The pest control market is estimated to generate $12.7 billion in revenue in 2018. The market is expanding as a result of the better weather and the ever-increasing urban sprawl.
It appears that gaining new customers should be simple—especially since every homeowner will most likely require your services at some point during their lives.
Now, your pest control firm may be well-versed in dealing with mice, roaches, and other nasties that like to lurk in the walls of your customers. But when it comes to pest control marketing, though, it’s a different story. You’re a little befuddled.
So, how is your pest control firm attempting to claim a larger slice of that pie this year?
But don’t worry, you’re not alone if you’re running out of pest control marketing ideas.
The pest control marketing industry has changed dramatically in recent years, and what worked in 2015 to generate pest control leads is unlikely to work next year.
Pest control marketing entails more than simply launching a website and hoping for traffic. You must be strategic in your approach to marketing your company. Here are some essential pointers to help you improve your pest control advertising and lead generation.
Let’s start with the immediate vicinity. After all, it’s the location where your pest treatment company operates. And for pest control, you’ll need local SEO.
Many pieces of digital marketing advice are tailored toward companies with a global outlook. However, if your company only serves one city or a metropolitan area around a city, having visitors from all over the world won’t help you.
Don’t know where to begin? Continue reading.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #1: Create A Fantastic Website
Is it true that your technicians are dressed in uniform?
Are your trucks junkers you picked up at a sale, or are they lovely, branded representatives of your company?
You do those things for a reason: first impressions are important.
First impressions matter not only on the job, but they also count online.
People will judge your firm based on the appearance of your website, which is often the first engagement they have with it.
In fact, 48% of consumers rate a website’s design as the most important aspect in determining a company’s legitimacy, and users form a judgment in less than 0.05 seconds after your page loads.
These are the features your website must have to compete with the best pest control companies:
- Navigation is simple and intuitive.
- Contact information is prominently displayed.
- Statements that add value
- Imagery that is both engaging and of excellent quality
- Portals for customers
- A pest library and a blog are among the resources available.
- A search function is available.
- Evidence of greatness (like reviews and affiliations)
- Sites with social media links
- Capabilities for online scheduling
However, in order to meet the pest control target market, it must also possess the following characteristics:
- Website Speed –
A prospect must see something happen on your website within three seconds of landing there in order to convert it into a pest control lead.
If it takes too long, about half of the people will click the “back” button.
People are concerned about their online security as a result of recent data privacy breaches and consumer information intrusions.
Google has begun marking unsafe websites directly in the search bar, but if your website isn’t secure for some reason, you’ve got a problem.
- Adaptable to Mobile Devices —
On mobile devices, 67 percent of internet searches for “pest control company” and 71 percent of online searches for “exterminator” take place (see graphic below).
This means that your pest control website must be mobile-friendly. Customers shouldn’t have to squint to read text, and tapping on links shouldn’t be difficult.
They should also be able to simply contact you, book an appointment, and leave thinking, “Wow, that was simple.”
- Designed for SEO –
The greatest healthcare websites are built in such a way that search engine software can easily identify, crawl, and index them (see more about SEO below).
Pest Control Marketing Idea #2: Improve Your Local Search Engine Optimization
What exactly is local SEO?
It’s the kind of SEO that gets you listed in Google’s local pack and for local search queries (that group of businesses under the map).
- “What’s that scratching noise in my attic?” is an example of a search query with no local intent—where the user’s location is irrelevant.
- However, when you consider “squirrel removal near me,” Google wants to give localized material since it is a search query with local intent.
Take a look at the results for both of those searches. Try it yourself to understand the difference in pest control marketing.
You must strengthen your local SEO in order to rank for local searches and get your business listed in the local pack (map listings).
This can be accomplished by optimizing your Google My Business (GMB) page (more on that below)
Connecting all of your enterprises to your Google My Business account and ensuring that your NAP (name-address-phone number) is consistent throughout the web (including directory listings)
Pest Control Marketing Idea #3: Optimize Everything For Search Engine Optimization
The technique of improving a web page’s search ranks in order to boost online visibility is known as search engine optimization (SEO).
Because 97 percent of consumers use the internet to look for local services, 93 percent of online encounters begin with a search engine, and 47 percent of people click on one of the first three results, it’s quite valuable.
There are over 200 factors that go into ranking a page high in the search results page, but the ones that matter the most are:
- Secured sites (HTTPS vs. HTTP)
- Mobile-friendly websites
- Schema markup
- Webpage content quality
- Webpage content length
- Optimized title tags and meta descriptions on all web pages
- Page speed
- Social signals Quality backlinks.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #4: Claim Your Local Search Listings
We talked about your Google My Business page and how a few different elements come into play when it comes to getting your business into the local pack.
Your consistency and presence on relevant local directories and listings are one of those criteria.
Claim your local search listings on the following platforms (in order of importance—find the entire list here) for one of the easiest and greatest pest control marketing ideas:
- Angie’s List Home
- Advisor Porch
- Google My Business
- Yelp
- Thumbtack
Pest Control Marketing Idea #5: Polish Your Google Marketing Idea
Have you claimed your Google My Business page? Go ahead and do it. I’ll be patiently waiting.
Done? Great!
Homeowners and property managers can use a Google My Business (GMB) profile to:
- See your location
- Instantly find your contact information
- See your business hours
- Discover reviews left by others
- Rapidly schedule your services.
View images of your business and work, as well as your postings and special offers. Make sure you’ve filled out and updated the following fields to improve your GMB:
- Google posts
- Your company photos
- Your current offers and discounts
- Frequently asked questions and their answers
- If you offer online booking, add the “booking button” feature.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #6: Shoot Company Videos
YouTube is the second most popular search engine behind Google, and videos are 50 times more likely than text pages to rank organically in search results.
In the United States, videos will account for 85 percent of all online traffic by 2019. And if that doesn’t impress you, consider this: YouTube viewers have uploaded more than 300 hours of video in the last 60 seconds.
Sacred Monopoly
What’s more, pest control firms who employ video in their marketing approach have a 27 percent higher click-through rate (CTR) and a 34 percent higher web conversion rate than companies that don’t.
This means that video can help you: provide information for the research-hungry consumer; improve your SEO efforts; and increase customer engagement with your website (further improving your SEO).
Give Your Brand a Distinct Identity
You can create videos on these topics:
- How-to videos like how to keep pests at bay
- Review and testimonial films
- Company introduction videos
- Technician introduction videos
- Videos of tasks and how different forms of pest damage appear
- Informative videos that answer frequently asked topics
Pest Control Marketing Idea #7: Create Easy-to-understand Infographics
Infographics should be used in your pest control marketing materials. They’re all the rage right now, and for good cause.
They’re ideal for cramming a lot of information into a little space while still conveying your message.
Humans are by nature visual creatures: Visual information is delivered to the brain 90% of the time and is processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text.
That is why people prefer to receive knowledge via watching films or looking at infographics.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #8: Email Marketing And Marketing Automation
While I wish it were otherwise, not everyone who fills out your contact form becomes a customer. However, this does not imply that they are permanently lost.
By keeping your firm on their radar with opt-in email marketing, you can always get them back. Opt-in email marketing is a powerful technique to expand your pest control company:
Sixty-six percent of company leaders read their email first thing in the morning; 61 percent of consumers love receiving promotional emails weekly, and 28 percent would want them to arrive even more frequently, and 61 percent of consumers prefer receiving promotional emails on a monthly basis.
Email marketing offers a return on investment of 4,400%, or $44 for every $1 spent. You may use email marketing to nurture unclosed leads and stay in touch with prior customers, and it can even be automated!
Email marketing, on the other hand, is not the same as marketing automation. Marketing automation is a broad phrase that refers to any type of message that is sent out automatically.
This might range from email marketing to automated SMS and Facebook and LinkedIn messaging marketing.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #9: The Basics of Citations in Local Areas
You might focus your attention on local citations. Local businesses, such as pest control firms face a unique challenge: attracting natural backlinks.
Usually, search engines use backlinks to determine:
1. Is your company legitimate?
2. How reliable is your company?
Local businesses were at an unfair disadvantage because search engines require this information to determine how to rank your site.
As a result, search engines devised a new strategy: instead of using hyperlinks, they now employ citations for local businesses.
Fortunately, you already have several of these–directory listings that verify information such as your name, phone number, and physical address.
Why Citations Are Important
As a local business, you can’t afford to ignore citations since they have a direct impact on how your company appears in searches–in other words, whether you show up where your potential consumers are looking.
Let’s pretend your potential consumer is seeking a pest control service. They’ll either do one of these things.
- In the area
If users have location services turned on on their phone or computer, the search engine will prioritize local results over organic results.
- Phone Directory
They’ll seek a phone book for a pest treatment firm. It will help in natural discovery if your company has a citation there.
- Voice
Finally, they’ll use their voice to look for a “pest control firm near me.” Because they employed geo-tagging language, search results are displayed with local results first.
Guess where the information that search engines use in situations #1 and #3 comes from. Yup. Citations from you.
Citations: Structured vs. Unstructured
A citation usually consists of three parts:
- Your name
- Your address
- Your phone number
This isn’t always the case, though. This is usually determined by whether or not the citations are structured.
Structured citations, which can be found in directories like the Better Business Bureau, often follow the above pattern.
Then there are citations that are not structured. Although SEO experts dispute the exact nature of unstructured citations, they are essentially backlinks.
Local blogs, links in news releases, social media accounts, and company announcements are familiar places to look for them.
The main distinction between an unstructured citation and a backlink is that unstructured links don’t have to be do-follow in order to be helpful.
Citation of Your Website
So, how do you go about getting citations? Even if you aren’t aware of it, you most likely already have one: your website.
Most businesses make the mistake of believing that their website is the be-all and end-all, the first source of correct data and the significant font of the accurate information from which all other listings feed.
That, however, is not the case.
In a Google-dominated search environment (Google is expected to hold 80% of the search engine market in 2019), your Google My Business listing is the first source of accurate information.
This implies you should pay strict attention to your Google My Business directory, and the location on your website pages should be treated as a handy citation.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #10: Get Five-star Reviews
You’re in big trouble if you don’t have a strategy for getting reviews!
According to 90 percent of consumers who check online reviews before visiting a business, most customers trust online evaluations as much as personal recommendations.
Furthermore, Google considers your quantity of reviews and average rating in its search results.
Asking for additional online reviews is an excellent place to start. One of the most common reasons pest control firms don’t have many reviews on Google or Facebook, in my experience, is that they simply don’t ask for them.
Don’t have time to ask each consumer for a review by hand? Invest in a review platform, such as Ranolia Ventures. Allow them to build your online reputation for you.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #11: Paid Advertising (PPC)
The majority of small businesses invest in only one type of pest control advertisement: print.
It’s always the same thing: pest control leaflets or postcards are posted on people’s doors or slipped into their mailboxes.
Why not attempt pay-per-click advertising on the internet?
PPC (pay per click) advertising is a type of advertising in which you pay for each time your ad is clicked.
PPC advertisements have a prominent spot in search results and can be used for retargeting. This is why you should utilize them (where you show ads to people who have already visited your website).
When someone searches for something on Google, the first 3–4 results are usually adverts from Google AdWords. It’s a pest-control marketing technique that’s both scalable and cost-effective.
We recommend PPC ads 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 with a high intent to request pest control services.
- PPC ads generate visits from qualified visitors who have a high intent to request pest control services.
PPC advertisements are timely, allowing you to run ads whenever you want, including after hours and on weekends. PPC ads are highly targeted, allowing you to show your ads for the top-converting keywords in your business.
Pest Control Marketing Idea #12: Revamp Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
No, social media marketing is unlikely to generate hundreds of leads each month from Facebook—the same can be said for most pest treatment companies.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of value in social media marketing.
Our pest control clients are encouraged to use social media to: Earn reviews (as many as possible!)
Run paid ads to energize your fan base; use Facebook to drive visitors to your website; and raise awareness of new products and services. Show that you’re a genuine firm with real people and excellent service by giving your brand a personality.
Hire Professionals
Hopefully, you’ve come up with enough pest control marketing ideas to keep you busy till 2028.
But, if I had one piece of advice for you right now, it would be to call a digital marketing agency and have a digital marketing study performed.
Good ones (like Ranolia Ventures) assess your online presence to provide actionable insights on where you need to improve and how you compare to your competitors.
A competent analysis will: Evaluate your website and identify areas where it may be improved (assuming you have a website, of course)
Identify digital assets used in the buying funnel and determine available search engine real estate and social exposure (blogs, videos, team pages, etc.)
Why Should You Hire Ranolia Ventures?
We assess your customer satisfaction and employee feedback, including your online reputations, as well as 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.
If you don’t conduct a thorough study, you risk employing marketing methods that simply won’t achieve the results you need to expand your business.
Give us a call or send us an email. Get more pest control marketing ideas and start with a pest control marketing plan.
Our pest control internet marketing professionals will assist you in improving your website’s rating and positioning your firm for optimal growth.