Tree Service Marketing for Dramatic Growth, 4 Tips to Start

Whether you’re the owner of an established, exceptional tree trimming and removal service or have just recently started your business in this highly competitive industry, your goals are the same:

• to provide world-class, professional service to every customer
• to ensure your arborist(s) and tree trimmers are highly skilled and safety-conscious
• to use only the safest, top-of-the-line equipment
• to dominate the market and set yourself apart from all the other established and new services vying for your preferred customers' business
• to leverage today’s technology to creatively and effectively penetrate and expand into other geographic markets

Undoubtedly, it’s these last two goals that you find to be the most time-consuming, challenging, and confusing. It’s also these same two goals that are absolutely critical to attain if you want your tree business to grow exponentially and prosper faster than you could have ever imagined.

Here are one of the four key tree-serving marketing tips:

Monitor, manage, and monetize your reputation.

In this high-tech world filled with gizmos and gadgets, it’s never been easier to research information about an individual. By simply googling your name or your company's name, a potential customer can discover (and uncover) a wealth of information about you. Like what's your reputation when doing business with you. 

Tree Service Marketing via Facebook

Your Facebook page, if not managed correctly, can instantly reveal way too much information that no current or potential customer should be privy to.  From the “friends” you choose to include in your circle (and their lifestyles), to the things you “like” and the photos you include, your Facebook page can quickly draw customers toward you or drive them away.  While you might think nothing of sharing photos of your third adventure to Europe this year, your new Hummer, or your oceanfront beach house in the Outer Banks, those images could be unintentionally sending the wrong messages to your potential customers. Perhaps they’ll think you travel so much you won’t be the actual person they’ll ever talk to or meet. Maybe they’ll decide not to do business with you because they’ll conclude that you must be overcharging for your services to be able to afford all those trips and luxuries. Sharing photos of yourself drinking, smoking, and in questionable poses can be just as detrimental to your business. What’s the very best way to manage your Facebook page? Don’t have a personal one; create a business Facebook page only.

Tree Service Marketing via LinkedIn

Your LinkedIn profile also enhances or deters your reputation. It should be professionally written and only include details about your professional background that are relevant to your skills as a provider of professional tree services. If you worked as a bartender at a dance club for five years prior to opening your own tree service, don’t include that information ~ it’s neither necessary nor helpful. Even though lots of folks on LinkedIn seem to have their entire professional history detailed in chronological order, don’t make that same mistake! A potential customer only wants to know if you're knowledgeable, professional, and experienced at providing tree services.

Tree Service Marketing via Online Reviews

While you may not be able to control what a potential or established customer chooses to write about you and the services you provide, you DO have lots of control over how you handle, manage, and respond to those reviews.  Someone at your company must regularly monitor YELP and other sites where reviews are freely written about businesses. It’s important for you (or your representative) to respond quickly both to rave reviews and negative reviews. If a client was dissatisfied with your service and you offered him a discount, extra tree training work, or a coupon, then mention that when you respond to the review. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t be proud to have your grandmother read!  Keep it 100% professional. What’s the best way to handle online reviews? Be proactive!  Offer your customers an incentive if they agree to write a review about their experience with you.  Even if one particular customer’s review isn’t what you had hoped, it will quickly get lost among all the rave reviews!  

Tree Service Marketing via a Website

From consistently posting fresh, well-written SEO-keyword-rich blogs that always include a call to action or the ability for a visitor to leave a comment or ask a question to design effective landing pages and create a whole inbound marketing strategy, your website speaks volumes about how you see your business and how you want your customers to see you.   

Phew. Thoughtfully, successfully, and creatively marketing your tree service in today’s information-laden world can be as challenging as trying to climb a redwood. That’s why God not only made trees but also full-service agencies that specialize in marketing those businesses that care for His trees. To learn about the other three ways your business can quickly experience growth, contact us.

If you would like to read more on tree service marketing then check out our

second part of this blog post.