Letting people know who you are and what you do can be hard. What I did several years ago when I started y hydroseeding company was contact anybody and everybody that I thought might become future and long term customers. I knew home owners would be a one time project installing a lawn. Once done, you might get some word of mouth advertising, but there just wasnt the potential for a lot for repeat business from a single home owner. What I did was I made up a trifold brochure with a mailing label on one fold. Lots of pics and info as to the type of work I could do. I mailed those brochures to every real estate agency in my area. I included a business card. What I found was that the realitors would look at the brochure and then throw it in the trash, but the business card they would put in their rolidex. I also went the to builder inspectors office and got a list of all the licensed builders and sent all of those a brochure and a business card. I then looked in the yellow pages and got a list of all the grading contractors and sent them brochures and business cards. Realitors sent me home buyers that wanted to redo existing lawns and sometime new lawn installs. Building contractors would contact me to install lawns, and grading contractors would call for erosion control. It went from myself and my wife doing a couple of laws a month part time to having three trucks and three crews seeding full time in less than 6 months. Ended up with more work than I could handle and working 7 days a week. I never sent out another brochure or did any other form of advertising after that first mailing. I did apply for and receive a Dunns Number, which placed me on a national list of contractors. Being on the Dunn list makes you company visible to other companies, including government contracts, that might be bidding on a large project in your area. Those large contractors will look for anybody in the area that can provide them a bid as a sub contractor for a portion of the much larger project that they are bidding on. I think my approach of targeting possible repeat customers was way more effective than trying to target single one time homeowner customers. I liked it when a homeowner called me up for a job, but I liked it much better when Joe or John contractor called me up up to do 2 or 3 jobs. I really liked it when Tom Contractor called me up because the EPA told him to fix something or get shut down and start getting fined daily. At that point they will do anything and pay anything to to get into compliance and since they needed and wanted it done NOW!, you didnt have to compete against other bidders.
