Marketing/winter work

cory

Tree House enthusiast
Joined
Aug 23, 2008
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CT
I think most of us are busy or crazy busy for 3 seasons of the year. Winter is tricky to be busy in for me and probably many others too, especially smaller outfits like mine of 3 people. I think the larger outfits with full time salesman tend to keep busy because, yes, they have a guy chasing work full time, including lining up winter work in the summer.

I think all I need to do to keep busy in winter is send some emails targeted to likely customers. I think "likely" customers are those that Ive worked for anytime in the last 3 years. A surprising number of times I've done work for people that gave every indication of being thrilled with our work, but I drive by 1 to 3 years later and someone else is doing tree work there. I believe that despite the high satisfaction they showed with our service, they either forgot about us or they needed subsequent work and were presented with a different provider and they went with them just keeping it simple.

So I believe I need to stay on my customer's radar much better than I do now. Seems the way to do that is through email. Maybe Constant Contact-style.

And I also think my web presence needs a little tweaking to be optimal.

My question to y'all is what do you think of my ideas, and have you done anything similar to address the issue of drumming up work when needed, and has anyone had any experience consulting a local marketing/computer guy who could get it all done himself (if there is such a creature)?

Thanks for any insight you can give.
 
A quarterly email blast would do a lot.

Helpful seasonal tips and education. Highlight some nice trees you've worked on and add details (this ornamental blahblahblah has a nice mature _______ shape, sized _________ by ________, providing visual interest in winter with its bright red bark, colorful berries, fall colors, spring flowers...people like it because____________).

Couple pics (oh,that's right...haha).
 
A good online marketing guy can be a total game changer but they are rare- sooo easy to be ripped off with online marketing. I pretty much agree with everything else mentioned so far. Lucky those clients that seem to ring a different company every time are in the minority...
 
Are you using a business Facebook page?

I'd thought of hitting a college kid to update it an hour or two, here and there. I've got a couple as neighbors.
 
I was considering sending out thank you for your business emails at christmas and just before spring. A few videos I've taken have landed me a few jobs, looking forward to taking a few more videos
Target those kids who are buying houses with the help of their FILs.
 
I had my sister send out an email to our customers when Emerald Ash Borer was first confirmed in our service area. It wasn't meant as a sales tactic but more informational. We got some work out of it so I guess it helped in that aspect too. My sister does that email marketing thing as a professional and she knew how to track all kinds of stats to know how successful the email was at reaching our customers. She was very happy with the number of clicks and website hits and the like that we got but I thought it was a pretty poor showing. I don't remember the exact numbers anymore but i thought it was something like 30% of the recipients clicked or followed the link. She also included an unsubscribe tab and we only had one or two people hit that. There was one complaint that we got because of it from some cranky old lady that didn't want any emails. Overall, I think it was a good idea and I would do it again but I'm not really interested in doing a quarterly thing. I personally subscribe to one or two places that send those newsletters out and 99% of the time I just delete them or toss them in the recycling bin. I assume most people do the same thing so I have a hard time getting excited about spending time and money on newsletters that most people won't look at.
 
One thing that's worked for me in my locale is the Google Adwords. I know, basic, basic. But if you have a website look into it. It's been cheap for me. So when I started my chimney business I noticed none of my comp advertises at all. So now by even having a very modest ad campaign with AdWords. I am the business/website that comes up if you google anything chimney related in my locale. So literally you google abc chimney sweep and if you're within 35km of me Coldstream Chimney Service is top result. It's crazily customizable for what you want to spend and what type of searches you want to appear in the results of. Very simple to use, it's an app on my iPad.
 
You set the cost parameters. You can also monitor it in near real time and limit or stop your spending at any time too. Last month cost me $46.91. And I had given an allowance of up to $150/month. If you select $150/month they prorate that to a by the day amount and display your ad appropriately. you are only charged when people click through the ad to your site. So if towards the end of the month you are nowhere near your monthly allowance they don't up your ad frequency or anything. They just continue say in your last ten days as if you only want to spend $50(if you had allowed $150 for the month) even if up to that point in the month you've only accrued $20 in charges.

If that makes any sense at all. Lol.

You also can pick and choose searchs that will bring up your ad. Fully customizable.
 
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  • #10
Good info, I appreciate it.
 
Yep, Adwords is where its at. I pay my guy $70 a month to manage it, he monitors what search terms are bringing the clicks etc and makes changes accordingly. I have my daily limit set to $20. Its really flexible, if you book out with work and you know you need to leave town for a bit you just switch it off...
 
... I run a "Winter discount" just to get hired and keep the phone and electric on ... Sometimes it's fine as I haven't touched a Rake in months and won't on their job. In heavy snow I lose a little , but damn I need the Shekels and I refuse to go back to the Ski Area for $10.00/ hr.
 
Jim , most around here use Plowing and Firewood as alternative. Plowing , well beats the snot out of any Truck and a Front End Loader is a handy backup to own. Firewood pays a misery wage and not worth needing a new saw over. Just opinion.
 
Plowing makes good sense for tree companies IMO. As when the snow flies it sucks to be trying to roll around tree trucks and if you have your own plow/sander you can 'prep' your worksites to avoid getting stuck or not having access.
 
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  • #18
I agree although getting ready to plow after tree work then doing tree work after plowing is rough.
 
I worked for a tree company that plowed in the past. It was okay, I always shoveled, no license. I was grateful for the income but decided to sock away enough money so as to not feel the need to do snow removal. :D Boss man raked it in though, more than tree work I think.

Things like constant contact don't sit right with me, It seems slightly annoying. A good strategy in my mind s to spread out your visits with your clients, break the work up, make a management plan, things like that. The more site visits the better me thinks.

We went in pretty hard for winter work this year. Offering a discount for anyone who scheduled Jan-Mar. Plus, there are crab apples and American elms to prune in the winter so that keeps things rolling a bit as well. Actually my first winter completely self employed:x-mas:
 
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  • #21
Good on ya , Levi

constant contact is what you make it, send stuff out monthly, semi annually, whatever. I'm still investigating but the point is to send a mass mailing to custys with high speed and low cost.
 
Anyone have a company instagram? Seems like a way to get in touch with folks without making them feel bombarded.
 
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  • #24
Levi, somewhere you mentioned LinkedIn. I signed up. Got a lot of hits with custys, no work out of it yet but the exposure is good. Thanks.
 
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