Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works

Cube Creative Design
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Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works: The Growth Podcast Stop wasting money on marketing that doesn't deliver. Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works is the weekly podcast for pest control business owners who want real results, not empty promises. Hosted by Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante from Cube Creative Design, each 20-minute episode delivers practical strategies you can implement right away. No fluff. No theory. Just proven tactics from a team that's spent 20 years helping pest control companies grow. What You'll Learn: Every episode tackles a specific marketing challenge pest control operators face. From building a website that converts visitors into customers, to running Google Ads that actually pay off, to creating content that ranks on page one. You'll hear what works, what doesn't, and exactly how to tell the difference. We cover topics like: Getting more leads from your website without spending more on adsBuilding a review strategy that brings in new customers on autopilotCreating content that ranks for searches in your service areaRunning paid ads that generate profit, not just clicksUsing email and automation to turn one-time customers into recurring revenueHiring marketing help without getting burnedWho This Podcast Is For: If you run a pest control company with 2-15 trucks and revenue between $250K and $5M, this show was built for you. Whether you handle your own marketing or manage a small team, you'll get strategies sized right for your business. Episodes are designed for busy operators. Listen on a drive between service calls and walk away with three clear takeaways you can use that week. About Your Hosts: Adam Bennett is CEO of Cube Creative Design, a digital marketing agency founded in 2005. He's helped dozens of pest control companies build marketing systems that deliver consistent growth. Elisabeth Pallante is Content Operations Manager at Cube Creative. She leads the content and SEO strategy that has helped clients increase web traffic by 154% year-over-year. They're joined regularly by Chad Treadway, Chief Marketing Officer, along with social media specialist Hannah Kilpatrick and web project specialist Emily Porter. What Makes This Show Different: We don't sell ads or sponsorships on this podcast. Every minute is focused on giving you value. We share the same strategies we use with paying clients because we believe in leading with generosity. At the end of each episode, we offer a free marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. No obligation, no pressure. Just a clear look at what's working in your current marketing and what's costing you money. New Episodes Every Tuesday Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Leave a review if the show helps you. It's the best way to help other pest control operators find us. Ready to stop guessing and start growing? Hit subscribe and join us next Tuesday. Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works is produced by Cube Creative Design, a HubSpot Gold Partner agency based in Western North Carolina. Learn more at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai

  1. 1d ago ·  Video

    What AI Search Wants From Pest Control Companies: Lessons From MAICON

    What AI Search Wants From Pest Control Companies: Lessons From MAICON | Episode 44 AI can mention your pest control company in an answer and still tell the customer to call somebody else. Adam Bennett and Chad Treadway of Cube Creative Design went to MAICON in Cleveland and listened for one thing: what a pest control owner can actually use. Seen, believed, chosen: Wil Reynolds of Seer Interactive says AI search works in three steps. Learn why being named isn't the same as being picked, and how to check what AI says about your company with a 15 minute test. A SparkToro and Gumshoe AI study cited at MAICON found the same brand list came back less than once in 100 tries, so one screenshot proves almost nothing. Receipts beat tricks: AI now looks at whether trusted people and publications vouch for you. Adam and Chad cover the receipts rule: every claim on your website gets proof next to it. They disagree on pages versus reviews, and on whether your own site or outside mentions should come first. People and AI: Joe Pulizzi's advice is to pick a face each audience would trust. Should that be the owner? Adam and Chad don't agree. They also show how call recordings can reveal the questions your site never answers, and where AI needs a human check. Key takeaways: Getting named isn't getting picked. Read what the AI says about you, not just whether it names you.Receipts beat tricks. Reviews, license, and outside mentions give AI a reason to recommend you.Trust comes from real people. Let the AI find the gaps and keep a human in every decision.One Thing to Fix This Week: Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok who the best pest control company in your city is. Ask each one twice in a private session, screenshot every answer, and circle one claim your website can't back up. It takes about 15 minutes. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai, and see how your site looks to AI search with a free Cube Score at thecubescore.com.

    What AI Search Wants From Pest Control Companies: Lessons From MAICON

  2. Oct 27 ·  Video

    Year-End Marketing Push: Your Q4 Strategy

    Year-End Marketing Push: Your Q4 Strategy | Episode 43 Most pest control owners treat Q4 like the off-season. Trucks slow down, marketing goes quiet, and everybody waits for spring. Then they pay for it in March. In this episode, Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and Chad Treadway of Cube Creative Design lay out the Harvest, Hold, Plant Plan, three jobs that make Q4 pay off now and set up spring. Harvest: The cheapest lead you'll get all year is someone already in your software. The hosts cover seasonal reactivation emails, winter upsells like rodent exclusion, and fixing review recency before January. Chad makes the case for selling full-year prepaid plans in the fall, and he and Elisabeth disagree on whether to discount them. Hold: For one Cube pest client, Q4 Google Business Profile calls ran at about 60% of spring. That's a slower season, not a dead one. Learn what a Hold Floor is, why to set it before December, and the debate over whether floor money belongs in paid search or owned content. Plant: Spring marketing starts in January, so the content has to exist by December. Find out what to build now: spring pest pages, city pages, and a January campaign that sends itself. The episode ends with a working session. Sketch your own 90-day sprint in three lines, then grade it in February on booked jobs. Key takeaways: Harvest first. Your cheapest Q4 lead is a customer who already paid you once.Pick your Hold Floor and stick to it. Going dark costs more than staying on.Plant now. What you finish in December rings the phone in April.One Thing to Fix This Week: Export every customer who didn't renew in the last 12 months and send one short seasonal email. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai, and see how your site looks to AI search with a free Cube Score at thecubescore.com. Next Tuesday: What AI Search Wants From Pest Control Companies: Lessons From MAICON.

    Year-End Marketing Push: Your Q4 Strategy

  3. Oct 20 ·  Video

    ChatBots and Live Chat: Converting Website Visitors 24/7

    Most pest control owners think they have a lead problem. They have an answering problem. One of our pest control clients took more than 500 calls last quarter. Miss just one in four, and that's about $4,000 a month going to the next company on Google. In this episode, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante are joined by Emily Porter, Cube Creative's web project specialist, to talk about how website chat catches the leads your phone drops, and how to set it up so it doesn't create new problems. In this episode: Missed-Call Math. Adam walks through the numbers using real call volume from one of our clients, and the team compares blind guesses on how many calls a typical pest company misses. The Three-Question Bot. Emily explains why "How can I help you?" is the worst way to open a chat, and lays out the three questions to ask instead: what's bugging you, where's the property, and what's the best number to reach you. The team also debates whether a bot should ever share pricing. When the Bot Makes Stuff Up. The Air Canada chatbot ruling, why your bot speaks for you, and the Handoff Rule: your bot never quotes a treatment, promises a guarantee, or answers a safety question. The After-Hours Handoff. What to do when a chat lead comes in at 9 p.m., how to route chat leads by service, and why you should track chat as its own lead source. One Thing to Fix This Week: Count last month's missed calls, multiply by your average first job, and write that number on a sticky note by the phone. That's what your chat is competing for. Free download: The Three-Question Bot Setup Sheet, with a Missed-Call Math worksheet, a chat script template, a pre-launch test checklist, and an after-hours handoff plan. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. See how your site reads to AI search with a free Cube Score at thecubescore.com. New episodes every Tuesday. Next week: Year-End Marketing Push, our Q4 strategy episode. Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works is produced by Cube Creative Design.

    ChatBots and Live Chat: Converting Website Visitors 24/7

  4. Oct 13 ·  Video

    Creating a Marketing Calendar That Actually Gets Executed

    Here's what nobody tells you about marketing calendars: the plan is almost never the problem. Pest control companies build great calendars in January. By March, most of them are dead, because the busiest week for marketing is also the busiest week on the trucks. In Episode 41 of Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works, Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante of Cube Creative Design break down why marketing calendars fail. They explain how to build one small enough to survive peak season. Your three key takeaways: Calendars die from execution, not ideas. They're too big to survive a bad week, and nobody's name is on the tasks. "The office will post more" isn't a plan. "Sarah posts on Tuesdays" is.The smallest calendar that still grows you has three beats. Weekly is a Google Business Profile post plus review asks. Monthly is one real content piece. Quarterly is a seasonal email to your customers.When you fall behind, skip, don't double up. Miss a week, drop it, and hit the next one. The streak matters more than the score.In this episode: The timing trap that kills plans built in the slow seasonWhy owned content dies without a calendar while paid ads keep runningWhy pausing Google Ads can raise your cost per lead 30 to 50% on restartWhere to find content ideas: Google's related questions, your office, and your techsWhether the owner should own any marketing taskWhy every calendar needs at least two names, even at a two-truck shopHow far ahead to plan, and why real tasks only go 90 days outOne Thing to Fix This Week: Pick your weekly beat. One task, one person's name, one day of the week. Put it on that person's calendar as a recurring 15-minute event. Get your free pest control marketing audit: marketingthatactuallyworks.ai See how your site looks to AI search with your free Cube Score: thecubescore.com Next Tuesday: Chatbots and Live Chat: Converting Website Visitors 24/7, with Emily Porter. New episodes every Tuesday. Follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

    Creating a Marketing Calendar That Actually Gets Executed

  5. Oct 6 ·  Video

    Listener Q&A: Reviews, SEO Timelines, Moving Your Office, & Life After Referrals

    How many leads does it take to land one customer? Adam and Elisabeth say that's the wrong question. The number that matters is how many leads you're losing after the phone already rang. In our second Listener Q&A, we answer five real questions from pest control owners. We cover lead leaks and close rates, why review recency matters as much as review count, how long SEO really takes, what happens to your rankings when you move your office, and what to add first when your business runs on referrals. Three Key Takeaways It's a leak problem, not a lead volume problem. Your real close rate, booked jobs divided by leads, tells you more than any lead count.SEO is a 6 to 12 month channel, and that's the argument for starting now. Waiting until you're bigger just starts the clock a year late.When referrals stall, add something you own before something you rent: a site that converts, a complete Google Business Profile, and a real way to ask for reviews.What We Cover Three to five cold leads per customer, and why most shops lose leads after the phone ringsHow starting prices on your site filter out tire kickersNurture sequences for leads who don't book right awayWhy a stalled review count hurts, even with hundreds of reviewsTexting review requests: about a 98% open rate vs. about 20% for emailWhy "wait until $1M to do SEO" is expensive adviceSEO fast wins that move in weeksMoving your office: proximity, re-verification, NAP consistency, and duplicate profilesWhy referred customers still Google you before they callOne Thing to Fix This Week Pull last month's leads and last month's booked jobs. Divide booked jobs by leads. That's your real close rate. If you can't get the numbers in 15 minutes, add a lead source field to your job software. Resources Free pest control marketing audit: marketingthatactuallyworks.aiFree Cube Score, see how your site looks to AI search: thecubescore.comThe Leak Check Worksheet (Episode 40 download)20-Point Pest Control Marketing ChecklistRelated Episodes Episode 8: Word-of-Mouth Marketing Isn't Enough AnymoreEpisode 16: The Customer Review System That Generates 20 Reviews a MonthEpisode 24: Local SEO Beyond Google Business ProfileEpisode 32: Listener Q&A Part 1Next Tuesday: Creating a Marketing Calendar That Actually Gets Executed Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so new episodes show up on their own.

    Listener Q&A: Reviews, SEO Timelines, Moving Your Office, & Life After Referrals

  6. Sep 29 ·  Video

    Upselling and Cross-Selling Your Current Customers

    Most pest control companies close one sale and move on to chasing the next lead. Meanwhile, the customer they just served is five to seven times cheaper to sell to again than a stranger. In this episode, Adam, Elisabeth, and Chad break down the math behind revenue per customer and show you exactly how to grow it. Three key takeaways: Your existing customers convert at 60-70% on a second offer, compared to 5-20% for new prospects. Most operators never make the ask.Timing is everything. Pushing add-ons at sign-up converts at 5-8%. Offering them four weeks in, after the customer has seen results, converts at 25-40%.Three services, one system. Mosquito programs, termite monitoring, and wildlife exclusion are the highest-margin cross-sells, and a simple tech recommendation at the right moment is all it takes.You will also hear the "Service Stack" framework for packaging your services into tiers that move customers up, the CRM triggers that automate upsell timing, and why a $500-per-year customer should be an $900-per-year customer with no extra marketing spend. Hosts: Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and Chad Treadway from Cube Creative Design. Get your free pest control marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai Score your website at thecubescore.com

    Upselling and Cross-Selling Your Current Customers

  7. Sep 22 ·  Video

    Cube Score in the Wild: Reading Real Pest Control Sites Live

    We built a tool to grade pest control websites. Then we ran seven real sites through it and found out it was wrong about the two most important ones. Chad Treadway has audited over 200 pest control sites. In this episode, he walks through what happened when we put seven of them through the Cube Score, our proprietary grading tool that measures Identity, Authority, Proof, Transparency, Structure, and Visibility on a 0-to-600 scale. The headline finding: a five-location Southeast operation with over 1,500 reviews across their markets scored 136. A small Midwest company with 58 reviews, whose site was built by an AI website builder, scored 414. After manual verification, both sites are worth about 430. The 278-point gap was entirely about which site let the crawler in the door. The Southeast company's web host was serving a captcha challenge to every crawler that asked, including the AI ones, while their robots.txt file said "come on in." The AI-built site scored high because it produces perfect machine-readable structure on demand: clean schema markup, heading hierarchy, geo pages, a pricing page, semantic HTML. Along the way, Chad pulls real findings from the other five sites in the sample: A site that ranks #1 organically but carries two different phone numbers and two different business names (a copy-paste from another web build, not an ownership change)A company with the best About page in the set, owner photos, team bios, founding story, but zero pricing anywhere on the siteA site with 563 Google reviews, perfect AI search citations, and 20 mentions with top-3 placement, that still loses the conversion because thirteen staff members have photos and no written bios The episode's core argument: a score measures what a machine can read, not what a business is worth. Before you act on any website score, ask what the crawler actually retrieved. And go check whether your own host is blocking the crawlers you want to reach you. Three key takeaways: A website score measures what a machine can read, not what your business is worth.An AI-built site can outscore a 25-year operation because it produces perfect machine-readable scaffolding. Form is not the same as substance.Before you act on any website score, ask what the crawler actually retrieved. Then check whether your own hosting is quietly blocking the crawlers you want. Download the Cube Score Self-Audit Worksheet to grade your own site across all six sides. \Free pest control marketing audit: marketingthatactuallyworks.ai Get your Cube Score: thecubescore.com New episode every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

    Cube Score in the Wild: Reading Real Pest Control Sites Live

  8. Sep 15 ·  Video

    Commercial Accounts: The Content That Wins Property Managers

    Most pest control companies want commercial accounts but have websites built entirely for homeowners. In this episode, Adam Bennett, Elisabeth Pallante, and Hannah Kilpatrick unpack why that gap exists and how to close it. The team shares Cube Score data from a dozen pest control sites pursuing commercial work. The finding: commercial-facing pages averaged 185 out of 600 on the Cube Score while the same companies' residential pages averaged 380. The biggest gaps showed up in Authority and Transparency, the two dimensions commercial buyers weight most. The episode walks through five content layers a property manager needs to see before they request a proposal: a dedicated commercial services page, case studies with measurable outcomes, a clear proposal process, pricing transparency, and a separate commercial contact path. Most pest control sites have zero of these five. Hannah covers the three channels where commercial buyers actually find providers. LinkedIn posts with specific commercial outcomes (complaint reduction, inspection pass rates) get 4x to 6x more engagement from property management professionals than general pest content. Commercial Google searches use completely different keywords than residential. And local business association directories convert better than most companies expect. The hosts also debate whether commercial pricing belongs on the website and discuss when a company should chase commercial work versus shoring up residential first. This week's quick fix: Write a 200-word paragraph describing your commercial services, property types, and proposal process. Publish it as its own page. Then post the same summary on LinkedIn with a photo of your truck at a commercial property. Two touchpoints, 15 minutes. Three Key Takeaways: The content that wins homeowners actually pushes commercial buyers away. Property managers need different proof, different language, and a different path to contact you.A commercial-ready website needs five layers: a dedicated page, case studies, a clear proposal process, pricing transparency, and a separate contact path.Commercial buyers find you on LinkedIn, through commercial-specific Google searches, and in local business directories, not the same channels that bring residential leads. Download the free Commercial Account Readiness Worksheet at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai Get your Cube Score at thecubescore.com Hosts: Adam Bennett (CEO), Elisabeth Pallante (Content Operations Manager), Hannah Kilpatrick (Social Media Manager) | Cube Creative Design

    Commercial Accounts: The Content That Wins Property Managers
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About

Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works: The Growth Podcast Stop wasting money on marketing that doesn't deliver. Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works is the weekly podcast for pest control business owners who want real results, not empty promises. Hosted by Adam Bennett and Elisabeth Pallante from Cube Creative Design, each 20-minute episode delivers practical strategies you can implement right away. No fluff. No theory. Just proven tactics from a team that's spent 20 years helping pest control companies grow. What You'll Learn: Every episode tackles a specific marketing challenge pest control operators face. From building a website that converts visitors into customers, to running Google Ads that actually pay off, to creating content that ranks on page one. You'll hear what works, what doesn't, and exactly how to tell the difference. We cover topics like: Getting more leads from your website without spending more on adsBuilding a review strategy that brings in new customers on autopilotCreating content that ranks for searches in your service areaRunning paid ads that generate profit, not just clicksUsing email and automation to turn one-time customers into recurring revenueHiring marketing help without getting burnedWho This Podcast Is For: If you run a pest control company with 2-15 trucks and revenue between $250K and $5M, this show was built for you. Whether you handle your own marketing or manage a small team, you'll get strategies sized right for your business. Episodes are designed for busy operators. Listen on a drive between service calls and walk away with three clear takeaways you can use that week. About Your Hosts: Adam Bennett is CEO of Cube Creative Design, a digital marketing agency founded in 2005. He's helped dozens of pest control companies build marketing systems that deliver consistent growth. Elisabeth Pallante is Content Operations Manager at Cube Creative. She leads the content and SEO strategy that has helped clients increase web traffic by 154% year-over-year. They're joined regularly by Chad Treadway, Chief Marketing Officer, along with social media specialist Hannah Kilpatrick and web project specialist Emily Porter. What Makes This Show Different: We don't sell ads or sponsorships on this podcast. Every minute is focused on giving you value. We share the same strategies we use with paying clients because we believe in leading with generosity. At the end of each episode, we offer a free marketing audit at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai. No obligation, no pressure. Just a clear look at what's working in your current marketing and what's costing you money. New Episodes Every Tuesday Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Leave a review if the show helps you. It's the best way to help other pest control operators find us. Ready to stop guessing and start growing? Hit subscribe and join us next Tuesday. Pest Control Marketing That Actually Works is produced by Cube Creative Design, a HubSpot Gold Partner agency based in Western North Carolina. Learn more at marketingthatactuallyworks.ai

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