Part One: A Step-by-Step Pest Control Marketing Plan

Editor’s Note: In a series of articles this year, Pat Morrow, former senior marketing manager at Envu, will write about how pest management firms can strengthen their marketing approaches. What follows is the first in the series. This article originally appeared in the May print version of PCT under the headline "Blocking Pattern."

Too often we jump into tactics, such as creating advertising or brochure content, without establishing a customer- focused rationale or foundation. The result is a waste of money with off-target messaging or marketing tactics that miss the mark. Investing in a proper foundation with strategic building blocks will lead to messages and strategy that will resonate with your current and future customers and grow your business.

As Harvard professor and business strategy expert Michael Porter once said, “A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.”

BUILDING BLOCK OVERVIEW. Let’s look at the process, which is really broken down into five marketing building blocks. On their own, each of these building blocks can help your business. But like any good team, they’re even better together. And, with a dedicated team of individuals, this process can be completed in as quickly as a few months.

The good news is that if done well, the outcomes have a pretty long shelf life — maybe five years. You may need to tweak a few pieces as time goes by. Revisiting the entire process is usually necessary only if there is a significant change in the marketplace, a new competitor, or a shift or new offering from your business. The bad news: If you skip one building block or miss the mark on one, you can wind up with a less-than-optimal result.

The first step is to identify your ideal customer. What keeps them up at night? It’s important to spend the time to accurately identify a few key customer-focused insights at the beginning. These will be the basis for everything going forward.

The second step, assessing your competition, will allow you to clearly identify the competitive scene, such as other pest management providers and homeowner DIY-ers, among others. Knowing your competition will give you an opportunity to look for a unique space for your business.

Next, position your business to focus on identifying a place that it can occupy in future customers’ minds. This tends to be the intersection of where “what customers want” meets “what you offer.”

Once you have a clear position, you can develop your key messages. These are “what you say” and “how you say it.” The messages should clearly resonate with future customers and create that space in your customers’ minds.

Finally, we get to the fun part! The execution and measurement phase is where the brochures, marketing materials and advertising come to life! During this phase, keep an eye on how well things are going on a regular basis, and look for areas to improve and refine.

BUILD A CORE TEAM. If you’re ready to get started, establish a consistent core team that can focus on the building blocks process from beginning to end. The team should include the president/CEO, who has the big picture and vision for the business. The head of marketing, who knows how to communicate to the future customer, also needs to be there. You need to bring in your head of sales, who knows what sells; technical director, who will have the scientific expertise on products and services; and finally, a customer service leader, who knows the good, bad and ugly of the business.

Each member brings a unique perspective to the table. What does this mean? Tech may clash with marketing, and sales may want to run the show. All of this means that they will undergo all the phases of a new team — forming, storming, norming, conforming and, finally, performing! It is important to help get the team to performing as quickly as possible.

Consider team-building activities that are outside the box (or at least outside the office) to break down barriers and move the team to the performing phase. Whatever the activity, getting out of the office and out of the comfort zone requires the team to rely on one another. While the team-building is not a magic bullet, it will help open lines of communication among team members and prevent you from getting mired in disagreement.

Follow that up with a business meeting that reviews the process and time needed and roles/responsibilities of each core team member. It is critical to obtain commitment to the goal from each core member! If everyone gives 110 percent, you can trust the process to create a strong marketing plan with these building blocks.

It is also ideal to work with an impartial experienced facilitator who will keep things on track, manage the process and help optimize input from each member. Oftentimes, the CEO or head of marketing may want to be the facilitator, but this comes at the sacrifice of their full participation as a core team member, and can result in a less-than-optimal outcome.

BUILDING BLOCK NO. 1. Now, here are some steps to help you identify your future customers. Often, this is confused with a target market or target audience, which are broader groups. A source of business is a true future customer, whereas a target market or audience are larger groups of people who may or may not be receptive to your message. You can see the difference.

While the target market and audience will see your message, and you may pick up some business from them, it’s important to focus on future customers, where the most opportunity lies.

Let’s turn to a few specific steps to identifying your future customers.

The best place to start is with existing customers. Review your database and extract as much as you can from that — geography, current pest control purchases and demographics. Talk to your technicians who serve current customers. They know them and may be able to offer additional insights. Talk to current customers about why they chose your service over others, what their concerns are about pest management and what keeps them up at night. You may find that your richest source of future customers is with existing ones, as you could provide them with more services!

Develop a list of demographics for future customers. Which should include as much information as possible on age, gender, geography, income, profession, marital status, children, etc. Your existing customer database and publicly available census data can provide some information on these.

You also should do a social media audit. If you have a presence on X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn and/or Facebook, look at your followers. Document their interests, influencers they follow and hobbies. It also will give you insight into who they trust and what they read/watch.

Create a persona profile, which is a great way to drill down into understanding your future customers. Personas are created based on data, surveys, digital engagements and any other information you can find to give a more complete picture. The personas of Cost-Conscious Carl and Perturbed-About-Pests Paul will be different. It is ideal to develop a few profiles to discover which are future customers and which are not. When developing a persona, rather than “women aged 21-35 with two children and a dog, living in a three-bedroom home,” the profile should paint a picture of the future customer, based in fact and insights, and most importantly, be memorable. Here’s an example:

• Open-Minded Mary: Mary is a married 32-year-old. She is a college-educated professional who chose to be a stay-at-home mom with her three young children and their dog. She is the primary purchase decision maker. Mary engages on X frequently, subscribes to and reads the local daily newspaper online and follows CNN closely. Neither she nor her husband have time to do their own pest control and believe that a professional is needed. Her family’s health and safety are her No. 1 priority. She shops at Whole Foods and tries to use organic food and cleaning products. But, she is open to learning more about how a professional pest operator can safely protect her family and home.

Once you have some future customer personas, you may find that you have a few that would be viable. It’s important to ensure that you have no more than three of these, as it can become overwhelming to create positioning and messaging that effectively resounds with more than that.

There will be some personas that are not customers. Some may just not be interested in professional pest management because they prefer organic, natural or DIY. This person is not going to be swayed by any safety statements on chemicals or the use of them and magically change their opinion. It’s best to not expend resources on this person.

Finally, stay flexible. The pool of future customers may shift, and it’s important to revisit this. Changing trends, social media and new innovations in pest management can shift the landscape. Regularly analyze data from customer engagements, evaluate current buyers and purchases and optimize future customer profiles as new information is revealed.

The author is a marketing professional in the pest, turf and agricultural industries.