When you feel like it’s time to refresh your HOA’s newsletter, why not reach out to your community vendors for some help?
Here are 4 ways that your commercial landscaping company can help you create content that your residents will be interested in.
1. Tell Us What You’re Doing This Month
Residents are always curious about what the association is doing to make sure their community is looking its best. In most communities, the annual budget has a line item that says something like “common area landscape maintenance”. Since that dollar amount is usually a pretty big number, it’s natural for residents to want to hear a little more about what they’re actually getting for their investment every month.
Your landscape company should have at least one special task they’ll be performing each month. Ask them to write up a short article about why they’re applying mulch this month, or why they’re pruning the trees a certain way. It’ll give your residents a little insight into what they’re getting for their money, and make them feel a little more involved in the management of their community.
2. Monthly Maintenance Tips
Every community has a least one yard that looks like it came straight off the cover of Southern Living. The rest of your residents would probably appreciate some helpful tips from a pro every now and then. A simple checklist about what residents should be doing in their own yards each month is an easy way to turn the monthly newsletter into a valuable resource for your residents.
3. Create a “Ask the Experts” Column
This one requires a little more work, but goes hand in hand with a monthly tips column. Ask your residents to email you with their landscaping and gardening questions. Then, have your landscape contractor answer one or two of the questions every month. It gives you a chance to address the topics that residents really care about, and it helps fill your newsletter with content that your residents will look forward to. There’s got to be a reason the newspaper still runs those “Dear Abby” columns, right?
4. Conduct a Poll
Ever get a question like this, “Why do they use the same flowers every year at our entrances?”
Here’s an interesting way to get your residents involved in their community. Why not let them vote on your next annual flower rotation? Place a photo of a couple of different varieties of annual flowers, or maybe a couple of different designs, in your newsletter and ask residents to visit your website to cast their vote. You’ll need to check with your landscape contractor to make sure that the flowers and designs you show will fit within your budget, but once you know it won’t cost anything extra, why not let your residents be a part of the decision? You can share the results and a picture of the finished installation in the next month’s edition.
About the cover photo above:
Special congratulations to our crew working at the Lake Ashton Community Development District. It’s an awesome endorsement that a community would feature our service team on the cover of their community magazine. Well done Mario, Pedro, Chris, Simon, and Ofelia!
