Starting a gardening business and maintaining a steady list of clients can be difficult. Trying to expand your gardening business when you’re just getting started can be a challenge as well. However, with the proper approach and knowledge, you can find ways to increase your visibility, diversify your service offerings, and cater to a wider audience. In this article, we’re going to give you a few tips any business can use to take their gardening offerings to the next level.
Use the Power of Social Media
Since gardening is highly visual by nature, using social media to increase your visibility is one of the easiest ways to increase awareness about your services and showcase your work. Try to join as many gardening discussion groups about gardening and share your expertise. This will spark the curiosity of other people and they might refer someone to your services or use them yourself after you’ve shared some advice with them.
Use Instagram to display your best work and make sure you use hashtags properly. Also make sure that you have a nice blog in place to answer people’s questions and show your expertise as well.
Video is also a great medium for anything gardening related. But don’t use it to simply peddle your services; give some useful maintenance and DIY tips. If you manage to be recognized as a pro on YouTube, then people will usually gravitate towards you and your service. Just make sure that the videos are nicely presented and that you do some leg work to promote them as well.
Offer a Loyalty/Referral Program
A loyalty or referral program is also a great way to keep your current clients happy and gain some new clients as well. Ask your existing clients to join your loyalty program and you’ll be able to hit them up with special offers and discounts for referring new people or simply for being regulars. This will allow you to have direct access to your clients whenever you have new offers or when you’re making transitions between the seasons for instance. It’s also a great way to introduce new products and services here as well.
Get Your Own Private Label Products
If you’re using a lot of product, why not go for your own private label brand? Getting your own brand isn’t as complicated as many may think, and it will actually allow you to not only make your business look more professional, but alsogive you a whole new different stream of income as well. Some companies will allow you to use their products, whether it’s a foaming solution, turf colorant, grass paint or soil surfactant, as well as put your name on it. All you have to do next is decide the pricing and see how you could price your items, so you can get a nice margin in return.
Not only will they give your business an air of professionalism when using the products on jobs, they will also allow you to promote your brand indirectly through your products. You could even completely transition to only selling your private label products if they’re a big success. However, you have to make sure that you get your products from a great source. After all, these will represent your brand, and if your products are sub-par, this will ultimately reflect badly on you. Try to go with reputable companies like AmegA Sciences USA who have an extensive track record for top of the line products, including fertilizers and foaming solutions and water conditioners. They will supply you with anything you might need for your business, whether you’re looking for specialty fertilizers, lake and pond dyes, or different agrochemicals. Your clients will then associate the quality of your products with your service, which will ultimately benefit your brand.
Consider Franchising
Do you think your business is franchiseable? Starting a franchise could be a great way to gain more recognition and change your whole business model as well. If you want to go that route, you first have to make sure that it’s actually feasible and that you’re ready to deal with all the administrative load that comes with it. You should also make sure that you weigh the pros and cons of franchising first and check if you have the funds to do so.
Starting your franchising could allow you to step back from gardening work and switch to franchise management instead. However, you have to make sure that you keep your franchisees’ interests at heart and make sure that they don’t cannibalize themselves. Make sure you have clear territory policies to make sure that they don’t pile up on top of each other and compete directly for clients. Also, make sure that you have a great franchisee package, informational resources and services, and reasonable franchise fees.
Use the Power of SEO to Your Advantage
The amount of content that can be created around gardening is quasi infinite. And any type of niche that deals with specific expertise will usually have less of a challenge when it comes to SEO. Make sure that you always keep your site fresh with new content. Whether it’s simple tips on how to protect your lawn and plants for the winter or how to pick the proper leaf blower, the possibilities are almost endless.
And don’t hesitate to guest blog on other sites as well and share your expertise. Most home-related blogs will love to have extra expert knowledge on something like gardening and they will be more open to working with you since you aren’t competing directly with them. Guest blogging is one of the best ways to gain access to a whole new audience and get some traffic to your site. It will also increase the number of links back to your site and improve your SEO rankings as well.
And make sure that you don’t neglect your local SEO either. Gardening is a very local business at its core, and making sure that you have your local SEO on lock is essential if you want to increase your visibility and have a leg up on your competition.
Making sure that your contact information is consistent across the internet is one of the most important points of sound local SEO. The more consistent your NAP information is (name, address, phone number), the easiest it will be for your clients to find you when conducting searches on the local level.
This also means going the extra mile to make sure that you provide the absolute best service possible and that you gather as much positive feedback as you can. If you started on a bad note though, do not panic, as there are always ways to turn things around. First, make sure that you truly commit to offering quality. Next, address the issues and don’t make excuses for them. Answer the critics and show that you’re actually working on the issue. Now, make sure that you encourage your satisfied customers to leave great feedback. Since you should have a loyalty program by now, simply sending them a nice follow up text asking them for their input and feedback will be enough. Satisfied customers will be more than happy to sing your praises and help you turn your brand image around.
Taking your gardening business to the next level can be done if you’re ready to do the necessary leg work and have a proper course of action. These few tips should allow you to increase your visibility, client base, and ultimately, your bottom line.
