The Power of Personalized Marketing

Craig Willeford, Gravely Ambassador 

Clean Cut Yards came from humble beginnings. Our Sherman, Texas-based business started with a relatively modest plan: a 62” commercial mower and a push mower. The goal for our first year was to finish the season with 25 accounts. Even with the adversities of 2020, we’re happy to report we not only managed to achieve this goal, but surpass it.

The Personal Touch

How did we do that? By making marketing our priority. We put our initial advertising money into door hangers. With the normal return on investment for landscapers at about 2%, we figured we would need to put 1,000 of those ads out. Using data from the county website, we were able to personalize each door hanger for each home. We left each door with an exact quote of what it would cost for us to handle the lawn maintenance for their home.  

This personalized marketing approach was a huge success. We had 44 accounts after spending two weeks walking door to door delivering our hangers. However, this success came with its own set of problems.

A Compact Solution to a big Problem

What they say is true; everything is bigger in Texas. The new problem we had was adapting to Texas-sized yards. Most homes had big backyards, but the entrance to the backyard was almost always a small gate. Our 62” commercial mower was no longer an advantage since it wouldn’t fit through most customers' gates. We needed a mower that was fast and small, or I was going to end up pushing 44 backyards. 
 
Gravely was the very first small commercial zero-turn that caught my eye. We quickly sold our big mower and purchased the Compact-Pro 34. Yards that had taken more than 30 minutes to push mow were now being done by the Gravely in under 10 minutes. The Gravely Compact-Pro 34 made mowing more efficient for us. It allowed us to get into small gates, mow big yards fast and handle the growing number of customers that were contacting us. 

Hard Work and a Community Spirit

Clean Cut Yards, following our initial business plan, continues to grow and expand. Growing our residential accounts required personal door hangers and hard work. Growing our commercial accounts requires a solid reputation in our area that we continue to build through being dependable and paying attention to detail. Today, we have five Gravely machines ranging from our new 32” Pro-Stance up to the 60” Pro-Turn. Clean Cut Yards handles 21 commercial accounts in three counties and dozens of residential homes that have continued to use our services since our very first door hanger.