University of North Dakota

GreenWorks Digital Marketing Strategy

Owen P. Young

Marketing 327: Digital Marketing

Professor: Dr. Sandi Luck

12/1/2021

GreenWorks Landscaping & Fencing

About the Company
Greenworks Landscaping and Fencing is locally owned and operated by two brothers,

Jonathan, and Michael Olson. When it comes to this business, just like any other, there are

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in all segments of their business. Together,

these two have grown a successful business in the Greater Grand Forks and surrounding areas.

When it comes to Landscaping and Fencing in this area, if you were to ask around,

GreenWorks would be the most popular recommendation. There are many strengths within their

company, the first is their reputable, high-quality work with multiple positive reviews left by

customers. Another strength is their warranty offered. If customers are not pleased with how

their project turned out, GreenWorks will send a crew out there to repair any unliked areas.

Lastly, the way they interact with their customers and build more than just a customer-based

relationship is a wonderful strength to have within a company.

Although GreenWorks has many good strengths there are also weaknesses. Their main

weakness is their use of social media, or lack thereof. GreenWorks has social media accounts on

both Instagram and Facebook, but they are rarely utilized and when they are it is for a holiday

post and not work-related. Another weakness is their lack of advertising around town. It is not

very often that you will see an advertisement around town marketing towards using GreenWorks

services. The last weakness is they struggle to retain employees. They are constantly hiring as

you can see by their big sign on the lawn of their business off Demers Avenue as well as on their

website.
 With Grand Forks greatly expanding, there are many opportunities for GreenWorks to

prosper. The first opportunity is with the town expanding and building new houses every day is

that these houses are going to need landscaping and fencing. This will bring lots of new business

for the company and help them succeed. Another opportunity is since they do have social media

accounts, it will help these younger families easily contact them if they are curious about what

they offer. Lastly, being such a prominent name around town with great reviews, it will help

them gain new customers when these new families move to town and ask around for landscaping

and fencing service recommendations.

There are always threats that companies need to think about so they can attempt to avoid

them. The first threat with GreenWorks is their lack of utilizing social media. With the

popularity growth of social media especially within the younger families, being active and

having good content on social media is crucial to reach that audience. Another threat is the

possibility of Shea’s or another landscaping company around town starting to successfully

market more. Whether it is on social media or physical ads it could potentially start taking this

audience and potential customers. The last threat is if one of these other companies starts

producing services of the same or higher quality as GreenWorks for a lower price, this could

drive customers and recommendations towards the other company.

When dissecting a company in order to properly learn about it and build a marketing

strategy it is imperative to know and understand the people or “market segment” you are

working with. For GreenWorks they are going to be working with all sorts of individuals. Much

of their market segment is going to be homeowners in the Grand Forks and surrounding areas

with the average age being from 45-50. When it comes to the psychographics of the clientele,

their budget is going to have to be flexible and large because these projects have a lot of

variables, and they can be expensive. Free estimates are offered so the customer will know
pricing before being charged for anything. Many of GreenWorks clients have similar hobbies

which include enjoying the outdoors in their yards since their services offered are to make your

lawn look better than the Joneses next door. The most common are new patios and stone firepits

that help revamp someone’s yard.

Something that goes along with your market segment is buyer persona. Looking at the

different topics within your segment helps you build buyer personas. Lack of social media

content and high prices can be on a list of problems that should be solved or addressed for

buyers. The customer’s goals and motivation to buy now is a must know. Whether it is an

improvement to their newly purchased home or an addition to a home they are trying to sell it is

good to know the buyer's motivation. Mentioning the benefits of vinyl fencing and custom patios

and why they should choose GreenWorks is a great aspect to building a buyer persona. When

committing to a service like the ones offered by GreenWorks the buyer is going to have many

questions and concerns. Answering common objections and frequently asked questions is an

important thing to do to ensure the buyer has no doubt about your company or services.

Having SMART goals is something every company should have. SMART is an acronym

that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Have a specific goal

such as providing the best landscaping and fencing services in Grand Forks and the surrounding

areas. An example of a measurable goal is knowing when your goal is achieved. I want to hire 10

new employees this spring. An attainable goal is something that can realistically be achieved.

Instead of wanting to help 1,000,000 new customers in a season pick 50 for that landscaping

season. Relevant goals are goals that are applicable to your business. Wanting GreenWorks to

build 100 fences this summer is a good goal because it applies to what the company offers. Last

for SMART goals are the Time-Based goals. An example of a time-based goal is something like
wanting to hire 5 new employees by the end of April. That goal gives you a time that you want

your goal achieved by.

GreenWorks is a locally owned and operated landscaping and fencing company run by

two brothers Jonathan and Michael Olson. They offer a variety of high-quality services which

include hard and soft scrape landscapes, wood, chain-link, aluminum and vinyl fencing, decking

and irrigation. The services offered have a high price point but are also backed with their

warranty, if the customer isn’t happy with their service GreenWorks will send a team out there to

correct any issue. Their shop is in Grand Forks off Demers Avenue, and they can be contacted

via phone or email.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is a digital marketing strategy that pays attention to how high or low your website

ranks in search results on search engines such as Google or Bing. SEO, if utilized properly, can

be very beneficial to a small business. When focusing on SEO, it will help your company appear

higher on search results. If your company appears at the top of the search results, this will yield

higher customer interest and traffic thus creating more sales. A good way to increase your SEO

is to have effective keywords that potential customers might use when looking for a service that

GreenWorks offers. Keywords such as fencing, landscaping, decking, irrigation, and outdoor

renovations are all good. These keywords will be effective because these are words those

customers will use when using search engines to find a company to complete projects for them.

Adding Grand Forks before these keywords should ideally make GreenWorks URL at

www.gworkslf.com appear at the top of the results page.

 When searching Grand Forks landscaping you want GreenWorks to be the top result on

the page. Yes, it will be hard since there is a company with the name Forks Landscaping but

there are three links including a yelp.com link before the GreenWorks link appears.

Google Advertisements

In my last section I mentioned the benefits of maximizing your SEO. Google Ads are a

tool that if used effectively can be very beneficial to your company. The first benefit is that

although they are both search engine marketing strategies, Google Ads work faster than SEO.

Google Ads are more effective because of a few reasons. First off you can focus on multiple

keywords at a time rather than just one, you can control when your campaign is turned on or off

and ads that are on the top of the page get viewed immediately. This will result in driving more

traffic and customer leads faster. Google Ads also increase brand awareness. In a study where

Google partnered with Ipsos, it was discovered that search ads lift awareness by an average of

6.6%.
 Through using Google Ads, you can utilize email marketing. In September 2015, Google

invented Gmail Ads and made it available to all Google advertisers which helps companies reach

more potential customers through their Gmail inbox. Another benefit to Google Ads is the

information that traditional advertising cannot give you. Traditional advertising such as radio,

newspapers, billboards, and brochures are good, but you do not know exactly how effective they

are. AdWords can tell you exactly how your advertising campaign went. From running a Google

Ad, you would know who clicked your ad, how many leads have been generated, how much

traffic your website has received from your ad, and how much it costs you per lead. This will let

you know what worked and what didn’t. By using this information, you can modify future

advertisements to guarantee positive results in the future. Creating a Google Ad Banner is a great

way to promote your products and services. Attached below is an example of a Google Banner

Ad I made. It is a great way to advertise to your target audience. It shows an example of your

products in the background with the landscaping and fencing and shows your logo and services

offered as well as contact information. Identical to the target market mentioned in a previous

section, this will ad’s target audience will be homeowners Google offers different pricing options

depending on your budget. Their three main options are $10/day, $20/day, and $40/day. The

difference in these pricing options yields different amounts of clicks. The $10/day option
averages 150-240 ad clicks per month, the $20/day averages 300-480 ad clicks per month, and

the $40/day averages 610-950 ad clicks per month.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing or also known as SMS marketing, is another strategy used to reach

prospective clients. SMS, also known as short message service, is a strategy that allows

companies to send advertisements and messages to customers via text message to their

cellphone. Just like all other marketing, mobile marketing has advantages and disadvantages. A

major advantage of mobile marketing is the convenience factor that it offers. It is easy to do and

makes mass communication very easy since almost everyone has a phone. It is a perfect tool to

use to remind individuals about any offers, new products or services or just get in touch with

them at the beginning of the season.

Unfortunately, all forms of marketing are going to have disadvantages of some sort. In

order to maximize efficiency, you need to figure out the best time to contact your target

audience. With homeowners being your generalized target audience, it is fair to assume that

these individuals have jobs so maybe waiting until they are home from work before sending a

message is a good thing to do. Another thing is sending multiple messages in one day can be

very ineffective. This can bug the prospective client or also may be seen as spam. Unlike email

marketing, SMS marketing has a disadvantage in the sense that there is a character or content
limit when texting. Cost is another big disadvantage of email marketing. When looking at using a

company to handle your SMS marketing, the most effective options can cost around $100 per

month. A company high on search results when using Google as a search engine was

“Parachute”. On their website they offer different packages with different price points depending

on what your company wants and needs. Their prices range from $5-$1,000 a month. The

difference between these packages is the number of text messages and emails sent. These

packages start at 200 texts and emails sent for $5 a month to 100,000 texts and emails sent for

$1,000 a month. With GreenWorks being a smaller company, I honestly think spending $5 a

month for 200 texts and 200 emails is plenty. Some examples of SMS messages that

GreenWorks could use are, “Spring has sprung! Be one of the first 5 customers to request one of

our services for 10% off” sending a message like this gets the ball rolling on the season and gets

the customer ambitious to get their yard looking better. Another example could be, “Beat the

frost! Take advantage of our end of the season sale to get great prices before the snow falls.”

sending a message like this will get your customer wanting to schedule last minute projects

before the ground freezes. Like previously talked about, these messages will be targeted towards

homeowners that are thinking about the change of season and thinking about what they will do as

the new season is starting or before the new season comes.

Social Media

Social media is a phenomenal outlet for companies to use to help reach a larger audience.

Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all popular options for

businesses to utilize. Each one of these channels is going to have different age groups so it is

crucial that companies pay attention to that to ensure effective advertising. The graph below is

made by www.socialmediaweek.org which displays the age range of nine different social media
channels. An important quote on their article is “What marketers should take away from this

chart is the content they push out on each social network should relate to its key demographic.

When it comes to advertising on social media, there are two different types of

advertising. These different types of advertising are organic and paid advertising. Organic

advertisements are the essentially free ads that you personally post on your social media channels

that your followers see on your page. Your followers care enough about your business to follow

your account to keep up to date and they want to see posts. It is important for your organic posts

to be as informal as possible. This helps the customer see what the business is about and who

you are as a company and feel more connected as a brand. Paid advertising is another popular

and effective way to market your company. When creating your paid advertisements, a lot of

thought should be put into the ad. This should be a lot more formal, and you should have a goal

of publishing this advertisement. There are a lot of goals that social media channels allow you to

select when making these ads. An example of a goal you can select is, do you want your

audience to engage with the ad. Another example is, do you want to collect prospective customer

information from your ad? Organic and paid advertisements are both important and useful, but

they should be handled and created differently.

 Another tactic used by businesses on social media, especially by Facebook, is bots in the

Facebook messenger app. Facebook messenger bots are automated messages that you get from a

company through their messenger. Using these bots increases your audience reach and raises the

likelihood that they will open the message. According to headliner labs, people are 3.5 times

more likely to open a Facebook message than a marketing email that they’ll assume is spam.

Using automated messages and responses that ask basic questions will let your company know if

this prospective customer is promising or not and depending on the results, you can direct them

to a real-life sales representative.

The two main social media channels used by GreenWorks Landscaping & Fencing are

Instagram and Facebook. GreenWorks Instagram page has 178 followers, follows 13, and has a

total of 15 posts. Looking through their page, their most liked picture was posted in 2018 and is a

picture of a finished vinyl fence that yielded 23 likes. Most of the posts have less than 10 likes

and I believe that is due to the low quality of content posted. One-third of the posts are holiday or

season-related and have little or nothing to do with the products or services offered. Facebook is

by far a much more utilized and popular social media channel for GreenWorks. Their Facebook

page has 1,168 likes and 1,190 people follow their page. There is much more information on this

channel such as contact information, basic questions you can ask the company and where they

are in town. There is a lot of the same content that is used on Instagram and even with hundreds

of more followers and likes, their posts still yield very low numbers of interactions. One piece of

organic content that is posted on their Facebook is an unfinished picture of a product they were

working on. Below is a table showing more quantitative data on GreenWorks social media

channels.
 Social Media Followers/ Page Most Liked Engagement Quality
Channel Likes Post
Instagram 178 23 (12.9%) Low Low
Facebook 1,168 likes 64 (5.3%) Medium Low
1,190 followers

On Instagram, their most liked post has 23 likes which is 12.9% of their followers, they

have low engagement and low-quality content. Facebook attracts more of an audience but even

though they have over 1,000 followers their most liked post only has 64 likes which is only 5.3%

of their total followers. Something that their Facebook page does better than their Instagram page

is their engagement. They have questions you can ask, reviews from customers, and contact

information. There is room for improvement on both social media channels. On Facebook, their

most popular social media platform, there are some recommendations I suggest making to

improve the page. First off, keep up to date content. Your followers want to see what the

company they care enough about to follow is up to and see updated and more frequent posts. My

second suggestion is to post higher-quality content. The pictures posted on GreenWorks

Facebook page are for the most part low quality and appear to be quickly taken with a phone. An

example of good quality content would be closer, higher quality pictures taken with a better

camera so your followers can see the details and quality of your work. Another example would

be at the beginning of spring, an engaging post that interacts with your followers on your page.

Return on Investment

Return on Investment (ROI) in marketing is used to show your company how much

revenue it is receiving compared to your total marketing expenses. Conversions are when a

customer does something as a result of your digital marketing. They are more directly related to

sales than website behavior because they act on an advertisement you posted. Developing an
ROI strategy is important because it gives your company insight into your marketing, and it can

help you advance your marketing tactics. Another valuable piece of information it gives you is

where you should be spending your money.

Previously mentioned in other sections were the tactics of Google Ads as well as Mobile

Marketing. If utilizing both strategies, they are both examples of what would be accounted for

when developing an ROI. If the only paid advertisements you use are Google Ads and SMS

marketing, then you need to look at how much you are spending each month. For example, if you

are spending $10/day for 150-240 ad clicks per month and $5/month for 200 texts and 200

emails per month you would do the math to see how much GreenWorks is spending. Google Ads

at $10/day would total to $300/month and SMS marketing for $5/month would bring your total

marketing expenses to $305/month. Take this amount you are spending and then see from your

conversions to see what marketing tactics you are using are working and are effective. By taking

these steps and developing an ROI it will help your company to better understand if GreenWorks

is increasing sales, increasing brand awareness and helping calculate other helpful information.

An example of a company that greatly benefited from ROI is Kroger. Kroger uses a marketing

tactic of getting their customers to sign up for their loyalty card which helps increase customer

loyalty and profitability. Kroger claims that 95% of sales are rung up on their loyalty card. More

valuable information they found was the impact of their loyalty program through 60%

redemption rates and more than $12 billion in incremental revenue by conducting research and

analytics since 2005. Delta Airlines is another company that has benefited from research and

developing an ROI strategy. Lost baggage is every traveler's nightmare and a very uncomfortable

situation for both the travelers and the company. To alleviate stress and allow peace of mind,

Delta invested in an app that allows customers to track their luggage from their mobile devices.

This app has been downloaded over 11 million times. By investing in this app, it may not show
immediate results but can help retain customers, keep loyalty and keep Delta’s reputation as a

customer-centered company. By setting a goal such as getting 5 new customers during our spring

sale advertisement is a great use of a measurable goal while also developing an ROI strategy.

You can calculate how much you spend on the spring marketing strategy and then see how much

in sales you make from those ads in order to convert your ROI.

Conclusion

Throughout my research and development on a digital marketing strategy for

GreenWorks Landscaping and Fencing I have found a lot of helpful information. By completing

a SWOT analysis, segmenting the target market, building buyer persona and creating SMART

goals it helped me analyze what GreenWorks is good at and what they need to work on. The

SMART goals help turn dreams into realistic, achievable goals in order to achieve optimal

performance. By using search engines and keywords, I have given recommendations to improve

search engine optimization. Improving SEO with more effective keywords will help customers

find GreenWorks at the top of their results when searching for their services online. Google Ads

and mobile marketing are two tools that can be used to improve the size of the audience that they

reach. If utilized effectively, this can help yield a positive ROI. In today’s day and age social

media is another very effective tool whether it is organic or paid advertisement to use in order to

reach a large audience and spread the word about your company and the products and services it

offers. By increasing the quality of content and engagement in GreenWorks social media

platforms, it will help customers see the quality of their products and services offered. Lastly, I

mentioned the importance of the conversion and development of an ROI strategy. This will help

by putting the company's money into what works and what is effective. Building a successful

digital marketing strategy is imperative and with these recommendations, GreenWorks will see

an improvement in customer engagement and a more positive ROI.

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