Top 10 Ways to Improve Your
Pest Control Sales
Pest control marketing and sales techniques are always evolving. Consumers have more options than ever at their fingertips, so it is important to know how to be strategic with how to sell pest control and gain market share.
Digital innovations have made even more online and traditional marketing tactics available to pest control business owners to increase sales. Better yet: Many of these ways to sell pest control are free (or close to free), making them easy for savvy business owners to take full advantage of. Here’s a quick list of proven ways to improve your pest control sales.
1. Build a Website
In 2021, there is simply no excuse for your pest control business NOT to be online. You’ll automatically take a credibility hit if you don’t have a website, and you will be missing out on one of the main ways potential customers can easily learn about you. Fortunately, you can quickly and inexpensively put together a basic website on your own using one of the many ready-made website services out there. Most have a library of templates that let non-tech-savvy business owners build a website — fast. If you have the time and budget, you can work with web professionals to create a customized, optimized website designed specifically for your business that will provide you with even more, and better, results. However you create it, once your website is up and running, you can start receiving online queries, targeting local customers and providing valuable information…all while gaining a better understanding of your customers through analytics. The possibilities are endless, but if you are looking for how to better sell pest control services, you must start with building a website.
Additional Tip: Optimize Your Website for Organic Search with SEO
Another way to increase sales and generate leads from your website is by optimizing it for organic search through search engine optimization (SEO). By implementing the right strategies, your website can rank higher on search engine results pages, leading to increased visibility and potential customers. Some key tactics for improving your SEO include conducting keyword research, optimizing your website’s content and structure, and building high-quality backlinks. By investing in SEO, you can attract more potential customers to your website and ultimately increase your pest control sales.
Optimize for Local SEO
By using location-specific keywords and creating content that appeals to your target audience, you can improve your search engine rankings and attract more local customers to your business.
2. Get a Google My Business Profile
Pest control services are a service-area business. Customers will naturally look for services as close to their homes as possible, especially given that 30% of mobile device searches are location-based. Without listings on Google Maps, Yelp, Bing Maps and the like, your business will be severely missing out on potential customers. Beyond just giving customers your location, a Google Maps listing gives them the ability to seamlessly contact you and/or visit your website. And again, it gives your pest control marketing efforts additional credibility they would otherwise not have.
3. Manage Your Reputation Through Customer Reviews
Getting your pest control business online is just half the battle. In order to continually grow your business while also increasing your credibility, it’s essential to manage your online reputation. A crucial component of this is keeping on top of customer reviews on sites like Google and Yelp. When you provide excellent pest control services, your customers will almost always be happy to leave positive reviews online — don’t be afraid to ask them to do so. It’s also important to address any negative reviews with personal responses and attention, so that potential customers seeing those reviews can also see that you are professional, prompt and dedicated to providing excellent customer service. By actively and competently managing your online reputation, you can cultivate a positive image for potential customers, which will only help maximize your other pest control advertising and marketing efforts.
4. Invest in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
If your pest control business is looking for ways to build customer retention and improve the quality and consistency of those relationships, utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software should be priority-one. CRM platforms help businesses target specific audiences, manage contact information, set alerts based on consumer or lead activity, automate customer relations, schedule tasks and improve overall business efficiency. The right CRM will keep everything you need for managing consumer relations in one place, including analytics, data, notes, and more, and having this information at your fingertips in one convenient location will directly lead to converting more leads into sales.
5. Get on Social Media Marketing
It’s not 2008 anymore: All of your customers are on social media. From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram, consumers are increasingly using social media to find pest control businesses in their area. Social Media is integral for how to sell pest control services, and the inherent targeting opportunities allow you to find your ideal audience, all for little-to-no cost. Adopting social networks to help sell your business will extensively open up your communication channels with current and potential customers while providing a forum where you can easily convert leads into sales. You can start by simply joining and interacting with Facebook groups for brand awareness. Not only does social media help you develop your overall brand, it allows for networking and partnership opportunities and provides constant customer feedback that can help drive traffic to your website.
6. Build a Referral Program
Who are your best advertisers? Your own happy customers. Why not make them part of your marketing team with a referral program? When you build a concerted, purposeful referral program, since you are generating leads through your already-satisfied customers, you will quickly generate even more satisfied customers, ensuring a continuous cycle of existing customers and new referrals. All of this generates a better overall ROI from your marketing strategy because instead of chasing and cold-calling potential customers, your existing customers have brought them right to you, opening you up to continued opportunities for success with a higher conversion rate.
7. Advertise with Google Ads
No matter how you handle your pest control business advertising, marketing, and sales techniques, all roads lead back to Google. Google is the first place the majority of your potential consumers will go to research anything, so getting your ads on Google is critical for increasing sales. There is simply no greater reach than using Google Ads, and they can capture customer information on a landing page, then begin sending them informative content in order to convert them to a sale. If they do not convert, you can use Google’s retargeting software to draw them back until they wind up converting. Keyword targeting is historically a very cost-effective way to market; that’s no different for pest control. You can create automatic controls for your daily budget, maximum bids, etc. so that you never spend more than you want to, while analytics dashboards provide you with information such as clicks, impressions, time spent on the site, and more, in order to see exactly how visitors are behaving.
8. Run Direct Mail Campaigns
Direct mail is a versatile, affordable solution to reach potential customers in particular service areas, whether that be through pest control business cards, postcards, catalogs, flyers, and more. With the latest technology, creating a precisely targeted direct mail pest control marketing campaign is easier than ever. You can create a mailing list within a particular mail carrier route that includes or excludes addresses based on age, household income, home value, type of home, etc. Direct mail remains inexpensive and effective, especially when it’s effectively and efficiently targeted.
9. Call Tracking
Call tracking allows you to assign unique phone numbers to different pest control marketing campaigns, filter out unqualified leads, then identify which lead source channels are responsible for the most closed sales through phone calls. With this information, you can improve your ROI by refining your messaging and ad campaigns based on real-time marketing analytics. Many consumers would rather call a business than take the time to fill out a form, so by giving them a phone number to select when they wish to make contact, you can rest assured that you have improved the overall customer experience. And with lead tracking, you can not only know which ad prompted the call, but also the caller’s intent and whether the sale was made.
10. Write More!
Some of the best pest control marketing and sales techniques can come straight from the source: You! Once you have your website and social media up and running, customers will want to find out more about your company, changes in the industry, business innovations, and more. So it is important to have a library of online resources for your customers to learn from (You’re reading this blog! If you have more blogs, your customers will read yours too). Providing resources and industry information for your customers to reference will build trust and credibility, letting the consumer know that you know what you’re doing. Regularly blogging and generating content will inspire conversations and conversions.
Additional Tip: Increase Your Reach Through Email Marketing
By building an email list of potential and existing customers, you can regularly send them newsletters, promotions, and special offers. This helps you stay top-of-mind and increases your chances of getting more business. To make the most out of your email marketing efforts, it’s important to segment your list and send targeted messages that resonate with each group. You can also use automation to send follow-up emails and reminders to improve engagement. By leveraging the power of email marketing, you can effectively reach out to your audience and drive more sales for your pest control business.
Conclusion
RealGreen will help you gain customers without breaking the bank. Offering a full range of digital and print marketing services designed to grow and promote your brand to new and existing customers, we’ve provided cost-effective services, from direct mail to digital marketing, for decades, helping hundreds of companies build and grow their businesses.
Manage and grow your business while RealGreen does the heavy lifting. For more information on how to help your business thrive, schedule a free demo by visiting RealGreen.com or calling 800-422-7478.
