9 Lawn Care Lead Generation Methods Graded By Complexity

If you're a lawn care or landscaping business owner focused on growth, you know lead generation is essential to your success. But not every type of lead generation makes sense for every business, which makes it challenging to know where to start.

This blog post breaks down nine lawn care lead generation methods and grades them by complexity. Use it to understand which method would most impact growing your lawn care or landscaping company.

How to Get Leads for Landscaping and Lawn Care

Getting lawn care and landscaping leads today requires a strong digital marketing strategy and a willingness to shake hands with the local community. While tactics such as search engine optimization (SEO) are necessary, so is networking at local chamber of commerce events.

This deep dive into the nine strongest lead generation strategies available today will help you prioritize which make the most sense for your business.

1. Local SEO Optimization

Local SEO optimization means using local keywords throughout your website — “lawn care near me,” “tree trimming Portland,” — so you rank higher in local online searches by people in your service area. 

Level of difficulty:  Hard / Requires a pro

Local SEO brings a broad range of creative and technical processes together, starting with keyword research. From there, it breaks down into on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. Each subdiscipline requires a specific skill set, from copywriting to data analysis to coding. 

All of these skills can be learned, and there are plenty of lawn care SEO specialists for hire. But companies who need quality leads now likely don’t have time for either. 

Unsurprisingly, SEO is often trusted to an agency, lead generation company, or service-enhanced lawn care software provider such as FieldRoutes, a ServiceTitan company.  

Benefits of local SEO optimization:

• Attract more local customers: The higher your business ranks in local search results, the more potential customers who’ll see your website.

• Increase brand awareness: The more people see your business name in search results, the more recognized your name becomes in the community.

• Generate more leads: The more recognized your brand, the more your website traffic converts into booked appointments.

Good to know:

• Local SEO is an ongoing process. SEO requires regular review and updates. Keyword relevancy, ranking factors, and other variables regularly change — another reason companies outsource their SEO.

• Multiple ranking factors affect local SEO, the most prominent being relevance, distance, and prominence.

• It takes time to see results. But once you’ve built a library of SEO-optimized content, you generate all that traffic for free, allowing you to spend less on paid advertising.  

Local SEO is a valuable lead-generation method for lawn care and landscaping businesses. However, it demands a significant amount of work upfront for a payoff down the road. 

FieldRoutes can accelerate your results by handling keyword analysis, content production, and more with our lawn care SEO services.

2. Local Business Directories and Listings

Local business directories and listings put your name in front of more potential customers in your area. These directories work similarly to search engines. Customers search listings on Yelp, Better Business Bureau, and other directories, which generate their search engine results pages (SERPs) based on the customers’ keywords.

Level of difficulty: Easy

Listing your lawn care or landscaping business in a local directory is straightforward. Most have simple online forms that walk you through building your listing. Start with your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business or GMB), then claim and create your business listing on other online directories.

Benefits of local business directories and listings:

• Increased visibility and brand awareness: The more directory listings you appear on, the bigger your online footprint. You'll reach both if one customer prefers Yellow Pages and another Nextdoor. 

• Higher search ranking: Directory listings boost local search performance because each counts as a citation, an important ranking factor. A citation is any reference to your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on another website.

• Improved lead generation: Directory listings push visitors to your website, increasing web traffic. Some directory listings also let customers book your lawn care services.

Good to know:

• List your business in as many relevant directories as possible. Your results will compound as your presence grows. Write clear, compelling copy that includes important keywords.

• Include complete, accurate information about your business. Consistent listing information earns the confidence of customers and search engines.

• Optimize your listings with regular updates. Mix in photos and videos. Test out different copy. Offer discounts to see what grabs new customers’ attention.

Last, ask customers to leave reviews on your listed directories. You can then use reviews and testimonials as a part of your overall marketing strategy.

3. Google Ads (Pay-Per-Click Advertising)

Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform that lets you bid on keywords so your ad displays at the top of customers’ search results. You only pay when someone clicks an ad.

Level of difficulty: Medium / Hard

Google Ads is a powerful platform capable of running complex ad campaigns. But part of its power also comes from how easy it is to learn the basics:

• Keywords: The words and phrases your ideal customers use to search for lawn and landscaping services online, such as “mulching services near me” or “lawn mowing Pittsburgh.”

• Ad groups: Groupings of related keywords let you bid on multiple keywords at once instead of bidding on them individually.

• Bids: The amount of money you will spend when someone clicks your ad.

Knowing those terms, all you have left to do is write the ad and set your landing page. That is, the page people will land on after clicking your ad.

Benefits of Google Ads:

• Fast results: Your Google Ads start competing for the top SERPs immediately upon launching your ad campaign. You can also scale your ad budget up or down at any moment.

• Targeted reach: In addition to targeting specific keywords, you can also target specific demographics — interests, location, age — so you reach the people most likely to be interested in your lawn care services.

• Measurable results: Detailed reports track metrics such as clicks, impressions, and conversions. By seeing what’s working and what’s not, you can make changes to improve ad performance.

Good to know:

• Google Ads can be competitive. Finding the keywords, bidding strategies, and ad budget that deliver the best return on investment (ROI) may take a while.

• Regular monitoring is a must. Your competitors will constantly be testing ad strategies, not to mention keywords change over time. Google Ads is not a set-it-and-forget-it platform. Regular monitoring ensures you maintain a healthy cost per lead.

• Hire a professional if you need it, even if it’s just to get started. FieldRoutes’ paid advertising services can run your lawn care PPC campaigns from beginning to end, content creation included.   

Overall, Google Ads’ ability to quickly deliver lawn care leads makes it a priority for many business owners.

4. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing uses social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok — to connect with potential customers and promote your lawn care business. Creating and sharing engaging content attracts new followers ready for nurturing into leads.

Level of difficulty: Medium

Social media marketing has a low bar to entry but takes time and effort to see results. Consistently creating high-quality content relevant to your target audience and encouraging them to engage with your business is key to any successful social media strategy.

Benefits of social media marketing:

• Reach a large, targeted audience: Social media platforms have billions of active users. You reach a large audience by tailoring your lawn care content to your ideal customers and targeting your campaigns to specific demographics and interests.

• Build relationships with customers: Social media offers more relationship-building opportunities than most forms of marketing. Interact directly with customers by answering their questions, commenting on trending conversations, and responding to reviews.

• Generate leads: Direct people to your website or landing pages from your social media profile and posts. Experiment with promotions like discount codes to drive engagement.

Good to know:

• Choose the right social media platforms for your lawn care company. Confirm your audience is there. LinkedIn, for instance, may be suitable for finding commercial account leads but not residential ones.

• Track your results and make adjustments. You may find video drives 3x higher engagement than any other content.

• Social media ads can accelerate your efforts. Social media platforms offer paid ads to extend your reach. Some also let you boost the promotion of high-performing organic posts.

Social media marketing can be a valuable channel for lead generation so long as you consistently create and share relevant content and engage with your audience when the opportunity arises.

5. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant content — blogs, graphics, videos, podcasts, webinars — to build a desired audience and convert them into customers.

Content marketing often supplies assets used in other marketing efforts, such as social media, SEO, and email. 

Level of difficulty: Medium

Content marketing, like social media marketing, is easy to start. But also, like social media, content needs time and consistency to produce results. Effective content should do at least one of the following:

• Educate: For instance, a how-to article that teaches homeowners how to tackle common weeds.

• Entertain: For instance, a video of a field technician suiting up like a superhero to spray mosquitos. 

• Inspire: For instance, side-by-side comparisons of yards before and after grub treatment show what a dream lawn could look like.

The more your content educates, entertains, and inspires, the easier it becomes to engage your audience and get them to take a desired action.

Benefits of content marketing:

• Build brand awareness: Content marketing shows off your values, sense of humor, and other qualities that make your business unique. It positions you as an expert while differentiating you from the competition.

• Attract new customers: Content marketing builds a loyal audience you can continually engage with. The more value your content provides your audience, the more who’ll turn into customers.

• Generate new leads: Content marketing converts audience members into leads using calls to action (CTAs) tailored to the content. A guide to setting up a sprinkler system might end with, “Book a free irrigation consult.” 

Good to know:

• Creating high-quality content is a must, but it’s also time-consuming. Turn content into a team sport as much as possible by involving your field technicians and office staff.

• Promote your content so it reaches your target audience. Social media, email, paid ads, and SEO are all marketing channels where you can distribute your content.

• Track your content marketing results to see what’s engaging your audience. This will help you optimize current content and prioritize what content you make next.

With FieldRoutes’ content creation services, you’ll see results much faster than doing content marketing on your own. Our team of expert writers produces engaging website content, blog posts, and even content for your local directory listings. 

6. Email Marketing

Email marketing is the promotion of your lawn care and landscaping services to a list of email subscribers. You create a captive audience likely to convert into leads and repeat customers by continually building your subscriber list and sending them targeted emails.

Level of difficulty: Easy / Medium

Lawn care email marketing is easy to start but takes ongoing effort, especially on the list-building side. Content marketing that uses opt-in forms and compelling CTAs is a big help to drive email signups.

Beyond that, email marketing is a matter of segmenting your audience and tailoring your email campaigns to each segment. 

Benefits of email marketing:

• Reach an engaged audience: When someone opts into your email list, they signal they’re interested in what you offer.

• Build relationships with customers: The more you segment your email lists, the more you can personalize messaging to each group. You can target leads, for instance, with discounts, promotions, and other incentives to win new accounts.

• Increase sales: Email marketing isn’t just for promoting services to new customers. Use it to reach existing customers for upsells and testing new services.

Good to know:

• Use all available channels to build your subscriber list. Your homepage, service pages, landing pages, blogs, YouTube videos, and social media pages are all places to include links to your email signup.

• Segment, segment, and segment. The more relevant your message, the more likely your leads will convert into sales.

• Track your email campaign results. In particular, pay attention to open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates. Run A/B tests, such as two different subject lines, to better understand what engages your audience.

Email marketing becomes much easier with lawn care software that includes a CRM, such as FieldRoutes. CRMs often include email templates and integrate with email marketing platforms, making it easy to streamline your email operations.

7. Referral Programs

Referral programs generate leads by rewarding your existing customers for referring new customers to you. Referral programs are many business owners’ favorite type of marketing because they generate leads organically through your network.

Level of difficulty: Easy

Referral programs are easy to set up and implement. Decide on an incentive to offer your existing customers, then clearly communicate it to them along with any other need-to-know information, such as providing leads with a unique code.

Benefits of referral programs:

• Generate warmer leads: Because referral programs generate leads by tapping into your existing customer base, new leads come with greater trust than those who clicked an ad.

• Increase customer loyalty and satisfaction: Referral programs reward customers for their business. Incentives, such as discounts and free add-ons, help generate repeat business from existing accounts as much as it helps win new ones.

• Build brand awareness: Referral programs encourage existing customers to mention your name when they’re out in the community, whether at a Chamber of Commerce meeting or a charity golf event.

Good to know:

• Offer an incentive that’s worth your customers’ time. It should be valuable enough to motivate them to refer new customers and make them feel appreciated as existing customers.

• Make it easy for your customers to refer new customers. For instance, provide them with a referral link or code that they can share with their friends, family, and colleagues.

• Track your referral program results to see how many new leads come from your referral program and how much revenue they generate.

Celebrate the successes of your referral program, too. If one customer drives a lot of new business, celebrate them on social media or highlight them in an email newsletter so other customers see the value in driving referrals.

8. Flyers, Postcards, and Door Hangers

Flyers, postcards, and door hangers are a traditional but effective way to generate leads by canvassing your service area. Field technicians can hang door hangers and flyers around the neighborhood when out on a job. Postcards make it easy to launch a direct mail campaign.

Level of difficulty: Easy

Flyers, postcards, and door hangers are relatively easy to create and distribute. The biggest hurdle is usually design, which you can handle yourself or outsource to a professional.

From there, it’s a matter of printing and distributing, which you can also manage yourself or hire someone to do for you.

Benefits of flyers, postcards, and door hangers:

• Reach a large target audience: Flyers, postcards, and door hangers can be distributed to many people in a short time. They can also be used in a targeted way. For example, if your field technician is out mowing lawns, they can place door hangers on the homes that look most in need of lawn care help.

• Promote your services: Highlight your services and unique selling points, just like you would in any other promotional materials. Consider limited-time offers, too, such as 20% off services booked by the end of August, to create a sense of urgency.

• Generate leads: Prominently display your contact information, including website and phone number, and add a compelling CTA. Even if homeowners don’t respond immediately, they may end up sticking your door hanger on the refrigerator.

Good to know:

• Be clear and concise. Flyers, postcards, and door hangers have limited space. Highlight your service, a unique selling point, contact information, and a strong CTA. Trust that’ll pique customers’ interest to reach out for more details.

• Distribute in high-traffic areas, such as parts of town that receive lots of foot traffic.

• Track your results to gauge the effectiveness of your flyers, postcards, and door hangers. Asking new customers how they heard about you will help with this.

Pay attention to what your competitors are doing with these materials, too. That’ll help you create striking visual designs that stand out.

9. Networking and Partnerships

Networking and partnerships generate leads by building relationships with other businesses in your community. Collaborating with these businesses on joint sales and marketing campaigns helps each of you reach a larger audience.  

Level of difficulty: Medium

Leveraging networking and partnerships is like making friends. It’s easy to meet other businesses, but building trust takes time and effort. Ultimately, that’s a good thing because it saves you from choosing the wrong business to partner with.

Benefits of networking and partnerships:

• Reach adjacent audiences: Most partnerships form between businesses where customers will likely overlap. For example, pest control and pool care companies are good potential partners for lawn care and landscaping companies.

• Promote your services: Networking and partnerships give you an organic context where you can be personable in promoting your services. For example, the people who sign up for your co-hosted webinar become qualified leads by signing up.

• Nurture leads: Every relationship extends your reach. By building your reputation, you nurture leads as they see your standing increase in the community.

Good to know:

• Be genuine and interested in getting to know other businesses. Get to know other companies’ goals and values. You may find that a small, scrappy business is a better partner than the biggest name in town.

• Be selective about the partnerships you choose to pursue. Scrutinize your target audiences and ask if they’re too different — or too much the same. Look at their marketing track record, too. You don’t want a lazy partner who’ll make you do most of the work.

• Be proactive in promoting your partnerships. Let your customers know about the businesses you partner with and how they can benefit from working with both of you. You’ll create goodwill early and have results to point to sooner.

Attending industry events, online and off, is a good place to start networking with other businesses.

Need Help With Lawn Care Lead Generation?

Your business's best lead-generation methods will depend on the marketing budget, resources, and overall business goals. No matter what methods you choose, ServiceTitan Marketing Pro fully integrates with FieldRoutes to maximize your results. 

Generate precise and impactful email and direct mail campaigns, swiftly and effortlessly, ensuring the appropriate message reaches the right customers at the right moment.

See how with a free demo.