Joe Ricardo

APUS

Ricardo’s Green Lawns Marketing Plan

January 2015

Ricardo’s Green Lawns Marketing Plan

Executive Summary

Ricardo’s Green Lawns is a Limited Liability Company that has been in the landscaping

business for over seven years. Our landscaping company is located in one of the best regions for

the landscaping market that being the State of Florida as well as in one of the fastest growing

regions in that state Orlando. We offer our landscaping services in the South Orlando area, which

includes CNN’s Money Magazines “21st best place to live in America”, Hunters Creek (Hunters

Creek, 2014). Unlike most other states landscaping service is used in this region year round,

which makes this type of business more profitable than in most other regions in the country.

We plan to grow the company in several stages the first being to grow into a two crew

landscaping company in the summer of 2015 and to grow into a five crew company by the

summer of 2017. We plan to do this with an innovative marketing program to grow each crew

within specific regions and neighborhoods. We will use direct mail marketing in specified

neighborhoods to grow each crew in a single neighborhood or region at a time. While direct

marketing using postcards will be our main marketing strategy we will also utilize lawn signs at

busy intersections in each area we are direct mail advertising. We will also use wed advertising

such as Google Adwords as well as social media advertising such as Facebook.

What differentiates our company from the rest is our owner and manager is college and

business educated. The owner is working on his Masters in Business Administration, but also has

been working with the company since it was formed in 2007. The owner plans to grow his

knowledge in his M.B.A. program while helping the company grow with innovative marketing

as well as overall business knowledge.

Introduction

The purpose of this marketing plan is to introduce and outline how Ricardo’s Green

Lawns a local landscaping company in Orlando will grow their customer base with their

marketing strategy. We will introduce our direct marketing plan which will be our main focus

and strategy in our marketing campaign. We will also be utilizing lawn signage, as well as web

advertising such as Google AdWords and social media marketing. Utilizing these marketing

strategies will allow the company to continue growing in targeted areas, hire more people, and

continue maintaining and growing profits.

Company Analysis

Ricardo Green Lawns is a family business that has been in operation since 2007. After

working for another local landscaping company in the area, the founder of the company (the

current owner’s father) decided to start his own landscaping company. The customer base grew

slowly and eventually to somewhere between 50 to 70 plus customers. We plan to grow that

customer base in the summer of 2015 into two crews servicing between 70 to 90 customers each,

who will utilized our company for weekly service in the peak season (March through October).

This will allow us to hire three to four people to work those two crews. Each new crew

will also allow us to hire two more employees, putting people to work and allowing us to

continue to grow our company and profits. We have hired several people seasonally but have not

been able to retain any of that help as we never expanded to accommodate those workers with

part time or full time work.

The company offers landscaping services ranging from weekly maintenance of customers

lawns, the maintenance and extraction of trees and other plants, as well as replacement of grass

and other landscaping services. The company’s growth has been slow, with only approximately

20 customers utilizing weekly service in the seasonal months (March to October), which is equal

to less than three full time customers gained per year. The company has another estimated 50

customers who use the company’s services at different capacities from every other week, to once

a month sometimes less. The main problem is that many of these customers want a commitment

for service from the company without giving their commitment to the company to maintain

efficient service. These customers need to either be converted to weekly service, or be replaced

with new customers who will. Weekly service based customers is the only way we can properly

grow our company into two or more crews. We estimate approximately 20 current steady

customers, between 30 to 35 almost steady customers, and the rest approximately 25 to 30

customers who are not utilizing our service properly. The plan is to keep the steady customers as

is. We will market our service to gain new customers and as we do this we will work on

converting our almost steady customers. Customers not properly using our services will also be

sent contracts for conversion. We expect to convert approximately half of the almost steady

customers or between 15 and 17. We plan that we will most likely lose most of the non steady

customers and possibly keep only five. This will give us a base of between 35 and 40 customers

that we will keep moving forward. We will work vigorously to gain new customers before

attempting to convert old ones.

Market Definition, Potential, and Demand

Ricardo Green Lawns is in the landscaping market. The potential for growth in Florida is

enormous as well in Central Florida; for now as we focus on the southern Orlando area the

potential is great as there are nearly 50,000 households alone in three local zip codes (City Data,

2014). The demand for landscaping services is extremely high, as only an average of 5% of the

local population is unemployed. Most of the people in Southern Orlando are too busy working to

maintain their own lawns, they can afford lawn care service and many work in fields that are not

manual labor jobs. Most people are working in fields such as healthcare, engineering, computers,

management and business as well as education and are not willing to perform manual labor and

will not do manual labor if they can afford to hire someone else to do it for them.

Competitor Analysis

There is plenty of competition in the central Florida area when it comes to landscaping.

Looking at the Yellow pages there are over 50 companies alone with a five star rating; some only

having one rating (Yellow Pages, 2014). Our main target area will be Hunters Creek, as well as

the two closest regions in the South Orlando those being Williamsburg to the West and Meadow

Woods to the East. Each region has four landscaping companies listed for a total of twelve

companies in our targeted market area. Research on these companies will be limited due to the

fact that they are not publicly traded companies and are all small businesses. It is likely that none

of these companies hire more than a couple dozen employees, with the average probably being a

half dozen or less. Most of these companies consist of a single crew of two to three men, some

with two crews or several crews consisting of two to three men.

Customer Analysis

The Hunters Creek (32837) region our central targeting area has an estimated 20,073

households, their median household incomes is $ 57,643. The Meadow Woods (32824) region to

the East has an estimated 12,843 households; their median household income is $ 47,773. The

Williamsburg (32821) region to the West has an estimated 14,893 households; their median

household income is close to $ 45,020. Combine these household income levels with an

estimated unemployment rate of around 5%. These estimates are from 2011 and home sales have

since increased and more people are back to work, but these numbers give us a conservative

estimate to work with. In total we have 47,500 potential customers in these three areas alone

(City Data, 2014). This is a good foundation of potential customers in a single concentrated area.

This is within an approximate 10 mile radius which equates to low travel mileage and a decrease

in costs of operations by having a concentration of customers in a small region.

SWOT

Strengths- The new owner is business smart and also pursuing his Masters in Business

Administration. He has knowledge in business, entrepreneurship and marketing. The new owner

also has been working with the company on and off since 2007 and has hands on experience in

the market and business, Other companies are for the most part ran by laborers with equipment

and not as much business intelligence. By having a business owner who while growing this

business will also be pursing his MBA will help the company grow and properly market the

company.

Weaknesses- The Company has established itself as a discount landscaping service and

the conversion of current customers to weekly service will prove to be difficult. While we

expand our customer base we will have to attempt to convert our customer base into weekly

service, those who do not desire to convert will have to be let go so we can continue to expand

our customer base to committed customers.

Opportunities- Our business has the opportunity to become the leading landscaping

company in South Orlando as well as to expand throughout the city as well as into new counties

and areas of Florida. Due to the higher household incomes, along with low unemployment rate in

South Orlando, our business has a great opportunity to gain new customers.

Threats- New entries will continue to enter the market, there is also the extreme discount

service company’s who offer their landscaping for dirt cheap but usually end up going out of

business as they cannot sustain profits. We need to keep our prices affordable yet profitable to be

able to compete against these “fly by night” landscapers. Contracts and discounts like our “word

of mouth” programswill help us to keep customers from switching to these companies.

Marketing Goals

Our companies marketing goal will be to bring in 500 to 1,000 new customers within the

next 3 years or by the end of the summer of 2018. While this may seem like a lot it would only

take and average gain of 25 customers a month to reach 900 in three years; a very achievable

goal. We need to budget money for both our marketing and for our expansion needs. Each crew

will cost anywhere between an average of $ 5,000 to over $ 10,000 each. The problem will then

become not being able to continue marketing by not having the equipment to meet the needs of

more customers. We have most of the equipment needed currently to start service with a second

crew. It will become a balance between supply and demand or basically our supplies

(landscaping equipment) to meet the demand generated toward our company through marketing.

Marketing Objectives

We will use the SMART method to define and meet marketing objectives (Chaffey,

2014).

S pecific - our target marketing program will be specific in that we will target each area

with a direct marketing campaign though the USPS “Every Door Direct Mail” program, street

signage and a Google AdWords or other web based marketing campaign’s designed specifically

for the regions and neighborhoods we are targeting.

M easurable - by knowing the amount of post cards sent out as well as the customers

gained in each campaign we will be able to measure both the qualitative and quantitative returns

on each marketing investment. We will know the exact percentage of return for each direct

mailing campaign. We can then measure if one region or neighborhood is more successful for

our marketing efforts than another.

A ctionable - we can improve marketing performance by understanding what marketing

campaigns are working and which ones are not; if previous marketing material returned more for

our investment it may be in our best interest to replace our current marketing material (i.e.

postcards) with the more successful old one.

R elevant - all information on each campaign will be recorded and therefore the success

and failures of each campaign can be combined to bring better results for each future campaign.

T ime-related - we will be able to identify times of the year which bring better results for

our marketing efforts and therefore implement each campaign at designated times when they will

give us a better return. If for example April marketing tends to bring more clients than in July

then we will invest more money in our marketing campaigns in that month.

Marketing Tactics

The company’s marketing tactic will be to target one neighborhood of a specific region at

a time. We will be looking to invest approximately $ 500 (or somewhere between $ 250 and $

1000) per campaign for direct mail marketing. A direct mail campaign of $ 500 will allow us to

reach 2,500 potential customers; a 1% return will bring us 25 new customers. I would estimate a

return of between 3-5% or 75 to 125 new customers. We estimate a window for direct

advertising between March, through the middle of the summer (June or July). Also lawn signs

which have already been purchased will be used at designated intersections in the area that have

the most traffic.

We will also utilize Googles Adwords or possibly Facebooks advertising services

(Fiedelman, 2014). This will allow us to use a pay per click marketing tool for people in the

32837, 32824, and 32821 zip codes. This will be our secondary strategy which we will monitor

and analyze to see the effectiveness of this type of campaign to bring us local customers.

Marketing Strategy

Our marketing strategy goal will be to maintain a competitive edge against the

competition by consistently reinvesting in advertising and maintaining contact with our current

customers to increase sales. In the slower months (October to February), we will market that

during the November and December holiday months we will be donating a certain percentage of

our income to Toys for Tots or other charitable event. In January and February we will market

another charitable organization that we will donate a percentage too. This will help to increase

sales of services in our slower months such as installing new grass, maintenance of trees and

other services that are used in the winter months. We will also via email and social media offer

certain deals such as a “word of mouth” program such as when a current customer recommends a

new one they will receive a discount (around $ 10 to $20), for a new customer that signs a

contract. By offering incentives like this “word of mouth” program we will keep current

customers satisfied as well continue expansion in more concentration in our targeted areas.

Target Market

Our target market will be the three regions in southern Orlando close to where the

business operates. Those three regions are Hunters Creek (32837), Meadow Woods (32824), and

Williamsburg (32821). Using the United States Postal Services “Every Door Direct Mail”

program these three zip codes can be broken down into specific neighborhoods. Our plan is to

begin our target marketing campaign in South Chase region and work our way out into Meadow

Woods to the east and into Deerfield and Ginger Mill neighborhoods to the west.

Refer to attached Excel Document for further details on direct marketing mail plan:

RGL MP Direct Mail Routes

Positioning

Ricardo Green Lawns positioning in the industry is probably lower than desired. Most

landscaping companies only deal with steady customers on weekly or monthly service contracts

for continuing maintenance. We currently have about 25 to 30 customers in the 32824 regions,

15 to 20 in the 32837 region and about four in the 32821 regions.

Our customer base has been built around a “pay as you go” business model which allows

for customers to utilize our service as little as possible and for the same price. The problem

becomes why have your lawn mowed four times a month at $ 20 per service when you can skip a

week or more and have your lawn serviced for the same $ 20 dollars. While this is good from the

customers perspective lawns that are not maintained take us longer to service and cause more

wear and tear on our equipment. The marketing of our services has been strictly through word of

mouth. The problem with this word of mouth strategy is the word has been “pay as you go” and a

customer base has been primarily based around that. This has put the company in the position of

an underdog now competing to gain new customers and convert old ones who are now use to this

type of service.

D’ Best Lawns is likely positioned highest in the area we are targeting. There are several

other landscaping companies in the region with several crews. D’Best has several crews working

in this area. Other companies which services the entire Orlando region that we see regularly is

Valley Crest and Chaves. Both of these companies probably operate 20 or more crews in the area

of Orlando. Most other companies in this region are small mom and pop type landscaping

companies with one crew.

Our company is currently a one crew landscaping company, but our goal is to expand our

customer base through target marketing and to eventually have several crews. Our first step is to

grow the customer base of our first crew to between 75 and 100 steady customers. The next step

would be to divide these customers to two crews of 50 customers and then to grow each crew to

75 to 90 customers each. The plan is to continue this strategy with the owner/manager growing

each crew with one worker and then having that crew led by a new crew boss, and then repeating

the process over again, until he eventually steps back and hires someone to lead the growing of

each new crew.

Service and Brand Management

We want our service and brand to be that of a landscaping company that provides high

quality landscaping solutions at low or competitive prices to its customers. Our brand is a

respectable business with hard workers who also work smart to provide affordable landscaping

solutions to the community. Our company has no logo currently but that is something we plan to

utilize by the summer of 2016 so that all of our marketing material can have uniform look by

using the same logo. We may also look into changing the name to a more marketable one such as

“Florida Green Lawns” which will be more marketable throughout central Florida and into new

regions of Florida.

Pricing Management

Ricardo Green Lawns has for many years offered very affordable prices, but at times too

low. The problem with the pricing strategy as it was is that there has been the lack of quid pro

quo between the business and their customers or in other words a low price in exchange for the

customer’s commitment to weekly maintenance. We will now be marketing our services to

customers who want a commitment for weekly service during the seasonal months (March

through October) and then a pay per cut service in the off season months.

The problem with our current pricing strategy as “pay as you go” is it leaves no incentive

for customers to maintain their lawns. As our pricing strategy has been they can pay $ 20 per

week every week or $ 20 once a month, so there is no incentive to maintain their lawns. This also

creates a problem where neighbor A will not want to continue to maintain their lawn weekly

when they see neighbor B getting theirs cut twice or less per month. This also effects our bottom

line by not having these customers utilizing weekly service so we can maintain certain

neighborhoods on the same day on a weekly schedule. There have in fact been times when we

have serviced lawns in one specific neighborhood four times in one week. This does not help our

bottom line or help us provide efficient service at a price that is both fair to the customers and

our business at the same time.

To manage prices more efficiently the company will target market to specified

neighborhoods, so that each crew will be in charge of lawn maintenance in a small geographical

area. This will allow for a decrease in operational costs, and travel time as well as an increase in

productivity. We will maintain these lawns on a weekly schedule so that we will service each

specific neighborhood on a specific day. By focusing each crew into specific neighborhoods and

regions we will reduce our travel time between jobs, which will reduce the cost of gas, and will

allow for our crews to get more houses done in less time. On average a dozen houses spread

between several neighborhoods can take a whole day (8 hours) to get done, while a dozen homes

in the same neighborhood can be done in less than four hours. In theory we can get twice the

productivity by focusing our work into one region or neighborhood each day. By targeting our

operations in specified areas each day we should be able to easily service 20 yards per day in

eight hours or less. This will allow us to offer affordable and competitive prices to our customers

that will also allow us as a company to profit.

Distribution Management

Ricardo Green Lawns while not in the business of selling products will need a steady

distribution of supplies. Our gasoline will be purchased at a discount through Costco which we

have a membership to. Our supplies will be purchased mainly through local landscaping stores

such as “Landscape Supply” the closest supplier in our company’s location. We will also

continue to do research to find products cheaper through Craigslist, eBay, as well as other e-

commerce sites. We also have a Home Depot card which we utilize for supplies on short notice,

which is the closest home improvement retailer in our area. We can also eventually utilize a

Lowes consumer card, and there is also an Ace hardware shop within our community.

For our marketing materials we will be utilizing Vista Print, for our business cards, as

well as postal cards. We have used Vista Print for much of our marketing material within the

company and in other ventures previously, they offer very affordable marketing materials. For

our lawn/street signs we utilize a local company ABC Signs, who have very affordable signs and

whom we have worked with previously.

Communications Management

The company will utilize a Facebook business page, email, as well as a company phone

for all communications. We will use our Facebook page as our webpage for people to link to

through Google Ads and other links via the internet to our company. This will also be a place for

positive feedback to be left on the board and negative feedback to be addressed. E-mail will be

our best form of communication to send out current customer’s invoices, as well as marketing

material and information about new services or policies within the company. The cell phone will

also be vital in communication as some customers will want to communicate with the owner or

crew leader for prompter solutions to their landscaping problems.

Implementation and Control

Ricardo Green Lawns implementation and control will be directed by Joseph Ricardo the

owner/manager. Each individual marketing campaign will be monitored and analyzed to record

the effectiveness of our marketing strategies. We will want to monitor the effectiveness of each

direct mail marketing effort we make; we may find our efforts are better served for the money in

one zip code or neighborhood compared to another; as well as during certain months and times

of the year compared to others.

We estimate that our direct mailing campaign will cost us .175 cents per mailing piece

plus .023 to 5 cents for each post card (depending on how many we order and from where we

order) so at the most .23 cents each. So for every $ 100 we spend on direct marketing we will be

able to reach between 435 and 505 potential customers. Our direct marketing campaign will

begin toward the end of February and continue until August or September before the season

begins to slow down. We will also supplement each direct mailing campaign with lawn signs at

the same time to grow our customer base in those areas.

Our contracts will include a section about how they heard about our services whether

through direct mail, street signage, Google search, via Facebook etc… This will help us to

understand which marketing strategies are working better than others.

Conclusion

Ricardo Green Lawns has a lot of potential to position ourselves as a leading landscaping

service in the Orlando area. While we begin to focus on the three zip codes previously listed

there is further potential for growth throughout the Orlando and Central Florida regions, and we

will continue to expand into other areas of south Orlando and then throughout the city. We will

continue our direct marketing campaigns each season by expanding in several directions to

continue growth in concentrated target markets. We also have opportunities to expand into the

next two closest counties those being Osceola and Seminole. Further expansion to the eastern

regions such as Brevard and Volusia Counties is possible. Further expansion to the west into

Polk County and even into the Tampa region is possible. To the north there is Lake, Sumter and

Marion Counties. We will need to formulate a financial plan to put aside money each month to

invest in both marketing and expansion in the form of equipment to expand based on the success

of our marketing. We plan to remain in business for longevity and to continue to grow the

company with our innovative marketing strategy.

Resources:

Chaffey, D. (2014). How to define SMART marketing objectives. Smart Insights. Retrieved

from. http://www.smartinsights.com/goal-setting-evaluation/goals-kpis/define-smart-

marketing-objectives/

City Data, (2014). 32837 Zip Code Detailed Profile. Retrieved from

http://www.city-data.com/zips/32837.html

City Data, (2014). 32824 Zip Code Detailed Profile. Retrieved from

http://www.city-data.com/zips/32824.html

City Data, (2014). 32821 Zip Code Detailed Profile. Retrieved from

http://www.city-data.com/zips/32821.html

Fidelman, M. (2014). 8 Cutting-Edge Marketing Tactics That Work Better

Than Facebook Ads. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2014/08/26/8-cutting-edge-marketing-tactics-that-work-better-than-facebook-ads/

Hunters Creek, (2014).Welcome to Hunters Creek Online. Retrieved from

http://www.hunterscreek.net/