How to Find New Clients for Your Landscaping & Gardening Business for Under $10,000/month

As your landscaping or gardening business grows, you’re going to continue to need to feed that pipeline of fresh clients. Retention is important, of course, but you can’t grow without generating new business. Fortunately, there are a lot of different ways that you can go about finding those new clients so that you can keep growing and building your business. The tactics that you use should depend on your exact goals, but they may also be impacted by the resources that you have access to. 

To make sure that all landscaping businesses have the chance to improve their client intake, we’ve compiled a list of some of the best tactics. Each business is different, but even when you’re on a tight $10k per month budget, you can still get a lot done with lead generation and intake. The key is to focus on more strategic and tactical efforts than promotional marketing and PR. 

Here's what you need to know. 

Tactic #1: Keep spreading the word 

Cost: Free, unless you offer discounts or incentives for sharing

Word-of-mouth marketing is huge in the service industry, especially in landscaping where there are literally dozens of companies to choose from in almost every small town and city across America. You’ve got a lot of competition but it doesn’t take a lot to stand out. Make sure that people are talking about your business, but for the right reasons. Get engaged on social media. Get involved in the conversation. Get people talking about why your landscaping company is the best. 

If you’re good at what you do, people will talk on their own. However, they will also talk about what didn’t go as planned, or what they didn’t like. Therefore, you need to make sure that you resolve any potential issues right away so that you get positive reviews across the board. The caveat, of course, is that you can’t ignore negative reviews—address them promptly and show that you’re trying to resolve the situation. 

Tactic #2: Build your professional network

Cost: Free, unless you attend events, rent space at expos, etc. 

Professional networking, at this point in your business growth, is an essential element that will help you attract new clients. The people out there looking for landscaping services today appreciate reputation more than many other factors. They want to know that they’re working with the best in the industry or at least one of them. Therefore, you need to build your professional network in as many ways as possible. 

You won’t have to spend much if you just start building relationships and finding ways to network on a day-to-day basis. However, you should also consider spending the money to attend local home and garden shows, other local events, industry expos, and so forth—wherever you can make connections, you should be looking to do so. 

Tactic #3: Get a mobile site 

Cost: $0-$5,000, depending on who you hire and what needs to be done

If your website isn’t already mobile-friendly, you need to make it so. Today, more people are searching for businesses from their mobile devices than any type of computer and that means you need to be easy to find. Your site also needs to be easy to navigate from any device. That means simple navigation, a drop-down menu, and easy links to contact your landscaping company, including a phone link to call and information about how to access the live website chat feature. 

Don’t have chat yet? Consider adding it and see how much interest it can gain. People who might not want to email or call could easily jump into a chat, ask a few questions, and then go on their way. It’s a great addition and when you outsource communications (see tactic five below), it’s not even something that you have to handle. 

Tactic #4: Become an industry authority 

Cost: Free, unless you pay for classes or training of any kind

Today’s consumer likes to work with someone who knows what they’re doing. Therefore, the more of a sense of authority you can create with your landscaping business, the better. This includes offering plenty of information and valuable resources for people who come to your website, even if they don’t contact you about receiving paid landscaping or gardening services. You’re simply trying to make sure that people have the right information to help them make the best decisions. 

In the landscaping business, the market is highly competitive. There’s not much that separates the best from the rest, but that sense of authority and reputability can go a long way. It’s not just about what your landscaping company can do anymore. It’s about what knowledge you can impart, what other connections people can make through you, and what type of resources consumers can add to their virtual Rolodex. Everyone knows what you do. What they need to know is why you should be doing it for them. 

Tactic #5: Outsource what you can

Cost: $250-$5,000

Outsourcing is becoming a great resource for businesses of all sizes. When you’re growing quickly and you have a lot on your plate bringing new clients into your landscaping business, you might not have time for all those phone calls, scheduling needs, chats, and other tasks that need to be handled throughout the day. Fortunately, you no longer have to do it on your own. 

When you outsource to a team like Smith.ai, you get dedicated virtual receptionists that can serve as your 24/7 answering service. But that’s not all—we can also assist with things like lead screening and intake, appointment scheduling, live website chat, and even your outreach campaigns. Plus, we’ll create a strategy to ensure that we cover every last detail so that you never miss a potential opportunity. 

For a fraction of what you’d spend hiring the staff to do the work in-house, you can get a great partnership with a team of dedicated receptionists who can deliver just about anything that you need. To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to us at hello@smith.ai. 

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