggested sources of visitor traffic and the phone ringing in your office with interested residential consumers. There are at least eight solid (8) reasons why we recommend having a website as part of our tree services marketing model:

1.  Prospects are looking for it!
2. Harnesses and augments consumer interest towards a phone call to your business
3. Captures exposure gained from your NON-digital marketing efforts to generate even more calls
4. Reputation Management
5. Share credentials and accreditation
6. Multiplier effect from careful integration with other digital elements
7. Performance measurement
8. ‘Holy Grail’ of free visitor traffic from search engines!?

I may explore each of these 8 reasons in a separate blog post in more detail if time allows. Suffice to say, there are clear business benefits from having a strong and responsive website for your tree firm.

Point 8. is worth a brief mention, however.

Free Traffic to Your Tree Service Website?

It’s getting harder and harder to magic up free traffic from the search engines. Nowadays, Search Engine Optimization is a long term game with your service pages taking months, even years before one or two appear at the top of the search engine results. And heck, even when you get to the ‘holy grail’ of page one on Google, it’s a very crowded place. For example, Google has created a multitude of its own ‘properties’ on the first page of their search results, all of which rank above your local tree service content.

Click on this snapshot of Google’s search results on a smart-phone for ‘tree removal’ in Florida. The short video illustrates just how crowded search results have become. Even if your website was ranked #1 for ‘tree removal’, it won’t show on the prospects mobile phone screen until she scrolls down some.

Therefore, we recommend that you DO NOT rely upon your web page content floating to the top of the search results at some indeterminate point in the future. You need income now and you need a reliable source of leads in the form of phone calls from potential customers interested in your services. You have truck payments to cover, finance charges on tree cutting machinery, a loan for that new chipper and the expensive charges for Workers Compensation Insurance and other coverage to pay. Your business needs leads and customers now! 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a good source of visitor traffic to your website. However, it’s not ideal for start-ups. SEO is best applied to an established website by practiced professionals. You’ll need patience as it can take time to bear fruit. This article explains how it is possible to grow your tree service business with SEO.

We also recommend that you take advantage of some of Google’s ‘properties’. Read on and we’ll share one in particular which we advocate (point 8. below). After which, we’ll explain how we have an even more cost-effective sales lead engine for you to consider.

2. Local Target Audience Files

This and the next three sections will help you create a traffic feed for your website and calls to your business phone. These sections aim to provide you with a reliable and scalable volume of prospective customers interested in finding our more about the tree services that your business offers.

First you need to carefully define your ideal local market. For which type of customer in which geographical area do you wish to perform your services? For a residential target audience these are likely to be property owners in established, upscale suburbs where trees are appreciated and valued. 

Whichever audience you define, you need to be able to contact them. Two recommended sources of traffic i.e. direct mail and email mentioned below require that you obtain names, addresses and email addresses of your audience so that you can contact them with your service offer, ideally in parallel. 

You need to find good quality local audience files from trusted list providers.

3a. Direct Mail

Direct mail (DM) in the form of postcards can be a powerful source of leads for your local tree service business as we explain in our separate post here. DM has an average response rate of 5.1% when sent to households. This compares to 0.6% for paid search and 0.4% for social media according to the Data & Marketing Association (DMA).

Postcards can generate customer inquiries in two ways:

i). as a source of phone calls direct to your business; and

ii). as web traffic that is converted to phone call leads by your website. This is because up to 44% of those receiving a piece of direct mail will then go to your website to check your brand before calling (Source: Alphagraphics).

Would you rather pay $80,000 or $3,500 for the same number of visitors to your website?

And here’s why direct mail can give you a much lower cost than paid search traffic (Pay Per Click ads). Based on Alphagraphic’s statistic, about 40% of recipients will check your website after receiving a printed postcard from your tree business. A mailing of 10,000 cards would create approximately 4,000 visitors to your website. 

Assume a charge of about $3,500 for creating, printing and posting your mailer. This then equates to a cost of 88 cents per visitor to your website. AND you still have those recipients who didn’t bother visiting your website and phoned straight through to you. 

Compare this to the cost of getting the same website visitor numbers using paid search. The average cost of a pay-per-click ad on Google for a tree service related keyword is $15 to $20 depending on the city you’re searching from. Sourcing 4,000 visitors to your website this way would cost you between $60,000 and $80,000. 

What would you rather pay for 4,000 interested visitors? A reasonable $3,500 or a ruinous $80,000? 

Direct mail, ideally in the form of postcards, is definitely worth a trial in your business.

3b. Other, Non-Digital Sources of Business

Our separate blog post here is devoted to sharing and detailing no less than 5 powerful non-digital sources of phone calls engineered specifically for tree service businesses like yours.

4. Email Marketing

Where email is less effective in terms of absolute response rate, it has one of the best returns on spend at 124%, the DMA assures us. Furthermore, marketing campaigns that use direct mail with just one other digital media channel have an uplift in performance by 118% compared to direct mail use alone. These are the two reasons we have included email as source of traffic to your website and phone calls to your business.

The multiplier effect is boosted by other non-digital promotional channels as we detail in our previous blog post, referenced in 3b. above. This is because it can take multiple touch points of contact with your target audience before triggering action by your prospects.

5. Retargeting

Of-course, only a fraction of the traffic you generate for your website will result in subsequent calls to your business. What if there was a way to talk again to your site’s visitors, all of which have shown interest in your tree services and yet couldn’t quite manage to call your firm. Thankfully, there is a way to get a second bite at the cherry through retargeting. 

Retargeting is an effective and highly targeted online advertising tool. 26% of customers will return to a website through retargeting say OMNI DM. And once there, visitors to your website who have been retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to take action (by calling or buying).

So definitely include retargeting as an integrated part of your communications stack.

6. Telephone

The sum total of all of your marketing efforts and expense are directed at raising calls to your business telephone. Yet, you’d be surprised at how many tree service companies do not answer the phones at all well. We’re in the business of delivering phone call leads so we know what can happen. 

The phone in your office is a vital part of your business. You have to capture all the interest generated from your marketing campaign if there is to be any return on your considerable marketing investment. 

Even if you’re halfway up a tree leading your removal crew, you have to make sure those calls are answered. With today’s technology, virtual offices and call forwarding there is no excuse. If you can’t handle the calls yourself, employ a company or a properly briefed virtual assistant who can.

And you need someone competent enough to answer basic questions about your service. You’ll want more than just a message-taking answering service. Business works well at speed and your prospects want a quality solution fast or they’ll call your competitor. So whoever answers your phones must also be trained to convert those calls to firm appointments either for work or for appraisals if the work is complex/ large. 

7. Reputation Management

Create a clear process for capturing good customer reviews and channeling them to where they can do the most good for your business. Master this quickly in order to:

i). Build trust in the quality of your work among future prospective customers; and 

ii). Use the positive reviews to help generate more business for your company. 

It is also natural for customers’ to feel frustrated when things go wrong with the job as they sometimes do. Rather than let these feelings cause damage to your reputation, help your customers give vent to them in a controlled way as follows. 

Leverage Positive Reviews

To manage both types of customer review, we recommend that you proactively invite customer feedback after you finish the work for them. Having a website helps. Create a ‘Leave a Review” page on your website. On this page, give your customers a binary choice along the lines of:  

a). “Are you happy with our work? If so please leave a review here” 

The link forwards your happy customer to a page of instructions whereby he or she leaves a review using their Google account sign-in a positive review gets ‘attached’ to your Google My Business (GMB) listing (see next section). This boosts your online presence in at least three ways; firstly by lifting your GMB presence to the top of the listing in the Google’s 1st page properties section; secondly by raising the organic search presence of your website’s content. This is because positive reviews are a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm. A third benefit is that you can copy these positive reviews verbatim to populate your customer testimonials page in your website and increase your credibility and consumer trust in your offer still further.

Capture Negative Reviews

b). “Could our work have been better? If so, please leave a review here”

Instead of sending the unhappy customer to your Google review page, send them instead to a customer feedback form. Set it up so any negative reviews get sent to you automatically by email. In this way, negative experiences do not dilute your positive and public review ratings. Instead, valuable but potentially damaging views are captured for use by you. Then you can choose to improve those aspects of your tree service that cause concern, at your discretion.

Send your customers a text message after each job. 

People will generally follow the path of least resistance. So at the end of each job, send your customer a simple text inviting their views “Please tell us how we performed today” plus a short code link to the “Leave a Review” page on your website.

8. Google My Business

Initially, you won’t have much of a chance of appearing in the top search engine results page which is page 1. You can accelerate your presence with a local listing at the top of Google’s search results locally with a Google My Business listing. It stands alone as a source of traffic, can also improve your own website’s online profile and can also help make your customer reviews visible to other prospective customers. For a small, ambitious company with limited resources, a Google My Business listing is an essential adjunct to having a website for two reasons:

i). Helps your online presence by helping your firm to appear in the local listings section of the first page of Google; and 

This is because MarketingDirector.com can provide your tree service business with a steady, predictable stream of local, potential customer calls to your business on a low cost, pay-as-you-go basis. There are no upfront costs and no contracts and no massive time-sink in making the above model work.

Interested in a simple, reliable delivery of phone calls to your business without the hassle? Click on the blue button below to discover much more and fix a time for a chat.

ii). Harnesses your customers’ positive tree work reviews (see section 7. above) that you can also highlight on your website in your testimonials section.

Outline Costs of the Digital Marketing Model

There’s no doubt that you would do well to explore the above model for your tree firm and I commend it to you. It is based on my experience from running a small business, my experience in running marketing strategy and operations for several international banks, marketing best practice and proven marketing techniques. I have backed up everything with performance statistics so you can have a good idea of the likely results.

Nevertheless, it will cost you time and around $20,000 to implement in full unless you do large chunks of it yourself. And even supposing you found a good local agency to implement the model, they would seek to engage with you at every step in the process. They would also expect you to write all the content or at the very least give them a clear creative direction for each of the channels mentioned in the model. This would lead to a massive drain on your time and this becomes a major issue when you are trying to grow a small business.

We could make a very good living implementing this model to the 185,000 US tree service businesses. But we chose not to. We found an even more efficient method to create leads for you. This cost-efficient and time-efficient method will work harder for you than the customized digital marketing model that we have shared with you in this article.

Want Something Better and Faster?

The model is solid, workable but will take time and treasure to implement. If you wish, you can set aside our model and save the time and cost of implementing it.

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 15-40 NEW customers per month. He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree care sector.

If you’re interested in learning how John’s quality tree leads can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post A Digital Marketing Model for your Tree Service Business first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

Jump To Section

– Tree Service SWOT Summary
– Marketing in the Tree Service Sector is Vital
– Different Markets Demand Different Marketing Approaches
– First, Get Noticed In The Real World
– 5 Best Non-Digital Marketing Tactics For Tree Firms
– 1. Tree Service Trucks as Mobile Billboards
– 2. Display your Certifications
– 3. Business Referrals
– 4. Yard Signs
– 5. Postcards (plus 5 Postcard Content Ideas)
– Integrated Marketing
– Get More Customers

Marketing is particularly important in the tree service industry. The reasons for our conviction are founded in our own *SWOT analysis for the US tree services industry here .

Tree Service SWOT Summary

Summing up previous blog post on our unique *SWOT analysis, the US tree services sector is a healthy $21bn market. It is also flourishing at a healthy growth rate of 6.7% every year over the last 5 years. Yet the main challenge is the sheer number of small tree service operators. In fact, there are more than 60 on average in each of the 3007 counties in the United States. Most tree firms employ no more than two full time employees so scaling such a business is a systemic issue.

*SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Business fundamentals – Operations, Finance & Marketing

Safe, operational excellence is essential for long term growth. Unsafe, untrained and non-qualified operators will soon remove themselves from the competitive landscape and sometimes from the gene pool too, unfortunately. The industry requires only ‘low to moderate’ financing. The third business essential, marketing, can make all the difference to the success or otherwise of your tree business. Master this or master the means to secure a steady stream of leads and you will have the foundation for a thriving and growing business.

Marketing in the Tree Service Sector is Vital for 3 Reasons

1. Sales leads cannot be taken for granted. Inquiries from prospective customers have to be actively driven and maintained at a strong level.
   
2. The highly competitive local market in tree services demands a sound marketing approach to help your firm stand head and shoulders above the others.
   
3. Those companies who excel at marketing will have a successful business. This is because the other two fundamentals in tree services of operations and finance are an essential prerequisite and reasonably straightforward, respectively.
   

Choosing Your Preferred Customer

Before we rush to list non-digital marketing ideas for you to mull over, a word about your target customers.

One of the most important elements of your business strategy is marketing segmentation. Segmentation and targeting tests even the brightest marketing minds because markets are far from homogeneous. It is also one of those difficult marketing things to do properly. So marketers can be tempted to gloss over its importance and jump to conclusions about the ideal target market based on their own flawed self-reference criterion.

Focusing on one customer type, at least initially, is important. This is because your reputation can build quickly if you channel your business energies into one service for one type of customer. How often have you heard: “Stick to the Knitting.” Lots of times, I hope and for good reason. Spreading yourself thinly over several customer segments is a recipe for business failure.

Most tree service start-ups begin with tree trimming and removal for residential customers. In time, they graduate to municipal and commercial customers. This happens after they acquire the equipment and staff to reliably deliver an agreed set of services to contract.

In the case of commercial tree work, additional skills are needed when offering services on credit. Poor debtor management can easily kill a business.

Different Markets Demand Different Marketing Approaches

For Residential Customers B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing:

      – large audience

      – local marketing

      – cost effectiveness is key from lower transaction values

For Commercial & Municipal Customers B2B (Business to Business) marketing: 

      – smaller audience

      – relationship approach

      – personalized

      – networking

In this article, we choose to focus upon marketing tactics that are most relevant for a residential target market.

Ever notice that a lot of top five or top ten lists of tree marketing techniques are all about digital media? If so, did you also notice how the authors are writing for digital marketing agencies? Go figure. We take a contrarian view because these digital agency authors often overlook highly relevant and effective non-digital channels.

First, Get Noticed In The Real World

We say why not get noticed in the real world as well as online. With this in mind, we will now detail 5 NON-digital marketing tactics that all tree service companies should consider implementing. 

These have been prioritized from a much larger list. Our selection uses the strategic insight from our SWOT study as a filter. In my next blog post, I’ll share my top digital marketing techniques for those with tree care companies. In the next post, we shall also share how to knit together both offline and online marketing techniques as a cohesive whole to win in your local market.

It can take up to 18-20 touch-points to reach a customer for the first time (Source: Compumail). So we recommend that you at least trial 4 or more of these 5 ideas at the same time:

5 Best Non-Digital Marketing Tactics For Tree Firms

1. Tree Service Trucks as Mobile Billboards

Those big, beautiful chipper-bodied trucks of yours can help your tree firm stand out from a crowded jumble of competitors. Remember our SWOT tells us that you’re fighting for business from 60 plus competitors in your county alone. Your large and tangible street presence can easily be augmented with bright, bold messaging of your:

• Logo and/or Company Name
• Phone Number
• Web address
• Industry accreditation roundels
• If room, add your key service areas e.g. tree trimming, tree removal, tree care
• Graphics which complement your firm’s brand identity

Of all these elements, ensure that your company name and phone number are most visible. Ideally, they should be readable from a distance of 60 feet when your truck is moving at 40 mph.

Your truck signage should be created professionally and vinyl wrapped by experts. Nowadays, the vinyl used resists degradation by ultraviolet (UV) light and will last up to 10 years. This means they are a very cost-efficient way of advertising your business for one up-front fee.

Reflective Vinyl Vehicle Signage option

If you’re going to the expense of getting your truck vinyl wrapped, ask for a quote on a Reflective Vinyl option. Such specially engineered films have been originally designed for use in high performance reflective road signs and are mostly suited to flat surfaces. But that could suit your large chip truck with flat, straight metal sides quite well. 

Examples of high-performance reflective films include 3M’s Diamond Grade product that captures scattered, ambient light and reflects it back towards the viewer. I first used this particular 3M film to successfully capture attention in a new design of roadside teller machines that I worked on in the early noughties. Sections of reflective film can be easily incorporated into your vinyl wrap. These high-impact inserts will pick out your logo and also your website or company name and phone number on the side of your trucks. Not many tree service firms go the extra mile in this way, so this will help raise your profile in your service area.

The benefits are:

        – greater notice-ability especially in low light conditions
        – low maintenance
        – novelty to help you stand out from an ocean of tree service competitors

Electroluminescent (EL) Vehicle Signage option

Going a step further and your signage could be lit with the most energy-efficient light source on the planet …and beyond. It’s the very same technology used by NASA in the International Space Station due to the very light weight and ultra efficient energy consumption of electroluminescent (EL) panels.

Imagine being the first and only tree service truck in your service area to be illuminated at dusk and when it’s dark. EL panels work very well in low/no light conditions. They are flexible too and 3 times thinner than a credit card which means they can be wrapped around complex surfaces.

EL signage emits negligible heat and consumes tiny amounts of 12 volt electricity. They can even be left switched on all night long, quietly but brilliantly advertising your business. The panels can flash on and off too, optionally. We recommend that you first check your local driving regulations as the flashing option could be a little too noticeable to other road users.

They are a little more expensive than both regular vehicle signage and reflective films due to the wiring and protection necessary. Nevertheless, the main benefits of EL panels for your tree firm are:

i). Competitive edge – help you stand head and shoulders above your local competition on the street.

ii). PR Value – become the talk of the town with your trick illuminated truck signage.

ii). Visibility – advertising that gets seen works the hardest, especially on a medium that you own.

The EL images and video are reproduced here with the kind permission of Mr. David Lennon, the proprietor of LumaMedia International, a quality purveyor of such panels that is located in Oregon, USA. Hit him up for a very reasonably cost quote for your tree service truck:

LumaMedia International, Inc.

Office: 702-202-2170

www.lumamediaintl.com

EL Signage On A Realty Vehicle 

2. Display your Certifications

Being a member of a recognized industry body can help to give your tree firm instant credibility. Trust levels among customers and prospects are likely to increase if they see the symbols of accreditation next to your company name.

For example, membership of the Tree Care Industry Association TCIA is at a very reasonable cost and has a host of benefits and training for members. In order to gain entry to this recognized trade association, all you need is to prove you have a tree care business and proof of adequate insurance.

The best part is that there are only 2300 tree firms as TCIA members worldwide. From our SWOT analysis (above), we know that there are 185,000 tree firms in US alone. This means that if you are a paid-up TCIA member, less than one in 50 will be able to display this accreditation in your crowded service area. Heck, you could be the only tree firm in your county to be a TCIA member!

Similarly, if you are an ISA-certified arborist, reflect your membership of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) with justifiable pride on your truck. Include and even on other materials such as uniforms and business stationery.

3. Business Referrals

Reach out to local landscapers and lawn contractors operating in your vicinity with a view to exchanging leads for business. Many will be glad that you did because the need for new business is widespread among business owners. There is overlap between tree service and landscaping business services but often landscapers won’t have access to the specialist knowledge, skills and equipment that you have and vice versa. You can also speak to local lawn experts and ask them to look for specific tree problems on their customers’ properties which your firm could solve. 

For the arrangement to work well over time, there will need to be a healthy exchange of leads between parties on a semi-frequent basis. If this doesn’t work well for your referrer, you could always offer a cash incentive instead.

Ibisworld in their latest look at the tree trimming industry suggest that much of the growth in the sector over the last 5 years has been due to property development and construction. So it will pay to also make yourself known to local builders and developers in your county as well.

There are local business organizations that can help encourage such referrals. Business Network International (BNI) is an example. The annual fees can cause a sharp intake of breath. However, the fees are tax deductible and if your local BNI chapter has at least one builder or landscaper in its midst, membership could pay dividends. The meetings usually take place once a week and start early in the morning. I used to find it enjoyable to swap stories (and leads) over a hearty breakfast when I was a member.

Here’s a useful secret – many BNI chapters will allow you to try a few meetings before making you pay the annual fee. And there could be several chapters in your service area! 

4. Yard Signs

Say that you are performing tree services in a neighborhood where you would really like to work again. So why not leave your calling card before you pack up from the job? Or in your case, leave a ‘calling poster’. For this you’ll need to get some low-cost yard signs printed and mounted, say 30 inches wide by 20 inches tall.

Don’t crowd your lawn poster with too much detail. ‘Less is more’ when a message is being read from even a short distance away. Include your company name, your phone number and, if space, a simple message. These simple but powerful signs can be inserted into your customer’s front lawn when you’re doing work. They often stay in place for weeks and will be visible to passers-by on foot or even when driving slowly down a suburban street.

The yard signs will amplify local name recognition of your tree service brand. Getting your company’s name out there is essential to rise above the highly competitive landscape in your service area. And spending a dollar or two on these signs, less if ordered in bulk, will be well worthwhile for a few one thousand dollar jobs later in the season.

Always seek prior permission from the property-owner, of-course; the vast majority of your customers won’t mind a jot. 

5. Postcards

Some so-called marketing experts denounce postcards as a viable medium for lead generation. I know for a fact that they have wrongly dismissed one of the most effective direct mail channels for B2C (Business to Consumer) marketing.

For example, there is recent video proof of a landscaper in Texas achieve a Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) of more than 3,200% using postcards alone. The ANA | DMA Response Rate Report 2018 has further proof of postcards’ potency as a direct mail marketing tool. The report claims that recipient response rates of direct mail are nine (9) times that of email and paid search.

This is why we advocate postcards. And if you follow some simple rules, then creative, printing and postage is least expensive for postcards compared to any other form of direct mail.

There are other reasons why we can recommend postcards with confidence. USPS says that the volume of physical mail deliveries has fallen by 29.8% between 2006 and 2017 (Source: Statista). So a colorful, personalized postcard is going to receive more attention than it might have done so in the past.

Also a simple postcard message absolutely suits the average human attention span of 8 seconds, doesn’t it? Convinced? OK, how should you use post cards. Postcards can be used by a tree service business for customer acquisition, customer retention and repeat business too.

Postcards for customer acquisition

#1 Postcard Idea: ‘Before and After’

On a sunny day, take some good photographs of recent tree work of which you are particularly proud. On the postcard, share the visual results of your beautiful tree trimming job both before you start and after you have finished and tidied up. Use the same approach to your tree removal or stump grinding work. Mention your company name, website and phone number along with your industry credentials, of-course.

If you’re just starting out in business, perhaps include an introductory offer of a time-limited discount as well. Then send your postcards to a carefully selected group of prospective customers with property (and trees) in your service area.

Postcards for repeat business

Postcards can also help to encourage repeat business from your customers. A 5% increase in customer retention yields profit increases of between 25% and 96% (Source: Small Business Trends). So work at reminding your existing tree service customers that you can help them in their yard, all year round. As tangible items with interesting photos and graphics, your postcards have a good chance of being kept by the addressee for later reference.

Here are some suggested themes for cards that can be sent out every month or every quarter to your existing clients:

#2 Postcard Idea: Common Physical Tree Problems

The front of your card would show printed images of the tree problems you can help solve e.g. hollow trees, common tree pests, leaning, misshapen or badly trimmed trees. The text on the reverse would simply say that you can help solve the problem graphically shown on the front along with your company brand, contact and accreditation details.

#3 Postcard Idea: Common But Solvable Tree Diseases

For the arborists among you, the front of the card could share pictures of tree species with their diseased leaves with the headline “Have a tree that looks like this?” The reverse could show details of your qualified solutions and an offer for a free or discounted inspection of trees in your yard.

#4 Postcard Idea: Beautiful Local Trees

Front of card to share pictures of beautiful, well maintained examples of local tree species and a headline which asks “Want your live oak to look like this”? Text on the reverse could hammer home the financial advantage of well-kept trees and an outline of your long term and repeat tree care solutions.

#5 Postcard Idea: Less Well-Known Tree Services

The pictorial side of the postcard would show services you could provide that your customer may not know about e.g. tree pest control, deep root irrigation, tree mulching, tree transplanting, stump grinding etc.

Hey, how about you test all 5 ideas in a small area and see which ones attract the most calls over two or three month period.

Integrated Marketing

The best marketing communication models tap into the power of integrating messages across relevant media to optimize the desired number of touch points for a given audience. This involves creating a coordinated series of complementary messages in a few carefully selected media to ensure your audience sees your offer not just once but on several occasions; reinforcing the message in prospect’s minds on each occasion.

So our next blog post will address the top 5 DIGITAL marketing techniques/channels best suited for tree service outfits and their residential target market. It will build upon this NON-digital list. And we’ll explain how you could combine your direct mail messaging, email marketing and your website to build upon each other to increase the benefits of synergy and message integration.

Don’t Have Time To Implement?

But if it all sounds a little too much in terms of time and budget, try our pay-as-you-go service instead. It will feed a steady and reliable stream of customer inquiries to your tree business every week. Click on the blue button below to arrange a conversation. Let’s get to work together. 

I look forward to working with you.

John Hackwood

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 15-40 NEW customers every month.  He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree care sector. 

If you’re interested in learning how John can help you grow your tree service business with high-buyer-intent tree service leads then click on blue button below.

The post 5 NON Digital Marketing Tactics For Your Tree Service Business first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.

Jump To Section

– Tree Service Marketing – Back To Basics
– 3-legged Stool
– 1. Tree Service Operations MUST Be Strong
– 2. Finance Is Manageable
– 3. That Leaves Marketing…
– Your 2 Main Marketing Challenges
– 5 More Reasons Why Attracting Customers Is Hard
– Hope On The Horizon

Tree Service Marketing – Back To Basics

Before deciding what type of tree service marketing we wanted to provide clients in USA, we went back to basics and took a long, hard at the industry.

It crossed our mind that perhaps tree contractors could survive perfectly well with little external marketing support. For example, maybe they could get by with ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising and the occasional referral. This is true for well-established firms with years in the market behind them.

The truth was revealed when we started talking to tree company proprietors. Several shared how difficult it was to get started and gain enough work to keep their young business afloat. Others said that it remains a struggle to generate new leads and calls from prospective customers on a consistent basis.

We found that there are just too many tree service business owners having a hard time. So we dug a little deeper to discover why. A summary of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis in the tree service sector is shown in the above graphic. We have based our own service solution on this analysis.

How MarketingDirector.com Used This Analysis

Based on this analysis, we decided to offer a no-nonsense pay-as-you-go type marketing service. In this way, you can rely on an exclusive, cost-effective and accountable tree service lead generation solution. As a result, you will build up a large customer base quickly to help you become the first choice provider in your service area. Look after these customers well and they will return to you time and time again in the future.

How Tree Service Owners Can Use These Unique Insights

Tree service owners can use the information here is to create their own marketing strategies, tailored to their special circumstances. Our next blog posts outline some non-digital tree service marketing strategies and a highly-effective, integrated digital marketing model for the tree service industry, respectively.

3-legged Stool

I used to be a banker in the City of London, England. When assessing the viability of a business (and their chances of repaying their loans), we knew the enterprise needed 3 strong legs of a stool to keep afloat and flourish:

1. Excellent Operations i.e. quality, effectiveness and efficiency of operations
   
2. Strong Finance and Financials i.e. equipment financing, good debtor management, positive cash flow and retention of earnings for future growth
   
3. Effective Marketing i.e. sound service/product mix, rising sales, strong customer attraction and retention strategies

Problems in any one of the three ‘legs’ was usually a good predictor of problems with the business later on. Let’s apply this same breakdown to a tree service business. It will help us understand why effective marketing needs to be a core skill to survive in a very competitive green market.

1. Tree Service Operations MUST Be Strong

See the last-listed ‘Threat’ in our above SWOT graphic. In such a dangerous industry, any active tree service contractor will require a good level of operational competence. We do not under-estimate the complexity of operations, training staff, insurance, licensing and mastery of technical skills in operating dangerous equipment at height. It’s just that inept operators would soon eliminate themselves due to injury or legal action. It’s not an option to have anything less than good operational proficiency in a tree service business.

2. Finance Is Manageable

As we can see from last-listed Strength in our SWOT analysis, financing a tree service business is more straightforward than in other industries. This is because it exhibits ‘low to moderate capital intensity’ with only around $0.10 being spent on capital equipment for every dollar earned. It means that access to finance need not be a limiting factor in the success of a tree firm. We do recognize, though, that the tree trimming business must generate sufficient cash flow to make the repayments on any finance. This is where problems do arise unless a steady stream of customers can be acquired and services performed.

3. That Leaves Marketing…

With the first two legs of the stool either a given or manageable, the reliance on marketing logically increases. Greater weight must therefore be placed on the 3rd leg of the stool, marketing, to enable a tree service business to survive and thrive. But there’s more.

From US Small Business Trends and CB Insights data, more than half of the top 10 causes of all small business failure are related to marketing:

– No market need: 42%
– Ran out of cash: 29%
– Not the right team: 23%
– Got out-competed: 19%
– Pricing / Cost issues: 18% (Pricing is part of the marketing mix)
– User un-friendly product: 17%
– Product without a business model: 17%
– Poor marketing: 14%
– Ignore customers: 14%; and
– Product mistimed: 13%

This data strongly indicates that green service businesses face a stiff headwind in terms of securing enough customers. Strong sales turnover is vital to keep any business operation viable.

Massive Competition

Ibisworld tells us that in 2018 there are around 184,739 tree trimming and removal businesses in USA. That’s an average of 3,700 in every US state. This equates to more than 60 tree service companies and contractors in every one of USA’s 3007 counties. Naturally, more populous US counties will attract a higher-than-average number of tree businesses.

Your 2 Main Marketing Challenges

a. How to stand out from the 60+ competitors based in your county

b. How to get more than your fair share of tree service customers through effective promotion

The answer involves you becoming a marketing expert OR paying an advertising agency to set everything up hopefully in the right way and not-too-expensively either. Or does the answer lie elsewhere? Perhaps through letting a lead generation agency, such as Marketingdirector.com, supply you with a steady stream of customers on a pay-as-you-go basis.

5 More Reasons Why Attracting Customers Is Hard

1. You told us so – Our anecdotal evidence from conversations with your fellow tree service owners is that a significant number of tree businesses are suffering from poor sales.

2. Brimful of competitors – The marketing effort required to get your tree service business to stand-out and get noticed from the vast multitude of small operators in your vicinity will be significant.

3. Managing digital proliferation – Your marketing challenge is compounded by the increasing technical nature of today’s marketing tactics and by the proliferation of paid digital and social media channels to market.

4. Seasonality – You must already know that tree work is seasonal in nature. In late fall, business dies off by at least 30%. It doesn’t start picking up again until late February/March unless there’s storm damage clean-up work. Many tree companies do alternative work in winter such as snow removal in the Northern States.

You and I know the reality is that tree care can extend all year long. Tree pest control and pruning can all take place when the growing season is over. How do you communicate this in the quiet months?

5. Many hats – The small average size of a tree company means the proprietor is wearing many hats. His time is at a premium for the implementation and testing of all the necessary marketing tactics required for success.

Hope On The Horizon

Hey, it’s not all doom and gloom. The industry is valued at a lucrative $21bn a year, is growing at a rate of more than 6% over the last 5 years. Demand for tree services of many flavors has been strong partly due to the COVID-19 epidemic; more people at home staring at the trees in their yards etc. Nevertheless, ensuring that you get your fair share of these customers remains a challenge for most tree firms at some point in their company’s evolution, if not now.

In the following blog posts, I will take this analysis further. I will also share several low-cost and straightforward non-digital and digital marketing solutions that are working today. I will show you how the elements can work together so you benefit from a positive, synergistic effect. On top of this, I will reveal a unique and effective tree service marketing model which will work if you can put in the time and cash up-front.

However, we have something even better for you…

My agency, MarketingDirector.com, can secure your tree firm between 15 to 40 new customers per month in your service area. We specialize in making the phone ring only for tree service businesses and arborists. There are no upfront fees. There’s no wait and there’s no contract; just a steady, dependable supply of potential customers interested in your services. Tree service demand generation at its very best.

John Hackwood 

John Hackwood helps tree service owners get 15-40 NEW customers every month.  He is an expert at helping them get clients using proprietary methods and making things super simple to understand. He has been a marketing professional since 1988 and is using this considerable experience to help small businesses in the US tree care sector. 

If you’re interested in learning how John’s high-quality tree leads can help you grow your tree service business then click on blue button below.

The post Why Great Marketing Is So Important in the Tree Service Industry first appeared on MarketingDirector.com.