12 Great Landscaping Marketing Ideas

There’s nothing that looks more appealing than a fully landscaped property. With a creative vision, a landscaper can create stunning paths, beautiful garden spaces, and install other features that will make a yard become the talk of the town. It can be difficult sometimes to get the word out about your skills as a landscaper, so these landscaping marketing ideas are a proven way to help your business grow without having to spend a fortune doing it.

The place to begin is at your product supplier. Chances are you don’t get your bark or flagstone out of your backyard, so talk with your supplier about putting up business cards or how they might refer customers to you. It’s a natural relationship that works because if your business increases, so does theirs.

Best Landscaping Marketing Ideas

1. Let Your Work Do the Talking
Just about anyone can mow a lawn, but not everyone can build a retaining wall, install a fountain, or build a flagstone patio. Let your strengths do the talking, take tons of pictures of them, and then put them into a portfolio that can be readily accessed by anyone on your website or your social media pages.

2. Join the Local Chamber of Commerce
If there’s one thing that most general contractors don’t do, it’s landscaping. They’ll need your help to create a stunning property, but they won’t come to you. You’ve got to go to them and the best way is to network through your local Chamber of Commerce. This gives you common ground where together you can form a beautiful relationship and expand your business.

3. Be Part of a Business Advisory Committee
When you can offer your best business advice to others who need it, you’ll create a level of brand loyalty with that business that is priceless. It can be a fine balance sometimes to navigate your advice so that the business you’re advising doesn’t step on your toes, but the payoff is almost always there in time.

4. Be Innovative
The type of work that you can do will dictate the kind of business you have. Be innovative with your designs and provide real examples of what you can do – even if that’s just in your front yard. The more people can see your quality of work, the more likely they are to book your services when they need something done.

5. Utilize Signs For Discounts
Someone might need to have some landscaping work done, but they might not be able to afford it. This is the perfect opportunity for you to create an advertising presence in that neighborhood. Offer that customer a deal where you’ll get the cost of the job into a range they can afford in return for a sign that tells those who pass by that you’re the one who did the job.

6. Advertise Your Jobs Instead of Your Work
Instead of promoting the quality of work, promote the fact that you need quality employees to get the work done. You’ll create an active presence your community by doing so, get a few more applications when you’ve got an open position, and still get work booked because if there’s one thing most communities do well, it’s that they support businesses who are willing to support them.

7. Do a High Profile Job For Free
If there’s a high profile job in your community that gets lots of daily traffic then offer to landscape the area for free. Don’t go bonkers and spend $10k on the job, but consider using your advertising budget for television commercials for the job instead. You’ll make a continuing impact that will go a lot further than a 30 second television ad at 5am will… and there’s a good chance it will last several years. If there’s a local non-profit who could use the help, then just give it to them and they’ll refer all the business they can to you in return.

8. Sponsor Trade Shows
People love to see new, fresh ideas so put on your own trade show where people can stop by to see all your strengths. Partner together with other businesses so they can show off their trades as well and you can make it a community event. Lots of smaller communities don’t even have an annual trade show, which gives you the opportunity to market to other locations if you want to expand as well.

9. Don’t Be Afraid of the Cold Call
Cold calling might be irritating and disruptive, but it also gains the attention of people when you successfully make contact. You don’t have to spend a ton of time on the phone. Just call up a business, ask them if they could use an affordable first impression, and see where the conversation leads.

10. Distribute Door-to-Door
A lot of people try to do their own landscaping because they don’t know how affordable your services are so get that price out there, right on their door. A good advertisement that your crew spends a day distributing can return up to a 10% response rate, so just 100 homes could turn into 10 new contracts for the season.

11. Offer Employee Incentives
Landscaping is a tough job and the best people tend to move on when they can get paid just a little bit more. If you can’t afford to pay someone more hourly, then maybe you can give them an incentive like a free landscaping job at their place. They’ll feel grateful, you can assign them to the crew that’s working so they can work at home for a day or two, and you’ll get returns every time someone sees their yard.

12. Be the Local Expert
People want their landscaping job completed by the very best so make sure your community sees you as their local landscaping expert. Sponsor events where you can train people in specific tasks, like laying flagstone, and you’ll demonstrate your technique to everyone will providing value to others. Grout bricks, build walls, or do what you do best in public and your expertise will show, tempting those who need to have a job done.