You put in the time to learn how to climb safely and care for trees. You scraped together the money needed to buy some equipment and hire a small crew. And now, you just need the damn phone to ring.
For that, you need to put a marketing plan into place.
You need to show up when people search for your services, position yourself as a trusted local expert, and start getting the green light from potential clients.
As the leading tree-service marketing agency in the business, we’ve seen it all, including the things that work and the things that don’t. We’ll share some examples of each below.
Can Handle All of the Marketing for Your Tree-Care Company?
Honestly? No.
You should certainly handle some of your own marketing, but you’ll want to enlist the help of professionals for more advanced marketing tasks.
There are a number of reasons this is particularly important for tree-care companies, including:
- The Steep Learning Curve: Marketing is a complicated discipline. It takes years to simply learn the basics and even longer to master. And from the beginning, you’re going to be competing with professionals who’ve been playing this game for decades.
- The Stakes: You can’t just brush off many marketing mistakes; they’ll create problems that persist even after you’ve thrown in the towel and decided to hire professionals. And those mistakes may harm your reputation and ultimately cost you real money.
- Your Time: There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for you to learn marketing, execute the basic practices, and trim the occasional tree. Plus, you’ll have to dedicate time to keeping up with changing trends, new technology, and a shifting competitive landscape.
In fact, there is really only one reason you shouldn’t hire a tree-service marketing team to handle the more complicated aspects: You can’t afford to.
Most marketing agencies will charge at least $2,000 to $4,000 per month for a basic package. To afford that comfortably, you’ll need to be generating $20,000 to $40,000 per month (that’s roughly one-quarter to one-half a million dollars in annual sales).
If you’re not at that level yet, you essentially have to handle all your own marketing, as many agencies — including ORB Tree Service Marketing — have minimum income thresholds (ours is $500,000 in annual sales).
If you’re making less than that, go ahead and start implementing the tips below. But if you’ve reached or exceeded this level, you should consider working with some pros, so you can break into seven- or eight-figure territory.
Marketing Your Tree Service: Things You Should Do
Effectively marketing your tree-care business entails a number of different steps. And while every business and location is different, you’ll usually want to do all of the things listed below.
Establish Your Logo and Branding Early
To save money, a lot of tree-company owners try to use a cheap, hastily designed logo at the outset. But it’s wiser to invest in a professionally designed logo and branding kit, which will establish things like your brand colors and fonts. This will help give your business the polished and professional appearance needed for building trust with potential clients.
Besides, you’ll end up placing your logo and using your brand colors on most of your marketing assets — including those that aren’t easy to change. By establishing your brand identity early, you won’t have to replace things like uniforms and vehicle wraps later.
Launch a Professional-Caliber Website
You may be able to run a side-hustle tree “company” with nothing more than a social media account, but if you want to build a real business, a website is essential. Ideally, you’ll have a professional designer set up the site for you, but you can do it yourself if you need to keep your costs low initially.
Just keep it simple. You only need a home, about, and contact page, as well as a page for each of your key services. Be sure the content is plainspoken and clearly explains who you are, what you do, and where you do it. And be sure that your spelling, punctuation, and grammar are flawless.
Create a Google Business Profile (GBP)
Your GBP is often the first thing potential clients will see when searching for tree-care services in their area. So, start by claiming and fully verifying your profile, then complete every section. This is critical, as Google’s own research shows that businesses with a complete and accurate GBP are 2.7 times more likely to be considered reputable.
If you can, add several high-quality photos or videos to your profile, as this will help you start building trust with potential customers. Minimally, you’ll want a photo of your crew, one or two photos of your equipment, and a before-and-after photo of a recent job.
Establish a Basic Social Media Presence
While social media will never replace the need for a high-quality website, you do need a basic social media presence. But the goal isn’t to go viral, chase trends, or accumulate thousands of followers. You just need to create a full, three-dimensional picture of your business to continue building trust with potential customers.
You don’t have to make profiles on a dozen different platforms. Instead, focus on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube — the ones that are most appropriate for business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing.
Acquire Citations & Backlinks
Citations — places on the web that list your business name and contact info — are essential for building the kind of broad brand presence AI tools consider when deciding which businesses to recommend. And citations that include a link to your website (called a backlink) are even more helpful, as they can boost your site’s SEO performance.
There are scads of listing services you can appear on. Some are free, but others will charge a nominal fee. Just be sure that you enter your company name and contact information exactly the same way it appears on your website and GBP. Don’t, for example, write 123 Elm Street in some places and 123 Elm St. in others.
Start Collecting Reviews
Ratings and reviews are worth their virtual weight in gold for tree-care businesses. In fact, 47% of consumers won’t hire a business with fewer than 20 published reviews, according to BrightLocal. Google ratings and reviews provide the most value, but reviews on Facebook, Angi, Yelp, and other platforms are helpful too.
The challenge is convincing customers to actually leave reviews. Volumes could be written about the best ways to accomplish this, but the simplest advice is to ask happy clients for reviews immediately and make it easy for them to do so by providing a link or QR code that directs them to the appropriate place for leaving a review.
Buy Branded Uniforms & Vehicle Wraps
Crews that show up in matching uniforms immediately project an air of professionalism — something that’s well worth the relatively modest investment you’ll need to make. They don’t need to be elaborate, either. Hard hats and high-viz vests with your business name and logo are more than sufficient.
Vehicle wraps also lend an aura of professionalism to your crew, but they also look great in photos you can post on your site, GBP, and social media accounts. You’ll also likely earn more than 30,000 daily impressions, depending on how many miles your crew puts in each day, according to 3M.
Network and Build Relationships with Other Businesses
Actual face-to-face human networking may be an old-school tactic, but it still works in the modern world. In fact, you’ll likely find that building business relationships generates more paying customers than any of the other tactics new business owners try, such as paying for leads.
So, grab a stack of business cards (or even better, a QR code that you can share with new contacts) and head to a local Business Network International (BNI) meeting or join your local Chamber of Commerce. Focus on building relationships with other businesses who may provide you with referrals, such as real estate agents and landscapers.
Start Running Local Service Ads (LSAs)
Google Local Services Ads are one of the fastest ways to start generating real leads, especially when you’re just getting your business off the ground. Best of all, they’re usually simple enough that business owners can manage these kinds of ads themselves, without needing professional assistance.
Unlike traditional pay-per-click ads, LSAs operate on a pay-per-lead model, meaning that you only pay when a potential customer actually contacts you. Even more importantly, these ads appear at the very top of search results and include the “Google Guaranteed” badge, which immediately builds trust with homeowners looking for tree services.
Marketing Your Tree Service: Mistakes to Avoid
There are admittedly a lot of things you’ll need to do to market your tree-service business. But it’s also important that you avoid some of the common and costly mistakes many inexperienced marketers make.
Using a Flawed Business Name
Be thoughtful when deciding your business name. It should clearly explain what you do, which means you’ll want the words “tree care” or “tree service” to appear. Avoid overly cute or clever names that typically only confuse potential customers.
If you feel that your business name is flawed, try to change it early in your marketing journey. You’ll have to replace your name everywhere it already appears, and you’ll essentially be wasting all the time and money you spent on earlier marketing efforts.
Not Responding to EVERY Review You Receive
You need to do two things with regard to reviews: collect them and then respond to them. The first part is obviously important, but, as mentioned earlier, it can be tricky. Meanwhile, the second part is certainly important, but it’s super-easy to carry out.
Responding to reviews helps build trust with potential clients, and it helps illustrate how you treat your customers. Just be sure that you respond to negative reviews or ratings professionally, avoid being confrontational, and treat even dissatisfied customers courteously.
Buying Leads
In an effort to fill out the calendar, a number of new tree company owners will purchase leads from an aggregator. But this often yields a very poor ROI. These kinds of unqualified leads are primarily made up of low-intent tire kickers, who are simply price shopping.
You’re simply not going to convert many of these leads into paying customers, and your money would be better spent elsewhere, such as PPC ads, LSAs, or SEO services.
Making Unprofessional Posts on Social Media
There may be no quicker way to turn off potential clients than making inappropriate posts on social media. That means you’ll want to keep posts about politics, religion, social issues, and other “touchy” topics off your business’ page to avoid offending clients. That’s what your personal social media profiles are for (and you should be careful with those, too).
Instead, keep your social media posts on-topic and business-oriented. Publish photos of your work, messages from happy clients, and customer incentives (discount codes, coupons, special deals, and the like).
Launching a Google PPC Campaign
The allure of Google PPC campaigns is understandable, but they’re too complicated for the average business owner to manage effectively. You’ll likely end up blowing through your budget without generating any real results from it.
For the time being, you’ll be better served by focusing on LSAs and in-person, real-world marketing efforts. Then, once you can afford professional PPC management, you can launch an effective campaign that’ll generate a good ROI.
Rolling Out Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are typically a bit more affordable than Google Ads, but they’re still not suitable for amateur management. Trying to learn how to run Facebook Ads on the fly will generally result in a poor ROI and a bunch of wasted money that would have been better spent elsewhere.
You can (and should) certainly make Facebook posts to enjoy more exposure and potentially attract new clients, but refrain from spending money on ads until you can afford professional management.
Don’t Try to Be a Hero: Get the Marketing Help You Need
We sincerely hope that these tips help you start getting the word out about your tree company. We know it can be tough to learn a whole new skill set when you’re already putting in 60 hours a week running your business. But with time (and a bit of patience), you’ll get there.
Once you’ve established a good foundation for your business and are ready to get marketing help from a team who specializes in the tree-care industry, it’s time to get the kind of expert help you need to reach the next level.
Take 60 seconds to schedule a call with our president and co-founder, Austin Lee. Austin will be happy to discuss your business, explain how we’d approach your marketing, and even provide a few tips you could start employing immediately.
Sources & References
- BrightLocal – “Local Consumer Review Survey”
This annual research report analyzes consumer behavior and trust levels regarding online reviews for local businesses to identify evolving trends in reputation management.
https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey - 3M – “The Power of Graphics”
This technical infographic examines the psychological and physiological impact of visual communication on human information processing and brand retention.
https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1769575O/power-of-graphics-infographic-pdf.pdf - Google Help – “How to Improve Your Local Ranking on Google”
This official documentation outlines the primary factors—relevance, distance, and prominence—that influence how local business profiles appear in Google Search and Maps results.
https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091 - IBISWorld – “Number of Businesses: Tree Trimming Services in the US”
This industry data report provides a statistical overview of the competitive landscape and growth trends within the professional tree care and maintenance sector.
https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/number-of-businesses/tree-trimming-services/6064
