How Do I Market My Tree Business?

Wesley Smith: [0:11] Hey, guys. Wesley Smith here, Tree Service Digital. I’m continuing on with the theme of tree service contractor searches on the Internet, about how to market their tree service business. What we’ll start with this week is going to be, “How do I market my tree business?”

[0:29] These are just simple tactics that you can take back to your local market, your local business and implement these as you can. They’re really powerful. If you do all of these things simultaneously, daily, weekly, monthly for your business, you’re going to get more calls, you’re going to get more jobs, and you’re going to produce more revenue.

[0:45] This is what you guys are searching on Google from our research. You guys go on the Internet, tree service contractors. You do searches like, tree service marketing ideas. This particular one is going to be, “How do I market my tree business?”

[0:59] Number one is, I would recommend, hand out business cards all the time. Some of these are guerrilla marketing tactics. Basically, your feet on the street, you’re doing jobs, you’re handing people your card any time you can, and letting everybody and anybody know what you do.

[1:14] That’s number one. That’s free. You buy the business cards. Make sure they look sharp, have your contact information, your business name and number and everything on there. Then you hand them off to everybody. You can put them on people’s mailboxes maybe next to the jobs you’re doing. Things like that.

[1:29] Give the business cards to everybody, that’s number one. You could also offer referral fees for customer referrals. When you’re doing work at a residential place, or even a business place, say, “Hey look, you guys know anybody that might want tree work, we’d certainly appreciate any referrals.”

[1:44] Maybe, “We are paying a $50 gift card to Amazon or $50 gift card to a restaurant this month if you send me any referrals. We really would appreciate it.” You’d be surprised. People get motivated by referral fees and gift cards and things like that.

[1:58] Another thing you may not have thought of, or maybe you have, network with other contractors. Specifically, for tree service contractors, if you want more business, network with landscapers who don’t do tree work and possibly even roofers who don’t do tree work.

[2:12] Roofers are up there on the house. They’re seeing the top of the house, they’re seeing the gutters. They’re seeing anything that’s coming in or encroaching on the house, such as tree limbs, big branches or just trees in general.
[2:24] Those guys can send referrals or talk to the home owner say, “Hey look, call XYZ Tree Service. Here’s their business card,” and you get a referral from that.

[2:32] Landscapers too. They’re doing a lot of the same work that you may do. A lot of landscapers may trim some low hanging tree branches and things like that, but they probably don’t do tree removal, stump removal, tree cutting of any kind of magnitude. They may do just little minimum tree work.

[2:49] Networking with landscapers and roofers and letting them know that you’re the go to tree company, you’ll get some referrals from that too.

[2:55] The next thing is, put out signs in the yards where you do work. If you’re on a job site, go right at the front of the yard there or the front of the building and put out your sign that says, “XYZ Tree Service, call us today for a free estimate.”

[3:10] There’s a lot of good companies on the Internet you can use for that. Let me show you a couple that you could actually use. One of them would be Dirt Cheap Signs. I think I went over this in a previous video, but I’ll do it again since you’re here. If you go to Dirt Cheap Signs, you can look it up, and you can pull up…Looks like there’s a couple other options too. There’s Signs on the Cheap, Crazy Cheap Political…That’s political signs for probably the upcoming election.

[3:33] You can go to Dirt Cheap Signs right there, go in there and design your own sign. Have your logo on there. You know, “Tree Service in your area, call now.” That’s it. There’s a really good, low cost way to put a sign in your neighbor’s yard or a yard that you’re doing a job on.

[3:51] That’s a great testimonial because you’re already doing work for that home owner or business. By putting your sign in the yard, people are going to trust you just by default because you’re working in their neighborhood. That’s a good way to get more work coming in too.

[4:03] Get your Google My Business Maps listing verified. If you are already in business and you have a Google account, you’re going to need to establish your Google account first if you don’t already have one.

[4:13] Maybe set up a Gmail account and then, in that Gmail account when you have your Gmail, you can click on the apps icon in the top right. When you click on it, it’s going to open up a set of options. You’re going to have a Google My Business icon. Once you set that up, you’ll have your business listed on the Internet.

[4:33] Let me show you here. Once you establish your Google My Business listing, send off for the postcard, get the postcard back in the mail, you can verify your Google listing. You’ll have a Google Map listing right here of your business. That’ll be your business name in the map apps. You’ll be on the map, so to speak. That’s the next thing you want to do.

[4:53] That’s free. You can do it yourself. You want to optimize it and do some more things for it. Once you get that, make sure you start getting Google reviews on that map listing. That really helps with search rankings, is getting reviews. It’s one of the signals Google looks for to make sure you’re a viable, reputable business in the area. They want to show yours more often. Make sure you get reviews. Ask your friends and family.

[5:13] Next thing I would say is, once your budget picks ups, build a website for your tree service business. One that looks really professional, has a lot of your trust icons. If you’re a member of TCIA and ISA or HomeAdvisor, any of those things that have a lot of good reviews and people trust them, get those icons on the website. We have a whole webinar about how to build a website for optimal conversion.

[5:35] The next thing you want to do is Google Ads if you have the budget. That’s pay per click marketing with Google. You’re going to show up across the entire city or 30, 40 mile radius that you service with different ads that propel people to click. When they click, you’re going to get that call and you’re going to go give that estimate, more than likely get that job.

[5:55] Join local networking groups, number nine. There’s one called BNI, Business Network International. It’s like a networking group. You go every week and you’re expected to give out referrals to other people that are in the group. There might be a roofer, there may be a plumber. There may be different contractors in the networking group.

[6:15] You’re all scratching each other’s back every week handing out referrals. That really helps too. There’s a couple other ones like PowerCore. You can also join the Chamber of Commerce and be the tree company in your Chamber of Commerce.

[6:27] The next thing you can do is run ads in Value Pak. Value Pak is a coupon book that gets mailed and distributed weekly or monthly in your local zip codes. That way, you get a little printout that’s inside that Value Pak envelope. People get it, they pull it and they go, “Oh OK, so XYZ Tree Service is in my area.” You’re going to get calls from that too.

[6:46] These are marketing techniques once you get a budget, once you start having regular work and revenue coming in. You want to reinvest some of that money back into marketing so you get more and more calls coming in.
[6:56] The next thing is, post on your social media channels. If you have a Facebook page, that’s free. You can post for free on there. Just like I’m doing today.

[7:04] I’m running a live video on Facebook. This is basically free. I’ve got the webinar software, Zoom, that’s helping me distribute this video, but posting on your social media is free. You can post on your social media for free. That way, everybody that likes your page, will get to know you and your business, what you do, your personality and all that stuff.

[7:25] Last, but not least, is wrap your truck with your logo and your branding. If you have trucks, you got to make sure that you turn those into rolling billboards. Everywhere you go it says, “XYZ Tree Service. Call now for an estimate.” Your website and all that stuff on the website. That will really, really help too because you’re probably running all around town every day doing jobs.

[7:46] Hopefully this helps, guys. This is, how do I market my tree business? On the theme of the most commonly searched Google terms that tree service contractors are doing on the Internet. If you have any questions, post below this video. I’ll reply back when I have a minute or two, or you can message me here on the page.

[8:02] If you haven’t joined our tree service marketing secrets Facebook group, there should be a link on this video where you can click and request to join the Facebook group. We go over more tips and tricks on tree service marketing for the Internet.

[8:16] Anyway, have a great day. Hope you have a nice week. Talk to you soon. Thanks.