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Five years before the global COVID-19 outbreak, Zika virus emerged as the latest mosquito-borne virus. In 2016, when more 60 countries, including the United States, were affected by Zika, it was officially declared an outbreak.
Protecting consumers from viruses is a great reason to be providing mosquito control services. The headlines that mosquito-borne diseases generate keep them top-of-mind for customers – they affect everyone in the family during warm weather seasons.
PCOs should do their research and ask themselves several questions before launching mosquito control services.
John Reid, vice president and co-owner of Virginia Beach-based Accel Pest & Termite Control, suggests PCOs stay fairly close to their core services when considering add-on services like mosquito control. "Like anything else you need to know if it’s going to be profitable for you and nowadays you have to look at what restrictions you have in your state and where you see the market going. Also, whether or not your business has infrastructure to do both general pest and mosquito,” he said.
One of the reasons mosquito services have become popular among PCOs is because start-up costs are low, compared to other add-on services, said Court Parker, CEO of Bug Busters, located in the greater Atlanta market.
“There’s a low entry point, our products and equipment are not that expensive. It’s not like bed bug work or termite work with expensive products, equipment, and labor. The biggest thing in our industry is labor and with mosquito work you can do a service pretty quickly,” Parker says. “If you have good routing and density, you can really have a good mix of profitability and growth. If you are one-man operation and have one neighborhood with 300 houses, then you just made well for yourself. That’s why you see so many people entering the market.”
According to Charlie Sloan, service manager of St. Louis-based Amco Ranger Termite and Pest Solutions, mosquito control is a service that appeals to residential customers in many ways. “When you do a mosquito application, it will control so many other pests, so you can market it other ways,” said Sloan. “We don’t market a mosquito program; we market flying insects. So someone not concerned with mosquitoes might be concerned with flies or wasps and the application will take care of the biting stinging insects that people dislike - that’s where we found our niche.”
Del Lawson is vice president of Houston-based Modern Pest Control. Lawson says there are several challenges to adding mosquito control, but they can easily be assimilated into a company’s daily processes. “The challenges when adding services include getting everyone on same page; explaining to the customer whey they need the services; how to complete it; what it’s for; and lastly getting sales and service teams on same page by letting them know ‘this is how we do it and sell it,’” Lawson said. “Making the language the same across the company is one of the hardest things.”
Lawson said the effectiveness and ease-of-use of today's mosquito control products are a big reason his company's mosquito control program has flourished. “We’ve been doing mosquito services with misting systems since around 2003 and we started the backpack services for mosquito about five years ago. Product performance and ease-of-application for technicians were truly important. Prior to us using (MGK’s) OneGuard, we were mixing one or two products in a tank, and it was really cumbersome for technicians and sometimes they didn’t have enough materials on truck. So, when OneGuard came out it was easier on technicians because we just needed one container of OneGuard on the truck and of course the surfactant.”
Mark Johnston, sales manager for ABC Home & Commercial Services, Austin, Texas, said ABC has been providing the service for more than two decades now. Johnston says every PMP should be focused on mosquitoes as a core service. “I would highly recommend mosquito treatments for every pest control company because the market is huge,” Johnston said. “It’s just a good business to be in and goes hand in hand with general pest control. They can get easily into some additional revenues with the mosquito business."
Johnston said if PCOs review their operations they might be surprised to find the different ways mosquito control is a good fit. “I would suggest they identify why they can’t and then look into why can’t they? They have the pest control license and they have access to the products. The backpack mister is a commonly used product and there’s a lot of different types that will mist the products into the yards and foliage and it only makes sense, and it helps with the pest control.”
Johnston added, “When you’re treating around yards and homes for mosquitoes it also controls spiders and ants and that’s a very high value for the customer. Mosquito customers are the highest retention around 80 percent compared to others.”