Partridge Fine Landscapes is a landscaping company based in Mississauga, Ontario. It has a 40-year history of designing and building high-end landscaping projects across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). In 2021, the founder stepped down and handed over the reins to new owners who were looking to expand their residential design and build services.
The Challenge
The change in ownership went smoothly, but there was one area of concern for the new owners. The founder — having been involved in the business for nearly four decades — had built deep and lasting relationships with the company’s clientele and the community. As a result, he was responsible for closing over 80% of the company’s largest deals. In addition, business was being generated almost exclusively through referrals and word of mouth — their digital efforts were only generating 5-10% of their monthly leads.
How would the company fare without the relationships, experience, and inside knowledge of the original founder?
The Solution
The new owners decided to focus on digital marketing to compensate for the expected dip they thought could occur after the transition. They were referred to Intrigue by another landscaping company that had seen the positive impact that digital marketing had on their bottom line. They decided to partner with Intrigue to drive Partridge’s marketing initiatives.
The primary goal for their initial campaign was to maintain revenue at the same level as the previous fiscal year, which was ambitious given the departure of the founder — their primary source of leads and sales. The secondary goal was to increase lead generation from digital marketing to 50%, a significant jump from the existing 5-10% it currently represented.
The Strategy
The new owners of Partridge opted to invest $35,000 in their first year towards a marketing campaign that would attract new business and re-engage their existing customers. The Intrigue team got to work on a two-pronged strategy that included:
Google ads:
A search campaign was created to drive middle and bottom-of-funnel traffic to the Partridge Fine Landscapes website and generate new leads. In addition, display ads were created to increase brand awareness from the top-of-funnel and build a retargeting audience.
Email marketing:
A six-part automated drip campaign was created to nurture prospects who had submitted an inquiry through their website. The primary purpose of the drip was to provide information to prospects regarding the scope and breadth of Partridge’s services.
Here is a bird’s eye view of the inner-workings of their campaign, with Google Search and Display Ads driving traffic to their site, creating a warm audience for retargeting, and nurturing leads through a drip campaign.
The Results
Google Ads generated 85 leads in the first 3 months of the campaign, averaging 28 leads per month. Some notable achievements as a direct result of the ads included:
- 754 people viewed their contact page
- 58 people called them directly
- 33 people requested a follow-up by submitting a contact form
The results from the email drip campaign were astounding. The average Open Rate was 59% while the Click-Through-Rate was 5.5%, nearly 3 times the industry averages for home and garden businesses (20.5% and 2.2%, respectively). This indicated that Partridge’s leads were highly receptive to hearing from them and keen to learn more about their services.
Conclusion
By the end of their first year’s campaign, these digital marketing strategies drove a total 255 new leads for Partridge Fine Landscapes, representing a cost-per-lead of $137.63.
This meant that Partridge Fine Landscapes avoided the dip in revenue they expected following the change in ownership. In fact, not only were they able to maintain sales at the same level as the previous year, they were able to grow revenue by 8%, a notable achievement given the loss of their most valuable salesperson.
This gave them the confidence to reinvest in a more robust marketing campaign the following year — an investment that is paying off with a 12.4% increase in revenue to date.
