Thinking of starting your new pest control business and don’t know how to get your first few clients? Or you’ve already got an established exterminator business and are looking for new marketing strategies to attract more clients?
You’ve come to the right place.
We know that marketing and promoting your pest control business are often a major challenge, if not the top challenge in running the business.
This is why here we’ve compiled some of the most effective tips and tactics you can use to successfully market and advertise your pest control business.
Without further ado, let us begin with the first one.
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Have a professional website
In this digital age, having a strong online presence is a must if you want to win more customers. The foundation of your digital presence is your website, so make sure you have a professional-looking and functional website.
Remember that social media profiles are not a direct replacement for your website, and nowadays there are various platforms like Wix, Squarespace, or even WordPress that can help you build a high-quality website even without any programming knowledge.
Make sure your site is:
- Mobile-friendly: not only a lot of your clients will search “pest control near me” on your mobile devices, but mobile-friendliness is also an important SEO factor.
- Fast: according to Google, 50% of people still bounce from a website that loads in more than three seconds, so make sure to optimize your website’s speed.
- Secure: use SSL certificates (HTTPS) and also perform cybersecurity best practices to secure your website and your customers’ data.
2. Leverage Local SEO
One of the primary ways people learn about local service businesses, including pest control business, is via Google search for queries like “pest control near me”, “exterminators near me”, and so on.
The thing is, Google pulls results from Google Maps for these queries, and this is where local SEO comes in. Your goal is to be featured in Google Maps’ top 3 spots in your area by:
- Claiming and verifying your Google My Business listing for your pest control business
- Optimizing your listing by providing accurate and complete information and including well-taken, attractive photos
- Build local citations by listing your spa in online business directories for your city.
- Encourage your clients to leave positive reviews, especially on your Google Maps listing but also on other relevant review sites.
3. Provide excellent service to gain referrals
We have to remember that at its core, a pest control business is a service business.
The ultimate dream is to have your existing clients recommending your business to their friends, peers, and family members (referrals), and we can only achieve this once we’ve consistently provided service excellence.
Do you know that by always showing up on time and finishing your pest control job timely and accurately, you are already ahead of the majority of your competition. You can maximize this by investing in pest control software for small businesses with its automated online booking and intuitive job tracking function.
The benefit of a field service management solution doesn’t stop in giving your customers an experience they will remember and gain advocacy. By optimizing and automating your business processes, you can also do more jobs without having to hire extra administrative staff.
4. Content marketing is still king
Content marketing might seem a bit unusual for a pest control business, but this is why it is an effective tactic.
Chances are, your competitors haven’t yet established their content strategy, so when you do this right, you’ll have less competition in this channel.
You can start by having a blog and consistently post informative blog posts like “tips and tricks of dealing with rodents”, “are chemical pest control safe?”, and so on. Aim to be informative and to provide value for your target clients rather than hard-selling your service.
Once you’ve established your blog, you can also expand to other forms of content, like infographics, videos, or even podcasts.
The main objective of content marketing is to establish your position as an expert in the pest control industry. People will only purchase things from businesses they trust, so establishing your reputation through your content is very important.
5. Smart social media marketing
It’s fairly obvious that in this age of social media, we would market and advertise the pest control business on these social media platforms where our target clients are active in.
The question is, how?
With millions of other businesses also promoting themselves on these social media platforms, it’s important to be smart and creative in promoting your pest control business on social media:
- Use paid advertising campaigns strategically. They are very effective in generating quick results but can be very expensive if you are not careful. The secret here is targeting, but you’ll also need to balance your paid efforts with organic ones.
- Aim to earn as many positive reviews as possible on all relevant social networks.
- In your promotions, drive traffic to your website where people can learn more about your business
- Aim to establish trust, not only with informative and engaging content but also by showing your team in “behind-the-scenes” content, showcasing videos of your team on the job, and so on.
Conclusion
While the marketing and advertising tactics we’ve shared above aren’t the only effective ones, they are among the most effective. You can use them as your foundation in building a comprehensive marketing strategy for your pest control business.
Above all, the most effective marketing is to consistently provide high-quality services so your satisfied clients will recommend your business to their peers. This is how you’ll achieve natural and sustainable growth.
