What to offer?

[born2farm]

Well I sat down today and started to draw up a lawn flyer to send out in the spring. I have read where people are offering free stuff and discounts at the top of flyers to draw attention. What can I offer or what should I head my flyers with. Im thinking like one free hedge trimming if they agree to a year of lawn care??

[ICS]

Each market is different, just look at all the free things you can offer (if that is the route you want to go) and pick one that you feel most comfortable with or you think would be most effective in your market. Think about the kind of customers you are trying to gain. Ones that want free stuff, cheap services, discount, quality work, standard work, custom work. Your advertising is a tool to grow your company the way you want to. If you are just wanting to build volume then just advertise the cheapest price, if you are trying to build custom work then your response may not be high but you may land a hand full of accounts that just want to have things done right. My cousin was passing out some flyer's about 8 yrs ago (at that time he was mowing only) he was always on the high side of pricing. Maybe had like 30-40 residential accounts at the time plus com accounts. He picked up a customer that was just tired of the old provider, signed up with him and two weeks later she ordered 12k in evergreens to be planted. Stupid story, but just shows you never know what can happen and that your advertising is a tool to grow your company the way you want.

No matter what type of advertising you choose I would try to incorporate the following:

Make the advertising as local and specific as possible, say you are going to just hit up a few developments try to personalize the advertising to each development. If you are advertising to different cities try to have each area personalized to that specific city.

Try to have a website with pics and placed on the advertising, you can get a simple website going in a day and post all the info you want potential customers to see on it.