Whether you are a pest control business owner, hired to do marketing for a pest control company, or tasked with creating a marketing plan all of a sudden, this blog post will help you get started with some different marketing strategies. It can be a challenge, especially if you have no experience in this field. Because there are so many options out there, it is hard to know what will work for your business. You are playing with real money, and you don’t want to see it burn.
Almost every business, in all industries, relies on marketing to bring in new customers, and your company probably already had some sort of strategy in place. However, maybe this strategy was just an afterthought or maybe it was created years ago and isn’t performing like it used to. There are tons of reasons why you might be looking to change things up. Technology is evolving at such a quick pace and altering the world we live in, so if you aren’t at least attempting to take advantage of that, you are already behind.
What are you trying to achieve?
Before you come up with your marketing strategy, you need to know what you are trying to achieve. You should set realistic, achievable goals for your company and for yourself. Do you want to increase the number of commercial pest control jobs? Do you want to increase your monthly service clients? Do you want to let people know about your new bed bug treatment options? Figure out what exactly you want to do. It can be as broad or as specific as you want, but the most important thing is that you know what it is.
Another popular example for a pest control company might be that you want to increase your presence in a specific neighborhood in the area you serve. Once you have this idea, then you are able to figure out where to go from there.
How are you going to reach your goal?
Goals are an important foundation, but if you have no idea how to reach them, then they aren’t doing you any good. Pest control companies aren’t big corporations, so they don’t have endless cash to spend on massive advertising campaigns. As a small business with limited funds, you need to be creative with your marketing strategy. Don’t try to copy other industries like restaurants or retail. While commercials and magazine ads can work well for them, they are likely out of your price range and probably wouldn’t be too effective anyway.
As an inbound marketing agency, we highly recommend digital marketing solutions to small businesses because we have seen how well it can work. Read our case study to see our success creating a marketing strategy for a pest control company. Inbound marketing saves you money while increasing the amount of new customers (if done correctly). It is basically the opposite of marketing you might be familiar with, which consists of advertising and disruptive techniques. Inbound is all about two-way communication.
What are some inbound marketing strategies that might work for you?
No matter if your goal is increasing customers, increasing awareness, or marketing a new product, a website redesign will likely be the biggest help. Before beginning any digital strategies, your website should be top notch and well optimized. If people can’t find information about your business online, you are in no place to start digital marketing. Ensuring you have a website that is easy to navigate, nice to look at, and easy to find is essential. This should be your first priority.
Another big part of inbound marketing is blogging. This is where you can give your company a voice. You can alert your customers to any new pests in the area or tell them about new deals you might have. It is a place to educate and share your knowledge with a wide audience. Not only is it good for connection, but it helps search engines like Google find your website and rank it higher in the results. This increases the likelihood of strangers clicking on your webpage and possibly becoming customers.
This leads us straight into SEO or search engine optimization. For pest control companies, local SEO has a huge impact on your business because most of your customers are probably not searching your business name. Instead, they are typing in related keywords and deciding on you. If your company webpage is listed number one when people are searching for pest control in your area, you are probably doing much better than your competitors. If not, you should should be pushing your way up to the top. You can influence this by gaining online reviews, using social media, and ensuring your contact information is always accurate. For a great overview of local SEO, check out Moz’s Local Learning Center.
Social media helps with SEO, but it is also a wonderful marketing strategy for small businesses. It is very hard to stand out on most social media sites, but it isn’t about gaining a massive following of nobodies, you want a niche following of people that care. You can post your blog articles here to gain more readers, you can post quick updates, and show people behind-the-scenes photos of your company. It is a great way to make your business more relatable. For a more in depth blog on strategies, click here.
Will it work?
This is a question every marketer struggles with. Will all my efforts pay off? You don’t want to go through all this trouble for no results. Keeping track of your data and analytics will clue you into what is working and how things are progressing. Also, looking for increases in new customers or increases in whatever you were marketing is the most obvious sign.
It is important that you are monitoring the data because otherwise you will have no idea what even happened. The results of your first campaign will show you what to do for your next one and the next after that. There is always more to learn, but first you need to try!
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