Irrigation Advertisement: Online & Offline Tactics

Why Do Irrigation Businesses Need Advertising?

Irrigation businesses need advertising to sustain a steady stream of potential customers and ensure a stable cash flow. Advertising is also an effective way to out-compete other irrigation businesses and reduce customer churn rates.

Here are other reasons that justify investing in advertisements:

• It promotes your services and generates awareness of new products and offers.

• It builds brand awareness.

• It generates demand for your services.

• It boosts customer retention rate.

• It attracts qualified candidates to apply for positions at your firm.

What Types of Advertisements Do Irrigation Businesses Use?

Every advertisement channel you could think of falls into four distinct categories.

• Digital advertisements: Promote your services to property owners, business owners, and homeowners using digital channels and internet-enabled platforms. Examples include PPC advertising, organic social media content, and email marketing.

• Print advertisements: Using materials with printed promotional messages to advertise your services. Examples include flyers, outdoor advertising, and business cards.

• Car advertisements: Also known as automotive advertising, this involves placing promotional material on company vehicles, and turning them into mobile billboards. An example is vehicle wrap advertising.

• Event advertisements: Organizing formal gatherings to sell your products and services. Examples include free webinars and seminars.

Later, we’ll explore different advertising strategies that fall under each of these headings. 

How Can I Advertise My Irrigation Business Online?

With 91.8 percent of people in the United States using the Internet, online channels are an effective way to reach potential customers. Besides, a core marketing principle is to reach customers and prospects where they already are.

Here are some online advertising channels appropriate for an irrigation business:

Let’s cover them in more detail.

1. Google Ads

Google Ads is a PPC platform that allows you to place ads on Google Search, YouTube, and digital platforms (websites and applications) affiliated with the Google Display Network.

This allows you to appear whenever someone is, for example, looking to install a drip irrigation system. It’s also an excellent way to appear at the top of search results without waiting for SEO efforts to kick in.

Running a Google Ads campaign begins with finding the search terms your target audience uses to find irrigation services online. Google autocomplete, and people-also-ask sections are perfect for this. 

However, you want to use free or paid-for SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Semrush to access advanced metrics such as keyword difficulty and monthly search volume.

Next, define your target audience using criteria like demographics. Then, design your ad campaign correctly to win ad auctions, and be prepared to pay a specific amount to the platform whenever someone clicks or views your ad.

Another crucial aspect of running Google Ads campaigns is investing in a suitable tool to track and measure performance. 

One such tool is ServiceTitan’s Home Services Marketing platform, which lets you assign trackable phone numbers to campaigns. This allows the platform to precisely attribute each job booking to the source campaign, rank the campaigns for revenue generated, and show the zip codes generating the most calls.

2. Local Services Ads

This particular Google paid ad offering lets you appear for local intent queries such as “irrigation system installation near me.” It lets irrigation leads contact your company directly from search engines—they don’t need to go through a landing page or website.

The good thing about Local Services Ads (LSAs) is their cost-effectiveness. Unlike other PPC ads that charge for views and clicks, Google only deducts from your ad budget when the customer calls or messages you. This ensures you are more likely to recoup the amount you invested in the campaign.

There are two ways to maximize LSAs. One is maintaining an up-to-date Google Business Profile (GBP) and filling it with positive reviews. The other is following up on warm leads that don’t convert immediately.

ServiceTitan’s Local Services Ads integration lets you follow up on all leads by automatically pulling their information and booking details into your ServiceTitan CRM.

The integration allows you to include a click-to-book button on your LSAs. Whenever a customer clicks the button, they are redirected to a Google Form and Calendar to describe their issue, submit their contact details, and book an appointment from available time slots.

This turns your LSAs into a channel that consistently generates leads, even outside working hours. Additionally, the seamless booking process boosts conversions.

3. Social media ads

Due to rising social media usage, social media advertising is an increasingly relevant channel. It allows you to promote your irrigation solutions to a specific audience based on demographics, interests, location, or internet activity. 

Social media ads are also perfect for connecting with people who are not following your account. Plus, they enjoy high engagement, as the owners of social media platforms intentionally design them to resemble organic content.

How can you run social ads?

Perform audience research to learn more about your target audience and use the details discovered to create the ad. Then, set your campaign goals, launch it, and regularly track its performance to know when to tweak specific elements or reallocate resources.

4. Advertorials

These are editorials on news websites that promote a product or service. Typically, they have a sponsored tag, and the advertiser is recognized as the author.

Unlike traditional advertisements, an advertorial adopts a soft-sell approach. A great advertorial promotes the service or product without sounding salesy. This keeps readers engaged, educates them, and provides value while subtly promoting advertisers' services, making it an effective marketing tool.

For example, let’s say an irrigation company sells sprinkler systems. They can create an advertorial about the top sprinkler systems and include theirs on the list. This way, the reader considers the company for their irrigation needs.

Follow these tips to create successful advertorials:

• Define your target audience. Then, publish and distribute the advertorial on the platforms they frequent.

• Write to provide value. Prioritize resolving the target audience’s irrigation needs over selling.

• Support claims with real customer testimonials.

• Avoid clickbait. Align the title with the content.

• Mention companies other than yours to avoid appearing overly promotional.

• Encourage readers to take action.

5. Video ads

People’s content-consumption habits have evolved over the years. They rarely have the time or attention span to read through text-based content anymore. That’s why social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok increasingly favor videos, rewarding them with more reach. 

Statista data shows videos reached over 92 percent of internet users worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2023. Furthermore, 91 percent of marketers use videos, 85 percent plan to increase their investment in videos, and 89 percent of customers expect to see more brands using them.

When using video ads, ensure that the first few seconds capture the viewers' attention. Offer a solution to their problem, mention an attractive offer, or ask a thought-provoking question.

From there, use the rest of the video to explain why you’re different from other companies and prompt viewers to take action.

6. Email advertising

Email advertising lets irrigation companies reach their target audience without the intervention of a third party. 

Due to the intimate nature of email inboxes, this channel is excellent for building strong connections with customers and prospects. It’s also perfect for sharing educational tips and job updates to maintain top-of-mind awareness and nurture leads into customers.

One major drawback of email marketing is the massive competition. People are inundated daily with emails from multiple businesses, few of which get read. Most are either deleted, marked as spam, or ignored.

These tips can place your emails among the few that get read.

• Provide real value so recipients see the need to open your emails and remain subscribed to the newsletter.

• Avoid buying email lists. Only send emails to people who have consciously subscribed to receive them.

• Regularly remove unengaged subscribers—people who haven’t opened or engaged with your emails in a long while.

• Personalize your subject lines and content.

To achieve personalization, you can use email platforms such as Mailchimp and ConvertKit to segment your subscribers and send them hyper-relevant content. However, such platforms only support basic segmentation criteria. They also have limited attribution capabilities and require manual importing of customer data from CRMs. 

In stark contrast, ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro – Email platform lets you create special email groups using customer data from your CRM. 

Once you specify the criteria, the platform's automated system creates an email group of customers who fit them. The system then automatically calculates a segmentation score, which is valuable for increasing the email group's precision.

With this segmentation capability, you can send targeted content relevant to subscribers’ current needs. For example, you can send emails only to subscribers with commercial irrigation systems or upsell offers to those who just installed new sprinkler heads.

Furthermore, ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro – Email platform’s integration with ServiceTitan CRM helps it to track each email’s generated revenue. This lets you optimize emails for revenue rather than vanity metrics that rarely affect your bottom line.

How Can I Advertise My Irrigation Business Offline?

Offline advertising strategies are still as effective as ever. They grant you direct access to residents, build local brand awareness, and help you circumvent the fierce competition common with online advertising channels.

Although multiple offline advertising strategies exist, we’ve curated a list of the top ten suitable for an irrigation business.

Let’s get started.

1. Flyers

These are essentially glossy paper strips with printed marketing copy. They help build awareness and generate leads long into the future.

Flyers are the perfect offline advertising channel for irrigation companies, as they cost almost nothing to create and distribute. All you need is a template from a simple, non-technical design platform such as Canva and BrandCrowd, the right template, a printer, and the readiness to distribute them strategically.

Here are some basic principles for creating flyers and using them to generate leads:

• Amplify one core message per flyer. Include one call to action (CTA) so readers know exactly what to do next.

• Promote the benefits the reader stands to gain by hiring you.

• Include your contact information, such as phone number, address, and home page URL.

2. Business cards

Well-designed business cards are an excellent networking tool. They demonstrate professionalism and credibility and are a great way to introduce your services to others.

More importantly, their physical nature keeps prospects aware of your services long after the initial interaction. This makes you the natural choice when they need landscape irrigation services.

Designing business cards starts with picking the right platform with templates tailored to irrigation companies. Canva, Small SEO Tools, and BrandCrowd are perfect options.

Finally, include only essential details like your contact information and service description to avoid clutter and ensure the card is legible.

Pro tip: Use only high-grade materials so the business card is durable and impressive.

3. Events and trade shows

Building strong connections with prospects and suppliers is easier in person. Face-to-face interactions reveal nonverbal cues and foster an emotional connection that’s hard to replicate over the phone.

Attending events and trade shows helps you develop partnerships with complementary businesses (like landscapers) and interact directly with current customers and prospects. This lets you build lasting relationships with them, increasing customer retention rates.

Physical events are also a great avenue for keeping track of evolutions in customer behavior and the irrigation industry. This knowledge is valuable for creating failure-proof business strategies, compelling selling propositions, and unique offers.

Whenever you attend events and tradeshows, interact with prospective customers. Answer their questions, hand out business cards and brochures, and collect their contact information. Then, set up email drips or cold-calling campaigns to nurture them into customers.

4. Car wrap advertising

Car wrap advertising covers company vehicles with vinyl decals featuring promotional messages, turning them into mobile billboards. It is an excellent tool for growing brand awareness, generating 600 impressions per mile.

Studies also show that car wrap advertising can influence buying decisions. 97 percent of customers say they recall vehicle wraps more than traditional ads, and 74 percent believe it positively influences their buying decisions.

Car wrap advertising works best when following guidelines are followed:

• Use only high-quality materials so the car wrap appears attractive and lasts, without peeling or fading.

• Avoid cluttered design. Less is always better.

• Pay a professional to install the car wrap to avoid wrinkles and untidy finishing.

5. Radio ads

Are you looking for a channel with a broad reach? Radio advertising is your sure bet, especially since weekly radio consumption in the United States has continually increased.

The channel also helps local service companies, such as irrigation businesses, build local brand awareness and target specific customer segments based on the programs they listen to.

To increase the effectiveness of your radio promo, contract scriptwriters to create a compelling and engaging narrative. Pair the ad with a catchy jingle and describe your location with reference to a popular landmark to drive foot traffic. 

6. Television ads

Television ads are short promotional messages aired on television during paid time slots. It remains one of the most effective ways to reach a broad audience and build brand awareness.

Furthermore, television ads can build an emotional connection with viewers when done right This can convince them to take action immediately or contact your company when their irrigation system becomes faulty.

To ensure your TV ad’s effectiveness, schedule it to coincide with the programs your target audience watches and the time of day when they are active. The ad’s visuals and storyline should be high-quality and end with a compelling CTA.

7. Outdoor banners

These are materials designed to reach customers or prospects outside their homes. They contain marketing messages amplified using eye-catching designs.

When appropriately designed, outdoor banners deliver maximum brand exposure and entrench your brand in customers’ minds.

However, on the flip side, passersby may ignore your banner or fail to recognize it’s even there. Plus, the impression-to-conversion rate can be low. The best way to overcome these drawbacks is to do the following:

• Tailor your copy to the target audiences’ needs.

• Use creative formats like stickers and emojis to stand out.

• Prioritize visuals over text.

• Strategically place your banners in areas with high foot traffic and low competition.

8. Branded merchandise

Giving away branded items promotes your services and imprints your brand in customers’ minds. It’s also perfect for achieving specific business objectives and building brand loyalty.

Before merchandising, define a budget for the items you’ll use and the nature of the campaign. While cheap merch can be used for broad campaigns, reserve the expensive type for an exclusive, high-value audience, such as customers on multi-year service contracts.

Pro tip: Only use items your audience will keep using and find valuable.

9. Direct mail

Delivering marketing materials directly to people’s mailboxes (aka direct mail) is still as relevant and effective today as it was yesterday. Research conducted by Temple University and the United States Postal Service proves this.

• People understand and remember direct mail content better than digital ads.

• Direct mail triggers an unconscious desire in the minds of recipients to buy the product or service.

• Direct mail initiates an emotional connection to the product or service.

Guy Fashano, MSI Mailing Systems sales manager, has used the channel for years and re-emphasizes direct mail's ability to trigger an emotional reaction.

“It's physical, personal, and every piece you send is going to get touched and recognized at some level,” he says. “Once you start pumping, it'll keep performing for you as long as you keep investing in it.”

Despite direct mail’s effectiveness, some mail still ends up in trash cans. The few that people open, read, and leave for future reference have one thing in common: content personalization.

For example, a customer nearing the end of their service contract will keep a mail offering a discount on a service contract. In contrast, another customer who just renewed their subscription will trash such mail.

ServiceTitan’s Direct Mail platform empowers irrigation companies to achieve such high-level personalization at scale.

The platform allows users to build custom audiences based on specific criteria such as service history, open estimates, memberships, and equipment history. This ensures customers receive the right message at the right time.

ServiceTitan’s Direct Mail platform also has a large library of professionally-designed templates. Simply select your template and create the mail. ServiceTitan will help send it to customers, charging only when it’s delivered successfully.

This saves you from paying for minimum print runs, which cost a lot. 

10. Stickers

Stickers are advertising materials covered with adhesive on one side and marketing messages and a brand’s assets on the other. Businesses place them in high-traffic areas to capture people’s attention or hand them out as branded merchandise to inspire loyalty.

You can hand out stickers to customers immediately after a purchase. Encourage them to place them in their houses to remind them of your brand or on their cars to advertise your company to others.

How Should I Advertise my Irrigation Business?

Promoting your services is crucial. However, nothing beats picking advertising channels suitable to your business’s specifics and objectives. This ensures you run successful campaigns.

Here's how to pick the right advertising channel:

• Research your competitors: Perform market research to identify the channels and strategies that well-established competitors are using. This is better than adopting a spray-and-pray approach, which can lead to multiple mistakes.

• Go where your audience is: Marketing only works if your core audience sees the advert. Therefore, find the platforms your target audience frequents by running polls and analyzing competitors’ marketing strategies.

• Assess your budget: A budget lets you allocate resources wisely to ensure a return on investment. If you’re just starting, prioritize low-cost channels like SEO, flyers, business cards, email marketing, etc. Also, distribute your resources across digital and offline channels to reach tech-savvy people and non-internet users alike.

• Consult a marketing agency: If you’re unsure how to conduct advertising campaigns, contact a marketing agency to minimize mistakes. Evaluate them based on their track record and experience with the irrigation industry, then pick the one with the best rates.

It’s Your Turn Now

Advertising your irrigation services can seem overwhelming at first. However, once you pick the right channels and strategies, the rest of the process becomes easier

Regardless of the advertising channel you pick, do the following to increase the campaign’s likelihood of success.

• Do a deep dive into your audience. What platforms do they frequent? What are their pain points?

• Create an advertising budget and allocate resources to each channel based on how suitable it is for your company.

• Lay out advertising goals. Is it to generate leads? Build awareness? Or drive sales?

• Measure each channel’s performance and iterate based on your findings.

Invest in ServiceTitan, our all-in-one irrigation company software, to avoid purchasing separate tools for each channel. It’s valuable for tracking marketing campaigns and automating key business processes.

ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution that caters to the needs of home service companies, including irrigation businesses, by automating vital processes and boosting profits. The cloud-based platform can boost your irrigation business’s revenues by almost 25% in just one year!