Marketing a pest control company on social media has become a necessity, as technology and the way we interact change, businesses must constantly adapt how they position themselves in front of potential customers.
Years ago, pest control marketing involved getting an ad in the Yellow Pages and possibly running some radio or local TV spots. Today, digital marketing is the best way to position your business as the local pest control authority, while also positioning it to be discovered online by consumers looking for help with their pest control and extermination needs.
While SEO and paid advertising are great ways to find new customers for your pest control business, social media provides you with an opportunity to stay connected with your current customer base as well as interact and engage with potential new customers through organic discovery and introductions.
We wanted to provide you with some pest control social media marketing tips to help you get the most out of your time spent on social media, whether you are just starting or have been actively trying to attract new pest control customers on social media. Here are some helpful tips to attract new pest control and extermination customers using social media.
1. Engagement is Key to Content Amplification
One of the most appealing aspects of social media marketing for pest control companies, and any business actually, is the potential of widespread exposure caused by posts attracting a lot of engagement.
This is how posts go viral, and while an extermination post isn’t likely to experience the same fate as a funny meme, it’s important to understand how it works. When a lot of people begin to like, comment, and share a particular post their followers see that interaction, which then draws them in – giving the post additional exposure.
If that new audience also finds the content helpful, educational, or just outright funny, they will also engage with it. This process can exponentially increase over and over, attracting millions of views organically.
Use the same approach when creating your pest control social media content. Stock images, boring pieces of information, or posts that look like blatant advertisements will never become amplified and spread organically. Think of ways to grab attention and attract engagement – that is the key to your posts far exceeding their normal reach.
You could create a post that reveals an alarming statistic – “Did you know that 1 in 5 homes has bedbugs and one pregnant female can produce 500 eggs, leading to an infestation?!” – and then end it with “Tag two friends that would be shocked to know this!”
This is the type of post that will attract attention, cause a reaction – shares, likes, and tags, all of which help to amplify your post and get it seen by more individuals.
2. Highlight Customer Testimonials in Your Content
When a consumer is faced with a pest issue they want the best solution and they want it quickly. They aren’t going to spend weeks or even days researching local pest control companies before hiring someone to come out and address the problem.
Many consumers will look at the social media profiles of a business before hiring them the same way they look at Yelp and Google reviews. Seeing an active social media presence instills more trust and makes them more confident in taking the next step to initiate a service call.
Posting content – video and image – that features testimonials from real customers is a great way to attract leads. This can often be the final deciding factor that gets a consumer to hire your pest control company.
Whether it’s a termite problem that is preventing a home inspection from passing, a bedbug problem that has led to infestation, or a wasp nest that needs to be removed from the exterior of a home – the consumer wants their problem resolved as quickly as possible.
Social media content that creates instant trust through genuine and honest testimonials can convert leads at a high rate. If someone isn’t immediately sold on hiring your extermination company and begins to look at other options the odds are slim that they will return, giving you another chance to convert their interest into a booked service appointment.
3. Use Shock Factor Visual Elements to Attract Eyes
The visual elements of your social media content are important for both organic posts and paid ads. We are going to remain on the topic of organic content for your pest control company’s social media campaign.
When most consumers open up Facebook and start to scroll they are looking to consume as much content as possible in the shortest amount of time. Social media provides an escape for most – whether it’s scrolling through the feed while on a lunch break or looking at posts while relaxing on the couch in the evening.
Social media is a distraction for many, and those individuals are looking for content that entertains them or interests them. This is usually in the form of posts from their friends and family or pages and accounts that they follow.
No offense, but the average consumer isn’t going to naturally or voluntarily stop scrolling to read a dull post about pest control or extermination news. It’s just not appealing, and it’s not a topic that most would be interested in.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t use creativity and some clever marketing strategies to command some of that attention and draw eyes to your business. Shocking images or videos designed to do nothing more than get someone to stop scrolling for one second is the key.
A video of a wall infested with millions of termites? What about an image of thousands of bedbugs under a microscope? Or how about a video of the internals of a large hornet nest?
These are all examples of extreme visuals that you can use in your pest control social media campaign to draw eyes to your content. From there you can have short messages and calls-to-action that provide consumers with more information.
This is a good strategy for both organic posts used to attract new customers and drum up interest, as well as posts you keep on your profiles for consumers to interact with when they seek out your social profiles as they determine what local pest extermination business to hire.
Final Thoughts
Using social media to market your extermination and pest control business can be a highly effective way to attract new customers. The key is to create the right kind of content that will trigger emotions and engagement – this is how to further amplify the reach of each post.
When you learn how to do this correctly and schedule your posts ahead of time it allows you to focus on other areas of your business. Having a full-time social media manager is something that isn’t budget-friendly for most pest control companies.
You can either work on your campaigns as time allows, or you can consider partnering with a pest control marketing agency to handle your social media management, from content creation to optimization and tracking.
If you would like to learn more about our social media marketing services for pest control companies, please contact us to schedule a free consultation. Our team of extermination marketing professionals will be more than happy to explain the process, while simultaneously reviewing your current strategy.
See More Helpful Tips