When marketing a pest control business the possibilities of what pest control marketing ideas you should implement can feel a bit overwhelming. Almost every day there is some new social media platform and groundbreaking marketing strategy to grow your business. Many people get caught up in chasing the latest thing rather than focusing on a proven pest control marketing plan that works. In this post, you’ll learn the 10 best pest control marketing ideas that actually work to grow your pest control business quickly.
1. Set Up A Website For Your Pest Control Business
Building a pest control website is one of the best pest control marketing ideas you should have as the foundation of your pest control marketing plan. Whether you are promoting your pest control business offline or online, the first place people will do additional research on your company is your website.
Having a website for your pest control business is essential not only for the many benefits but without a website it can be a huge red flag for potential customers. Plus, when you have a pest control website it is a great way to get pest control leads for your business.
Certainly having a website for your pest control business is essential, but making sure it is optimized is another key factor if you want it to generate any new clients. Your pest control website needs to be professional, and user-friendly. If your website is hard to use and isn’t professional to potential customers that can be a reflection of how you run the rest of your business.
Your pest control website will function as the hub of most of your marketing efforts organically and with paid advertising, so be sure to spend some time and money on this key asset. You might consider having a marketing agency help you build a professional website that you can use to generate new leads for your pest control business.
The key is to have a quality website design that looks professional but that is also optimized to generate leads. Some website designers only know how to make a website look nice, but you need both professionalism and functionality for your pest control website to be successful.
2. Set up a Google My Business Page
Another foundation pest control marketing idea you should implement is setting up a Google My Business page. A Google My Business Page is like an online storefront for your business.
The key is to not only set this up for your pest control business but to also fully optimize it. The good news is that optimizing your Google My Business page shouldn’t be too difficult.
You should mainly focus on filling out your profile as much as you can. This means filling out your business category, hours you are open, and to fill out the description of your business. Another key aspect of optimizing your Google My Business page is to upload photos regularly.
Google rarely will rank your profile well if you have little to no photos or if you fill your profile with stock photos. You want the photos to be clear, and to feature your employees in action. Make sure that your photos “tell a story” in the sense that with one look you can tell what the person is doing.
For example, if you offer an outside barrier treatment, you might have a pest control technician spraying the outside of a home. Also, focus on getting positive reviews. The better review rating you have the more likely you will show up on Google Maps for local searches. When you have lots of positive reviews and a complete profile, you can generate a lot of free traffic and leads from Google My Business for your pest control company.
3. Network in your community
Now that you have your pest control website built, you can move on to other pest control marketing ideas. Even though most people are online constantly today, it doesn’t mean that promoting your pest control business offline doesn’t work. One of the best pest control marketing ideas for a brand-new business is to network in your community.
There are many great ways to market your pest control business with digital marketing, however, with offline marketing you have the chance to build rapport quickly. Most people will do business with people that they know, like, and trust, and when you network in the community it gives you the chance to develop critical relationships that can lead to new clients for your pest control business.
One of the best places to start networking is at your local chamber of commerce. This will allow you to meet other business leaders in your area. As you network you should focus on building relationships first. Don’t immediately go for the sale.
As you network you can develop relationships and if there is a need for your pest control services it can come up naturally. If they don’t need your services it may lead to a referral. This could not only generate new in-home pest control clients but also commercial pest control clients.
If you aren’t networking yet, make sure to add it to your list of pest control marketing ideas that actually work!
4. Door-to-Door Sales
Another great pest control marketing idea is to use door-to-door sales to promote your pest control company. There are several reasons why a door-to-door sales campaign is effective for pest control companies.
One reason that pest control is a great product to market door-to-door is that any home you talk to has the potential to be a client. Another factor is that if people know a neighbor is dealing with pest issues those pests could often easily spread to their home as well if nothing is done about it.
You can also “name-drop” the neighbors you have talked to and that is taking advantage of your offer to build additional trust and rapport as you sell. This can help you increase your conversion rates from home to home.
Plus when you sell your pest control services door-to-door the majority of expense as the business owner only comes when a sale is made. You can offer competitive commission rates to your sales team and a small base wage. The rest of your expense comes from commissions but the new sale pays for those and brings in additional profits.
It’s a great pest control marketing idea to use this in conjunction with other marketing strategies to expand into areas where you have existing customers.
5. Active Prospecting and Network on Social Media
There are two ways to market a pest control business on social media. One is passive which we will cover further on in this post, and the other is by networking and actively prospecting.
The reason active prospecting is a great pest control marketing idea is that you can have a higher degree of control over your results. Passive marketing on social media is also effective, but it can take time to generate results.
Active prospecting can be done on many platforms and you can generate results quickly. It takes more time to implement, but you don’t have to build a following, post regularly, or create content to start seeing results.
The first place you should consider actively prospecting is in Facebook groups. You can search for homeowners groups and other local groups where your pest control company does business at.
Then you can network with group members and in some groups even post questions that can generate interest in your offers. For example, you might post a comment such as, “I’m just curious if anyone is dealing with a high level of mosquitos in their yard this summer? Drop a “yes” if you are!”
Those who comment or engage are great people to prospect about your pest control services.
6. Email Marketing
Another essential pest control marketing idea you should implement is an email marketing strategy. Email marketing is a powerful way to convert your pest control leads into customers.
The reality is that most people who visit your pest control website for the first time aren’t going to be ready to hire you. In most cases, these people are still in research mode.
With this being the case, many people that visit your site for the first time may never return. Because of this, you need a way to capture your site visitor’s information and a means to remarket to them in the future.
Setting up an opt-in form and lead magnet with an email autoresponder and a follow-up email series can accomplish this. Once people download your lead magnet, something like “10 tips on how to pest proof your home”, you can add people to your list and follow up series.
This email marketing strategy will focus on sending educational content that builds trust, credibility, and rapport with your company, and will lead people into the next step in the sales process. When the timing is right for these people to hire a pest control company they will likely choose you vs the competition.
7. Develop a Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing is another one of the best pest control marketing ideas that you can implement in your pest control marketing plan. Most people want to hire a pest control company that knows what they are doing and is an expert in the industry. One way to showcase your expertise and build trust and credibility with potential customers is with content marketing.
Two major types of content marketing you should focus on are blogging and video marketing on YouTube. These two strategies are best for content marketing because they both can utilize SEO for exposure.
SEO gives you the opportunity to create content your ideal customers are searching for on a regular basis. This could include warning signs for pests, guides to avoid pest issues, and much more.
When you create content with an SEO focus in mind, you’ll target topics that your ideal customers are interested in and this can drive steady targeted traffic to your website. Create value-based content that helps solve your ideal customer’s problems and you can quickly build credibility as an expert in the field of pest control.
The final piece to include in your content is a call to action that drives people to take the next step in the sales process. This could include things like downloading a free resource, scheduling a free pest inspection, or requesting an estimate for an existing pest issue. Doing so can help you generate new pest control leads.
8. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is another great pest control marketing idea when combined with the other strategies above. If you want your social marketing to be effective it tends to work best in three stages. They are to build an audience, engage that audience, and finally sell to that audience.
Unfortunately, most people make the mistake of only selling to their audience and because of this, they see poor results. When it comes to marketing your pest control business, social media works best when you build an audience and then share the value-based content you created above.
The good news is that almost anyone who has a home can potentially benefit from your pest control services. This means that you can simply focus your targeting on your local service area.
If you are looking for a place to start try targeting, following, and engaging with those who follow local news stations or other major local icons in your area. Most likely people who follow local news stations, and popular local icons tend to be from that area. So when these people follow you back they often can be in your target market.
As your following grows and you consistently share your value-based content it can drive those who are interested in your website and offers. Another benefit of using content optimized for SEO is that you can organically grow your social media following on platforms like YouTube. Your video content can promote and link to your other social media profiles to grow that targeted audience as well.
9. Facebook Ads
Facebook advertising is another one of the best marketing ideas for a pest control business. Now Facebook/Meta has really become a pay-to-play platform and the organic reach of a business page isn’t what it used to be. However, this doesn’t mean that an organic presence on Facebook/Meta isn’t important.
In conjunction with your paid advertising strategy, you also want to have an organic base of content you share regularly on your Facebook business page. Often when people see your paid ads on Facebook they will also check out your page. If you have little to no content posted organically on your business page it can be a red flag for potential customers.
Running Facebook ads for a small business like a pest control company can be extremely profitable. As mentioned above, your pest control service could benefit almost anyone in your local service area. This means that you can target your Facebook ads in your service area and capitalize on those that may be dealing with pest issues.
Another approach to building your list of potential customers is to offer a lead magnet such as a pest-proofing guide, or a free pest inspection. This could build your email list of people who see the value of pest control. For those who get a free inspection, you can find pest issues and suggest hiring you or highlighting potential areas that could let in pests and suggest a maintenance treatment.
Facebook advertising is a great way to grow your pest control business. Click here to learn more about our Facebook advertising pages for pest control companies.
10. Google Ads
If you want to target potential customers that are actively searching for a pest control service Google Ads is one of the best pest control marketing ideas. Now there are two types of ads that a pest control company can run that are highly effective to attract clients.
One type is a local service ad or Google Guaranteed ad and the other is to run ads through the Google Ads platform. Now Google local service ads are something that you can set up through Google where you pay for a specific amount for pest control leads in your local area. This is great to set up and can help you grow your pest control business quickly.
The other type of ad is through Google Ads and this is focused on targeting specific keywords. With Google Ads, you should target keywords that have a high buying intent. This means you should focus on keywords that people would be using if they are looking to hire a pest control service. For example, this could be keywords like, “pest control service”, “pest control near me”, “pest control estimate”, etc.
Often the cost per click on these ads can be rather pricy, but since the buying intent is often very high, you can get a great return on your investment. Combining these search intent ads, with your Facebook ads strategy is a great way to generate quality leads for your pest control company.
Conclusion
Overall there are many different pest control marketing ideas that can work for your pest control company. The key to success is to implement them and to have both an organic marketing strategy and a paid advertising strategy to scale your results.
Another benefit of combining both organic and paid marketing strategies is that organic strategies often take time to work and paid advertising can drive results quickly. Paid advertising can be more of an investment but it can help you see results while your organic strategy is still building.
The benefit of your organic strategy is that your efforts can be created once but can reap returns for many years passively. When you combine all of these pest control marketing ideas in your marketing plan you can quickly start to grow your pest control business.
By the way, if you’d like our team’s help growing your pest control business be sure to schedule your digital marketing audit here. We can help you optimize your digital marketing and paid advertising strategy and help you generate more quality leads for your pest control business.
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