Why Landscape Contractors Are Losing to Lower-Priced Bids and What They Can Do About It
—
The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
Originally published on October 1, 2015. Updated on November 9, 2022.
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You’ve submitted your bid proposal for an expansive outdoor living space project, and now you wait anxiously to hear the results. As a landscape contractor, a lot of sweat equity, time, and money go into nurturing your leads to get to the bid stage, so you’re fully invested. That’s why it's tough to accept when you hear that you’ve lost to a lower-priced proposal.
It’s frustrating to lose to lower-priced bids when you’ve priced your bid fairly and offered the perfect value for your prospect. There may be more at play than pricing alone, considering only 4% of the lowest-priced bids eventually win the deal.
Pricing isn’t typically a deciding factor in higher-end projects. While it can be difficult to acknowledge, you may not have effectively demonstrated the value that your landscape company offers. Leading firms have a strategic process to pre-qualify leads using online content and educating the prospect throughout the sales journey so that when it comes time for bids, the prospect knows the value these landscape companies offer.
In the high-end landscape industry, whichever company does the best job educating the prospect of the value they’ll bring to the project is the one that wins the bid, regardless of price. Online content on your website and social media accounts serve as your front-line sales team. 50%-90% of the sales journey is completed before a prospect contacts your landscape company, demonstrating how influential online content can be. Being at the top of your content game is critical.
Why Successful Landscape Contractors Invest in Professional-Quality Photography and Videography
A picture speaks a thousand words, especially in the landscape industry, which focuses on aesthetics. Professional-quality photography and videography are essential because they prove your beautiful work and attention to detail.
Professional Photography
Prospects need to see that you care enough about your work that you don’t skimp on preserving the effort put into them. Professional photography raises the value of your work and serves as inspiration and an opportunity for a powerful connection.
67% of people rated high-quality images as very important in their purchasing decision, ranking slightly higher than reviews and ratings. A psychological study found that imagery can affect a person’s mood, even when unaware, explaining the above-mentioned statistic. Even when subconscious, imagery helps form an emotional connection, which is essential in sales.
While it may be tempting to use stock images, successful landscape contractors primarily use professional photos of their unique work. Authentic photos receive 35% more engagement than stock images. Add that to the fact that prospects will quickly lose trust in your company if they see the same stock photo used on multiple websites and can easily identify that you’re displaying work that isn’t your own.
Investing in professional photography is worth it because you can use it repeatedly across different platforms, including your website design, blog posts, social media, and even traditional printed marketing materials.
Professional Videography
Professional videography is even more effective at creating an emotional connection with a prospect, especially when using storytelling. 88% of marketers reported they were pleased with the resulting ROI of professional videography, and 78% indicated that videos directly increased sales.
When a prospect is researching landscape contractors and comes across your professional videos as part of your online portfolio, it helps create a connection. They can see and hear customer testimonials about how they enjoy using their new outdoor kitchen, listen to the company owner talk about their process and high-quality materials used, and see the completed project almost as if they were seeing it in person. That makes an impact by showing the prospect who you are as a company and helps build trust.
How Landscape Contractors Use Content to Create Trust and Establish Credibility with Prospects
There’s a saying that people make purchases because they trust the seller, not necessarily because of the product or service that they’re offering. And it’s true, especially in the landscape industry. With 80% of consumers reporting that trust is a deciding factor in their buying decisions, it further proves this saying.
Purchasing a $150,000 outdoor living area is much different than going to Macy’s and buying a bedspread that’s already manufactured, quality-checked, and packaged to go. A high-end landscape project is conceptual, and payment begins before the customer sees the finished product. It requires trust, and top firms use content to help establish trust.
Website Content
Website content helps inform the reader and establishes and fosters a relationship that builds upon trust. In any relationship, there is give and take from both parties. When prospects visit your website, you can provide value by offering solutions to their needs rather than simply trying to sell your services.
For example, in the early stages of the customer journey, a prospect may be unsure about what features they want to include in their outdoor living space. When they visit the homepage of your website, they are met with beautiful, professional photos of outdoor spaces you’ve created, and this inspires them and helps clarify what they are looking for.
From there, your website design can play a factor in the next steps. They may decide to include an outdoor kitchen in their new space, so they click on the corresponding link. The written word content on this landing page helps paint the picture of how they might use the space, specific appliances they want to include, and design details.
Display certifications on your website to show your training and expertise. If you’re a Unilock Authorized Contractor, proudly display a badge indicating such. You could also list any awards your company has won, such as Best of Houzz awards.
Everything this prospect has viewed and read so far serves to educate and inspire—there are no hard sells. This is where trust establishes, as they see your company as a credible source of industry knowledge and experience.
Blog Posts
Furthering your educational content beyond the homepage and landing pages is accomplished with blog content. Blogs play a significant role in search engine optimization (SEO) for your website, helping prospects discover your company and establish yourself as an industry expert.
Blogs demonstrating your expertise and credibility are valuable to you and the customer. They show that you can design, build, and install landscape features, understand all of the complexities, and articulate and explain everything in a way non-industry professionals will understand. Prospects will learn more about your company in a blog post than they ever would at in-person appointments, creating trust in your ability and skill to complete the outdoor space they’re dreaming of.
Social Media Content and Engagement
Social media is excellent for building relationships and showing prospects who you are and your values. As you engage with your audience, you demonstrate your honesty and integrity.
For example, if someone comments on one of your Facebook posts, a timely response demonstrating excellent communication skills and customer service will show that you will be a responsive and reliable landscape contractor to hire for the job. Conversely, no response to comments and questions on your posts will reflect negatively on your business.
Evergreen website content and blog posts become a goldmine of opportunity because they can be shared on social media repeatedly over time. In the summertime, you could share a blog post on LinkedIn about why it’s never too early for business owners to get on a landscape company’s commercial snow and ice removal list, helping generate leads and ensure work into the winter months.
You’re offering helpful information and helping business owners prepare while marketing your services. When it comes time to renovate their landscaping and front entrance the following spring, you’ll already have established trust, putting you ahead of the competitors submitting proposals.
The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60%-70%, and they are 31% more likely to spend more than a new customer, a stat showing the power of trust and familiarity in sales. The more content you share paired with the right ad spend, the more your prospects will see your posts, keeping your business top of mind so they think of you fondly when reviewing proposals.
Testimonials & Reviews
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a recommendation from a friend or family member. There is value in garnering positive customer reviews, a process that can be automated to streamline your review-building process.
As prospects begin their research process, they’ll read reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp, Angi, and Houzz. Since these reviews link to a real person’s profile, the reviews are seen as social proof of your company’s credibility.
You can use these reviews strategically as testimonials on your website. Many successful landscape contractors feature these quotes throughout the pages of their websites, further establishing social proof.
How Landscape Professionals Can Win More Bids With Digital Proposals
The content of your proposal and its appearance impacts how it’s received. Sales proposals need to make an impression to stand out, and relying on all-in-one software to create text-based proposals isn’t going to cut it.
Proposify is a software that makes it easy to create branded proposals. It has been found that landscape professionals who use the software have a closing rate of 200% higher than the industry average. The use of technology helps 43% of landscaping contractors’ proposals win within 24 hours of opening, partly due to being able to pre-sign the proposal and allow the prospect to sign via an e-signature.
Your investment in content proves useful in drafting a proposal. You can repurpose the professional photography, videography, and written content on your website to be used within proposals, allowing you to showcase the luxurious poolscapes you build or the immaculate commercial landscapes you maintain.
With an understanding of the prospect’s challenges and goals, you can implement content that will offer solutions. You’ll win the bid because you’ve established trust and credibility and proven that your company is the best choice because of your integrity, high-quality work, and experience.