The 6-Step Guide to Video Marketing for Landscape Contractors and Pool Builders.
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The Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
The outdoor living industry is highly visual. But few of the projects you work on—particularly if you have a residential focus—will receive the widespread, in-person attention they deserve. Prospective clients will only ever see what your marketing reveals to them. Many growing firms miss out on an essential way to show off the great projects they build. As you consider ways to expand awareness of your services and effectively target more of the right kinds of clients, the many benefits of professional videography, and how its use can become an essential part of all your projects going forward, will likely continue to stand-out.
Your talented team’s detailed craftsmanship deserves to be seen. Since your focus is always dedicated to the current open projects, it’s understandable that carving out the necessary time to pull together proper case studies for last year’s projects is hard to do. But it’s critical to ongoing marketing success. That said, pulling it all together is no small task.
At HALSTEAD, we work with landscape design/build firms and pool builders across the US, capturing their projects with professional video designed for digital and social. We also work through education and workshops to help industry pros change the ever-so-common habit of walking away from projects without capturing them properly. Our passion comes from the case studies and the data—we know that with the right pictures and videos and professional copywriting, a firm’s reach and impact can truly be transformed.
The 6-step strategy for landscape contractors and pool builders looking to use their finished projects as better marketing.
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1. Attract, close, and Build amazing projects.
We know this is where your heart is, so keep doing what you do, and build amazing projects. No videographer in the world is going to make poor work look amazing. This is why having a marketing plan that attracts the right kinds of leads and project opportunities is so important - because the projects you land and build become what you show off to get future work. Are those projects the right scale? Are they the right style? Are they exactly what you want your firm to be putting your name on? If not, it may be time to look at how to attract more of the right kinds of projects. If they are, amazing! Be sure to work with the video team to capture the essence of your niche.
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2. Learn to see the project differently—the way the magazines do.
Look at every one of your projects as if you were looking at it through the lens of a camera.
Take the time to study what the websites of high-end magazines and remodeling firms you admire are showing off. Pay particular attention to the dynamic aspect of videography, which gives you an opportunity to give a “walking tour” or bird’s-eye view of a project that still-photography can’t match. What kinds of projects are they featuring and how?
Go back through any project photos you’ve taken and look at little vignettes as well as the big picture. You might notice intrusive details in your project photos such as trash cans, hoses, or brooms—items you’d rarely see in a professional picture. You might see that a project looks particularly beautiful from a certain angle (if so, that would be an angle to replicate for future projects). You might notice that the time of day makes a difference in lighting. These same “lessons” learned can be carried over to how prepared you should be before a videography session. Look around for examples of street-view videography and drone videography, and imagine how you can replicate that experience with your own recent projects. What elements are particularly eye-catching, and would look especially stunning as you’re moving through them or seeing them from above?
Our clients who go through this exercise have affirmed that this approach of learning how to really see a project has not only changed the way they view the work—it’s resulted in better projects moving forward.
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3. Plan ahead for the best results.
In most cases, you wouldn’t want to attempt to finish the job and get your videos that same month. You need a plan for coming back, after the project is truly complete. For outdoor living projects that means that the plant material has matured and filled-in. It means the client has had time to work with their designers to outfit the space with furniture and decor.
There’s nothing wrong with imagery that shows the progress of your projects—the day the natural stone arrived, a tile job in the works, etc. But save these for your Instagram posts.
For the effort we are covering with this article, however, you want to show outdoor living spaces that look like people actually spend time in them. You want to help your prospective customers imagine themselves in the spaces. So, you’ll need to come back when the time is right and the project has become a lived-in marvel. It could be a year later—but make a point now of setting up this time with your customers. Most customers are thrilled to have their projects featured on a website or in a social media post they can share (and, as a bonus, it’s a chance to reconnect and strengthen your relationship with them).
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4. Choose a solution that’s best for you.
The internet is flooded with DIY drone footage of halfway decent landscape projects and pool installations. There’s certainly no shortage of footage with an owner walking through a project on the last day of production. But as a leader in the outdoor living industry—as a company who is looking to build unique projects and work with clients who value professionalism and are willing to pay accordingly—you need to walk the walk with better than average iPhone video footage. You need to elevate your company by setting your content apart from the subpar editing and post-production work that’s clouding the discerning homeowner’s social newsfeeds. The good news is, all it takes is choosing the right production partner—one that delivers better than average storytelling and production quality at a price that makes sense for your industry and type of company. We aren’t talking $20k shoot days here, and we also aren’t talking ego-driven artists who care more about “creative control” then they do about your business goals. We’re talking about a sensible solution to video that sets you miles apart from the competition with an easy-to-manage approach. That’s the void in the marketplace we strive to fill at HALSTEAD.
Work with your chosen partner to understand how things will go on the day of the shoot, and beyond in the editing phase. Will the shoot include aerial drone footage or will it be only standard motion at ground-level? Will the videographer set-up and shoot time-lapse footage? Is that even what you want based on your goals? Will there be interviews and if so, who will manage the set-up and preparation of the folks being interviewed?
Working closely with your partner will help address your concerns and put your team at ease. We find that most often, to truly tell a story and bring the full-scale of the project’s details to light, a mixture of interviews, ground footage, and drone footage is required. Flying a drone over a gunite pool and calling it a case study is not what we are talking about here—it’s all about telling the story behind the project.
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5. Develop the story around the visuals.
There’s more to a project then what the camera can capture, so a narrative is essential to making a video that connects emotionally with your target audience. Bring the project to life by sharing some details: What’s the story? What were the homeowners or business owners looking for? What were the challenges within that project that you had to overcome? Mention the materials—were they imported from Italy? Was there a reason for one material choice over another? You can make this story even more interesting if you’re able to explain how the clients will be using this space and why they chose you. Giving a project the personal touch through compelling interview footage will reinforce the message you’re sending with the imagery you’ll be sharing.
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6. put your video content to work, extracting all possible roi from the effort.
Do you know what the publishers of home design websites need? They need project coverage. How about local digital and print publications that cover your target service area? You guessed it, stories. That’s what they do, and that’s how they source a lot of their content. They’re constantly working to find new projects they can feature.
Architects are constantly submitting work to contests in various publications through the relationships they have formed with magazine editors (regional magazines are a hotbed for this kind of activity). Adopt this method as well and you could get established in their workflow, with regular requests to feature your projects. Still, you’ll have success only if you submit high-quality photos and videos that are beautifully composed, emotionally compelling, and technically good.
How about building product manufacturers? They also need to show off their materials in finished project settings. You can deliver and expand your reach dramatically by posting your videos on social and tagging the products used. This approach has single handedly doubled the reach of many a client we’ve worked with.
And all of that public outreach is just the beginning. The second component of a proper video strategy (in addition to great planning and production) is proper distribution. If no one sees your content, or worse, the wrong people see it, then the entire effort is a waste of time, effort, and precious marketing budget.
The magic of video is really felt by landscape and pool companies when the actual business results are felt. When the phone starts ringing and the sales calendars start filling up—that’s when owners really understand why we never stop talking about video to our clients. More video, better video. Video is a powerful tool for telling the story of your company’s work—why you do it, how you do it, and how that work you do affects the lives of your clients so positively.
When proper videography meets expert distribution via paid social ads and other digital channels, the result is goosebump-causing brand power in your exact desired service areas, customers who respect your expertise and knowledge, and raving fans that refer you to more of the clients you want to work for.
Interested in learning more about how video fuels double digit sales growth for our clients?
