In the first of a series of webinars titled “COVID-Proofing Your Pest Control Business” that PCO Bookkeepers is presenting with Coalmarch, Dan Gordon addressed how the pandemic is affecting pest control and lawn care marketing practices.
Watch the entire webinar replay here.
Sign up for future sessions here.
It’s all about knowing your numbers. It’s not 50% works and 50% doesn’t, like the old adage. It’s knowing your cost per lead, knowing what your cost per sale is. We have a lot of clients who throw money at marketing and aren’t as scientific about the numbers. It’s really important at this point that you understand your numbers, right?
The other thing that I would do is trend (your results) against last year. We may be down, but does the trend line look like it did last year? So does your cost per lead move around from March to April to May?
You’ve got to keep an eye on that, understanding that the numbers may be different than last year, but if the trends are the same, then we’re in good shape.
If that trendline breaks, and you see that you’re paying way too much per a lead, it’s the old Kenny Rogers, “Know when to hold it, and know when to fold it.” If you have to fold it, then make sure that that’s what you do because right now cash is king. Any time you’re going through a catastrophe like this, cash is king.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t be spending on marketing. A lot of our clients who are lawn care companies are having tremendous success. They’re doing direct mail and they’re doing pay-per-click. What we’re being told is that because people are home, they’re on the internet, they’re looking around for a lawn care company, and several of our lawn care companies are actually up over last year. So for now, we seem to be in a pretty good spot.
