By: Sherri VanScoit, Marketing, Target Specialty Products
Each year the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA) names the last week of the month as National Mosquito Control Awareness Week. This year the week of June 25- July 1, 2017 served as the week that the AMCA worked to educate the general public about the significance of mosquitoes in their daily lives. But mosquito awareness shouldn’t stop there!
Mosquitoes continue to be one of the hot topics in the news. Business Insider recently ran a story: Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases could hit hard this summer. The general public continues to be on edge about mosquito bites and often concerned about mosquito reduction on their property. The fear of Zika continues to mount among pregnant women and those planning to become pregnant.
With summer and the height of mosquito season upon us now is the perfect time for you as pest and lawn professionals to continue this outreach campaign within your own communities. Don’t allow awareness of this vector for disease to soften. Here are a few ways to keep mosquito control and bite prevention top of mind for those in your communities:
Start blogging. Online content is key to attracting readers and potential customers to your website. So take to your computer to educate the public on ways in which they can protect themselves and their families from mosquitoes. Be sure to keep your message educational with a subtle sell or link to your site for more information. Also ensure you are using keywords throughout so your site ranking benefits from your content.
Create gated mosquito content to grow your leads and gain permission to market to those in your community. Gated mosquito content might include a how-to guide for a mosquito-free backyard, a mosquito control facts download, the secret to mosquito control on your property whitepaper or more. Work with your webmaster to create a form that the user must fill out in order to gain access to the content. Request the user’s email address so you can build your customer list and turn that warm lead into a closed sale.
Let mosquitoes takeover your social feed. Allow your social pages like Facebook and Twitter to be all about mosquitoes for a week. Offer tips and tricks to avoid the bloodsuckers. Remember to talk about water as the main source of attraction, an infographic of a backyard would lend itself well to visually depicting all of the overlooked areas that might harbor water long enough to allow mosquitoes to breed.
Run a mosquito promotion. Add on a free mosquito spray for every new quarterly client you sign on or run a percentage off of a mosquito spray prior to a big event. Facebook ads are a great and inexpensive way to reach your local audience.
As you can see there are many ways in which you can educate your local community about mosquitoes. Don’t let awareness wane. Keep mosquito prevention top of mind and watch your mosquito reduction service calls soar.