Should you place a referral ad in your invoice?
Emerald Green Lawn Care jumped on the Gopher Lawn Care Forum to ask if it would be a good idea to include an advertisement in their invoice to promote their referral program.
I liked the concept and brought it up in a GopherHaul Podcast. We talked about it for a little while and Chestin from LawnCareMarketingMagic.com offered his suggestions. First off he was saying don’t mix referral advertisements and invoices in the same mailing. Why? Well because when a person is writing you a check for services rendered, it is a painful experience and they won’t be in the mood at that moment to bring you more business and have you make more money. Instead he suggested to send out a letter at another day to introduce and explain your lawn care customer referral program.
Chestin also suggested not to offer 2 free mowings, but instead, a dinner for two at a local restaurant. You don’t want to offer anything too big that will make the customer feel they might have to jump through hoops to get this, but enough to actually make them want to take advantage of the offer.
The offering of mowings is boring and might not elicit a response from the lawn care customer.
Don’t forget to test which offer works best. You could create another one with a different offer. Maybe have $50.00? coupon to a local restaurant? And switch them back and forth each invoice or try different offers and see which one works best. Have specific codes for each offer and track which ones worked.
You could also have a deal where you would give a free mowing to your current customer and then a free mowing to the referral customer instead of two free mowings to your customer. That could work too, but you just never know which will work best until you experiment with the offer and test it.
So try these suggestions out this year and see what kind of effect they have!
Let me know how they work.
