Referrals are the best leads a landscaping company gets, and a poor foundation for growing one. They arrive when past clients happen to talk about their gardens, which is mostly in spring and summer. They come from the same few streets where the company has already worked, and they are for the same size of job it has already done. A company that wants to fill its diary for next year, move into a new area or win more full design and build projects needs enquiries that do not depend on who a past client happened to speak to.
Why referrals keep a landscaping business the same size
A client who paid £8,000 for a patio and new planting refers friends who want a patio and new planting. That is good work, but it does not move a business towards £40,000 garden redesigns, however capable the team is. Referrals also cluster: the neighbours who saw the van outside are the ones who call. The most useful referrals a landscaping company can build are deliberate ones, from garden designers, architects and builders who need a reliable contractor, because those partners pass on work at the scale they handle. Beyond that, new enquiries have to come from people who have never heard of the business, which means being found at the moment they search.
Be careful with shared lead sites
Trade directories and pay per lead platforms look like the quick fix. The catch is that the same enquiry is usually sold to several firms at once, so the homeowner gets a handful of calls within the hour and tends to choose on price. That suits small maintenance work and hurts companies trying to win design led projects, where the client should be choosing on trust and portfolio. Searches for 'landscaping leads' are expensive for exactly this reason: lead sellers bid on them so they can resell the enquiries. Owning the channel an enquiry comes through means the homeowner contacts one company, not five.
Start with Google Business Profile
A complete Google Business Profile is the cheapest source of new landscaping enquiries, because most homeowners look at the map results before they open a single website. It is also one of the sources ChatGPT and other AI assistants draw on when someone asks them to recommend a landscaper nearby. The profiles that win these searches tend to share a few habits:
- Photos of finished projects added every few weeks, each described by the type of work and the town
- Services listed separately, such as garden design, landscape construction, patios and driveways, rather than one general entry
- Reviews that mention the project type and area, which past clients will usually write if asked to describe what was built and where
- A service area that matches where the company actually wants to work, not every postcode it could reach
- Every enquiry from the profile answered the same day, since the next firm on the map is one tap away
Use Google Ads to choose the size of job
Google Ads is the most direct way to reach homeowners who are ready to hire a landscaper now, and the one channel where a company can choose the size of job it attracts. Keywords built around garden design, landscape construction and specific project types, ad copy that states a starting price, and a landing page showing comparable projects all filter out maintenance and quote shopping searches before they cost money. For a company targeting design and build work, campaigns generally start from £2,000 per month, judged against the value of the projects they win rather than the cost of each click. The campaign structure, keyword choices and filtering are covered in detail in Google Ads for landscaping companies, and the website side in website design for landscaping companies.
Book next season before the referrals arrive
Most landscaping companies only look for new work once the diary starts to empty, which is usually too late. Design work can be sold through autumn and winter, while homeowners are planning rather than building, so a company that books design consultations over the quieter months has a build programme ready by spring, before the referrals start coming in. Track where every enquiry comes from, whether referral, partner, profile or paid search, and which ones turned into projects worth having. After a full season, that record shows which channels pay for themselves and how much of the year is still being left to word of mouth. Colonnade builds Google Ads campaigns for landscaping and garden design companies with this in mind, aimed at the design and build enquiries that referrals rarely bring.
Want project enquiries that don't rely on referrals?
Colonnade builds Google Ads campaigns for landscaping and garden design companies, aimed at the design and build projects referrals rarely bring.