Your First 90 Days of Marketing: The Checklist

Final Review: Plan, Decide and Launch

Focus determines direction.

Say you just started a landscaping company. The first ninety days are noisy. Everything feels urgent, and marketing is the thing that gets pushed to next week because there is no invoice attached to it yet. So here is a checklist, in order, of what to have in place by the end of your first quarter. Do it in this sequence. Each step makes the next one easier, and skipping ahead is how people end up with a beautiful website for a name they cannot keep.

This is one of the few places on this site where I will use a list rather than prose, because a list is what you need here. Print it. Cross things off.

Days 1 to 30: lock the foundation

• Name locked: web search, state registry, federal trademark search and domain check all clear. Business name registered with the state. Domain purchased. Social handles claimed on the platforms your customers actually use, even if you post nothing yet.
• Brand basics decided: one primary color and one secondary, one or two fonts, a simple logo that reproduces cleanly on a truck, a shirt, a card and a phone screen. Consistency matters more than sophistication. Write these down on one page so every vendor uses the same ones.
• Customer avatar written: one page describing the person you most want to serve. Who they are, what they worry about, how they look for a business like yours, what they expect the experience to be, what they will pay. Test your name, colors and message against this person, not against your family.
• One-sentence message: what you do, for whom, and what makes it different. If you cannot say it in a breath, keep working on it.
• Business cards, email signature and a simple invoice or estimate template, all in the brand colors and fonts. This is the cheapest branding you will ever buy.

Days 31 to 60: get found

• Google Business Profile created, verified and completed: correct name, address or service area, hours, phone, categories, a description in your one-sentence message, and at least ten real photos of you, your work, your vehicle and your team. A lot of local searches end on the map, so treat it as your most important page.
• Website basics live: a single page is fine to start. Who you are, what you do, where you serve, how to contact you, with the phone number clickable on mobile and a simple form. Same colors, same fonts, same photos as the profile. Make sure it loads fast on a phone, because that is where your customers are.
• Consistent listings: your name, address and phone written identically on your site, your Google profile and the two or three directories that matter in your trade. Mismatches quietly cost you trust and ranking.
• Review system started: decide the exact moment you will ask (when the job is done and the customer is happiest), the exact words you will use, and the link you will send. Set a target of asking every single customer. Respond to every review you receive, good or bad, within a day, in a tone that matches your brand.
• Email tool set up with a simple list: every customer and every quote goes in. You do not need a newsletter yet. You need the list to exist.

Days 61 to 90: one channel and the numbers

• Referrals asked for from day one: ask every happy customer, because referrals are free and most people never ask. On top of that, one lead channel chosen and running, not five. Pick the one your avatar actually uses: for most local service businesses that is search, either your organized Google profile and site or a small, tightly targeted paid search campaign. For others it might be a referral arrangement with an allied business, a local event or a single social platform. Give it the whole month before judging it.
• Tracking in place: a way to know where every lead came from. At minimum, ask every caller how they heard of you and write it down. Better, a tracking number or form field per channel and a spreadsheet with lead source, quote given, job won and job value. This is the data your marketing budget lesson depends on.
• Follow-up habit built: answer every new lead within minutes if you can, and set up an automatic text and email if you cannot pick up in the field. Every quote gets a follow-up within a day or two, every finished job gets a thank-you and a review ask, every customer goes on the list. Write the sequence down so it happens whether or not you remember.
• First alliance conversation held: one coffee with a business owner who serves your customer and does not compete with you, to discuss sending each other work.
• Ninety-day review scheduled: sit down with the tracking sheet, count leads by source, count jobs won, calculate what you spent to get them, and decide what the next ninety days get. That review is when you can see what each dollar bought.

Start with the name

Copy the whole checklist into wherever you keep your to-do list and put a date next to each item that fits your calendar. Then do the first item today, not tomorrow: run the name searches. Everything else waits on that one. The 90-Day Launch Plan, a free download on the Resources page, goes with this checklist.

What it costs

Twenty to forty hours across the ninety days if you do it all yourself, in evenings and slow mornings. Most of it is free: the Google profile, the listings, the review process, the tracking sheet, the email list at a starter tier. Real costs are the domain, business cards, a basic website builder or template, and whatever you decide to put into the one paid channel if you choose one. An agency would normally do the brand basics, site and profile in a compressed few weeks, which is worth knowing when you weigh your time against theirs. Either way, the checklist is the same.