If you’re tired of no pest control jobs because of the slow winter months, this one's for you. It’s no secret that to grow your pest control business you need a consistent flow of leads.
“Marketing tools for this” and “SEO for that” but how do you actually go about structuring and executing a business plan to get pest control leads?
With this 5-minute read, you’ll learn the practical steps you can take today to start seeing growth in your pest control business and getting trusted pest control leads every day.
Pest Control Marketing 101
There are about a million different ways you can market yourself as a small pest control business owner. The only thing that matters is getting more eyes on your business. Sure, you can put up a billboard for a couple of weeks or put some stickers on the back of your truck but there are two major problems with methods like these:
You can’t track how many people see the ad and how many convert into clients.
You are limited by a local area meaning your potential reach is capped by the population of your city.
If you aren’t marketing your business to get pest control leads online in the 21st century, you might as well be burning money. Now that we’ve narrowed our pest control marketing strategies to the online world, let’s go over the best ones.
Pest Control Website SEO
You’ll want to start your pest control lead generation strategy by optimizing your website for SEO. The very first step in SEO is using keywords on your website. In layman's terms, keywords are the way Google matches your website to the search query of your future customer. Keywords must match the search of your future customer as accurately as possible. Here's an example:
Think about what your future customers will be looking for. Try to put yourself into their shoes and embed these phrases and words into your website.
This is the first step to getting the best pest control leads because of the high buyer intent someone has when searching for your services on Google. You can use websites like Semrush and Ahrefs to check how well the keywords are performing.
Extra Keyword Research Tips:
Use the FAQ section Google includes with every search to get some ideas flowing:
Include questions like these on your website and straightforwardly answer them.
Ranking for FAQs will highly increase the flow of pest control leads to your website. Also, make sure to use Google’s auto-suggest searches since these are based on queries people look up:
Google will tell you what people search for so all you have to do is position yourself in front of the customer by including these key terms on your site (if it makes sense and is relevant).
The next step in SEO is having a high-quality, professional-looking site.
Pest Control Website Design: How to Make A Quality Site
I see so many small business owners building out their websites as if it is 2002. Low quality, grainy images, lots of text, and clashing colors.
Bad Example:
Notice how your eyes can’t focus on one thing, and you can’t tell where to navigate your cursor next.
This is a big red flag. The best website-building advice I can give you is to stay out of the leads way.
Less is more. Always think about what you can remove instead of adding. You should have no more than 5 main buttons someone can click. These can be:
1. Contact Now
Clearly display your contact info.
2. About Us
Talk about yourself, your team, and why you started the company. Include photos of yourself as well.
3. Services
List all of the work you do. Make it easy for someone to pick what job they want done.
4. Testimonials
If you have good reviews from happy clients, list them here. Social proof will help encourage more people to order a job.
5. Pricing
This is not always necessary but can be a good addition if you offer special bundle deals at a discount.
Here is a good example of a pest control website:
Notice the difference between the last one and this example. You automatically know this is an eco-friendly pest control business.
An immediate yellow call to action is seen on the right side of the screen, where a customer can get a free pricing range estimate.
These guys make it as easy as possible for the lead to submit their information while also making it clear what they do.
An email and phone number are also visible at the top, making it even easier for the lead to contact them in case of an emergency call. Here you can view more great pest control websites.
How to Build Referrals That Get Pest Control Jobs
Referrals are an extremely powerful way to market your business.
This is because:
It’s free
It compounds
If a client refers their friend, and that friend's brother also has a roach infestation, you have now booked three jobs for the price of one.
This means that the most cost-effective and efficient way to scale a pest control business is through word of mouth.
The very first way to get referrals for your pest control business is to do an extraordinary job. Not an okay job. Not a good job. An extraordinary job.
It may sound counterintuitive at first, but you want to make sure your clients do not have to call you back to their homes ever again. People are not particularly happy about bugs in their houses.
Your job is to alleviate that pain, and when pain is removed, value is created. If you provide enough value, you can run your entire business just on word of mouth alone. That means no more burning money on ads or figuring out what keywords to include.
So the question we must answer is not “ How do I build a pest control referral program?”. Instead, I’ll tell you how to build value.
3 Ways To Build Value
1. Arrive quicker
One of my favorite case studies to tell people is Domino's “You get a free pizza if we don't deliver it in 30 minutes”.
You don’t have to copy this exact policy but think about how you can either arrive quicker or get the job done faster without sacrificing quality.
2. Add a free “something”.
If there is a service you offer that takes a couple of minutes or a cheaper add-on, throw it in for free. Make the client feel special and they will never forget the name of your company.
3. Offer a guarantee.
People want to feel safe when investing their money into your service. A popular guarantee in pest control is “If pests come back, so do we, at no additional cost” meaning you do the job for free if the pests come back.
Study Aptive and the offers on their website, it’s a great example.
The One Question You Must Answer
If you lost all of your marketing strategies today except word of mouth, and you were left with one customer, how would you treat them? Answering this will help you understand how to treat all of your current and future customers.
This will ensure every job you do feels special so they are more likely to tell their friends. This may mean smiling more when you greet them at the door or getting to their house a bit quicker.
Whatever those actions are, start treating every client like the first one you ever had. If you’ve done all the steps above, we can now get into the more tactical ways you can get more pest control customers.
Ask For The Referral + Gift Card Strategy
To get more referrals, you have to ask for them. Do not expect your clients to know what you want by reading your mind. Make it clear that you would be extremely appreciative if they told a friend or family member.
Don’t ask “if” they know someone, ask “who” they know. This should not be awkward if you’ve done an extraordinary job.
To create an incentive, you can offer them a discount for referring a buddy and give their friend a discount to help increase the conversion rate even more.
Don’t be afraid to give out discounts because remember, you are getting two customers for the price of one at the very least. If your client can’t think of anyone, give them a few gift cards with your company name and phone number on them. It can say something like “15% Off Referral Card”.
Before you leave, tell them they can give this referral card to their friend or family member for a discount. Just leaving a few of these cards in each of your client's houses will greatly increase your chance of growing by word of mouth.
A Referral Program
Now that you understand the basics of referrals, you can start getting more advanced. Create a page on your website that allows clients to get free cleanings, checkups, tips, etc. if they refer a specific number of people.
Build it out like a video game. The more people someone refers, the more bonuses they unlock with your company. You can get creative with this, so the sky's the limit.
How to Buy Pest Control Leads
You can use pay-per-call marketing to buy pest control leads.
We’ve covered some of the more budget-friendly ways to get pest control leads. But to make money you have to be willing to spend money, since you are running a business at the end of the day.
A great way to buy pest control leads is through a method called pest control pay-per-call. This is a guaranteed way to get a stream of pest control leads without burning cash on things that may or may not work.
It’s in the name. Pay-per-call marketing is when you only pay for the calls you get, with a qualified lead on the other end ready to book a job.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
Well, let’s go over some pros and cons of pay-per-call marketing so you can get an idea if it is the right strategy for you.
Pros:
It’s cheaper and more likely to work than Facebook ads
Guaranteed to get calls or you don’t pay
If you work with an agency, you can save time and focus on service delivery, not marketing.
Cons:
If you work with an agency, you don’t get to learn marketing skills, since most of the lead generation is done for you
Not every lead that calls may be informed, some sales/closing skills are required
Doing it yourself may involve advanced PPC (pay-per-click) marketing knowledge
There are of course other paid advertising methods you can look into such as Google and Facebook ads but the majority of pest control business owners do not have much time to sit and figure out how these platforms work. It is a full-time job all in itself.
So although it may not be a free lead gen method like SEO or referrals, I recommend working with an agency like ResultCalls that has experience growing thousands of pest control businesses through pay-per-call.
In conclusion, pay-per-call marketing for pest control is a great way to scale your business in a guaranteed quicker and cheaper way than most other marketing strategies.
Final Thoughts
We have covered some of the best ways to generate leads for your pest control business.
From SEO tips that can get you an increase in website visits to referral strategies that if done correctly, can replace all paid advertising, so you can get pest control leads like clockwork.
We’ve also discussed how to buy pest-control leads through pay-per-call marketing, a great option for business owners who want to skip the hassle of figuring out complex platforms like Facebook and Google.
When it comes to generating pest control leads, the best ways will be found online. With billions of people using the internet, the opportunities to grow your pest control business are limitless.
You just have to know where to put your focus and stay consistent, and disciplined. Remember, business is a science. Experiment, test, try new things, and document results to know what works and what doesn't.
After a while, you’ll get the hang of it, I promise.
Action Steps
1. Copy and paste the text on your website into Chat-GPT and ask it to optimize your copy for SEO. State that you are a pest control business owner and want more keywords and phrases on your site.
2. For your next 10 jobs, ask at the end of the job who your client knows that may need pest control services. Tell them about your referral program and how they can get a discount if they need pest control services again.
3. Visit the ResultCalls case study page to check out how we’ve grown the call volume of thousands of small businesses.
FAQ
Question: How to get pest control customers?
Answer: To get more pest control customers, you have to study digital marketing. Things like SEO, pay-per-call, and paid ads are all important pillars of growing your pest control business.
Question: How to market pest control services?
Answer: Marketing your pest control business is all about branding. You have to create a positive association in the client's mind with your company. This is done through:
Question. How to get referrals for pest control?
Answer: Getting more referrals for your pest control business boils down to:
Hello everyone! My name is Alex and I write these blogs to help educate small business owners on different ways to grow their business. My goal is to make lead generation as easy as possible for you. After reading these blogs, I hope you leave with some actionable steps that will get you closer to growing your business :)
