Podcast episode by Mike Andes offering five practical tips for using door hangers as a low-cost way to get more lawn-mowing customers. Tips emphasize having a single clear call-to-action, being authentic about your business size, treating door-hanger distribution as a numbers game, including a writable price space when delivering hangers in person, and assessing time-versus-money when choosing marketing channels.
Chapters
Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes. And today we're going to be talking about how you can use door hangers as a low budget way to increase the amount of mowing customers you have as we head into the spring rush and you're looking to grow your lawn care business. So I'm going to give you five tips of low cost ways to make sure your door hangers perform very well and you get those mowing customers that you want. Number one, you want to have one call to action. And that comes in terms of you have one call to action of what type of service you're pitching the customer. And you should also have one call to action in terms of what you want them to do once they see your door hanger. So instead of trying to pitch them for bark mulch and for spring cleanups and for bush trimming and for fertilization for mowing and overwhelming them, have one service that you really focus on. On maybe one side of the door hanger, maybe on the other side, have a second. But definitely try to stay focused on one or two surfaces. The next part of this call to action is what do you want them to do? Do you want them to email you? Do you want them, do you want them to go to your website and fill out a contact form? Do you want them to give you a call? That needs to be very clear, Having one service, one call to action in terms of like, hey, call us now. And then you have a phone number instead of having an email address and then your web address and then here's my phone number. Give them one call to action and point to that consistently throughout the door hanger. Number two is don't be something that you're not. I see so many lawn care businesses that are just getting started. Young guys, you know, new businesses wanting and trying to act like massive companies. They have very slick design. It looks like you've been in business for 20 years. Very, very professional layout. And then the customer's kind of shocked when like you show up and you're the only person that's mowing. And it's like you just started the company. I really encourage you embrace that. Like, if you're just getting started, just be honest with that. Share that in the story of what you're trying to convey to the customer in that door hanger and be true to who you are. Vice versa is true as well. If you have a million dollar company, don't look like you just walked off the street and are starting your lawn business, present the same way that you Are just be who you are in that door hanger and don't be something that you're not. Number three is it's a numbers game when it comes to door hangers. If you put out more door hangers, you're gonna get more calls. And it literally might be that you put 100 out. And some people are like, oh my goodness, I put 100 door hangers out and I didn't get any calls. It's a numbers game. You might get one door hanger out of a hundred. That actually ends up becoming an estimate, a contact from a customer. So remember, you might do 150 and get one call. Then your 151st. One door hanger is another call. So remember, it's all a numbers game. Don't stop at 100 and think that it's not working. It's absolutely very good if you can get one call from 100 people when you're doing door hangers. So just remember, if you do 1,000, if you do 5,000, whatever it is, it's all a numbers game. All right, the fourth tip I have when it comes to door hangers is if you are going to deliver the door hangers yourself and you're gonna go door to door to door, putting them on the door hangers, then I really recommend that you actually bring a Sharpie and make the design of your door hanger. Have it a space where you can actually write the price per cut that you can give the customer. This is going to save you from having to come back to the property and do the estimate because you're already there. You already see the property. You know if it's tall, you know if they take care of their property, you know if they have a fence or if they have a gate, you can see if it's gonna take an extra hour at first to do the edging. So definitely, if you are delivering the door hangers yourself and you're going door to door, have a space on the design where you can actually take a Sharpie and write the cost per cut. Saves the customer time because they don't have to call you and ask what the price is. That's their number one question. And it saves you from having to go back to the property because you're already there in person. Now, number five, this is this whole game of door hangers. It's a low budget, cost friendly way of getting into the lawn care business and getting new customers. Some people do it even when they're big, but it's a low cost strategy. I can buy 1,000 door hangers for literally less than $100. And the cost literally just keeps going down per unit as I get more and more and more. So if I'm trying to target 1,000 homes, I can literally do it for $100 in cost of materials. Getting them printed, it just takes more time, more labor. I have to walk, I have to go to all the doors. So if you're looking for a way to be able to reach a lot more customers but pay more money for marketing, that's when you can start thinking about Facebook ads and Google Ads and other forms of social media to be able to contact a much wider audience much faster. But at the end of the day, door hangers is very, very low cost. And I would really look at whether you should do door hangers in this scenario. I really think it's time versus money. You either have time or you have money. If you establish your brand, established your company, you probably have money and you don't have much time. So in that scenario, you shouldn't be doing what I talk about today. You should probably be using social media and digital ads to be able to reach your customers. But if you're just getting started and you have a lot of time and not much money, door hangers is a great place to start. So remember, where are you at in your business? Time versus money. Do you have more money than time? Because if you have lots of time and not much money to door hangers is a great place to start. I want to hear from you though. What is a tip that you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in this community to be able to start their lawn care business via door hangers? What tips? What have you used that's worked in your door hangers comment below? I'd love to hear you. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com We'll see you next time.
