8 Proven Strategies for Successful Pest Control Lead Generation

As a pest control business owner, you know how to run a successful company and deliver quality customer service. When it comes to lead generation, you may wonder how to identify the right marketing strategies to reach potential new customers.

Quality lead generation helps pest control professionals:

• Boost sales opportunities.

• Expand their customer base.

• Grow business revenue.

If you want to know more about generating leads for your pest control business, you’ve come to the right place. Below, we’ll share tips on how to acquire quality leads and effective ways to measure results from your digital marketing campaigns.

What Are the Best Ways to Generate Pest Control Leads?

Pest control lead generation isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Marketing efforts differ depending on the types of services your pest control company offers, target audience, and marketing plan objective.

Diverse pest control marketing strategies often deliver the best results because it widens the net to capture potential clients. Whether you decide to make your website mobile friendly, incorporate keywords on your website’s landing pages, or invest in online advertising, the goal remains the same: attract homeowners to your company and turn them into lifelong customers.

Find out more about the top proven pest control lead generation strategies below.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your pest control website rank at the top when people perform an online search. When done correctly, SEO leads deliver a 14.6% close rate, compared to 1.7% for outbound leads, according to Search Engine Journal.

SEO involves optimizing your website, including your site menus, landing pages, and blog content, using specific keywords. Content optimization also involves ensuring the website's content is valuable, engaging, and informative. Incorporating local keywords gives your company greater online visibility when potential customers search for a pest control business in your service area.

SEO also includes technical aspects that focus on improving the website's performance, accessibility, and user experience, all of which contribute to its search engine friendliness. This includes ensuring website pages load quickly, offering mobile-friendly features, and implementing proper URL structures.

SEO differs from paid online advertising because it’s based on organic search results. While SEO produces long-term results, it takes time to learn, implement, and adjust. With the right strategy, SEO can improve your website ranking and generate new leads.

2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

If you want immediate online visibility for your pest control business, consider pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. In PPC advertising, pest control companies pay each time someone clicks on their online ad.

When a potential client performs a Google search, paid advertisements rank at the top, ensuring maximum visibility for your company. It’s not surprising many businesses use online advertising because paid advertisements can generate a 200% return on investment, according to TechJury.

If you want to learn more about PPC and don’t know where to start, many businesses focus on Google Ads for PPC ad campaigns. Before beginning a PPC campaign, advertisers bid on certain keywords, so when someone searches for a pest control company, their ad displays on the appropriate page.

While PPC generates immediate results, it can be expensive in the long term. Also, once you stop paying for online ads, your company’s online visibility disappears, unless you implement other marketing strategies.

3. Social Media Marketing

The average working-age Internet user spends more than 2.5 hours each day on social media, according to the audience research company GWI. Utilizing social media platforms for your internet marketing may provide great qualified leads for your pest control and extermination company.

First, it’s a good idea to decide which platform and message best reaches the demographics of your audience, whether Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, or YouTube. Start by discovering which social media platforms your current customers use, because they’re the ones who will help spread the word about your company.

Don’t be afraid to get creative, as long as the subject aligns with your company’s core values and key message. Effective posts can include videos of your team members sharing about their passion for their work. Or, take a humorous approach and get attention by posting funny memes about bed bug or termite infestations.

Posting on social media doesn’t cost anything, except time. Posting content regularly helps your company remain visible. Besides social media marketing, you may want to consider social media advertising, such as Facebook Ads, to increase your reach and generate more leads.

4. Email Marketing

When executed correctly, email marketing campaigns can effectively generate leads. The most successful campaigns send the right content to the right person at the right time.

To increase lead generation, set up automated workflows to send emails to leads after they visit your website to request a free estimate, claim a promotional offer, or sign up for an online newsletter or other communications.

For the best results, write clear and catchy email subject lines, keep emails short, and provide a clear call to action. Companies using email marketing software streamline the process, so they can track results and focus on the campaigns that generate the highest return on investment.

5. Content Marketing

Content marketing works to provide more visibility to your company’s website content, such as through blogs, videos, or guides.

To begin content marketing, pest control providers should create a content marketing strategy, enlisting the help of marketing professionals if needed. It’s an important first step, because it helps determine your overall marketing objective, audience, and key marketing strategies.

Effective content marketing relies on fresh, quality material. Examples include frequent blog posts incorporating keywords, videos, infographics, and frequently asked questions about extermination, treatment, or other pest control services.

To generate more leads, pest control companies can include online forms for potential customers to obtain more information, special offers, or an online request for an estimate or initial inspection.

6. Referral Program

You probably already know one of the best ways to gain new customers is through word-of-mouth. Consider creating a referral program to incentivize customers to send new customers your way, whether it’s providing a free service, a discount on their next service, or a free product.

Word-of-mouth referrals function like customer reviews or testimonials. Positive reviews build credibility and trust, prove your company delivers quality service, and generate quality pest control leads.

Of course, in order for customers to give referrals and top reviews, your company needs to ensure it constantly provides top-notch customer service.

7. Local Listings

If you want customers to find your pest control business online, it’s imperative to keep your local listings accurate.

Local directories such as Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business), Angi, HomeAdvisor, Yelp, and others provide necessary information to potential customers and help your company rank higher in organic searches for local services.

Your business page should provide your company name and contact information, such as address and phone number. Other important information includes business hours and services, including emergency services.

Enhance your business listing by offering online booking, making it easy and convenient for potential customers to contact your company or schedule an appointment.

8. Networking

Networking helps connect businesses with new leads. Consider joining local business associations, community organizations, or regional or national pest control industry associations to meet people and increase business opportunities.

Networking not only helps generate more leads, but it also builds credibility for your business. You may want to also consider attending or sponsoring local events, which provides interaction with your community (and potential customers) and establishes brand recognition.

How To Measure The Effectiveness Of Pest Control Lead Generation Campaigns

You’ve implemented your lead generation campaigns. Now what? It’s essential for pest control companies to track and measure campaign effectiveness in order to spend marketing dollars in the right place.

Pest control business owners can use several key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure campaign performance. We’ll share a few top KPIs below. While it’s not an exhaustive list, it’s a good starting point.

Lead Quality

Lead quality measures the quality of your leads and the effectiveness of your campaigns. This KPI looks different for every pest control company, because it depends on what they want to evaluate.

For instance, a company may want to know the percentage of leads generating a certain amount of revenue. Or, they may want to find out what marketing strategy attracts the most leads, so they evaluate the percentage of leads who respond to a particular website landing page or ad campaign. In these scenarios, the higher the percentage, the higher the lead quality.

Pest control companies can set their own parameters, so they can focus on higher quality leads and increased profitability.

Conversion rate

A conversion rate is a metric measuring the percentage of website visitors who become leads or customers. This KPI helps you determine how many people take action on your website’s lead generation campaigns.

To calculate your website’s conversion rate, divide the number of website visitors by the number of website visitors who became leads or customers. Divide that number by 100 for the percentage. The higher the percentage, the higher the conversion rate, and the better for your business.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Cost per lead helps pest control companies calculate return on investment so they can focus on the campaigns that generate the highest revenue. It also helps companies set their marketing budgets.

To determine cost per lead, divide the marketing cost by the number of leads generated. Multiply that number by 100 for the percentage. Effective campaigns generate a higher number of leads with a lower cost per lead.

Ready to Take Your Pest Control Lead Gen to the Next Level?

For those without the time or inclination to create and follow a digital marketing plan, FieldRoutes® Marketing Suite provides lead generation services to get your pest control company noticed online and convert leads into customers.

A seamless integration with FieldRoutes® Operations Suite automatically enters new leads into your system, eliminating time-consuming manual entry. With real-time results, you can easily track campaign performance and measure your return on investment from one dashboard.

Want to learn more? Request a free marketing demo to see how FieldRoutes can help grow your pest control business.