Looking for some tips

loverington

Well its for my husband really, he has his own gardening business which has hit a brick wall really, we are really after regular maintenance and he still has 2 whole days to fill, but getting those extra 2 days are proving really difficult. I am after some ideas as to how I could help him boost work, he has a website which I think is quite good, but any tips on how we could improve it would be great, the local papers are really expensive to advertise, so I was just wondering if anyone had some ideas as to how to boost business, that doesnt cost a fortune. Thanks

Horace

Please can you remove the link to your husband's website as you are not allowed to advertise on the forum as it is against the rules, however, there is nothing stopping you from adding the web address as your homepage under your profile.

Under the titles - Patios should not have an apostrophe s. It would look more professional if you had a company email account as opposed to an aol.com one.

Have you considered attending business networking meetings as that may net you some additional business? Some of these meets are available at minimal cost.

Instead of looking at local newspapers, how about a parish magazine/church magazine as these may be cheaper (remember you can negotiate with these people including the local newspapers). How about getting some leaflets printed and delivering these around your local area or asking the local papers if they will put the leaflet in the paper for you as a loose thing - it is often cheaper to do that than have a paid advert in the paper itself.

Although the website has pictures, it is not particularly colourful (many pictures are quite drab) and text side is rather large. Landscape shots need not just be pictures of diggers moving soil about - maybe a before shot and an after shot showing the finished article might be better. Not wanting to be rude but there is no enthusiasm or passion about the work that is done and I am not encouraged to stay on the site and find out more.

Have you thought of asking your satisfied customers for testimonials and have those on your site and available in a folder for people to see (take the folder to new client meets). A person is more likely to buy if they read glowing testimonials about what a fantastic service they received, how tidy you were and how you cleared away all the rubbish and detritus from the gardening job.

You need to search engine optimise your site because it isn't being found on Google, it is quite easy to do yourself but it takes time. I googled garden services west sussex and you didnt come up at all (if you did then it was on pages that I didnt trawl through to find you).

Another tip is for you to form a strategic alliance with builders, plumbers, painters & decorators - they all work on people's houses and thus they will know people who are likely to want gardening services likewise you are likely to know people who want their house decorated etc with the strategic alliance you recommend each other and you all stay in work. It is a win win for everybody.

paddyrg

Horace makes some solid points - and better pics won't be too hard to arrange - I'll be they were taken with a regular compact camera and are untouched. Just tweaking the colour curves for instance, with a crop to get rid of some of the cluttery area..



becomes



and to my eye, it 'pops' more. I'm no graphic designer or professional retoucher, but asking one for help with some flat photos may help lift things a little?

Horace

Paddy your picture is far better...it certainly doesnt look as flat.

Owain_Moneysaver

go round letting agencies and see if you can get start/end tenancy garden clear-ups as well as regular maintenance on blocks with communal gardens.

cafe-bisou

Rather than look at advertising in newspapers, do you have any Parish magazines in the area if you're in a village/town area rather than a city? I have a standing advertisement in my local parish mag (1,100 circulation) for £50 a year, as opposed to the £150 per ad that the local newspaper (circulation 6000) charges.

Horace

I have had another thought too (following on from a webinar that I attended last night), get yourself a facebook page for your business and use it to interact with people. It would appear that more people visit facebook rather than google when looking for businesses.

Use LinkedIn - like facebook for business people - again you can have a free account on there, connect with businesses that you have met and maybe clients you have.

Twitter - also free although you are limited to 140 characters, you can put your message out there but don't over spam by pushing your business offer interesting tidbits too. One dentist that follows me tweets about teeth and sometimes gives useless facts e.g. sharks teeth are stronger than steel or something equally bizarre. Lots of businesses use Twitter.

What you could have is links from your webpage (using icons) to your facebook page, twitter account and linkedin - they all give people an opportunity to interact with you and the more people you engage, the more likely you are to get more customers.

Sicksorry

I have to agree with Horace here, a facebook account is a great way to pull in extra business. I would start by creating a personal page for yourself if you have yet to do so, hunt out old friends, family members, co-workers and the like. You can then set up a Page where you can post pictures, Shout outs regarding any deals you may offer etc.. and use your network of friends to help spread it out over Facebook. You could also offer discounts for anyone who has booked work via the Page also.

merlin68

What my hubby done, was to put an advert in the parish magazine and also the street wardens took loads of cards. As apparently people are always asking them if they know anyone. He also does DIY as well though. Since May he has got 8 regulars. We also deliver leaflets and catalogues.
We have a website, but not got any buisness of it yet, it's all been word of mouth.

Buzzman_2

I could be wrong but I'm not convinced putting a lot of effort into a website and social networking sites is the best use of your time for a gardening business. People often underestimate how much work (and money) is involved in driving traffic to a website and getting it in front of people interested in your particular product or service (also it's fine to have friends and family 'like' your facebook page or visit your site once in a while but that doesn't = new and paying customers). I think offline marketing is probably the way to go. Flyering is a good strategy but make sure your leaflet is really good quality - if it looks shoddy people will assume the work you do will also be shoddy. Use both text and images and get other peoples opinion before going to print - they might point out things that you have missed. Make sure it doesn't have any typos and also consider some sort of offer to pull people in - e.g. first day of work half price. Also try and flyer in different areas - some may convert better than others.

In addition, do you know any tradesmen who could promote your business to their clients and vice versa - this may help to give you more exposure.

Professional

^ I agree with Buzzman that social media is not the way to go for a gardening business. Offline marketing is a must and a simple website with good SEO is sufficient for your online needs.

Online - Make sure your website looks professional, I agree with others good photography is a must. Enter your business into online directories a lot of them are free or very low cost e.g. Thompsons, QYPE, Yell.com. SEO is a very specialist area i.e. is your website tuned to come up in search engine searches. See if you can get a friend with website knowledge to help develop this area. Without it simply your website will never be much.

Offline - Door to door flyers in your local area. You can get 5,000 flyers printed for about £100. Maybe worth paying £50 for a graphic designer to design it to give a professional image. Then go door to door and post them yourself to save costs. Target local but affluent areas. Ask your current clients if they could recommend you to their friends and give them a few of your business cards to hand out. Put up posters/notices on your local notice board. You could even be cheeky and leave flyers on cars in the car park of your local garden centre.