I am looking to expand my grass cutting business this year I have about 40 regular customers.
I like to increase it so that I am cutting lawns 4 days a week and cutting about 20-25 lawns in a day.
At the moment I have one full day cutting grass, We are a two man team that starts cutting grass, starting at 7.45am.
I Think I need about 80 – 100 more customers to achieve this.
What’s a realistic time scale to gain these new customer (season 35 weeks x 2 =70)
How big a Marketing budget would you need to gain these new customers. (£50 Each new customer 4000 -5000)
How and where would you market the business And the best way to do so.
Budget results
Flyers
Web Page
Face book
Signage on van
Service magazine
Small service advert news paper
Putting flyers in shops, pubs, garages
Free listing on gumtree 118 yellow ect
Be very interested in your views and any ideas you have.
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Replies
Hi Andrew,
The timescale is mostly related to budget availability. With enough money & quote time, it's perfectly feasible for you to gain all these customers within the spring. Less money then longer.
There is passive, essentially non-scaleable marketing that can bring in a small steady flow of customers. Eg sign writing, flyers in shops, free listings, web page etc.
Then there is pro-active scalable marketing that can bring in larger numbers quickly, but cost a chunk of money, sometimes upfront and at risk, eg adwords, leaflet drops (blanket & clover-leaf), facebook adverts, door to door.
When I started out in lawn care I had a marketing budget, and put out 50k well targeted leafets in early march and the same again in april to the same places, 100k leaftets total. I got 100 customers. Cost around £7k. Thats one approach.
If you have time and less money, another thing you could do is spread your existing mows over the week and at each mow, leaflet neigbours (and even knock on doors if you wish), and see if they want the mowing service. Make the leaflet very targeted, ie you already look after a neighbour, maybe even estimate their lawn size via findlotsize and give them a price on the leaflet. This is called clover-leafing.
Adwords is a good option but takes time to establish and needs a good website, so perhaps more long-term.
Best of luck
thanks for you help
very interesting read
one thing to look at is the customers you have already. How much did they cost you to acquire, where did they come from and how long did it take. You can then use that information to project what it will cost and how long it will take to build your business