Irrigation Marketing: 12 Ideas & Strategies for Your Business

1. Harness the Power of Local SEO

Local SEO is a digital marketing strategy home service companies use to stay visible on local search engine result pages (SERPs).

Applying local SEO strategies allows you to feature in two parts of local SERPs: the familiar organic blue links and the local map pack.

The local map pack comprises three irrigation companies in the searcher’s vicinity, their reviews and ratings, and a map insert with directions to their physical locations.

For example, here’s what the local map pack for “irrigation companies near me” from Illinois looks like:

Google’s local search algorithm uses three factors to determine the three companies to include in the map pack for every local-intent search query:

• Relevance: the degree to which your Google Business Profile (GBP) matches what the person is searching for.

• Proximity: the distance between your physical location and the location term used in the search query.

• Prominence: the company’s offline and online popularity.

You must ensure you nail each factor above to improve your local search ranking. Here's how to do that:

Set up and optimize your GBP

Google Business Profile is a free listing pogle Search and Google Maps. 

Irrigation companies can update their GBPs with company details such as location, hours of operation, and phone number.

Setting up your GBP is just the first step. You must optimize it to outperform competitors on every local search ranking factor. How?

• Always ensure company details are complete, up-to-date, precise, and accurate.

• Upload high-quality visuals—photos and videos.

• Fill up your profile with authentic revilatform local businesses use to manage and control how they appear on Goews. Also, encourage customers to include their location in reviews. For example, ‘X helped fix our sprinkler system in [insert location].’

• Add a local phone number.

• Include your working hours.

• Write a brief description of all the services you offer.

• Build citations—mentions of your business across the web—and ensure they're all accurate.

• Link to your social handles.

Finally, provide a link to the location-specific landing page for which you want the GBP to rank. This can help you rank for queries within those areas. 

Create location-specific service pages

Creating location-specific landing pages for each of your local service areas boosts your local relevance in Google's eyes, landing you a higher position in local search results.

Let’s say you operate from Wisconsin. You could create landing pages for Plover (/irrigation-company-plover/) and Middleton (/irrigation-company-Middleton/), both Wisconsin towns.

The first step to creating location-specific pages is finding location keywords using:

1. Google’s auto-complete search feature. 

Input the common keyword you wish to rank for, and wait as Google’s algorithm predicts the rest.

1. Google’s related searches section

Run a search for the query you wish to rank for (for example, ‘irrigation company Texas’). Then, scroll down to the related searches section below the ‘see more’ icon.

After finding local keywords, use them all in the location-focused page’s copy. For example, find irrigation system design and maintenance (name of location). 

Here are other elements to include in a location-focused landing page:

• A contact capture: Include a ‘contact us’ button or a contact form so prospective customers can reach you easily.

• Compelling copy: Describe your services, showcase social proof, mention your unique selling proposition (what separates you from your competition), and end with a call to action (CTA).

• Name, address, and phone number (NAP): ensure they are accurate and match those listed on your GBP.

• An FAQ section: Try to resolve any objections customers may have. You can answer questions such as “Do you promote water conservation?" or “How do you ensure efficient water management?” 

Read more about location-specific landing pages.

2. Get More Reviews

What's the first thing homeowners check before booking an appointment? Reviews. Even the numbers agree this is the case.

Eighty-six percent of consumers say reviews are either “the most” or “somewhat” important trust factor. A BrightLocal survey shows that 75 percent of customers use online reviews to evaluate local businesses.

Reviews are also a key local search ranking factor. Having more reviews increases your chances of ranking high on local SERPs and earning a place in Google’s local map pack.

The best way to get reviews is to ask customers, as most customers say they’ve left reviews because the company requested them.

So, get technicians to request reviews before they leave the customer’s premises. Draw up a simple postcard with online review tutorials. And follow up on review requests by calling the customer one week after the job.

However, to ensure you do not lose the opportunity to collect customer reviews because the technician forgot to ask, consider using ServiceTitan’s Reputation platform.

The platform automates the customer review request process from start to finish.

First, the platform lets you set up an automated customer review request email or text triggered once a technician clicks ‘complete’ on their mobile tablet. The request contains a personalized message and a direct link to the review site.

This can increase the number of reviews you receive, as the experience of ProSkill Services proves.

The Phoenix-based home service company received 2,300 positive Google reviews from satisfied customers after automating their review request process with ServiceTitan. This has generated more calls and increased revenue.

Regarding using ServiceTitan’s Reputation platform to automate review requests, co-owner Travis Ringe says, “The return on investment is $5 per review … one month of valuing the calls pays for that.” 

“It’s certainly worth the effort,” he adds.

Furthermore, ServiceTitan’s Reputation platform consolidates all reviews from different listing platforms into one dashboard.

This ensures you keep track of all reviews and resolve complaints before they cause reputational damage.

Encourage customers to mention the services you offer in reviews. You can send them a review template like this:

[insert name of company] helped me [name of service] …

For example, if you install smart irrigation systems, the review can start this way:

X Irrigation company helped me install a smart irrigation system…

3. Get Your Business on Local Listings

Local listings are online mentions of your company. These mentions can be on listing sites or business directories, websites, social media, or blog posts and usually contain your NAP details.

Getting your irrigation company into local listings can increase your visibility as they sometimes feature at the top of local search result pages. Customers sometimes use them to find local businesses, too.

Google also uses listings as a local search ranking factor: the more you have, the higher you can rank. However, that's only the case if your NAP is consistent.  

Google trusts local businesses with consistent NAP details, ranking them higher than those with NAP discrepancies in their listings.

Some tips for ensuring NAP consistency include:

• Claim your listings and update them with accurate information.

• Display your company details prominently on your website in a text format, not as an image.

• Report duplicate listings to the directory or website.

• Monitor the accuracy of your online listings.

You can track your listing’s accuracy using Moz’s Local Listing Score platform or Semrush’s Listing Management tool. You could also use Google search operators to check big aggregator sites. By searching, for example, site:homeadvisor.com [company name].

4. Leverage Local Services Ads

Local services ads (LSAs) are a Google ad offering that lets customers call or message service providers directly from local result pages. 

They usually appear at the very top of Google search results—above paid ads and organic results—and contain four selected irrigation companies alongside their key details—ratings, city, name, reviews, and opening hours. 

Two compelling arguments justify running LSAs.

Firstly, unlike PPC ads, LSAs charge per lead generated. You only pay when someone calls or messages your company from the ad.

Secondly, Google displays LSAs only to customers actively searching for your company with high-intent keyphrases such as "irrigation company near me." That’s why they generate huge amounts of leads and revenue.

For example, F.H. Furr Plumbing in Virginia generated 225 bookings with LSAs in seven months. They also recorded an 80 percent conversion rate for LSA leads—exceeding all their other marketing channels—and $200,000 in revenue.

There's a caveat, though: F.H Furr achieved these remarkable results using ServiceTitan's Local Service Ads integration.

This integration automatically pulls LSA job bookings into your ServiceTitan customer relationship management (CRM) solution, alongside the details associated with the job and customer.

This ensures that you keep track of LSA leads and eliminates human errors that sometimes happen when manually copying the job and customer details.

In addition to ServiceTitan’s LSA integration, other best practices for maximizing LSAs include:

• Get verified to get Google's guarantee badge.

• Include the zip codes of your local service areas.

• Optimize your GBP.

• Always answer calls early.

• Upload high-quality pictures of your jobs, physical location, and technicians at work.

5. Run Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

Pay-per-click ads are a type of digital marketing where advertisers pay for each click or impression their ads receive on digital platforms such as SERPs, websites, social media platforms, and applications.

Google PPC is the most popular form of PPC advertising. The search engine accounts for most online searches worldwide, and most customers use the platform to evaluate local businesses.

Due to Google's search dominance, several irrigation companies run Google PPC campaigns simultaneously. Since Google can't display them all at once, it uses an algorithm to pick four Irrigation companies to display for each search result. 

To increase the odds of being featured in Google's sponsored section, bid on keywords people use to search for your company. Use attractive visuals and compelling copy. Include more details about your business and services. And measure, test, and iterate.

Use irrigation marketing tools such as Google Analytics, Semrush, SpyFu, and WordStream to measure your campaign's performance.

However, if you want to see the exact ROI each campaign generates without wading through cryptic interfaces and dense charts, consider using ServiceTitan's Home Services Marketing software.

With its intuitive interface, the software makes it easy to track campaigns and see exactly which ones are performing.

Instead of only telling you the number of calls a campaign generates, ServiceTitan’s Home Services Marketing software ranks all campaigns by revenue.

You can also create and assign unique, toll-free numbers to each campaign. This allows ServiceTitan’s system to automatically match each call to the originating campaign and display the campaign’s exact ROI.

The software also has a user-friendly dashboard that showcases each campaign's performance and the areas generating the most calls.

These insights can help you allocate resources to only revenue-generating campaigns and double down on areas generating the most leads, maximizing the effectiveness of your ad budget.

6. Leverage Social Media Marketing

This online marketing strategy involves using organic and paid social content to achieve business goals such as generating leads and growing brand awareness.

Nowadays, companies, including irrigation companies, advertise on social media platforms. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) polled in a recent CMS survey say they plan to increase their social media budgets over the next year and five years into the future. 

That’s not a surprise, as 90 percent of people in the USA use social media, and 52 percent of consumers consult social media before choosing local businesses.

Social media advertising has two parts: organic and paid social media content.

As the name implies, paid social media content involves paying social media platforms to showcase your posts or ads to a broader audience, including non-followers.

On the other hand, organic content comprises all unpaid content posted on your social media handles: how-tos, behind-the-scenes footage, giveaways, discounts, water use efficiency tutorials, and so on. For example, this behind-the-scenes footage from Soak Irrigation is an organic post.

https://www.tiktok.com/@soakirrigation/video/7277539624317209887?q=sprinkler%20install&t=1696923833440 

For organic content, it’s advisable to post more educational or entertainment content than sales material. People use social media primarily to engage with others, and 34 percent of customers value authentic and relatable content over promotional content.

Also, social media algorithms value consistency, rewarding profiles that stay consistent with a wider reach. Here’s what you can do to remain consistent:

• Have a posting schedule. It could be three, four, or five times a week.

• Create a social media calendar, batch-create posts, and schedule them ahead of time.

• Encourage employees to suggest post ideas.

• Take advantage of trends in the irrigation industry. For example, there’s currently an increased demand for smart irrigation systems. So, you can create content about smart irrigation installation.

7. Use Email Marketing

This strategy involves emailing promotional and educational content to prospective and existing customers.

Because emails are an intimate space, email marketing creates the opportunity to build an emotional connection with your target audience, which helps to generate leads and foster customer loyalty. 

However, today’s email inboxes are a crowded sea of unread, trashed, or spam messages. The average email user is subscribed to many newsletters at a time, and 79 percent of marketers use email marketing as one of their principal strategies.

To stand out in such a competitive landscape and increase the odds of people engaging with your emails, do the following:

• Use attention-grabbing subject lines.

• Monitor your emails' performance and make improvements.

• Optimize for mobile devices, as most customers read their emails on them.

• Avoid jargon and use clear and concise sentences.

• Experiment sending cadences at different times of the day to find the best time.

• Segment your audience and send them messages that resonate with their current needs.

The last point is key. For maximum engagement and conversions, you have to send hyper-targeted emails relevant to each customer's needs at that moment.

ServiceTitan's Marketing Pro Email lets you send hyper-relevant emails using customer information already saved in your ServiceTitan account. 

For example, you can build an audience of only customers with expiring memberships, then email them a 10 percent discount on their next renewal.

ServiceTitan's Marketing Pro Email platform offers many fully customizable templates and an intuitive analytics dashboard to save costs and make it easier to create and manage campaigns.

With these analytics, you can fine-tune your emails to boost opens and engagement, maximizing your email marketing budget.

Trevor Lively, president of Blue Jay Irrigation, who has enjoyed these features among several others, says this:

“ServiceTitan has really transformed our business. It makes it easier to manage and has a lot of great features. But more than anything, it makes it a lot more connected because we are location-based. So our locations can easily be connected.”

 “It's creating value at every touchpoint, which has been fantastic.”

8. Build a Customer Loyalty Program

Customer loyalty offers repeat customers perks such as discount vouchers, gifts, free irrigation system inspections, etc.

With the right incentive, prospects can choose you over competitors. Loyalty programs also ensure steady maintenance and tune-up jobs to keep your company operating during winter months.

Before building a customer loyalty program, research which rewards will resonate most with your target audience so customers sign up for the program without hesitation.

You can survey current customers. Or check current and previous loyalty programs from key players in the irrigation industry, such as the Toro Company, Rain Bird Corporation, Jain Irrigation Systems, and Hunter Industries.

Then, add the program to promotional materials and train frontline employees to sell it to prospective and existing customers.

9. Distribute Flyers

Flyers are single-sheet advertising materials comprising marketing copy and captivating design to promote events, services, or products.

Compared to other marketing channels, such as television and radio, flyers are inexpensive to produce and distribute.

Distributing flyers around your neighborhood also lets you interact with customers directly. And even if they don't book an appointment immediately, seeing your flyers builds brand awareness, which may become a lead or referral source later. 

Some flyer marketing best practices are:

• Ensure the flyer design is appealing: Use complementary color schemes, leave sufficient negative space, and add appealing visuals.

• Write benefit-focused copy: Focus squarely on what customers stand to gain by booking irrigation services with you.

• Add prominent contact information: Always set out ways the customer can contact you.

10. Consider Direct Mail

Direct mail involves sending marketing materials directly to your target audience's mailboxes.

Some marketers feel direct mail is too old-fashioned and almost impossible to track, but that can’t be further from the truth. It works.

In the words of Guy Fashano, MSI Mailing Systems sales manager, “It's physical, personal, and every piece that you send is going to get touched and recognized at some level.”

Direct mail may take longer to yield results. However, “Once you start pumping, it'll keep performing for you as long as you keep investing in it,” says Fashano.

Several studies lend credence to his assertions. 

First, unlike cluttered email inboxes, the average US household received only 368 direct marketing pieces in 2022. For the record, that’s equivalent to the number of emails an average worker gets in three days.

Second, research by Temple University and the United States Postal Service comparing digital ads to direct mail shows that:

• Direct mail has a much higher ad recall than digital ads.

• People connect more emotionally to direct mail, which increases conversions.

• Direct mail stirs up a subconscious longing for the product or service.

• People process direct mail information faster than digital ads.

That all sounds great. But you must still provide valuable information, use appealing design, include a valuable call to action, and tailor your message to the recipient's need so your mail doesn’t get trashed or ignored.

You can use ServiceTitan’s Marketing Direct Mail platform to create hyper-relevant direct mail campaigns using customer information in ServiceTitan.

For example, you can send discount vouchers exclusively to inactive customers. Or leverage the growing water use concerns across North America to promote a percentage discount on smart irrigation system upgrades to only new customers.

You can also design, print, and distribute your direct mail using ServiceTitan’s Marketing Direct Mail platform. The process is simple:

• Upload your postcard.

• Add your copy or message.

• Specify the number of pieces of mail you want to send.

• ServiceTitan prints each one and sends them to the recipients.

Finally, the platform delivers insights into the deliverability of each mail piece via an easy-to-understand performance dashboard.

The dashboard helps you track which of your mail campaigns drive calls and revenue so you can allocate your marketing budget appropriately.

11. Advertise Your Business on Radio

Advertising on the radio is a traditional marketing strategy that can be effective for irrigation businesses like yours that serve a specific area.

That's because radio advertising allows you to broadcast your ads to specific counties, towns, and cities where your target audience resides.

Also, radio ads cost far less than TV and print ads and cost even less to produce.

When advertising your business on radio, you can choose any of the following radio ad formats, depending on the goal you wish to achieve:

• Live reads: Show hosts or DJs read out a prewritten ad script describing your business and offer. This can help generate leads by leveraging the host's credibility and familiarity with your target audience.

• Jingles: Short radio ads characterized by catchy tunes can increase the ad’s memorability.

• Testimonials: Feature a real person talking about their experience using your service. This leverages social proof, which can build credibility and trust.

• Straight read: A monologue that focuses on your unique selling points. This format is great for ensuring that listeners fully understand your services.

• Personified radio ads: These are TV ads without videos. Voice actors narrate a storyline that ends with a character using your services.

For any format you use, ensure the script is clear and concise. 

You can also track the performance of your radio ad by assigning it a dedicated phone number. You can redirect leads to a different landing page or ask how they heard about you.

12. Request Referrals

Referrals are a great marketing strategy as they generate high-quality leads that are more likely to convert.

So, always request customer referrals, as even the most satisfied customers may forget to recommend your services.

Place referral requests beneath invoices, in newsletter issues, and on your job booking page.

You could also drive referrals by offering free tickets to exclusive events or redeemable points for each referral.

Now Over to You

Grow awareness, upstage competitors, and generate revenue to invest in growth.

Those are just a few of the benefits irrigation marketing strategies bring.

However, remember to gain a solid knowledge of your audience and competitive landscape before you invest heavily in marketing.

What is your market size? Who are the members of your target market? What are the market dynamics like? 

Then, set your marketing goals and use irrigation company software like ServiceTitan to track your success.

ServiceTitan is an all-in-one software home service companies use to streamline their business operations. Over 100,000 contractors across the country use the platform.