In 2018, total revenue from the pest control market is expected to surpass $12.7 billion. The market itself is ballooning thanks to warmer weather and the ever-growing urban sprawl. So, the question is: what is your pest control company doing to claim a bigger piece of that pie this year?
It seems like it should be easy to get new customers—especially since every homeowner will most likely need your services at least once in their lifetime. But, if you’re short on pest control marketing ideas, you aren’t alone. The marketing industry itself has changed drastically in the past few years, and what worked to get you pest control leads in 2015 probably won’t work next year.
To help you out, I’ve detailed 12 foolproof pest control marketing strategies and ideas that will help you claim a bigger piece of your market’s pie, increase pest control leads and sales, and differentiate your brand in the marketplace:
Top 12 Pest Control Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business
Do your technicians wear uniforms? How about your trucks—are they some junkers you bought at an auction, or are they nice, branded representations of your business?
There’s a reason you do those things—first impressions matter.
Well, not only do first impressions matter on the job, but they also matter online. Your website is often the first interaction people have with your business, and they will judge your company based on how your site looks. In fact, 48 percent of people cited a website’s design as the number one factor in deciding the credibility of a business, and once your webpage loads, users form an opinion in .05 seconds.
These are the things your website needs to have in order to be on par with the top pest control companies:
Intuitive navigation
Contact info front and center
Value-building statements
Engaging, high-quality imagery
Customer portals
Resources like a pest library and a blog
A search function
Proof of awesomeness (like reviews and affiliations)
Links to social media sites
Online scheduling capabilities
But not only does it have to have those attributes in order to satisfy the pest control target market, it also needs to be:
Fast – In order for a prospect to turn into a pest control lead, they need to see something happen on your website within three seconds of landing there. If it takes longer, almost 50 percent of people will hit the “back” button.
Secure – Thanks to all the data privacy scandals and consumer information hacks, people care about their online security. Google has started labeling unsecured websites right there in the search bar, but if for some reason your website isn’t secure, you’ve got a problem. Learn more about website security here >>
Mobile-friendly – 67 percent of online searches for “pest control company” happen on mobile devices (see image below), and so do 71 percent of online searches for “exterminator.” That means your pest control website needs to be designed for mobile devices. Your customers shouldn’t have to squint to see text and they shouldn’t have trouble tapping on your links. Additionally, they should be able to easily contact you, schedule an appointment, and walk away thinking “well, THAT was easy.”
Coded for SEO – The best healthcare websites are coded in a way that makes it easy for the search engines’ software to find, crawl, and index them (see more about SEO below).
Marketing Idea 2: Optimize Everything for SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing a web page’s search rankings in order to increase online visibility. It’s incredibly valuable because 97 percent of consumers go online to find local services, 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine, and 47 percent of people click on one of the first three listings.
There are more than 200 factors that go into what makes a page rank high on the search results page, but the ones that matter the most are:
What is local SEO? It’s the type of SEO that makes you show up for local search queries and in Google’s local pack (that group of businesses under the map). For example,
“What’s that scratching noise in my attic?” is a search query without local intent—where the proximity to the user doesn’t matter.
“Squirrel removal near me,” is a search query with local intent, so Google wants to provide localized content.
Take a look at the search results for both of those queries:
In order to rank for local searches and get your company into that local pack (the map listings), you need to improve your local SEO. You can do this by:
Optimizing your Google My Business (GMB) page (more on that below)
Connecting all your businesses to your GMB account
Making sure you have a consistent NAP (name-address-phone number) across the web (including directory listings)
Having a large number of 4 and 5-star reviews (see more below)
Marketing Idea 4: Polish Your Google My Business Page
Have you claimed your GMB page? Go do that. I’ll wait.
Done? Great! An optimized Google My Business (GMB) page will allow homeowners and property managers to:
See your location
Find your contact details quickly
See your business hours
Discover reviews written by others
Immediately book your services
See photos of your business and your work
See your posts and offers
To optimize your GMB, make sure you’ve completely filled out and updated:
Your company’s categories
Your company’s description
Your hours of operation
If you offer online booking, add the “booking button” feature
Google posts
Your company photos
Your current offers and discounts
Frequently asked questions and the answers to them
Here’s an example of a well-optimized GMB listing for a pest control company:
Marketing Idea 5: Claim Your Local Search Listings
We discussed your GMB page and how a few different factors come into play in order to get your company into the local pack. One of those factors is your consistency and presence on relevant local directories and listings. One of the easiest, best pest control marketing ideas is to go and claim your local search listings on the following platforms (in order of importance—find the full list here):
Google My Business
Facebook
Yelp
Thumbtack
Angie’s List
HomeAdvisor
Porch
BBB
Marketing Idea 6: Make a Pest Control Blog
The modern consumer is now research-obsessed thanks to how easy it is to get information on pretty much anything. According to Google’s research, “Consumers use search to optimize their lives. It lets them feel more confident and less anxious.”
You can simultaneously satisfy homeowners’ craving for information and turn them into leads (or lifelong customers) with a pest control blog. Not only that, but blogs can also drive SIGNIFICANT traffic to your website. Take a look at the organic traffic to Blue Corona’s blog for the past six months:
That’s a pretty large chunk of traffic if you ask me.
Here are some great pest control blog ideas:
Create a pest library
Blog about recent news and events that affect local homeowners
Create a DIY section
Create a bug bite identification chart
Make video blogs on YouTube with how-to and informative shorts
Which brings us to…..
Marketing Idea 6: Shoot Company Videos
YouTube is technically the second most popular search engine after Google, and a video is 50 times more likely to rank organically in the search results than text pages. By 2019, videos will account for 85 percent of online traffic in the US.
And if that doesn’t knock your socks off, get this: in the past 60 seconds, YouTube users have uploaded more than 300 hours of videos.
Holy monopoly.
What’s even more important is that pest control companies that use video in their marketing strategy experience on average a 27 percent higher click-through-rate (CTR) and 34 percent higher web conversion rate than those that don’t.
This means that video can:
Increase customer engagement with your website (further improving your SEO)
Give your brand a personality
Start with these videos for pest control companies:
How-to videos on keeping pests at bay and simple solutions
Review and testimonial videos
Company introduction videos
Technician introduction videos
Videos of jobs and what different types of pest damage looks like
Informative videos that answer commonly asked questions
Marketing Idea 8: Create Easy-to-Understand Infographics
Your pest control marketing materials should include infographics. They’re all the rage—for a good reason. They’re perfect for condensing a lot of information while still getting your message across. Humans are visual creatures by nature: 90 percent of the information transmitted to the brain is visual and is processed 60,000x faster in the brain than text. That’s why people prefer to watch videos and look at infographics to get information.
Marketing Idea 9: Use Paid Ads (PPC)
Most small businesses invest in one kind of pest control ads: print. It’s usually the same deal: pest control advertising flyers or postcards, either attached to someone’s door or slipped in their mailbox.
Why not try digital with pay per click ads?Pay per click (PPC) is a form of advertising in which you pay for each click on your ad. The reason you should use them is that PPC ads have a prominent place in search results, and you can use them for remarketing (where you show ads to people who have already visited your website).
When someone goes to Google and searches for something, the top 3 – 4 listings are usually advertisements from Google’s AdWords. It’s a pest control marketing strategy that is also highly scalable and affordable.
We recommend PPC ads recommended because:
PPC campaigns can be turned on and off at any time
PPC campaigns are highly scalable, allowing you to increase or decrease your ad budget at will
PPC ads generate visits from qualified visitors who have a high intent to request pest control services
PPC ads are timely, allowing you to run ads whatever days and times of the week you’d like, including after hours and holidays
PPC ads are highly targeted, allowing you to show your ads for the top-converting keywords for your industry
Marketing Idea 10: Generate Raving Reviews
If you don’t have a strategy to generate reviews, you’re in trouble—90 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business and 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. On top of that, your number of reviews and average rating is factored into Google’s search results.
To get more online reviews, you should start by asking for them. In my experience, one of the common reasons pest control companies don’t have many reviews on Google or Facebook is because they just plain don’t ask for them.
Don’t have time to manually ask every customer for reviews? Invest in a review platform to do it for you, like Review Us Now.
Marketing Idea 11: Test Email Marketing and Marketing Automation
While I wish it were otherwise, not everyone who fills out a contact form on your site bites the bullet and becomes a customer.
But, this doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. You can always get them back by keeping your company on their radar with opt-in email marketing.
Opt-in email marketing is a highly effective way to grow your pest control business:
The first thing 66 percent of business leaders do in the morning is check their email
61 percent of consumers enjoy receiving promotional emails weekly, and 28 percent would like emails to come even more frequently
Email marketing has a 4,400 percent ROI, with a return of $44 for every $1 spent
Email marketing allows you to nurture unclosed leads and keep in touch with past customers, and it can be automated! However, email marketing is not the same thing as marketing automation. Marketing automation is an umbrella term that can include any form of messaging that is triggered automatically. This can include everything from email marketing to automated texts and messenger marketing on Facebook and LinkedIn.
We like the platforms Campaigner and MailChimp—they’re easy to use and provide great analytical insights.
Marketing Idea 12: Revamp Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
No, social media marketing probably won’t result in hundreds of leads from Facebook each month—that’s the same for most pest control companies. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a HUGE amount of value in social media marketing, though. We encourage our pest control clients to use social media to:
Earn reviews (get as many reviews as you can!)
Run paid campaigns to energize a fan base
Drive traffic to your website through Facebook
Raise awareness of new products and services
Give your brand a personality
Show that you’re a company with real employees and friendly service
Get More Pest Control Marketing Ideas and Find Your Starting Point with a Pest Control Digital Marketing Analysis
Hopefully, you have enough pest control marketing ideas to last you through 2018. But, if I could give you one piece of advice right now, it would be to contact an agency and have a digital marketing analysis done. Good ones (like ours) evaluate your web presence to come up with actionable insights on where you need the most improvement and where you stand against your competitors. A good analysis will:
Evaluate your website and locate areas of improvement (assuming you have a website, of course)
Determine available search engine real estate and social visibility
Identify digital assets used in the buying funnel (blogs, videos, team pages, etc.)
Evaluate how you present your services and value proposition, including the sales funnel you and your competitors push potential customers down
Pinpoint online advertising strategies across various channels
Assess your customer satisfaction and employee feedback, including your online reputations
If you don’t get an analysis done, you run the risk of employing marketing strategies that just plain won’t accomplish what you really need to in order to grow your company.
Give us a call or contact us online. Our pest control internet marketing experts will help you get your website ranking and help put your company on the right path for maximum growth.
Blue Corona's Editorial Staff is determined to help you increase your leads and sales, optimize your marketing costs, and differentiate your brand by passing on our tribal knowledge. The team vigilantly stays on top of the latest in digital marketing, bringing you the top insights with expert commentary. Want to see something on our blog you haven't seen yet? Shoot us an email and our marketing team will get to work.
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// Home Services Marketing
SEO (search engine optimization) and paid media are the two most effective ways to increase qualified visitors to your website. If your business doesn’t dominate the first page of search results, you’re losing business to your competition. We help you maximize your search engine real estate across both paid and organic listings on search engines like Google and Bing. This drives more qualified website traffic, calls, and leads to your business (and not your competitors’).
At Blue Corona, we take care of your website for you—from start to finish. The best part? You own 100% of everything we create—the code, content, design—everything. Our websites capture the uniqueness of your brand, deliver a seamless user experience, and serve as the launchpad for your digital marketing campaigns. We provide:
Marketing is only successful if your operations team does its job. At Blue Corona, we help your team capture and convert more leads by providing 24/7/365 call answering services and AI-powered website chat to help you:
Have you claimed your GMB page? Go do that. I’ll wait.
Done? Great! An optimized Google My Business (GMB) page will allow homeowners and property managers to:
That’s a pretty large chunk of traffic if you ask me.
Here are some great pest control blog ideas:
While I wish it were otherwise, not everyone who fills out a contact form on your site bites the bullet and becomes a customer.
But, this doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. You can always get them back by keeping your company on their radar with opt-in email marketing.
Opt-in email marketing is a highly effective way to grow your pest control business:
Have you claimed your GMB page? Go do that. I’ll wait.
Done? Great! An optimized Google My Business (GMB) page will allow homeowners and property managers to:
That’s a pretty large chunk of traffic if you ask me.
Here are some great pest control blog ideas:
While I wish it were otherwise, not everyone who fills out a contact form on your site bites the bullet and becomes a customer.
But, this doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. You can always get them back by keeping your company on their radar with opt-in email marketing.
Opt-in email marketing is a highly effective way to grow your pest control business:
