Execute a Marketing Plan for Your Landscaping Company
I like to think of marketing as air cover for the sales team. While it's unlikely that a single social media post, or even a postcard, will be all it takes to close a $10,000 landscape installation when done right, your marketing should be consistently driving leads into the top of your sales funnel, then your sales team can take it from there.
In July, I gave you three questions to ask as you refine your marketing efforts to ensure that you speak to the right prospects for what you and your team want to accomplish. It always starts with a marketing plan, and now is a great time to work on the plan for 2023. When you've identified who you're speaking to and what type of work will be the priority, it's just about planning content.
First, if you haven't been diligent about taking pictures or videos of job sites throughout the year, create a plan for that this week. You'll need visual media through every season eventually, so capture it as the seasons pass and save it all somewhere you and your team can come back to it quickly.
Next, lay out what you'll do for marketing weekly. For Grunder Landscaping, we try to do:
- 2-3 postcard mailings in the Spring and Early-Summer. With a budget set aside for a couple more if they're needed.
- 2-3 posts on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn per week.
I then use Smartsheets to fill in content weekly and post by post. You can use Excel, or whatever project-planning tool your team is used to, to do the same. In my marketing planning sheet, I capture:
- The date the marketing will go live
- The caption/text that goes with the post
- Notes on the image or video that will go with it
- Whether the text and image have been approved or are still in draft
- A column to track when the marketing piece is live
This helps us stay organized and gives me one spot I can return to if I need to look back on what we've marketed in future months or years.
Then, we create all the materials and deploy the marketing at the right times. It's not uncommon for our plans to shift, so the marketing plan is always fluid. I'm constantly adjusting, rearranging our schedule, and adding additional posts or mailers based on sales data. Having this structure already set helps to keep it all organized, and it is especially helpful with planning out the images and videos I need to capture or collect and when I need them by.
As you plan for all things 2023 this winter, don't overlook the need for a marketing plan. Thinking through how you will market your services now can help fill the top of your funnel with quality leads exactly when you need them so your company can hit your goals. This will be especially important if the economy shifts and we have to work a little harder to get leads than we've had to in the past two years.
I'll go more in-depth on how you can create a marketing plan that aligns with your sales goals and supports your sales team in their efforts during Not Just Order Takers: Sales and Marketing Efforts to Drive Business Growth, No Matter the Economy at GROW! 2023 in San Antonio, TX on February 28-March 2. We have a fantastic event planned with in-depth and tactical break-out sessions, a behind-the-scenes tour of Summit Landscape & Design, and an agenda full of opportunities for learning and networking with some of our favorite people.
I hope to see you in Texas!
Emily Lindley
Content & Events Manager, The Grow Group
Marketing Manager, Grunder Landscaping Co.