When should a fence company start marketing before the spring rush?

By Robert Earl, Home Service Guild. Updated September 29, 2026.

When do homeowners start thinking about a new fence?

A fence usually starts as an idea long before it becomes a phone call. A family gets a puppy at Christmas and realizes the backyard will not hold it, or a pool is going in next summer, or a couple buys a house in the winter and starts making a list of what they want to change. They notice fences on their street, save photos, ask a neighbor who put theirs in, and look at a few company websites on a slow evening.

None of that shows up on your calendar, because it happens in the weeks before the weather turns. By the time they call for an estimate, they often have a style in mind and a short list of companies to call.

What happens when a fence company waits for spring to start marketing?

The calls still come in, but the homeowners who planned over the winter have often reached the companies they noticed first. Meanwhile the owner is measuring yards all day and pricing them at night, which leaves no time to build a better Google Business Profile or write a single email to past customers.

The work that brings in the next season has to happen while the schedule still has room in it, which usually means late fall and winter.

Who should a fence company reach before spring?

Start with the people who already know you. Past customers have neighbors, and some of them will need a gate replaced, a run extended, or a fence at a new house. Homeowners who got an estimate last year and never decided are another good list, since the reason they waited may be gone by now. Neighborhoods where you have already put in fences come next, because your work is standing there for everyone on the street to see.

These people need to hear from you a few times a year so your name is familiar when they start planning. How often is often enough is its own question, and how often to contact past customers covers it.

Which marketing should be in place before the rush starts?

The things a homeowner checks while planning should be complete and current before they start looking. That means a Google Business Profile with real photos of your installs and the areas you serve, a website that shows the fence styles you build and makes it easy to ask for an estimate, and recent reviews from last season's customers.

If you run ads, the months before the rush are when you learn which ones bring in estimate requests, so you are not guessing when every dollar counts. Whether those ads belong on Google or Facebook depends on whether you are reaching people who are searching or people who are still planning, and Google ads or Facebook ads explains the difference. The same idea applies to landscaping and lawn care companies, whose customers also plan their spring projects before the first warm week.

What a fix looks like

In a fence company that has fixed this, the winter is when the owner adds last season's install photos to the Google Business Profile and sends a note to past customers and to the homeowners who got an estimate last year. When the ground thaws, some of the first calls come from people who already know the name, such as a past customer who wants the run extended to a new shed or a family two doors down from last summer's install. Each estimate request shows where it came from, so before the busy weeks start the owner knows which ads are worth paying for.

If your jobs already live in Housecall Pro, the Home Service Guild Marketing Operations System can pull your past fence customers into the list you stay in touch with over the winter.