Marketing Plans & Strategy for Tree Service Companies

This article is the blue print for your tree service marketing plan. No fluff, no jargon or BS. Straight from the trenches and what I have done with great success for my tree care company marketing clients. You don’t need the best tree service website, but you do need a website design plan. You don’t need a tree service lead provider, but you do need someone to do your marketing and advertising. Even if that someone is you. Your marketing plan doesn’t have to be complex.

Let’s climb to the top of this giant oak, by starting at the roots…the foundation of the tree.

Tree Service Company Website

Every business needs a website today, tree care providers need web design too. Your website doesn’t need to be flashy, or a design masterpiece.

But it does need to do a few things.

List your services. (A main service page and a page for each service)
List where you serve. (Every town or city your serve, needs a page)
Have ALL of your contact methods. (Social media messaging, Email, Phone and Contact Forms)
Tell why you are the one to choose. (No, you are not the best)
Have informational page that people search for. (Also known as a blog)
Gallery and/or Testimonial Page
About Us Page. (Show off your team, tell the viewers a little bit about yourself, not just the corporate cookie cutter stuff)

With your tree care marketing plan and strategy, you need to start right here with your website. Your website is the hub of all your marketing, online and off.

You need to look at all the bad reviews you can on the web for tree services. These reviews will tell you what people are not pleased with. You want to make those things a priority for your website.

People complain because no one showed up for an estimate? Right that down. Other people complain because the tree care company left their yard a mess? Right that down.

Now you have some things that you know people don’t want and you need to express how you solve them on your website.

Examples

We have someone answer the phone. When you hang up you have a guaranteed estimate time.
We leave your yard, as clean as your kitchen floor. (Hope they aren’t slobs).

You get the idea.

You need to have good copywriting on your tree service website that means something to the potential customers. It sets you apart from your competition.

But you need to be able to back those words up.

This is where a gallery and testimonial page comes into play. Show before and after pictures on your website. Maybe a smiling customer image or two. Plus, as many reviews as you can get.

Having your Google reviews on your website does a few things. It links the two marketing tools together and if Google wipes out your reviews, you have a copy. It has happened. Own your hard-earned reviews.

Don’t use fluff words on your website. Not we are the best, cheapest or some vague or misleading words. You need strong copywriting for your website. Pictures and design are cool, but words are what sell.

Business Listings as Part of your Plan

Yeah, we all hate HomeAdvisor (I do too, here is a horror story), Angie’s List, Yelp, Yahoo and others annoying lead providers. But you should list your business with them. They key is to only use the FREE version. When they call you and they will, tell them you are calling the FTC on them, they will leave you alone.

The link power that comes back to your website will help your search engine optimization. And for Yelp and a few other listing sites, maybe a customer or two will find you. They are not a lead source, they are a citation and link source, that is the only real power they have.

You will also need to list your business on Google My Business, Apple Maps and Bing My Business. Those are the three top dogs and every tree care business owner needs to have their businesses list there.

Google My Business will be a big part of your lead generation and Local SEO strategy.

Google My Business Optimization

You know that three pack of local companies when you do a search? It is always near the top and in the red box. That is the Google local search results. None of the lead brokers can get in there. Those three spots are for local tree care services, if that is what your searched for.

Now there can be 100 tree services in your area, but only 3, sometimes four businesses listed there. You want to be one of them.

You get there by optimizing your Google My Business profile.

Fill out the information completely on your profile, add photos, add posts, add offers and for God’s sake, don’t forget about it. You need to post in there every week. Make it a habit. You will get a ton of leads from it and it should take you less than an hour a week.

Here are some good articles that help you optimize your GMB.

Google My Business Post Article

Google My Business Optimization

GMB for Contractors

And if your GMB is suspended this article will help.

GMB Suspended

Your Social Media Marketing Plan

Yes, you need to have a social media marketing plan. Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are the best ones for a tree care company.

Here is how you do it.

Facebook, you need to connect and engage with local people. You get your friends and past customer to like your page. You post stuff relevant to your business, but not promotional. You don’t want to bore people, you want to entertain, educate and be human, not some corporate robot.
Instagram is your gallery. This social media platform is where you show your live before, during and after images. Study local hashtags. Look at local people that are on Instagram and network with them through Instagram and off. They are what I call a local micro influencer. They help get your page found and spread out around your location and on Instagram as a whole.
LinkedIn is your business to business networking social media platform. It takes some time, but is well worth it. These contacts will be commercial and businesses you network with. You don’t need high numbers of people for this platform to pay off. A handful of property managers, a general contractor or two and maybe a few realtors or insurance companies, should do just fine.

As for posting, you don’t need to churn out a bunch of posts. It actually hurts, in the long run as people become numb to your posts. You do however need to be somewhat consistent. Only your data will tell you the frequency in which you should post.

Organic reach on any platform is low. Social media is a pay to play thing now. Not all your posts need to be paid, but a select few should be.

These are not paid ads, they are post boosts and if done right will get your leads, estimates, referrals and customers.

Paid Advertising for your Tree Service.

When you first start out with a website or marketing your business, you need eyeballs on your digital marketing assets. You won’t get many people visiting at first, so you should be paying for that attention and driving traffic to your website.

You do that with Google Ads (Search Intent) and Facebook (Disruptive Ads).

Google Ads as Part Tree Care Company Marketing Plan

When someone types in “Tree Removal” on Google, they have a specific intent. They need a tree removed. So, you want your ads to be shown in the locations you do tree removals. If your website is not on the first page, this is how you get on the first page. That is until your SEO kicks in and Google ranks your website there. But we will get into that below.

Even after your website ranks you may need to run ads. There will be times to run ads even when your website is in the map pack, and shows up on the first page. These are peak times, like before, during and after a storm to line up a bunch of work in a short period of time.

Facebook Advertising for Tree Care Companies.

Facebook ads for a tree service can work the same way. You have to be on the ball with Facebook ads. It is not a platform you want to just run ads to get your name out there. You want to have a plan. How, I like to use them is by keeping an eye on the weather. When you see a thunderstorm, ice storm or some kind of weather event, you run the ads before, during and after the storms.

You will get more bang for your buck, than running ads without a cause.

So, make sure you have ads created and ready to go for both digital advertising channels. This should be standard in your arborist marketing plan.

Search Engine Optimization Marketing Plan for your Arborist Website

Remember up above when I list all the website page you should have? Well this is where you work those pages to get them to show up on Google, Bing, Duck-Duck Go, Yahoo and other search engines.

I am going to be up-front SEO is not something you want to do yourself. Unless you know what, you are doing and you have 10-20 hours a month to do it.

Site structure, keywords and the research that goes into it, link building, citation usage, metrics and tracking in Google Search Console, paid SEO software, etc. is time consuming. It is a big part of my time when working for any client.

The sad part about hiring out SEO is there are more scammers than there are legit businesses. So, choose wisely.

When your SEO plan kicks in, and your pages start to get traffic organically, you will see a jump in leads for your tree service. The numbers can be big. And in most cases, the organic traffic may be all you need to keep work coming in. That saves you money on the ad spend and the goal of doing SEO.

Search Engine Optimization is a pay in advance with time, money or both on the front end, for a gain on the back end.

SEO pays for itself when done right, but it can take 3, 4 or 6 months before you see the returns. That being said, it is a very important part of your overall marketing plan.

Newsletters Should Be Part of Your Marketing Plan

You have all these people you have done tree removals, stump grindings, tree trimming and other arbor care for.

Don’t waste their value to your business.

Market to them in a slow, long term way. Newsletters are a great way to stay top of mind with past customers and you can even send them to prospects who never hired you after the estimate. You can segment your lists to deliver a better newsletter and get more in return out of it.

I hear all the time, the customer has no trees, we removed them all and they won’t need us ever again.

This may be true, but have you ever seen how many people ask for a recommendation on Facebook? This is where staying top of mind comes into play. It also makes you look like the local authority when it comes to tree care and arborist services.

In a year’s time a newsletter can make you tens of thousands of dollars in referrals, from people who don’t need your services any more.

I see this happen every day. Newsletters help you get more referrals, reviews and more business from past customers, their family, friends and co-workers.

Conclusion.

How simple is that for the tools of your marketing plan?

What is that like 8 things to your marketing plan?

Website Design,
Online Listings,
Google My Business Optimization,
Social Media Marketing,
SEO [Search Engine Optimization]
Google Ads,
Facebook Ads,
Newsletter Marketing

Break those 8 marketing tools out into a scheduled system and work on them and in a short period of time, your business will grow like a Maple sapling in the wrong place. Don’t do it and you’ll frown like stepping on a Gum tree monkey ball barefooted in the night.

Sorry had to add those puns.

Need some help? Get in touch, for a no BS, no salesy, straight up real talk about marketing your tree service business.