Chris Heiler | Landscape Leadership

On My Mind This Week: Twitter Ads, Two Types of Sales People and Slingin' Sh*t

Chris H. — Sat, 18 May 2013 19:01:00 GMT

I'll start this week's post off by bringing out the inner tech-geek in me. One of our favorite tools here at Landscape Leadership is Highrise, the super-simple customer relationship management (CRM) software (I've written about it before).

One thing that makes Highrise so valuable to us and other businesses is its open API that other software developers can tap into and build on. There are numerous "add-ons" to Highrise that allow it to integrate with other software. Our favorite Highrise integrations are with Harvest (time tracking software), Outright (accounting software), Collabspot (contact managment) and Easy-Insight (sales intelligence software).

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Twitter recently opened up its advertising platform to all users and we didn't wait long to test the waters. We tested Twitter's Promoted Tweets for three days with a $25/day budget targeting Twitter users similar to users following green industry publishers like Lawn & Landscape Magazine (@lawnlandscape) and associations like PLANET (@PLANET2005).

In total, we spent $66.56 earning 6,725 impressions and 80 "engagements" (follows, clicks, retweets and replies). That's a 1.19% engagment rate which I would guess is actually pretty good.

But I don't care about engagements. What I want to know is did that $66.56 drive any traffic to our website and generate any leads? The answer: 79 clicks led to 26 website visitors which led to one new lead. So our cost per lead (CPL), which is what I care about, came out to $66.56. That's not bad when you consider the single lead is highly qualified to do business with us. We'll definitely test Twitter Ads again. How about you?

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I love this quote from my best friend who's a sales superstar and manages others: "We have two types of salespeople: rich and gone!"

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There's a content arms race taking place and to win it you better get your employees involved. Yes, getting your team to blog can be difficult. Getting them to take pictures? That's easy...if you make the process as frictionless as possible. Learn how we implement this with our clients by visiting and following Neave Group Outdoor Solutions on Instagram. Give your team the tools and training then let 'em go!

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The image above goes along with what I mentioned last week when I said you need to "teach" instead of "sell". Why? Because consumers are fed up with all the empty promises and bullshit that gets thrown in their faces everyday. Instead of being one of the companies slinging the shit why not go the opposite route and provide something of value?

"On My Mind This Week" is a weekly column featuring the candid opinions and insights of Landscape Leadership founder and president, Chris Heiler. If you enjoy these posts each week be sure to subscribe to our blog by clicking the image below.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/292591/On-My-Mind-This-Week-Twitter-Ads-Two-Types-of-Sales-People-and-Slingin-Sh-t

On My Mind This Week: Hiring, How to Write and Getting Scroogled

Chris H. — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:45:00 GMT

Lot's of random thoughts for you this week. Let's start with a new report released by Nielson that reveals "Hispanics are the most digitally savvy group" in the U.S. As AdWeek put it, "Hispanics are a marketer's dream: digitally savvy, young and socially connected." They're early adopters when it comes to technology. Why not enable them to put their savvy and love of tech to good use for your business?

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Here's a tip for all you green industry content marketers and bloggers out there: Before you pick your topic, identify your audience first. Always start with who you are writing for. Are you writing for a property manager? A business owner? A new homeowner? Let this be your guide.

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Hiring scares the shit out of me. So does growth. You?

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I'm tired of Microsoft's "Don't Get Scroogled" campaign against Google (I'd link to it but why propogate the crap?). This is a perfect example of the bully getting punched in the face then crying to the principle. All Microsoft has done with this campaign is reinforced the perception that they are falling behind Google. For Bing's advertising campaign, Microsoft essentialy copied Pepsi's blind taste test campaign. Why would you copy what the #2 cola in the world did?

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In a blog post Thursday, HubSpot's Dan Lyons compared outbound and inbound marketing to megaphones and magnets, "the idea being that instead of being a megaphone and using outbound tactics to 'spray and pray', you’re better off becoming a magnet, and using content to draw customers toward you." Perfect metaphor.

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Finally, let's remember to create "loveable" marketing. How do you do that? Become a thought-leader by focusing on educating your customers, community or industry instead of trying to sell them something.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/290906/On-My-Mind-This-Week-Hiring-How-to-Write-and-Getting-Scroogled

Landscaping Blog Tips From 5 Green Industry Companies Who Get It

Chris H. — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:16:00 GMT

Regular blogging is the most effective way to increase website traffic and generate qualified leads from your landscaping website. According to Lawn & Landscape’s 2012 Social Media Survey, only 27% of respondents claimed to have a blog. When I informally survey audiences at green industry events I speak at, typically only 5 to 10 percent of attendees have a blog. Of this, very few landscaping companies actually blog on a regular basis (at least once per week).

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report, companies that blog have 55% more website visitors than those who don’t. And, business to consumer (B2C) companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who do not (67% more for B2B companies).

Our website is a perfect case in point. In July and August of 2012 this website generated 82 leads each month. In the following four months September through December the site generated 35 leads each month. Why the sharp decline in leads? Easy: We published 25 blog posts in July and August combined and only 10 posts the next four months combined.

Blogging matters. Consistent blogging matters more.

Lessons from five excellent landscaping blogs

If you are ready to give your website traffic and number of inbound leads a boost through blogging, look to these five companies and landscaping blogs for inspiration:

Susan Cohan Gardens

http://www.susancohangardens.com/blog/

I point to Susan Cohan (@susancohan) as someone who has used blogging to build a strong personal brand on a local level as well as industry-wide. Susan is a fabulous landscape designer in New Jersey and has been blogging since 2007.

Susan has been a model of consistency through the years. From 2008 through 2012, Susan averaged 104 blog posts per year. That’s one blog post every three to four days for four years! That’s truly outstanding.

What I’ve always appreciated about Susan is that she does not shy away from sharing her candid insights and opinions on a variety of topics. I think this variety and genuineness is what makes her so endearing to her readers.

Key point: Don’t be afraid to share your unique point of view. And do it often!

Weed Pro and Tomlinson Bomberger

http://www.weed-pro.com/blog/

http://tomlinsonbomberger.com/our-blog/

Weed Pro, a Cleveland, Ohio based lawn care company has been tearing it up since starting their blog in early 2012, averaging about two blog posts per week.

I appreciate the fact that Weed Pro is very pragmatic as it relates to their landscaping blog. They obviously have a well thought out plan that revolves around optimizing their website for the search engines. Each blog post is optimized for popular keyword phrases related to lawn care as well as specific to their Cleveland and Columbus markets.

Weed Pro’s lawn care topics are also very timely. I don't see many landscaping and lawn care companies stay ahead of their sales cycle like Weed Pro when it comes to choosing blog topics. The landscaping blog of Tomlinson Bomberger is right on par with Weed Pro (they've been blogging for about three years).

This combination of consistency, timeliness, local relevance and keyword optimization draws in visitors at a steady clip. And Weed Pro's use of highly visual call-to-actions (CTAs) in each blog post ensures for a steady stream of leads.

Key point: Be pragmatic. And be timely with your topics.

GoiTalk

http://goitalk.com/

GoiTalk is the online voice of popular property measurement software GoiLawn and GoiPave.

Though they haven’t been blogging long--since April of 2012--they clearly have a well thought out plan in place. Many companies (especially B2B) are too self-promotional in their blogging. What I appreciate most about GoiTalk is that they take the opposite approach by being a valuable source of green industry business information for their lawn care and landscaping readers. Their tagline says it all: Profitable ideas, insights and information for contractors.

I also appreciate how GoiTalk includes “voices” outside of their company by inviting green industry experts as guest writers. This makes their content more valuable to readers while at the same time earning their blog more exposure.

Key point: Encourage others inside and outside your company to write for your blog.

HighGrove Partners

http://www.highgrove.net/blog (disclosure: HighGrove is a client of Landscape Leadership)

HighGrove Partners, led by CEO Jim McCutcheon (@jimmccutcheonhg), is a very successful landscape management company in Atlanta, Georgia and a Lawn & Landscape magazine Top 100 Contractor.

Many successful CEOs and business owners hide behind a curtain of secrecy, unwilling to share candid insights and experiences with their green industry peers. McCutcheon takes the opposite approach, regularly sharing his insight and showcasing the unique HighGrove culture via their landscaping blog.

This fresh take on company transparency and sharing is what we appreciate most.

Key point: Give your leaders a platform to share their unique and candid views.

Note: This article originally appeared in the May issue of Lawn & Landscape magazine. Image credit: Tomlinson Bomberger landscaping blog

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/290554/Landscaping-Blog-Tips-From-5-Green-Industry-Companies-Who-Get-It

HubSpot's New "Social Inbox" to Solve Today's Problem With Social Media Marketing

Chris H. — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:53:00 GMT

Yes, I'm a HubSpot fan-boy. No doubt. One reason we love HubSpot here is because of all the tools it offers within one software solution. Thus it's referred to as all-in-one marketing software. This makes our job as an agency much easier. We can be more productive and effective in everything we do for our clients when we use a single software solution.

HubSpot is constantly building in new killer features (they have to do something with those millions of dollars of venture capital, right?). And today they just announced the pending launch of another new feature, "Social Inbox".

From HubSpot earlier today:

"The problems with social media monitoring all stem from having to sift through a fire-hose of strangers. Without any context, you have no idea who to prioritize and how to address them. This wastes time and results in impersonal, disconnected interactions that don't do much for your business.

HubSpot turns down the firehose by plugging social media into a powerful contact database, enabling you to create highly targeted segments of leads and customers.

It's this same context that also enables you to measure the true ROI of your social media efforts. HubSpot shows you how many leads and customers were generated from social and who they are.

Amid all of the noise on social media, some messages are just more important than others. Creating an inbox, complete with filtering and priority alerts, enables users to elevate messages from their most important contacts - their customers, leads, or influencers.

Bottom line? Social Inbox makes scaleable personal attention possible."

We anticipate being invited to the beta testing of Social Inbox and eventually adding it to our client services workflow. Social Inbox will be rolling out to all HubSpot customers in June, so if you're a client of ours and reading this, hang tight!

Learn more in the video below or read a full write-up on HubSpot's blog. To learn how HubSpot can help your green industry business, give us a call at (800) 681-9169 or contact us using our handy contact form.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/289926/HubSpot-s-New-Social-Inbox-to-Solve-Today-s-Problem-With-Social-Media-Marketing

On My Mind This Week: Reaching Fans on Facebook & Two SEO Tips For You

Chris H. — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:52:00 GMT

"On My Mind This Week" is a new weekly column featuring the candid opinions and insights of Landscape Leadership founder and president, Chris Heiler.

This should come as no surprise: Facebook continues to drive me bat-shit crazy. The last 20 updates on my Facebook Page have generated 127 views on average. Only 15% of my Page’s 849 followers are seeing my updates on average. Talk about frustrating. What are you seeing on your company's Facebook Page?

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Have you tried advertising on Facebook using “Promoted Posts”? Once again, Facebook proves to be out of touch with small to medium-sized businesses like yours and mine. If I pay to “promote a post” I no longer have the option to only reach my fans--Facebook will share the post with my fans and their friends.

Listen Facebook, I'm not Coca Cola. I’m not interested in reaching every consumer on the planet. I’m trying to reach landscape professionals who may actually care about what I share on your platform. You know, the ones who “liked” my page to begin with.

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Over the past 9 to 12 months I’ve noticed my interest and participation in social networks like Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr has sharply declined or has become non-existent. I suppose as time goes on and the novelty of new networks wears off we all settle into the "social habits" we're most comfortable with. What have you noticed about your social media activity and habits over the past year?

I know many of you have added your business to many of the local search directories that are available online--Yelp, MerchantCircle, Manta, YP.com, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure you would agree with me that it is a major pain to keep track of these listings. Enter Yext. We avoided using this local search software for over a year instead relying on spreadsheets to manage the hundreds of client listings our agency maintains. I wish we hadn't waited so long to switch to the Yext software. It's been a valuable asset to our agency and clients. I highly recommend checking it out for your business.

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If you're working with an SEO firm do yourself a favor and request two things from them immediately: 1) Website analytics showing traffic to your website before/after engaging them, and 2) a link profile of all of the inbound links pointing back to your company's website (presumably that they've obtained for you). If they don’t submit this, or they get a little nervous discussing your request, fire them!

Your SEO firm should be able to prove to you that their efforts have, at a minimum, increased traffic to your website and that the link profile they've built consists of relevant and authoratative inbound links (as opposed to spam and black-hat SEO crap links, as I like to call it). If there is no proof, it's time to end the relationship and stop wasting your money.

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Congratulations to my friends Glenn Jacobsen (Jacobsen Landscape, New Jersey) and Jim McCutcheon (HighGrove Partners, Atlanta, GA). This past week Glenn took the reigns as president of the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) while Jim waits in the wings as president-elect.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/289315/On-My-Mind-This-Week-Reaching-Fans-on-Facebook-Two-SEO-Tips-For-You

Landscaping Sales Tips: Lead Source Identification and Tracking

Chris H. — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:00:00 GMT

“We get all our business from word-of-mouth.”

Seriously, I cringe everytime I hear someone tell me that. I hear it ALL. THE. TIME from people in our green industry.

It’s not that I doubt the relative truth of the statement, I question whether a company actually knows, with certainty, from which channels customers are coming from.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I was going to start hammering on various sales topics on our blog over the next few months. Last month we talked about the importance of developing a common language between your sales and marketing team. We started by defining the “lifecycle stage” of your contacts. This month I want to talk about defining “Lead Source”.

I realize many companies are just thankful to have customers--regardless of how they may have acquired them--but there are major benefits to tracking your sources of leads, such as:

Your business will have an intimate understanding of exactly where your leads and customers are coming from, based on real data, not assumptions.
Your business will be able to place a value on each lead source. Is a “Referral” lead more valuable than an “Advertising” lead? Again, don’t make assumptions, use data to answer the question.
If you can track cost per lead (CPL), you can also track CPL from each unique lead source.
You will be able to accurately measure conversion rates. Does a “Referral” lead convert at a higher rate than a “Networking” lead?

The bottom line is that you will know where your marketing dollars are paying off and where they are not. Using real data, not assumptions, will allow your business to make better decisions regarding where to spend time and money.

In the real world

I’ll use our agency as a real world example. We use the following categories to describe “Lead Source” (the screenshot shows this in HubSpot's Contacts tool):

Inbound
Referral
Networking
Speaking
Advertising/PR

The categories you choose will be unique to your company. My recommendation is to stick with five or six categories versus trying to track leads across 10 or more categories. You can also have sub-categories, as we do for “Inbound”:

organic search
paid search
social media
referral traffic
direct traffic
email

We track these sub-categories because HubSpot’s marketing software gives us the ability to do so. If not for HubSpot we would not dive as deep. My point is, make sure you have the capabilities to actually track the data you’re after.

For us, we know that over 90% of our leads come from “Inbound” sources like our website and this blog. That said, we know the quality of leads from “Referrals”, “Networking” and “Speaking” is much higher than that of “Inbound”. A higher percentage of these leads convert into opportunities and customers.

We also know that only 10% of our “Inbound” leads come from “social media” sources like Facebook (49% of “social media” leads) and LinkedIn (18% of “social media” leads). (That’s for all you data geeks :-)

Again, if you have this data, you can start to make better decisions regarding where you spend your valuable time and money.

Based on the data I shared above, we’ve shifted our marketing focus significantly. We don’t spend as nearly much time on social media as we once did. We focus on this blog, speaking and attending green industry events. That’s where we get the most ROI from a lead generation standpoint.

The challenge

I’m sure you can see the importance in tracking lead source. Of course, the challenge is in actually doing it! And if you’re part of a large organization with numerous people in marketing and sales roles the challenge is even greater.

Here are a few suggestions for implementing this tracking:

Again, keep the number of categories to a minimum, five or six at most. Use sub-categories if you need to break the sources down further.
Train your people, whether that’s one individual or 20, on how to define the lead source. This is another reason you want to have fewer categories. You need to keep it simple for your team.
Use customer relationship management (CRM) software to track “lead source” in each contact record (see image to the right). We use and highly recommend Highrise. This allows you to easily sort contacts and customers by lead source for reporting purposes.
In your marketing and sales meetings make “tracking lead source” a point of emphasis during your discussions so your team understands the importance to the company’s bottom line.

I know it’s easier said than done, but do not let this task escape you. Understand exactly where your leads and customers are coming from...and then you can make smart decisions on how to spend your marketing dollars.

I’ve shared how we track “lead source” at Landscape Leadership, how do you track it? If you have any tips please share them below. Or if you’ve had challenges tracking this in the past, tell us about it below.

If you want to learn more about how an inbound marketing agency like Landscape Leadership can take your marketing and sales to a higher level, download our free e-book, "The Ultimate Guide To Hiring An Inbound Marketing Agency". Or, feel free to email me directly at chris.heiler[at]landscapeleadership.com or call us at (800) 681-9169.

image credit: Paull Young

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/285519/Landscaping-Sales-Tips-Lead-Source-Identification-and-Tracking

The Content Arms Race and Your Green Industry Company: Where Do You Fit In?

Chris H. — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:17:00 GMT

I’m excited to be heading to Atlanta this coming weekend to visit with one of our agency’s clients, HighGrove Partners. Our primary point of emphasis will be on creating a company-wide “Content Team” for HighGrove.

Involving your employees in your inbound marketing efforts brings forth numerous benefits, number one being the creation of an enormous amount of content to feed the search engines and your research-hungry prospects. This goes for green industry business-to-consumer companies (B2C) and for companies like HighGrove who are business-to-business (B2B) focused.

There’s a “content arms race” in full effect, as The Sales Lion, Marcus Sheridan (@TheSalesLion) refers to it. Last week I provided some data to back this up.

5 types of green industry companies

Over the past couple of years companies have begun to separate into five distinct categories as it relates to inbound and content marketing. This isn’t unique to our green industry--it’s happening in all industries.

I created the illustration below to provide a big picture view of what a company can expect within each category as reflected in total website traffic. Be sure to read a description of each category below the illustration.

Category #1

Companies in category one do absolutely nothing from a content standpoint. No blogging. No website (for many, anyway).

Category #2

Companies in category two have a website and many will try their hand at blogging, but often times the responsibility falls on a single individual with multiple roles in the company which, ultimately, translates into inconsistent blogging.

Sadly, the majority of our industry seems to fall within categories one and two. However, therein also lies a golden opportunity for businesses like yours ready to take advantage (See Weed Pro as a terrific example).

Category #3

Companies in category three see the need for content and begin to step up their game. This consistent approach to blogging (let’s say one post/week) leads to a steady rise in website traffic month over month.

Category #4

Instead of blogging internally, companies in category four seek consistency by outsourcing content creation to specialized agencies like ours (learn more here).

Though consistency matches that of category three companies, the specialized knowledge and expertise the right agency can provide will lead to an even greater increase in site traffic each month.

Category #5

If you read our post from last week, you understand that having more and more web pages and blog posts on your website leads to huge gains in website traffic and leads.

Category five companies partner with agencies like Landscape Leadership and form internal content teams to consistently create massive amounts of web content.

Our initial less-than-ambitious goal with HighGrove Partners will be to publish eight original blog posts each month--four written by the HighGrove team and four written by our agency team. This translates into almost 100 unique blog posts each year. And remember, I referred to that as less than ambitious.

Companies in categories one and two can’t compete in this content arms race with category five companies. Very few in categories three and four can compete. The question is, where are you now? And, where do you want to be?

Read this blog post that was originally published in Lawn & Landscape magazine if you’re interested in how to put together an internal content team and getting your people involved. Also, I’d love to hear your comments and opinions on this topic. Feel free to leave them below.

image credit (top): JD Hancock

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/284614/The-Content-Arms-Race-and-Your-Green-Industry-Company-Where-Do-You-Fit-In

Data Shows What Truly Impacts Website Traffic to Landscaping Websites

Chris H. — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:30:00 GMT

If you want “easy” marketing, place an ad in your local paper or train a monkey to pound the neighborhood with door hangers. As I’ve said before, these in-your-face “quick hits” are short-lived and unsustainable. This is outbound marketing that, as consumers, we all loathe.

Inbound marketing is different: Remember sleep, creep, leap? (Read it!)

Embracing and implementing inbound marketing is a long-term play. You’re building for the future!

I acknowledge that the first steps down the inbound marketing path can be frustrating for a landscaping company. It can take months before you begin attracting more visitors to your website, connect with more people on social media and actually begin to generate leads.

It’s a process, folks. Ever watch an airplane take off? It takes a lot of energy to get that big hunk of metal off the ground, but once in the air, flight almost seems effortless.

Taking Flight

Inbound marketing starts with getting more eyeballs to your landscaping company’s website. Afterall, you can’t generate leads and sales from your website without first attracting a consistent flow of monthly visitors.

In this post we’ll explore four basic sources of website traffic with an emphasis on long term impact. In other words, what you can expect with a little sticktoitiveness on your part.

We’ll be citing real data from our e-book, “Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses”. This data was compiled from a HubSpot study of their 4,000 customers, many of whom are small to medium-sized businesses like yours.

Let’s jump in and start with blogging.

Blogging’s impact on website traffic

In July and August of 2012 our website generated 82 leads each month. In the following four months September through December the site generated 35 leads each month. Our traffic numbers mirrored that. Why the sharp decline in leads and traffic? Easy: We published 25 blog posts in July and August combined and only 10 posts the next four months combined.

While blogging is important, consistent blogging is even more important. For the past two months we have averaged one new blog post each week. While that’s not exactly setting the world on fire, the consistency has slowly increased the number of website visitors month over month.

Now would be a good time to state the obvious: The more content you publish the more people come to your website.

When it comes to blogging, you have to think long term. Check out these findings from HubSpot and our e-book:

Businesses with over 200 total blog posts got 4.6 times more traffic than those with under 20 blog posts.

Do the math: If you average one blog post per week it will take you nearly four years to reach this milestone. Are you willing to put in the effort? Our clients are, because we know their competitors won’t.

Web pages and traffic

While conducting our Inbound Marketing Assessments, we’ve analyzed hundreds of landscaping websites. I would estimate that the average landscaping website has between 10 and 25 unique pages.

Now, back to our study (you might want to sit down for this). Here’s what HubSpot found:

Businesses websites with 401 to 1,000 web pages have nine times more traffic than those with 51 to 100 web pages. (Note: Each blog post is considered a unique web page.)

As you can see in the graph below, even reaching 300 pages is a realistic milestone that would put your landscaping company waaaaay ahead of your competitors.

Facebook reach and traffic

Facebook, and social media in general, is a great way to communicate with your customers. From a more pragmatic standpoint, it can also be a terrific way to drive more eyeballs to your company’s website.

We’ve seen so many landscaping companies eager and excited to start a Facebook Page for their business only to get frustrated and give up within a few short months. It’s too bad because, as I’ve tried to illustrate, it takes time to build momentum! Did Rocky Balboa throw in the towel after he got punched in the face by Apollo Creed? Hell no! He kept fighting!

Here’s what HubSpot found in their study:

Businesses with 501 to 1,000 Facebook fans had 3.5 times more website traffic than those with 1 to 25 fans. Businesses with over 1,000 Facebook fans had 22 times more traffic.

I’ve noticed this trend with our client’s Facebook Pages. The closer we creep to that 1,000 fan milestone the more dramatic the increase in website referral traffic from Facebook.

Twitter reach and traffic

Your company’s Twitter reach impacts website traffic in a similar way as Facebook, only less dramatically.

From HubSpot:

Businesses with 301 to 1,000 Twitter followers had over 5 times more traffic than those with 1 to 25 followers. Businesses with over 1,000 Twitter followers had over 6 times more traffic than those with 1 to 25 followers.

Nothing too earth shattering in these findings related to Twitter.

Blogging on a consistent basis is the most impactful thing your landscaping company can do to increase traffic to your website. Each blog post is a new web page!

Remember, implementing an inbound marketing strategy is a long-term play. You’re building for the future! You can’t do it all at once so don’t get overwhelmed.

If you found these stats to be relevant to your landscaping company, be sure to download our FREE e-book, “Lead Generation Lessons From 4,000 Businesses”. There are many more interesting findings in the e-book, especially related to lead generation. Grab your copy by clicking on the image below.

image credit (top): epSos.de

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/283815/Data-Shows-What-Truly-Impacts-Website-Traffic-to-Landscaping-Websites

Can Boring and Unremarkable Customer Service Be Effective? Hell Yes!

Chris H. — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:11:00 GMT

When I started my first business ten years ago--and probably for the first seven or eight years--I believed customer service was all about wowing your clients. Being remarkable. Delivering the Purple Cow.

And we chased various creative ways to deliver this type of “extreme” customer service. I believed customer service was really just a function of the marketing department.

Flash Forward

Earlier this year I was asked to participate in a panel discussion about customer service at a green industry conference. As I listened to the other panelists describe their customer service successes, I realized my view on customer service had significantly changed over the past few years.

While the other panelists shared their Purple Cows and wow-worthy moments, I think I killed the buzz in the audience when I shared my less-than-dramatic philosophy on customer service, which is:

Treat your clients how you would want to be treated if you were in their position. And do it consistently, proactively and with transparency.

I know, pretty mind-blowing, right?

Here’s the thing: You don’t need to blow your client’s minds to earn their respect and loyalty (and all the referrals that come with it). Just treat them well and prove to them everyday that you are in their corner.

You got my back, I got your back. Pretty simple.

Can boring and unremarkable be effective? Hell yes!

As I explained to the underwhelmed audience, I truly believe that if a client reaches out to us with a problem related to our agency’s services or simply requesting an update on a current project, this is an absolute customer service failure on our part.

We failed because we either didn’t recognize the issue before our client did, or we weren’t proactive enough in communicating with our client.

In this post I thought I would share a few of the practical ways we live our customer service philosophy and how you might apply similar practices in your business.

Real-Time Wins

Whether it’s reaching a new high in monthly website traffic or getting a client featured in Better Homes & Gardens, we share these “wins” in real-time.

We get excited for our client’s success and want them to share in it in that moment.

How about you? What kind of real-time wins can you share with your clients? Make this sharing a habit. Get your clients and customers excited!

Weekly Activity Updates

Monday morning is when we provide our clients with a Weekly Activity Update which highlights the tasks completed from the previous week (We do this in Basecamp). An example might look like this:

Published new blog post about....
Pitched news release to local media
Created landing page for new infographic
Updated three pages on website
Added two new photo albums to Facebook Page
Began writing copy for new pages on website

The point is to be proactive in communicating, on a weekly basis, what we are working on for our clients and what we have accomplished.

We don’t want our clients wondering what the hell we’ve been up to and what they’ve been getting for their monthly fee.

If you are a lawn care operator or landscape contractor, do you want your customers questioning what you’re doing with their money and how you’re spending your time?

Be proactive and transparent. Let your customers know exactly what you’re up to.

Monthly Marketing Updates

The Monthly Marketing Updates we provide to our clients are very similar to the Weekly Activity Updates (also done in Basecamp). However, instead of regurgitating the tasks we accomplished over the previous weeks we provide insight into the key performance indicators (KPIs) we track in our Monthly Scorecards (see below).

We highlight successes and trends. We discuss challenges ahead. We also openly discuss how we allocated our monthly budget (see below). Again, this is all about keeping our clients in the loop and letting them know exactly what is going on.

You can do this in your business by providing weekly or monthly updates to your design/build clients and/or maintenance clients. Trust me, they will appreciate it!

If you consistently get calls from your clients requesting updates on their projects, you are failing at customer service. It’s your job to pick up the phone before your customer does!

Monthly Scorecards

Our clients want to know what they are getting for their money and how we, as an agency, are impacting their bottom line. It’s our job to show them. We do this by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) every month and compiling these metrics in our Monthly Scorecard (a simple spreadsheet).

We track KPIs for three broad categories: Brand Awareness, Lead Generation and Lead to Sale Conversion. We share this spreadsheet in our Monthly Marketing Update.

Below is a screenshot showing some of the KPIs we track related to brand awareness:

We use these scorecards to communicate progress, illustrate trends and to benchmark against historical data. This data also allows us to develop realistic goals and objectives for future campaigns.

Your customers want to know what they’re getting for their money as well. They want to know how you’re progressing on their behalf. How can you show them? Can you use data in some way to illustrate progress or positive impact?

Budget Transparency

As I mentioned above, in our Monthly Marketing Updates we openly discuss how we allocated our monthly marketing budget (note: all of our clients are on a set monthly retainer, similar to how a lawn care contract may be set up).

We believe that transparency ultimately leads to trust and decreases the likelihood of misunderstandings and disagreements about money and budgets. It also makes future discussions about add-on services a whole lot easier.

How can your business become more transparent as it relates to your pricing or invoicing processes? Are you willing to open up a bit in an effort to build greater trust with your customers? It will be worth it.

Below is a screenshot showing exactly what we share with our clients each month (we use Harvest to track time and budgets):

Quarterly Reviews

I’m sure you’ve spotted a trend by now--weekly updates, monthly updates--of course we must have a quarterly update, right? You bet! We call these our Quarterly Reviews.

Our Quarterly Reviews are more “big picture” focused. We not only look at what was accomplished the previous quarter but also look months ahead at the potential challenges and opportunities looming. We conduct these via conference call.

If the majority of your customers are retainer-based such as commercial landscape maintenance accounts or residential lawn care accounts you could absolutely offer some sort of quarterly review for your customers (maybe you could call it a Seasonal Review).

The point is, you shouldn’t go month after month after month after month without sitting down and openly discussing challenges and opportunities or seeking feedback. Having these open discussions every few months sets you up as a trusted advisor. And that’s a really good place to be in the eye’s of your customer.

To me, remarkable customer service isn’t about wowing your customers with unforgettable acts they share with friends around their coffee table. It’s not that complicated. Just treat your customers how you would want to be treated. And do it day after day in a transparent and proactive way.

What does remarkable customer service mean to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can leave your comments below.

image credit: Dell's Official Flickr Page

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/281745/Can-Boring-and-Unremarkable-Customer-Service-Be-Effective-Hell-Yes

Sleep, Creep, Leap: How Inbound Marketing is Exactly Like Landscaping

Chris H. — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:28:00 GMT

If you work in the green industry you’ve heard the phrase, “Sleep, Creep, Leap”, as it relates to a landscape or garden. It’s a simplistic description of how a newly installed landscape will evolve over its first few years.

In year one the plantings are overcoming shock and getting settled into their new home. Year two sees the plants acclimating to their environment, putting their energy into establishing themselves and showing a small amount of growth. In year three the plants take off and really begin to fill in their spaces in the landscape.

You start to see the payoff in year three.

The inbound marketing process is similar. I’ll get to this in a minute, but first, let’s think about outbound marketing for a moment.

When I say “outbound”, I’m talking about the annoying, self-serving and obtrusive ways companies shove/cram/blast their marketing messages into our faces. You know, advertising and spam mostly.

These in-your-face outbound marketing tactics remind me of the tacky mass displays of annual marigolds and begonias in front of a gas station. Both offer a “quick hit” that’s short-lived and unsustainable.

Inbound marketing is different--all of your current marketing efforts support and build on past efforts. For instance, your potential customers can find a blog post you wrote three years ago in Google’s search results pages even today. They will not, however, find (or remember) the postcard you sent them three years ago.

That aside, now let’s dive into how inbound marketing is exactly like landscaping.

Sleep

When you jam a daylily in the ground in August do you really expect it to make an impact that season? Your customers might, but you know better.

Similarly, launching a new website, a company blog or a Facebook Page won’t have much impact attracting a barrage of new customers in the first few months. Hell, no one besides your mother will even read your blog for the first six months! This is OKAY! This is normal!

Building a marketing machine that drives brand awareness for your company and generates a boat-load of leads takes time, folks. It’s hard work. You can’t just flip a switch and expect a bunch of new leads to fall into your lap.

I know this is frustrating. It sucks spending your hard-earned money without an immediate payoff. But you Gotta. Play. The. Game!

This is what the “sleep” period for many of our clients will look like:

Build a completely new company website or redesign existing website
Integrate marketing automation software (like HubSpot) with the website
Integrate the website and marketing software with the company’s CRM (customer relationship management) software, bringing marketing and sales closer together.
Put together an internal team of employees who will contribute content to the company’s marketing efforts
Begin blogging on a consistent schedule (once/week)
Begin participating on one or two social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn
Create one or two unique landing pages for lead generation purposes

Our friends at Marketing Agency Insider call these “Builders”. We call it “The Foundation”. This is the marketing infrastructure that needs to be put in place to ensure for long term success.

Typically during this early stage the payoff or return will come in the form of increased brand awareness, which can be measured by website traffic (# of unique visitors, # of new visitors, referral traffic, etc) and reach (# of blog subscribers, # of Facebook fans, etc).

Creep

In good soil and with proper care, it doesn’t take long for a plant like a daylily to establish its roots and begin to flourish.

The same can be said for a well-run inbound marketing campaign. This “creep” stage looks like this:

Brand awareness begins to increase dramatically as seen by a steady increase in new and unique website visitors along with an increase in number of social followers/connections.
More and more website pages begin ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for important keyword phrases.
Website traffic from organic search begins to rise significantly as search rankings begin to climb.
Company and website begins to appear in more local search results.
Landing pages begin paying off with a small but steady flow of new leads each month.

At this point things are starting to get exciting. A company can start to see real results and trends based on the work they’ve put in. Now they’re “all in” and ready for their inbound marketing efforts to really take off.

Leap

I’m sure you all know what a mass planting of daylily looks like by year three: It’s ready to take over the garden. The mass is blending in with the other plantings and it’s snuffing out those pesky weeds that once inhabited the space.

And this is exactly what you are doing to your competitors.

You are now dominating search results because of your regular blogging, link building efforts and social media activity.
You are not only driving a ton of visitors to your site, but you are also generating a steady flow of qualified leads with your collection of landing pages.
With a lead scoring and lead nurturing process in place your sales team is more effectively closing more sales.
Using marketing automation software like HubSpot, and after months of relentless effort, you are able to measure and analyze everything from where your leads and customers are coming from to what your most popular content is. From this data you can make even better decisions on how and where to focus your resources.

At this stage a company has serious momentum and is not about to take its foot off the gas.

This is where every company wants to be.

Just remember, this doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve got to put in the hard work required. You have to first build the foundation.

image credit: erink_photography

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/280200/Sleep-Creep-Leap-How-Inbound-Marketing-is-Exactly-Like-Landscaping

Bringing Sales and Marketing Together in Your Lawn and Landscape Business

Chris H. — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:51:00 GMT

As an inbound marketing agency, our objective is simple: Build brand awareness, increase customer loyalty and generate qualified leads for our green industry clients. But we don’t stop here, because after all, our ultimate purpose is to enable our clients to close more sales and increase revenue and profits.

In order for us to do this, we need to bring marketing and sales closer together. In many companies, the marketing and sales teams operate in silos, unaware of what each is working on. There’s a disconnect between the two.

This disconnect can cause a lot of problems. Here are just a few:

Your sales team wastes valuable time chasing unqualified leads
Leads get lost or dropped and opportunities are wasted
Return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts is difficult to measure because your marketing team doesn’t know what leads are turning into actual sales.
It’s near impossible to measure cost per lead (CPL) and cost of customer acquisition (COCA)
Seasonal promotions are difficult or ineffective because your sales team has no clue what the marketing team is up to (and vice versa).

Over the coming months we’re going to dive into how your green industry business can close this gap between marketing and sales (so subscribe to this blog if you haven’t already). We’ll start with some basics in this post and move toward more advanced strategies.

Speaking a common language

Open, candid communication between departments is difficult enough. It’s damn near impossible if you’re speaking a different language.

What’s a “prospect”? What’s a “contact”? What’s a “lead”? What makes for a “good” lead? How about a “bad” lead? Is Mrs. Jones a “client” or a “customer”?

One of the starting points in bringing your marketing and sales team closer together is to define a common language. This may sound simplistic, but creating standard language will help you avoid confusion and get your teams thinking alike.

When we begin working with a new client we try to standardize the terminology related to “Lifecycle Stage”, “Lead Source” and other language specific to the unique business (“Client Type”, “Property Type”, “Industry”, etc).

In this post we will focus on Lifecycle Stage.

Not all leads are created equal

Lifecycle stage is how you define where a contact is in your sales cycle or sales funnel.

Here is why it is so important to identify and track lifecycle stage of your contacts:

Make reporting easier; paint a better picture that everyone on your team can understand.
Benchmark your marketing and sales efforts against past months and years.
Spot weaknesses in your sales funnel. Where are you lacking?
Better measure the ROI of your marketing efforts.
Better measure marketing and sales team member’s performance. Track goals more easily and hold team members accountable.
Better understand which leads to focus your valuable time on.
Communicate and interact with your contacts in a more relevant and unobtrusive way by segmenting your contacts by lifecycle stage.

We classify contacts into seven unique lifecycle stages. We do this internally and recommend the same seven to our clients. We “borrowed” this methodology (and the image below) from the brilliant marketing and sales minds at HubSpot.

Subscribers

Subscribers might be fans of your business but they haven’t necessarily raised their hands for your help…yet. These folks reside at the very top of your sales funnel.

These can be blog subscribers, email subscribers, Facebook fans and even Twitter followers and LinkedIn connections. It’s your marketing team’s job to engage these subscribers and move a number of them through the funnel to the next stage (we call this “lead nurturing”).

Leads

A lead is interested in what you offer and has “raised their hand” by filling out a web form, requesting a consultation, responding to a direct mail piece, etc. A lead may or may not be ready to buy right now. Either way, a follow up process needs to begin.

Not every lead is going to be A+ primo. Because of this we implement a lead scoring process internally and with our clients that is based on demographics, lead source and specific actions (emails opened, website views, etc). We’ll cover this scoring process in a future blog post. We avoid applying an arbitrary “good” or “bad” label to leads.

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Some leads just aren’t a fit for your company, or they are not ready to make a buying decision. When you acquire a new lead, you really have three options: You either cut ties, continue your lead nurturing process (nudging them through your sales funnel) or push this “qualified” lead to your sales team so they can work their magic.

An MQL is a lead that is qualified to do business with you. In our case, an MQL would look like this:

Business owner or executive of a green industry company
Annual revenue over $2 million
Has shown interest in our agency by downloading content from our website, visiting numerous pages (including sales-related pages), visiting our site multiple times, opening a high percentage of emails, etc. Their actions show interest.

For a B2B landscape management company a marketing qualified lead may look like this:

Property management company overseeing multiple retail properties in your local market
Multiple people from the company have visited your website, including your Testimonials and Newsroom pages. They also downloaded a free case study and white paper.

(We use HubSpot’s marketing-automation software to collect this data and monitor website activity.)

Sales Accepted Leads (SALs)

At this point, your marketing team has “set the hook”. They acquired and qualified the leads. Now it’s time for your sales team to bring in the big fish.

When marketing passes an MQL on to the sales team it now becomes a Sales Accepted Lead (SAL).

Opportunities

Some of these SALs will turn into opportunities for your company. A contact like this is actively engaged in your sales process and there is now a real possibility of converting this lead into a sale. Maybe they have scheduled a consultation with you or requested a proposal.

Customers

Congratulations! You landed the big fish by turning the opportunity into a paying customer.

Inactive or closed

Oh, the big fish got away? You can now consider the opportunity to be inactive or closed.

The dreaded sales meeting

Using this common language, your monthly sales meeting can sound more like this now:

Business Owner: “Marketing Team, how many leads did you generate last month? Of these, how many were Marketing Qualified Leads?”

Marketing Team: “We generated 45 new leads, of which 18 were MQLs”

Business Owner: “Sales Team, how many of the MQLs turned into Sales Accepted Leads? Have any of these turned into opportunities yet? Any customers yet?”

Sales Team: “We accepted 16 of the 18 MQLs. Of those, 10 have become opportunities so far and 2 have become customers already—a $9,000 enhancement and a $3,000/month maintenance contract.”

Business Owner: “Excellent. You’re awesome. Let’s go to lunch.”

This sure beats, “We got 30 or 40 some leads--some good, some bad. We’ve got a few proposals out there.”

I want to stress that this lifecycle classification can benefit any size company. This is not just for multi-million dollar companies with separate sales and marketing teams.

We use this internally where I alone am the sales and marketing team currently. This has been extremely valuable to us in organizing our marketing and sales efforts and understanding where all contacts are throughout the sales funnel.

Do you know where all of your contacts currently are in your sales funnel?

image credit: phocks

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/278231/Bringing-Sales-and-Marketing-Together-in-Your-Lawn-and-Landscape-Business

A Rant on Shady SEOs and Guaranteed First Page Rankings

Chris Heiler — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:11:00 GMT

Turn back if you’re easily offended by rough language.

I curse like Blake (Alec Baldwin) in Glengarry Glen Ross when I get annoyed. And I get annoyed when honest and well-intentioned companies like yours get taken by a bunch of shady basement-dwellers that professionally refer to themselves as “SEOs”, or search engine optimizers.

I swear, these are the kids that got picked last to be on the playground kickball team and now, since the arrival of the Internet, they are hell bent on exacting their revenge on society.

You know who I’m talking about. They have your business on speed dial. And at some point--some of you--succumbed to their too-good-to-be true guarantees.

If you haven’t figured it out already: It’s all bullshit.

I can say this because our agency takes calls every week from the suckers who’ve been taken by these shit-slingers. (If you’re one of the "suckers" I’m referring to, just know I mean it in a well-intentioned way :-)

No joke, at least once each week we hear from a green industry company who finally realizes their hard-earned dollars have gone to waste.

Stop spending your money with these shysters!

“But wait! They guarantee our company top rankings in the search results!” the suckers say, “And they send us a really neat report every month!”

I know, I know. They guarantee rankings and they guarantee a certain number of inbound links each month. And they send you pretty reports every month. All for the super-low-you’re-neglecting-your-business-if-you-don’t-take-advantage-price of $500 per month.

Sound familiar?

Do you know which keywords they guarantee a high ranking for? It’s usually a handful of keywords you’re already ranking for or that you could easily optimize for yourself!

Do you know how they are getting you the inbound links? Honestly, you probably don’t want to know what sites are linking to you or where your website address is plastered online. The truth would make you throw up on your boots.

Did you know those neat reports are automatically generated and your SEO company isn’t spending a second looking at them? Why would they? They don’t give a shit about you or your business.

If you’re paying someone $500/month and they are not either creating meaningful content or managing a paid search campaign for you, you’re getting screwed.

It’s really that simple, folks.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t give money to people who don’t give a shit about my business.

Now FIRE that shady, basement-dwelling SEO before you make another payment!

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/273890/A-Rant-on-Shady-SEOs-and-Guaranteed-First-Page-Rankings

Marriage, Marketing and One-Night Stands

Chris Heiler — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:16:00 GMT

I like to compare inbound, permission-based marketing to outbound, interruptive marketing like I would compare a healthy marriage to a one-night stand.

Stick with me folks!

One-night stands are easy. They’re not complicated. Very low expectations on both sides. It’s like handing a check to an advertising sales rep. It’s easy. There’s not much involved. You just cross your fingers hoping for a decent result (I’m talking about leads people!). And if your minimal expectations are met maybe you go back again.

And aren’t one-night stands--like advertising--really just a numbers game? Your advertising rep brags about “number of impressions”. It’s the classic shotgun approach. Blast your message to the largest audience possible (via print, radio, or television) and hope to attract a few prospects who are willing to buy from you right now. It’s like walking into a club loaded with the opposite sex--you’re bound to attract at least one or two “prospects” willing to.....you get the point.

Marriage is different. Inbound marketing is different.

Marriage is based on a relationship that grows over time, not over a couple of beers. It’s more satisfying. Inbound marketing is the same. It takes a long-term commitment. Neither is easy. Both require hard work.

Inbound marketing, like marriage, is all about listening and engaging in open and honest communication.

Before marriage comes dating. In inbound marketing circles we talk about lead nurturing. In both, the relationship is built on trust and respect at the core.

Trust and respect aren’t words typically associated with advertising or one-night stands.

As marketers, business owners and professionals, we can all do better. It's time we heed the advice of our inbound marketing friends at HubSpot and...

START MAKING MARKETING PEOPLE LOVE

image credit: katerha

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/270506/Marriage-Marketing-and-One-Night-Stands

How do Companies Have the Time and Money for Inbound Marketing and Expensive Marketing-Automation Software?

Chris Heiler — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:44:00 GMT

Here’s a typical setting: I’m speaking at a green industry conference, presenting our inbound marketing methodology and gushing about HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing-automation software. “Do you want to generate more leads and close more sales? This is how you do it...”, yada yada...

Lot’s of heads bobbing up and down. Lot’s of note taking. (A couple guys sleeping because they were out too late the night before boozing it up.)

Then the inevitable comment/question combo: “This sounds like a lot of work....How the heck are companies finding the time and money for this?”

Great question.

From our experience--as a marketing agency that works directly with green industry companies like yours--we would say the resounding answer is companies are simply shifting marketing dollars from traditional, costly, interruption-based marketing to more targeted, cost-effective inbound marketing strategies.

Instead of dropping $40,000 each year on an ineffective YellowPages ad, companies are retaining agencies like ours or hiring within. Instead of spending $10,000 on a direct mail piece or a print ad campaign in a local newspaper, companies are hiring part-time freelance help.

The bottom line is, “inbound” is a helluva lot more effective than interruptive marketing and gives you more bang for your buck. It’s also much easier to measure your results and return on investment--which makes opening your checkbook a little easier.

Let’s be clear, I’m talking about shifting marketing budgets, not eliminating them entirely.

Some green industry companies have chosen to eliminate their marketing budgets. I hear this all the time: “We dropped all our advertising. We don’t pay for anything. We just use our website and Facebook. We love FREE!” Well, good luck with that strategy, it’s not very bright.

The idea that “You have to spend money to make money” is still alive and well, it’s just changed a bit. It’s now, “You have to spend money more wisely to make even more money”.

So, how are green industry companies spending their marketing dollars more wisely? There are really three basic models that we have been seeing.

The “Here, you do it all” company

We like these guys.

These companies don’t have dedicated marketing staff within the company--even though some of these companies can be generating millions of dollars in revenue each year. But, they still have a substantial marketing budget.

These folks rely almost completely on outside agencies like ourselves and smart marketing-automation software like HubSpot.

The “Partner with us, please” company

Many companies (of all sizes) fit within this category. These companies will have a dedicated marketing person internally, either part-time or full-time. They usually carry the title of Marketing Director. Many times it is the owner of the company.

These internal marketers simply don’t have enough time or the specialized knowledge to run an all-encompassing, impactful inbound marketing program.

These companies will partner with an agency like ours to boost their effectiveness. They build a team with the internal marketing director leading the charge. This can be more cost-effective than the “Here, you do it all” approach but still get the specialized knowledge that comes with retaining an agency.

An agency partnership like this can work extremely well.

The “We don’t need your help” company

These companies have a full-fledged marketing director and rarely retain an agency over an extended period of time. They’ll work with project-based freelancers or agencies on occassion (website design, re-branding, etc) but handle the day to day marketing internally.

I’m not going to debate which approach is most effective--that completely depends on the company. I just want to make you aware of what other companies in our industry are doing based on our observations over the past year.

My main point is that companies are spending their marketing dollars differently today. Instead of wasting money on advertising, they’re investing in smart software solutions, hiring marketing-savvy talent and partnering with specialized agencies like Landscape Leadership.

Feel free to share your comments or questions below. I’d love to hear how you’re handling the marketing within your company.

If you're considering partnering with an agency, I highly recommend downloading our Ultimate Guide to Hiring an Inbound Marketing Agency. This will provide you with some good perspective on what to look for when engaging with an agency.

image credit: indi.ca

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/268389/How-do-Companies-Have-the-Time-and-Money-for-Inbound-Marketing-and-Expensive-Marketing-Automation-Software

VisionScape Takes Professional 3D Landscape Design Software Social

Chris Heiler — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:19:00 GMT

This is a special guest post from our friends at VisionScape. When we first viewed a demo of this professional landscape design software about a year and a half ago, we were honestly blown away. We were impressed with the realism of the designs, the ease of use, and most intriguing to us, the social sharing tools.

It’s no secret that more and more homeowners are turning to social media when planning their next landscape and outdoor living projects. We’ve all worked with a customer who has a design idea they saw on Pinterest or called you because they polled their Facebook friends for contractor recommendations (and if you haven’t, then we bet you will soon).

VisionScape Interactive, LLC. is a company that recognizes this growing trend and is bridging the gap between the standard landscape design/sales process and social sharing by empowering the everyday landscape professional to create exciting 3D sales presentations that can be shared online.

The magic behind VisionScape is its 3D landscape design and sales software, Virtual Property Architect™. The software allows you to easily create true-to-life 3D designs and 2D plans from a catalogue of the same products you’re used to working with every day. But what truly sets VisionScape apart from other professional landscape design software, is its presentation capabilities.

Presenting Your Landscape Story

When it comes time to present your landscape design to the customer, how you present it can be just as important as the design itself.

With competing companies vying for the bid, you need to be able to tell your customer the story of the project—the story of exactly what they can expect and why they should pick you to get them there. VisionScape helps you tell that story.

Every design created in VisionScape’s landscape design software is saved online and automatically organized into an interactive presentation for your customers. You can take screenshots and high-definition walkthrough videos directly in the software and upload them to the online presentation. You can also upload the 2D plan and any site photos to create a “before and after” effect for the proposed landscape project.

Everything is saved under your very own VisionScape Professional Profile, which you can customize with your landscape company’s information, upload a logo and link to your company’s website as well as social media sites for a branded presentation.

(View a sample Professional Profile here)

Whether you choose to present in-person or remotely, the entire experience immerses the customer in the project and allows you to show them exactly what they can expect it to look and feel like, right in their own backyard, and before a shovel even strikes the ground. That’s pretty powerful.

The Social Effect

Since everything is hosted online, it’s easy to share a single design or your entire profile by simply sharing its link (just as you would share the link to any website). This comes in handy when you want to send a landscape design to a customer during the revision process but don’t want to go back and forth between their house and the office.

It also means you can send your profile to prospective customers as an interactive portfolio of your work or link back to your profile on any advertising/marketing efforts.

The social features don’t stop there.

All VisionScape online designs and profiles have full social media integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest for easy sharing. Any videos you upload are also embeddable so you can post them on a company website, blog or other site.

Not only can you promote your business by sharing your designs on your social networks but, more importantly, your customers can too.

We’ve all (hopefully) benefited from a satisfied customer’s recommendations and are very much aware how important word-of-mouth is. Now, your satisfied customers will be able to show off to their Facebook friends the beautiful new backyard you’ve created for them, tweet about how excited they are for BBQ season now that their landscape project is complete or pin their project as a design idea to their followers on Pinterest.

When someone shares one of your landscape designs, it links right back to your company’s profile so you can draw in more business and create buzz around your brand—and it’s all for work that you’re doing for your landscape design and sales process already!

As homeowners increasingly rely on social media communities for help in planning landscape and outdoor living projects, why wouldn’t you, “Fish where the fishes are”?

VisionScape is a complete business solution that merges the power of the 3D landscape design experience with the tools you need to present, sell and, ultimately, grow your business.

To learn more about VisionScape’s professional landscape design software and tools, go to www.visionscape.com or contact them via email at: support@visionscape.com or by phone: (800) 655 - 1834.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/267533/VisionScape-Takes-Professional-3D-Landscape-Design-Software-Social

5 Ways to Earn More Links with Great Content (or, How to Avoid Getting Punched in the Face by Google)

Chris Heiler — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:44:00 GMT

Forget about link building. Now is the time to start earning your links.

At least so says SEO expert, Rand Fishkin, who discusses in the video embedded below, how Google has been laser-focused on eliminating spam from their search results over the past two years.

We don’t expect small and medium-sized businesses in the green industry to keep up with all of Google’s search algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda. Just understand that what may have boosted your company’s website to the front page of Google Search only three years ago may now drop you in the rankings like a ton of pea gravel.

Some call it the “Google Slap”. I think it’s more like getting punched in the face.

Here are a few of the link building practices I’m talking about:

Article marketing directories like Ezinearticles.com and others.
Generic business and web directory listings
Link exchanges and, worse yet, actually buying links
Blog comment spam and message board spam
Spam blog networks (These are blogs set up with the sole purpose of linking to external websites. We’ve seen SEO companies employ this tactic for many of their clients. Not smart.)

As you’ll hear Rand talk about in the video below, your business should be focused on organic, non-manipulative link earning strategies. This means earning inbound links from credible, highly authoritative sites. In simpler terms: Quality over quantity.

Relevance and authority matters now. Earning an inbound link from Lawn & Landscape magazine or even your local hardscaping supplier is worth 100 to 1000 times that link you’re getting from Ezinearticles.com.

As an inbound marketing agency who offers SEO services, we don’t guarantee a specific number of links each month like many SEOs do. Instead, we only guarantee quality. And this is the approach your business needs to take whether you’re managing your SEO in-house or outsourcing it to an agency like Landscape Leadership.

Earning links with your content

Inbound links are critical to your SEO success. They impact your search rankings more than any other factor. And as I’ve written before, if your business is not creating original content on a regular basis then no one is linking to your website (and thus, potential clients are not finding your website).

Here are five ways to earn more inbound links with your content:

Blogging

A recent Lawn & Landscape magazine survey revealed that only 27% of landscape contractors and lawn care operators have a blog, yet 95% are on Facebook.

Facebook is a terrific way to connect with your customers and other people that already “like” your company. If you want to earn more inbound links and generate leads for your business then you need to be blogging instead of Facebook-ing (probably not a real word).

Guest blogging

Successful, well-rounded link earning campaigns will use guest blogging and writing opportunities as an off-page complement to a company blog.

This is a critical part of our marketing strategy at Landscape Leadership. Sure, we maintain this blog on a weekly basis, but we also write for other industry publications like Turf Magazine and Landscape Management magazine when we get an opportunity.

What authoritative sites and blogs can your company contribute to? Consider these:

Industry publications
Your influential industry peers who maintain a blog
National, regional and state association blogs
Local media outlets
Your suppliers and vendors who may have a blog

Newsjacking

Newsjacking, defined by marketing strategist and author David Meerman Scott, is “the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business”.

Newsjacking typically comes in the form of a press release but can also be accomplished via blogging.

Here’s the key: Your press release is not about you or your business. It’s not a promotional tool like a traditional, biased press release. You are not the story. You are simply sharing your insights related to the story.

Sending a non-biased, timely and relevant press release like this to the media is a great way to get published and pick up inbound links. And because the news is timely, the press release is very share-worthy.

The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals (APSP) handled a delicate situation like Hurricane Sandy with class by issuing a press release offering advice to pool and spa owners who may have suffered property damage from the storm. Neave Pools (client) in New York picked up the release and re-published it on their blog.

We used Facebook’s IPO as a newsjacking opportunity to earn links and a bit of free publicity from industry trade publications.

Premium content

We refer to infographics, white papers, e-books, press releases, case studies, videos, webinars, etc as “premium content”. This premium content is unique and typically more substantial than a simple blog post.

Because of the uniqueness and substance behind the content, it is typically very shareable and link-worthy.

Our client, Neave Decor, was able to pick up numerous inbound links after creating an infographic about Christmas decorating (What do you know, there's another link for them).

Free online tools

Offering free online tools like calculators, templates, spreadsheets and even simple apps are a great way to draw visitors to your site as well as earn inbound links.

The collection of Landscape Design Style sheets from LandscapingNetwork.com (client) is a great example of this. The Benchmarking Your Business Virtual Budget Calculator from Lawn & Landscape magazine is another good example of a free online tool.

If your company needs more help with your content marketing strategy, be sure to download our FREE workbook, "Create a Compelling Content Plan & Editorial Calendar".

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/245718/5-Ways-to-Earn-More-Links-with-Great-Content-or-How-to-Avoid-Getting-Punched-in-the-Face-by-Google

So, What Is Inbound Marketing? 5 Steps to Increase Traffic & Convert Leads into Customers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Chris Heiler — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 11:49:00 GMT

The infographic below comes from fellow marketing agency and HubSpot partner, The Whole Brain Group.

We thought this was a terrific visual representation of inbound marketing and definitely share-worthy.

How To Do SEO for Local Small Business: Search Engine Optimization Basics for the Green Industry

Chris Heiler — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 11:29:00 GMT

This article was originally published in the October 2012 issue of Landscape Management magazine.

SEO seems like such a dirty word, yet it has this tantalizing, almost magical, aura about it. Search engine optimization does not require a degree in Rocket Science. It requires a basic understanding of how search engines work and a healthy dose of common sense.

As you’ll see as you read on, search engine optimization is not easy, especially for local small businesses. Ongoing effort is required to rank consistently in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

There is no one-time fix. Sure, your website needs to be designed up front with SEO in mind, but you also have to create meaningful content on a regular basis as well as participate in social media.

The search engines like Google and Bing reward web pages with the right combination of ranking factors, or “signals.” SEO is about ensuring the content on your website generates the right type of signals. We’re going to cover the most important signals, both on-page and off-page, that impact how your local small business website ranks.

How To Do SEO On-Page

As you can probably guess, “on-page” refers to how you optimize the pages on your website to rank higher in the SERPs. There are three primary on-page ranking factors, or signals: Your website content, the site’s HTML and the architecture of your site.

Content

Each page on your website has an opportunity to rank in the SERPs for specific keyword phrases. This is why creating content on a regular basis, typically by blogging, is so critical to ranking high and frequently in the SERPs.

The search engines love fresh content. A local small business who updates their website with original content on a regular basis is considered more relevant and credible.

While search engines love fresh, original content, they also look for signals such as quality of content and relevancy of content. This means creating well-written content of substantial quality that is relevant and timely to website visitors.

Using common keyword phrases that people are actually searching for online is also a strong signal to the search engines. According to the 2011 edition of the Search Engine Ranking Factors Report, keyword usage contributes to 26 percent of a rankings impact. Clearly, if your local small business is not using keywords properly on your website you are going to fall short in the rankings.

HTML

The meta descriptions, title tags and keywords on your website need to accurately represent what your website and local small business is all about. Again, this is all about showing the search engines that you are credible and that you know what you’re doing. Your site's meta data needs to be relevant and support each specific page on your site.

Architecture

You have to make it easy for search engines to crawl your site and index all of your pages.

Your site’s navigation plays a key role here. Make sure your navigation is consistent from page to page and that your web pages are organized in a logical way.

Speed, as in page load time, is also a strong signal to search engines. The faster your website loads the better. If you have a lot of images on your site these could be inadvertently slowing down your load times.

How To Do SEO Off-Page

Off-page ranking signals may be more important than the on-page ranking factors. And what happens off-site is much more difficult for you to control. This is where reputation and trust come into play. This is why inbound links and social media is so critical in determining how your website’s pages rank.

Links

Inbound links to your website impact search rankings more than any other factor--42 percent of impact according to the 2011 edition of the Search Engine Ranking Factors Report.

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report, companies who blog regularly have 97% more inbound links than companies that do not blog. The data clearly illustrates the importance of content and how important it is in attracting valuable inbound links.

Bottom line: If your local small business is not creating original content on a regular basis then no one is linking to your website.

When it comes to inbound links, the total number of links is not the only factor. The quality of the inbound links are an even stronger signal to the search engines. You need inbound links from relevant, credible, highly authoritative sites if you want to rank high in the SERPs.

Social

Currently, social media contributes to seven percent of the rankings impact according to the 2011 edition of the Search Engine Ranking Factors Report. The impact of social signals on the SERPs is only going to increase in the coming months and years.

It’s all about reputation and relevance. Are people talking about your local small business online? Are they sharing your content? Are they interacting with your content by “liking” it, retweeting, or giving it a +1 on Google+?

These are all strong social signals that point to how relevant your green industry business is online. If you are nowhere to be found and no one is talking about you, the search engines see your local small business as less relevant and less reputable.

Trust

There are a couple of factors at play as it relates to trust: History and authority.

Websites that have a long history are seen as more trustworthy to the search engines. It’s similar to how your customers may view your business: Experience can be a strong signal of trust and authority.

Search engines also consider how long your domain name is registered for. Always maintain your domain’s expiration date a minimum of two years into the future.

Also, do the links you’re sharing on your website make you a trusted authority? If you’re linking to irrelevant websites from your site this can be a strong signal to the search engines that tarnishes your authority and ultimately damages your rankings.

Personal

How your green industry website appears in the rankings is somewhat determined by the individual conducting the actual search. If the individual is in your local community they are more likely to find your local small business.

Again, social signals are starting to play a role in this as well which personalizes the search experience even more based on your social graph. Google and Bing both have introduced these social signals into search within the past year.

The SEO world and the search engines have evolved considerably over the past 10 years--most dramatically over the past three years with social media signals now playing a key factor in how websites rank.The search engines will continue to get better and better at serving up relevant results for users. It’s up to you to take the proper steps so your local small business remains relevant in the eyes of the search engines.

image source: kmtcommunications.com

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/240397/How-To-Do-SEO-for-Local-Small-Business-Search-Engine-Optimization-Basics-for-the-Green-Industry

Proven Ways Landscaping Company Websites Can Increase Traffic and Generate Qualified Leads

Chris Heiler — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 10:46:00 GMT

This article originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of Turf magazine.

After analyzing hundreds of green industry company websites over the years we have established three distinct stages that most companies are at:

The company does not have a website
The company has a basic website, typically 7 to 20 static pages, that is used primarily as an online brochure.
The company has a website with more than twenty pages, many times with a blog, and the company uses their basic understanding of search marketing and social media to drive traffic to the site.

There is a stage four, of which very few companies in our green industry achieve. These companies separate themselves from the others by using their website as a lead generation machine. These websites are optimized to not only drive traffic, but to generate qualified leads that can be turned into customers.

Think about this: What good does it do if you increase the amount of traffic to your company website each month yet you don’t convert that traffic into leads that your sales team can actually follow up with? You’re leaving money on the table.

Generating leads with your website requires intention--it doesn’t just happen. Your website has to be built with lead acquisition at its core.

In this article we’ll discuss the processes you need to put in place that will increase the amount of visitors to your website, generate qualified leads, and then nurture those leads into customers.

Using inbound marketing to drive traffic to your landscaping company website

Inbound marketing is based on the concept of earning the attention of prospects and making your company more easily found online by producing content your customers value. In contrast, cold-calling, direct mail, radio advertisements, sales fliers and other forms of traditional advertising are considered “outbound marketing".

Inbound marketing is especially effective for small businesses that deal with high-dollar values, long research and buying cycles and knowledge-based products and services. In these areas prospects are more likely to hire companies who demonstrate superior expertise in their industry. Because of this, inbound marketing is an ideal strategy for green industry companies.

Social media, search marketing and content marketing each play a key role in a cohesive inbound marketing strategy, working together to increase traffic to your website. Alone, or operating in silos, each becomes less impactful.

The case for content

Potential customers find your business through the content you create and publish. Whether by reading your blog post or watching your video on YouTube, original content is what generates more traffic to your landscaping company website and, ultimately, generates qualified leads and new customers.

Your business is fighting for the limited attention of your customers and prospects. You are also going head to head with your competitors fighting for the attention of the search engines like Google and Bing. Creating original and compelling content on a regular basis is how you win this battle for attention, yet companies are ignoring this opportunity.

A very small number of companies in our industry blog on a regular basis (three to four times per month). Yet studies have shown that blogging results in a 55% increase in website visitors, and, companies that blog have 97% more inbound links than those that don’t (source: HubSpot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010).

Your content feeds your social media. It’s what gives your website a boost in search rankings. Picture a delicious cheeseburger in your hands: Your content is the meat. Social media is the tasty cheese on top and the bun is your SEO (search engine optimization). Without the meat--your content--your burger becomes nothing but tasteless bread and cheese.

So you have traffic...now what?

Let’s first differentiate between “prospects” and “leads” as they relate to inbound marketing. At Landscape Leadership we consider prospects to be the visitors to a website. Some of these visitors, or prospects, will be interested in your products and services to varying degree while others will not. Those interested will dig deeper into your site seeking more relevant, helpful information. Those not interested will bounce. The individual identity of these prospects is unknown.

Your objective is to turn these interested prospects into leads.

A prospect becomes a lead when the individual agrees to exchange their identity and contact information for something of value on your website. For a lawn care company, this could be as simple as a coupon exchanged for a full name and email address. Once this equal-value transaction has been completed, that prospect becomes a lead in your sales funnel.

Your sales funnel

Every company, every product and every service has a unique buying cycle. The buying cycle for lawn care services will differ dramatically from that of buying a new tree or even installing a completely new landscape.

Each prospect that visits your website is at a unique point in the buying cycle. Most companies don’t understand this or they ignore it. This is your opportunity to separate yourself from your competitors.

Your website is a sales funnel with each visitor at a different point in your funnel, or buying cycle. It is your job to, first, convert these prospects into leads, and second, move them further down the sales funnel. The sales funnel consists of three types of leads:

Top of the Funnel (TOFU)- Prospects are not typically ready to buy, they are simply looking for more information and conducting research.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)- Prospects are more serious and actively looking for more information to aid their decision making process.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)- Prospects are ready and eager to make a purchasing decision.

99% of the landscaping company websites we analyze are only optimized for bottom of the funnel (BOFU) prospects.

This is a huge mistake considering the majority of a website’s visitors are not even close to making a purchasing decision. 75 to 90% of a website's visitors are typically in fact-finding mode--they are not ready to pick up the phone and call you...yet.

This is especially true in the landscaping industry when buying cycles can be extremely long. That soon-to-be homeowner who is breaking ground on a new home in three months is more than likely months, maybe even years, away from deciding on a lawn care provider. But she is on your website right now conducting research. What are you going to do about it?

Being intentional

Leads don’t just magically appear. They are created by implementing an intentional lead-generation process.

This two-part process begins with a strong call-to-action (CTA) which leads to a unique landing page optimized for conversion.

The most common CTAs we see on green industry websites encourage people to click through to a “Contact Us” page or to a questionnaire page (both BOFU CTAs). Others we see are the common “subscribe to our newsletter” or “Follow us on Facebook”, which are very top of the funnel (TOFU) call-to-actions.

The problem with this approach should be obvious: These websites are not optimized for the majority of visitors who are not at the very top or very bottom of the sales funnel.

The example shown to the right illustrates a good use of CTA’s on a website, except the site is missing a strong MOFU call-to-action. (On a side note, “Follow us on Facebook” is not an ideal TOFU call-to-action because existing customers are more likely to follow your company on Facebook than a brand new visitor to your website who is unfamiliar with your business. Also, you're really only collecting a Facebook follower, not a true lead.)

Along with the strong BOFU “coupon” and “free estimate” call-to-action, we would recommend adding a better TOFU call-to-action like “Subscribe to our blog” and a strong MOFU call-to-action like an informative case study or whitepaper that a visitor could download.

With this approach the website would appeal to more visitors and generate more leads, each at a different point in the buying cycle.

Each CTA on your website should lead to a unique landing page optimized to convert the prospect into an actual lead for your company. In the example above from our website, we offer a free infographic for download (TOFU call-to-action). This CTA button leads to a landing page focused on converting the visitor to a lead by implementing a simple web form. This is a standard best practice that can easily be integrated into any website.

Picture that delicious cheeseburger again with the melted cheese and toasted bun in your hand. That’s your inbound marketing program--your content, social media and SEO--driving loads of new prospects to your website. Now imagine yourself actually tasting that cheeseburger and how satisfying it is to your taste buds. Turning those prospects into actual leads and customers with an intentional lead-acquisition process will be even more satisfying to your bottom line.

To learn how Landscape Leadership can turn your green industry website into a lead generation machine, apply for our FREE, one-on-one Inbound Marketing Demo. Click the button below to apply today.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/237877/Proven-Ways-Landscaping-Company-Websites-Can-Increase-Traffic-and-Generate-Qualified-Leads

Contact Management Software: Why We Love Highrise CRM Software From 37signals

Chris Heiler — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:30:00 GMT

Software should be simple...if you want your staff to actually use it. This is especially true for your company’s contact management software, or CRM (customer relationship management) software, as it is typically called.

It cannot be difficult to learn--or teach--or an overwhelming task just to access and update it. Adding, or retrieving, information from your contact management software should be as frictionless as possible.

If your company is anything like ours, you use your CRM software...Every. Single. Day! So it is critical that you choose the right CRM solution for your business.

Why we use--and love--Highrise CRM software

So many people. So many phone calls, emails, notes, follow-ups, and tasks. Who is this person again? When did we last speak? What did we talk about? Has anyone else in my company talked to this person? What’s supposed to happen next? Highrise is here to keep track of it all. - Highrise

We use and highly recommend Highrise as a contact management software solution for three primary reasons:

Simplicity
Accessibility
Cost

A painless CRM software solution

As we mentioned, your CRM software should not overwhelm you and your staff with its features and functionality. The ideal software should have “just enough” built-in, and nothing more.

Highrise fits this criteria perfectly with its simplicity and intuitiveness. It has what your business needs in a CRM tool and nothing more. Because of this the learning curve is small and initial implementation is pretty painless.

A web-based CRM software accessible to your team

Everything is moving to the cloud--including how companies manage their database of customers and contacts.

Highrise is web-based so your CRM software is accessible from any device with an internet connection. When you use Highrise, contacts and communication history can be shared across your entire company. Office staff can access your Highrise account from a desktop computer while your sales staff can access it in the field from a tablet computer.

Highrise allows for multiple users with a single license. You can even create groups of users--”sales staff” for example. And permissions can be set for each user and group.

Pricing options that scale with your company

The Highrise pricing options are competitive with other similar CRM software, and sometimes much less expensive.

Most companies in the green industry can easily get by with the Plus plan that is priced at $49/month. This plan allows for up to 15 users and 20,000 contacts.

Additional Highrise features we like

Like we mentioned, Highrise gives us the features we need in its core product and nothing more. That said, Highrise offers extras and add-ons which extends functionality that some businesses may find valuable: Mailchimp, Wufoo, HubSpot, Wordpress, FreshBooks, Constant Contact and Harvest just to name a few.

You may have heard the term, “Social CRM”. This is CRM software that retrieves and tracks data from your contact’s social media accounts. While this can be beneficial, this is not the focus of Highrise. That said, you can add a contact’s Twitter handle to their profile and Highrise will automatically add your contact’s LinkedIn profile to the contact’s Highrise profile. You can view both the Twitter stream and LinkedIn profile from within Highrise without leaving the app. Again, there is “just enough” social baked into the core product.

We love that we can add companies and people alike as unique contacts. Then, when you add a new person as a contact he/she get’s linked to the company profile. This is great for B2B companies who deal with multiple people within a company.

You can also track proposals and leads by creating “deals” that attach to your contacts. Know which proposals/bids are pending, which you’ve won, and which you’ve lost. Enter notes about the deals, attach proposals or contracts to the deals, and keep a log of any changes. This is probably our favorite feature.

We also love that we can create “tasks” for contacts and deals and also receive notifications via e-mail when these are due. Tasks can be assigned to yourself or to others. You can also add action categories such as “Call”, “Follow Up”, and “Thank You”. We rely on this extensively internally for all sales follow up.

The last feature we really appreciate is that Highrise works together with email. You can send, BCC, or forward emails to Highrise and they'll automatically be attached to the right person’s page. This is a terrific way to keep conversations between your team and customers in one place.

Your address book doesn’t do enough. And most CRM software tries to do too much. Highrise is the just-right, more thoughtful way to keep track of the people, conversations, and tasks that are the lifelines of your business. And that’s why we love it!

Get the full tour of Highrise here.

If you have any questions about how we use Highrise in our business, or CRM software in general, feel free to post them below in the comments.

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/234041/Contact-Management-Software-Why-We-Love-Highrise-CRM-Software-From-37signals

Sell the Story, Not the Cider: 5 Ways to Humanize Your Green Industry Company with Social Media

Chris Heiler — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:32:00 GMT

Hu-man-ize: Make something more humane or civilized. Give something a human character.

It’s no secret that we prefer to do business with people we trust.

Building that trust requires--among numerous other things--being transparent and authentic and treating our customers with respect as well as candor. It’s means being open and honest.

We also want to do business with those we like and respect.

We can take steps to building this trust and respect by giving our customers and prospects an open and honest glimpse into the day-to-day life of our companies. And we can do it using the World Wide Web.

We like to tell our clients, “Sell the story, not the cider”; meaning, share the unique story about your company and people instead of getting caught up in only pitching your products and selling your services.

How 5 green industry companies are using social media to tell their stories

A touch of personalization from a big brand

We consider Twitter to be the “social social network”. In other words, to truly be effective using Twitter for business, you must put an emphasis on being personable and engaging. Twitter is not simply a publishing tool; it’s a communication tool that gives you the ability to interact one-to-one with your fans and followers.

We love how Proven Winners has chose to brand their Twitter profile with their avatar and bio featuring employees Danielle and Stacey. When someone interacts with Proven Winners on Twitter, they know they are tweeting with a real person, not a faceless big brand. They also carry this personalized approach over to their Pinterest profile.

Massachusetts garden center puts spotlight on employees

Online video can be a very effective way to market your products and services.

We love the approach taken by Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Not only are their videos extremely helpful and useful (“Tips for Container Gardening”, “When to Cut Back Plants”, etc.), but they also include different staff members in each video.

This approach enables customers and prospects to see behind the curtain--to see the real people behind the brand. It creates a personal connection between customer and company.

You can view their videos on YouTube here. Big thanks to Today’s Garden Center for turning us onto Weston Nurseries!

Swingle Lawn, Tree and Landscape in Colorado is another green industry company using video in an effective way. Many of Swingle’s videos feature company President, John Gibson, along with a staff member presenting some helpful tips relating to lawn and tree care. The videos are very well done and give viewers a glimpse of the people who work at the large Denver-based company.

Building a social media team in New York

Like Weston Nurseries, Neave Group Outdoor Solutions (client), a full-service landscape company in Wappingers Falls, New York, takes a team approach to social media and inbound marketing.

The volunteer team consists of 18 employees from all divisions in the company. The team focuses on sharing images from not just their day-to-day work lives, but also personal photos from holidays, sporting events, vacations and community activities.

The images are captured and shared using a single Neave Group Instagram account. Many of these photos are then shared on Neave Group’s other social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

This imagery shows prospects and customers behind the scenes. It shows that Neave Group is not just a large landscaping company, but a group of unique personalities that their customers can relate to.

A CEO sharing his thoughts in Atlanta

HighGrove Partners is a large commercial landscape maintenance and management company in Atlanta, Georgia.

As CEO of HighGrove Partners, Jim McCutcheon is the leader of this innovative and well-respected company. Part of being a leader means sharing your personal insights and opinions with others, and Jim does a brilliant job of this using HighGrove’s company blog.

As CEO he’s not hidden away and protected. Instead, Jim is front and center as the voice of HighGrove Partners. And what we appreciate most is the fact that Jim doesn’t shy away from sharing his feelings and opinions. His insightful blog posts contribute much more than boring, generic company sound bytes.

How are you humanizing your company online and off? Feel free to share your comments below--we love to hear what you think.

image credit: andres.moreno

Today, using social media to direct traffic to your website, generate new leads and to connect with your customers is an indispensable part of your marketing mix. We designed our e-book, "How to Enhance Your Internet Presence with Social Media" to help you identify the key social media channels where you should be present and how to optimize them for lead generation. Click the image below to download our e-book today!

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/232411/Sell-the-Story-Not-the-Cider-5-Ways-to-Humanize-Your-Green-Industry-Company-with-Social-Media

Is Instagram More Popular than Twitter? [DATA]

Chris Heiler — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:33:00 GMT

When I’m bored out of my mind and turn to my smartphone for some instant digital stimulation, where does my finger land first? Instagram!

Instagram is my first choice--by far--over other mobile social apps like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or YouTube. (I’m not a “gamer”, so no Angry Birds or Words With Friends for me.)

I don’t appear to be alone. Recently comScore reported that U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their smartphones more frequently and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter (in the month of August).

The average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing. While Twitter had a greater number of smartphone users visiting its site, Instagram’s users appear to be returning to the site on a more frequent basis, and spending longer on the site each time they return (from AllThingsD blog).

This research doesn’t surprise me at all--it reflects my own behaviors, and evidently those of thousands of others.

This is more proof that images trump text on the web and most certainly on a mobile device.

You should be cheering! Go take some pictures of that beautiful firepit you just built. Snap some pics of the shrubs that just arrived at your garden center. Share, share, share! This is a helluva lot easier than writing a 1,000 word blog post isn’t it? And evidently your followers are more interested in seeing your images than they are reading your words, so give it to them!

Be thankful you are working in such a visual industry where consumers absolutely love what we do.

Are you using Instagram yet? Download our handy Instagram Tip Sheet to learn how your business can best use this popular photo-sharing app.

image source: t3.com

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/228349/Is-Instagram-More-Popular-than-Twitter-DATA

A Discussion on Inbound Marketing on the FromDesign2Build Talk Radio Show

Chris Heiler — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:15:00 GMT

Listen to Chris Heiler, founder and president of Landscape Leadership, discuss inbound marketing on the FromDesign2Build Talk Radio show with host Jody Shilan of FromDesign2Build.com.

Visit the FromDesign2Build Talk Radio show website here

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/228423/A-Discussion-on-Inbound-Marketing-on-the-FromDesign2Build-Talk-Radio-Show

How to Write a Great Blog Post in 10 Steps

Chris Heiler — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:42:00 GMT

Blogging is not easy. This is one reason why so few companies in the green industry blog on a regular basis, even when presented with the proven and practical benefits that blogging delivers.

Blogging is more than just writing and sharing insights. Consideration must be given to how you format a blog post, how to optimize the post for search engines and how to share your post.

A lot goes into a blog post--if you actually want people to read it.

To make this process easier for you, we thought we would share the same process we use internally as well as with our clients when writing and publishing blog posts.

Below are the 10 steps to writing a great blog post. Be sure to download our handy checklist and keep it by your side when writing for your own blog.

Step #1: Choose your keywords

Optimize your blog post for one primary keyword phrase and one or two secondary keywords. (for this post we chose “how to write a blog post”)

We use HubSpot’s keyword tool for keyword research along with KeywordStrategy.org and KeywordEye.

Step #2: Craft a compelling headline

You draw attention and attract readers with a compelling headline. Give it considerable thought. And remember, the headline is often what you are sharing on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, so it must be interesting and compelling to get someone to click on it.

“List” posts and “How to” posts like what you are reading now always seem to attract more readers.

If you need ideas for consistently cranking out killer headlines, check out this book: “Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich”.

Step #3: Optimize your post

Include your keyword phrase in the headline, subheadings, copy, page metadata, page URL and in image alt tags.

Read this post for more detailed information on optimizing your blog post. And see this webpage that you can use as a template.

Step #4: Be concise

Keep your posts around 600 words or less.

Make one strong point and focus on brevity. Some of the most popular blogs on the planet consistently publish posts with fewer than 200 words (see Seth Godin’s blog). Many of the popular blogs in our industry focus more on imagery than on words.

Step #5: Proof for grammar and spelling

This is essential if you want to be taken seriously. Nothing kills your credibility like misspellings and consistent grammatical errors.

Make sure your software has a spellchecker and be sure to proofread your blog post before hitting “publish”. And have a second pair of eyeballs look it over first, if possible.

Step #6: Format the post properly

Writing for the Web is different than writing for print. You need to include more white space on your page to make your post more reader-friendly.

If someone visits your blog to find big chunks of text like they would in a magazine article they will quickly bounce somewhere else. Make it easy on the eyes. Use more paragraph breaks and subheadings to break up text and create more white space. Use bullet points to do the same.

Using bullets, as well as bolding important text, will allow readers to quickly scan your blog post without reading it in its entirety, yet still digest your main points.

Step #7: Include internal links

We recommend including at least one or two internal links in every blog post you write. This internal linking will drive visitors deeper into your website.

You can include these internal links in the body of your post and, if you use a content management system (CMS) like Wordpress, you can also use a plugin that displays other recent and/or relevant posts at the end of each blog post. Using a plugin like this ensures you always have internal links in your blog post even if you didn’t add any to the body of the post.

Step #8: Include a compelling image

You want to grab the attention of visitors by including at least one compelling image in the post. You’ll want this near the top of the page, “above the fold”. You can see how we included the image at the top of this post.

This image is also important when it comes to sharing your blog post on your social networks. When you link to a page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and others, these networks automatically pull an image from the page to display as a thumbnail image alongside your update. The more relevant and compelling the image, the higher click through rate (CTR) you’ll see.

Read this post for more details on how to do this and how to provide proper attribution.

Step #9: Include a strong call-to-action (CTA)

Encourage your readers to take a specific action in each post.

This could be as simple as asking readers to leave a comment or share the post. You could ask readers to subscribe to your blog. You might encourage your readers to pick up the phone and call you.

The best CTAs convert visitors into leads. This is why you’ll see us offer downloadable content at the end of every blog post we publish (just like this one).

Step #10: Share your post

If you spend time following these steps and create a great blog post then you’ll want to share it.

Share on your social networks like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. This will attract more visitors and also give you a couple of inbound links pointing back to the blog post.

Be sure to download our FREE checklist, 10 Steps to Writing a Great Blog Post.

image credit: mezone

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/227243/How-to-Write-a-Great-Blog-Post-in-10-Steps

7 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Prospecting and Research

Chris Heiler — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:33:00 GMT

A common question we often receive from green industry professionals is, “How do I use LinkedIn?”. The concept of “connecting” with other professionals is clear enough, but what about beyond this?

Keep in mind that LinkedIn is a professional social network--the largest online network for professionals in the world, in fact. While typically most effective for business to business (B2B) companies, B2C companies can also use the network in a productive way.

You won’t have success connecting with Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner who are building their dream home down the street, but you can leverage LinkedIn and your network to connect with the homeowner’s architect, builder and interior designer. That’s a pretty good start.

Using LinkedIn for prospecting and research

To get the most from LinkedIn you really need to be strategic in how you use it; and this includes using LinkedIn as a prospecting and research tool.

Here are seven ways you can use LinkedIn in this way. We have also noted how we use each of these internally at Landscape Leadership.

Rapportive

Rapportive is a nifty “social discovery” plugin for web-based email clients like Gmail. LinkedIn acquired Rapportive in February of 2012.

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox. You can immediately see what people look like, where they’re based, and what they do. Rapportive also shows you which social networks your contacts are active on, including LinkedIn, and allows you to connect with the contact right from your inbox.

Rapportive is an easy way to build your LinkedIn connections without having to actually visit the LinkedIn website.

We use the Rapportive plugin everyday, almost without even noticing it. It’s a very handy tool for us internally.

LinkedIn Answers

LinkedIn’s “Answers” feature is probably best for national brands as opposed to a small, local business.

You can search questions being asked by LinkedIn users and filter them by category and keyword to drill down to relevant questions you may be able to answer. You never know, one of these professionals may be looking for help that your company can provide.

We don’t use this feature simply because we are in such a niche industry and offer a very specialized service. The quantity and relevance of questions being asked isn’t worth our time monitoring.

LinkedIn Groups

B2B companies can use LinkedIn Groups to identify experts and influencers in various industries as well as answer questions that may be relevant to them.

For example, a landscape design software company might participate in groups for landscape designers and contractors, answering questions that arise about design software.

We occasionally participate in various green industry-focused LinkedIn Groups, although we don’t typically use these groups for prospecting purposes.

LinkedIn Company Pages

LinkedIn has put more emphasis on company pages recently, just launching a new design in September of 2012.

LinkedIn’s Company Pages can offer insights into a company that other social networks do not. This can include when the company was founded, how many employees the company has and, most importantly, key employees at the company (who have LinkedIn profiles).

This valuable snapshot gives you a view of key decision makers within a company and also illustrates how you are connected to each of them on LinkedIn.

We use LinkedIn Company Pages to research new leads to determine if a company is a potential good fit to do business with us.

LinkedIn Search

From a prospecting and research standpoint, use the search functionality to find company pages and personal profiles.

If you are going to call on a builder about a new home he is building, search for his profile on LinkedIn first to see if you have a mutual connection that can introduce you (see #7 below).

Often times we will generate a lead through our inbound marketing efforts but only have the individuals name. We can then search for the individual on LinkedIn to determine who they work for, and then, as discussed above, determine if the company would be worth pursuing as a potential client.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn offers inexpensive advertising that you can use to target potential B2B customers.

For example, if your company offers commercial snow removal services you could run a LinkedIn ad targeting property managers, commercial realtors, HOAs, etc. and offer a free download--like a whitepaper--in exchange for their contact information.

We don’t use LinkedIn ads because we are so specialized and in a niche industry. These would be best for large, national B2B-focused brands.

Get Introduced

Cold calling sucks. Seriously!

Use LinkedIn’s “Get Introduced” function to get a warm introduction before you pick up the phone and call on a prospect.

Be sure to use good judgement here. Only ask for introductions from your connections that you know well. And make sure they have a good relationship with the person you are trying to get introduced to. The introduction will go nowhere if there isn’t a strong connection between each professional.

I use this function personally to get warm introductions to green industry conference and event coordinators in hopes of potentially speaking at their events. It works great.

LinkedIn has proven to be an effective prospecting and research tool for Landscape Leadership. How have you used it personally or as a company? Do you have any tips to share? Feel free to leave your comments or questions below.

image credit: katerha

Download our free infographic! This valuable infographic breaks down the 11 most important social networks and apps that green industry companies should be familiar with. We cover social networks like Facebook, blogging platforms like Wordpress, photo sharing apps like Instagram, video sharing apps and even location-based mobile apps. Download it today!

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/blog/bid/225319/7-Ways-to-Use-LinkedIn-for-Prospecting-and-Research