Are you ready for the swarm? The meaning of “busy season” may vary depending your pest control company’s region, but one thing’s for sure—it always comes back around. The best way to make the most out of your peak period is to take a page from the Boy Scout handbook: be prepared. Beyond reliable staffing, trained technicians, and tuned-up trucks, you’ll need to make sure your marketing plan is locked and loaded before your time is maxed out.
The upsides of busy season are the packed schedules, steady leads, and flood of inquiries. The downside? Longer response times and less bandwidth to nurture customer relationships. Take advantage of a cyclical, predictable spike in demand by prepping in advance. With the right marketing strategy in place, you’ll effortlessly keep the books filled, inquiries flowing, and reviews pouring in.
Google Business Profile
The Google Business Profile remains an indispensable tool for pest control companies. Though Google continues to experiment with search result types and prioritizations, your Google Business Profile (GBP) is likely the first thing potential customers see when searching for pest services in their area. It’s vital to verify that all contact and business information is accurate, up-to-date, and uniform across the web. Beyond the bare minimum, an optimized profile helps you rank higher, attract more leads, and convert more local leads—all without spending a dime on ads. Before the busy season kicks up, get your GBP in gear.
Prep List:
- NAP: Aim for 100% consistency in name, address, and phone number (NAP) across bother your GBP and website, as well as other local listings. Even minor discrepancies like punctuation can hurt your rankings.
- Description Fields: Use every available field to provide the most information about your core services as possible. Be specific, provide keyword-rich descriptions, and ensure all info is up-to-date.
- Hours: Add busy season holiday hours well in advance. You may still see a prompt from Google to “confirm” special availability, but as long as you set them ahead of time, you’re golden.
- Photos: Add them if you haven’t yet! Profiles with quality company images far outperform those with outdated or nonexistent images. Make sure your company logo, team photos, and branded vehicle images are all up to date.
Website
No one works harder than your website—it’s a 24/7 salesperson. Web conversion should run like a well-oiled machine, but, like any high-performance engine, it needs regular maintenance and a little TLC. Something as simple as site speed, a broken image, or confusing navigation is more than frustrating to web visitors—it’s costing you leads and inquiries. It’s not about a sexy redesign every other year—it’s about reinforcing the essentials: accuracy, speed, conversion elements, search optimization, and updated content. Before we reach peak pest, give your site a pre-season tune-up.
Prep List:
- Speed Check: Seamless load time is still thee defining bounce rate factor—if your site lags, you’re losing potential customers. Run a speed test, compress large images, and ensure your hosting can handle increased traffic.
- Conversion Optimization: Assess every key conversion point on your site—contact page, headers, footers, banners, and call-to-action buttons. They should be clearly labeled, visible, and mobile-friendly. If it doesn’t work on mobile, it doesn’t work at all.
- Bank Blogs/Content: Create, prepare, and schedule out seasonal content in advance. Regular content updates keep your website healthy, maintain healthy organic traffic flow, and save you from scrambling to make updates once busy season slows down.
Advertising
You know better than anyone that the early bird gets the worm. Is your busy season in the next couple of months? Get those ads running yesterday—waiting until peak season is like starting a race 10 seconds after everyone else. A well-timed campaign is the difference between a fully booked schedule and a slow start to the season. Prepare for peak season marketing by assessing historical conversion data and fine-tuning audience targeting. Start with a set budget, but be prepared to adjust and optimize your ads based on performance. Kicking off campaigns early gives you time to perfect them before busy season sets in.
- Lock in Offers and Promotions: Plan well in advance your seasonal promotions, sales, commercial discounts, and core service offerings. Create a detailed calendar for pricing, hours, sales, and the goals for reach. Save space for flexibility—you never know!
- Dial in PPC & Local Ads: Run geo-targeted Google Ads and social campaigns highlighting your most in-demand services. Refine and optimize headlines, keywords, and descriptions. Set a budget, but be ready to adjust or pause LSAs as needed.
- Launch Early: The best time to start? Yesterday. The second-best? Now. Long-running campaigns allow you to refine audience segmentation and retargeting strategies before competition ramps up—step into the spotlight early for added brand awareness.
- Retarget: Smart advertising includes a strategic retargeting funnel to stay top-of-mind for potential customers who didn’t book the first time. Retargeting campaigns are especially effective in social, search, and display advertising.
Other Marketing Must-Do’s:
Customer Communications
- Ensure all customer-facing messaging is clear and honest about response times, pricing, and what clients can expect from services.
- Set and stick to a customer communication schedule for follow-ups, progress updates, and other information. Play around with email automation and find tools to help keep you on track.
Review Management
- Take full advantage of the spike in business and put some effort into gathering fresh, positive ratings and reviews. Feel free to ask customers directly, but remember that Google disallows incentives in exchange for reviews—keep it above board.
- Take standout reviews and turn them into attractive and compelling testimonials for your website, ads, and marketing materials. If you want to use customers by name, get their written permissions first.
Support
- Having a solid team isn’t just about field techs—make sure your front-office staff (or answering service) is ready to handle an influx of calls and online inquiries. Missed calls = lost leads. Most won’t even try calling back.
- Need help with marketing? Ahem—a pest control marketing pro (cough, us) can handle all your pre-, mid-, and post-busy-season marketing campaigns so you can focus on running your business.
TLDR: A Little Prep Goes a Long Way
Pest season success is more than your annual opportunity to bust more bugs—leverage the increased visibility and attention to maximize your marketing strategies. With the right prep, you’ll easily capture leads, fill your books, boost your brand rep, and coast into the next season stronger than ever.
Ready to prep your pest control marketing strategies? We’ve got you.
Hannah Bollman is Nifty’s talented and dynamic Content & Brand Manager. She develops compelling content across blogs, newsletters, social media, and ad campaigns, ensuring alignment with Nifty’s voice and mission. With a background in SEO, content marketing, and stand-up, Hannah brings a unique mix of creativity, strategy, and humor to everything she does. When she’s not shaping Nifty’s brand or growing visibility for our clients, she’s on a run, on her bike, or enjoying a delicious falafel sandwich.
