Accounting
How to Grow Your Landscape Client Base – Including Retailers
Like accountants, landscapers have a busy season and a not-so-busy season, which happens to be nearly opposite of yours. How can you focus your marketing and lead generation efforts during your busiest time of the year to gain new clients?
Sep. 19, 2017
Like accountants, landscapers have a busy season and a not-so-busy season, which happens to be nearly opposite of yours. How can you focus your marketing and lead generation efforts during your busiest time of the year to gain new clients? Here are some strategies.
Host an employee classification seminar in in January, before you get too busy and after their busy season. Share tips on how to correctly classify employees to help them avoid misclassification payroll mistakes and potential fines for the upcoming season.
In addition, you could feature a multi-part workshop series focusing on landscapers’ pain points, like business growth and what that entails, including business planning, budgeting, legal and compliance, equipment financing, and business development. If you have a S.C.O.R.E. organization or small business administration organization near your office, ask to host a series of workshops in conjunction with them.
Text messaging will be key for business owners and employees in this less-traditional working environment. Monetize an email subscription plan to help them keep tabs on payroll and sales tax due dates throughout the year. Rather than generic information, here are some more strategic items to consider:
- Employment taxes;
- Information about tax returns (prep and status);
- Tax requirements and changes in regulation;
- Independent contractor responsibilities;
- Quarterly estimated tax payments;
- Tips about increasing business efficiencies, especially in retail;
- Links to videos or podcast tips that address common pain points; and
- New services your firm is offering.
Apps that landscapers can download for free offering QuickBooks tips, a tax payments calendar, easy document uploads for receipts and tax documents, and business management tips could be a winner. Consider partnering with another provider to offer document scanning and PDF conversion. Here is a list of the top 2017 Mobile Scanning Apps from PC Magazine.
Video is more popular with men than women, according to FortuneLords, YouTube viewers within the U.S, are 38 percent female and 62 percent male. Informative, yet funny, videos are often more well-received than information-only videos. Interviews are also easy videos to create. Invite an existing landscaping client to share his/her highs and lows and how your firm helped them to grow. A simple and free way to create a video is to use Keynote slides that you can affix a voice-over easily.
Promotional items that landscapers, their retail staff, and or field staff can use on a daily basis is a great way to keep your brand top of mind. Consider items like bottle openers, USB hubs, calendars, bandanas, t-shirts, baseball caps, clipboards, and more. Promotional items can be pricy. Be sure to review your budget before purchasing.
Phone numbers that are easy for landscapers to remember, like 1-800-Turf-CPA or 1-800-CPA-Lawn, are a great way to gain traction. Vanity phone numbers cost money, but it might be worth it if it helps you to attract your target market.
Lead magnets are a great way to increase interest in your firm. You might consider a free training video or workbook people can download. Templates and tip sheets are also great lead magnets to draw interested landscapers. Each has a form attached with a strong call to action, such as, “Download this item and get a free, 15-minute consult.” Or, “Enter your information to be added our monthly email, where you’ll get QuickBooks tips and more!”
If you have a website and are located in an area with a high English-as-a-second-language population, consider adding a language translation element to the site. It’s an easy plugin install for WordPress site, but may be harder for more traditional site builds. You can find a list of the best 2017 plugins from WinningWP.
These nine ideas should be enough to plant a seed for growth with landscaping clients. Which will you plant and nurture?