The February Email That Books Out Your Spring Cleanup Week Before The Snow Even Melts

Most landscaping shops in southern Ontario wait until the first warm Saturday in March to start hustling for spring cleanup work. By then, the customers who hired you last April have already gotten three emails from the new guy down the street, and you are stuck doing cold quotes instead of returning calls.

Why February Is The Right Time, Not March

Here is the simple math. A spring cleanup in Brantford, Cambridge, or Guelph runs somewhere between $250 and $650 depending on lot size and how rough the winter was. If you serviced 80 properties last spring at an average of $375, that is $30,000 sitting in your contacts list. Whoever talks to those homeowners first usually wins.

By mid-February, the snow is still on the ground but people are mentally done with winter. They are scrolling through their phones at lunch, thinking about the deck, the gardens, and the dog crap thawing in the back corner. An email landing in their inbox on a grey Tuesday in February hits at exactly the moment they are looking for something to look forward to.

If you wait until March 15, you are competing with everyone. If you send the right note on February 18, you are the only one in the inbox. That is the whole game.

What The Email Should Actually Say

Forget fancy newsletter templates with three columns and a banner image. The email that works is short, sounds like you, and gives the customer one easy thing to do.

Here is the structure that holds up:

Subject line: something like “Locking in your spring cleanup for 2027” or “Booking your April yard cleanup now, [first name]”. Skip the cute stuff. Skip the emojis.

Opening line: remind them you did the work last year. “Hey Linda, it is Mike from Maple Crew. We did your cleanup and the cedar trim back in April last year.”

The offer: give them a real reason to reply this week, not next month. “We are booking April dates right now. If you reply by February 28, we will hold your spot at last year’s price of $385. Anyone booking after March 1 will be at $420 because of fuel and disposal.”

The ask: make it dead simple. “Just reply with 'yes' and a day of the week that works best for you. I will send a confirmation and an invoice for a $50 deposit.”

Sign off: your name, your cell, that is it. No fancy signature block, no logo, no “click here to learn more.” This is a friend texting a friend.

That email, sent to 80 past customers, will reasonably book you 25 to 40 cleanups inside two weeks if your work last year was solid. Even at the low end, that is $6,000 to $10,000 of revenue locked in before your competitors have washed their trailers.

The Three Mistakes That Kill The Whole Thing

The first mistake is sending it from the wrong address. If your work email is some old yahoo account or your wife’s gmail, the deliverability is rough and half the emails land in spam. You want a proper address tied to your business name, even if the domain costs you $20 a year.

The second mistake is sending it to everyone at once with all the names in the To line. That is the fastest way to look unprofessional and get reported. Use real email tools that send individually so each customer sees only their own name. Mailchimp, Constant Contact, even just Gmail with a mail-merge add-on will work.

The third mistake, and this is the big one, is not having a list at all. If your past customers are scribbled in a notebook in the truck, or scattered across Quickbooks, your phone contacts, and Instagram DMs, you cannot do this in February. Spend a rainy weekend in January pulling every name, address, email, phone number, and the job they hired you for into one spreadsheet. That spreadsheet is worth more than a new mower.

What To Do When Replies Start Coming In

When someone replies “yes, Tuesday works,” you have about 12 hours before they forget you exist. Send the confirmation that same day. Use a simple template you can paste in:

“Thanks Linda. You are booked for the week of April 13. I will text you 48 hours before we show up. Deposit invoice for $50 is attached, payable by e-transfer to mike@maplecrew.ca. Balance of $335 due day of service. See you in April.”

Keep a running list of who said yes, who said maybe, and who did not reply. Two weeks later, send a polite follow-up to the maybes and the silent ones. “Just checking in, Linda, we are about 60% booked for April. Still want to lock in your spot?” That second send usually pulls another 10 to 15 percent of your list.

How Bally Handles This

The thing is, most landscapers know they should send the February email but they never do, because pulling the list and writing 80 personalized notes feels like a week of office work. Bally builds the customer list from your past invoices, drafts the email in your voice, and answers the replies that come in overnight so you wake up to booked jobs and deposits in your inbox. Websites are the product: $800 CAD to build a presence site, $2,000 for a working site, $2,500 for the showcase, then a care plan from $70 a month. No money-back guarantee and no lead promises. Hunter runs the whole thing out of Ontario. One person, one phone number, (519) 761-2251.

Closing

The shops that win the spring season do not work harder in April. They send one good email in February and let the calendar fill itself.

If you want help getting yours out the door this year, book a 15-minute call and we will look at your customer list together.