Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

One of the things I'd do is engage your current and potential clients with social media. Post tips on how they can care for their landscapes during the winter, what they can do to salvage plants/trees in harsh winter conditions and when they should begin outdoor work after cold-weather months -- and what that work should be.

Those tips may be carried over into a monthly newsletter (print or online) or a one-time piece that gets people thinking about you as the season approaches. (Repetition and new information always work best, however.)

For a small revenue stream or even just to get exposure in your market, you may want to contact area media outlets and offer to write columns on the same things mentioned above. It will help you increase your "expert" status in the eyes of your target market.

Can you focus on the hardscaping during the winter months (Fence, wall, and pathway building)? What about building a winter backyard greenhouse? Install coldframes for gardens? Winter-proofing the garden (frost protection, etc.)?

Following on what other said - finding winter activities to assist in adding more business during the season is one way to do this. Along with their excellent suggestions, how about getting into holiday exterior decorating (setting up lights, etc. for clients)?

Is there landscaping needs during the winter that can be done (but most people don't)? Is this the time to trim trees, or otherwise prepare for the next year? If so, you could promote services like this to clients, who very well may not be aware that they should be doing this.

You could go in a different direction and focus on the monthly estate management side of business. This doesn't sound like it has the seasonality as your landscaping does, so any business that you add here will help you year round.

Do you have a website? If so, you could use Google AdWords to send local, targeted traffic to your site to learn more about services you offer (both in the winter and during the rest of the year).

You would want to make sure you follow AdWords best practices - identifying appropriate keywords, creating ads utilizing these keywords, and then directing traffic to appropriate pages based on these keywords/services.

This may be a very cost effective way to attract current and future customers.

Best,
Stephen Turcotte
[URL deleted by staff]

Why not offer a Christmas Decorating serrvice?

People love to have jollly decor in their gardens to make the season bright.

Use your landscaping design talent to decorate the trees and shrubs with lights and decorations. String the lights up on the roof tops etc.

It may not be a huge income generator but it can keep your crews busy from November through to late December and then In January you have to come back to take it all down again :).

You can also make a little mark up selling the lights and decors.

Create a fabulous theme for your clients and they will be very happy :)

Good luck,

Matthew