Success Story: Agronomic Lawn Management
The Problem
When Agronomic Lawn Management (ALM) first began, Bryan Raehl and his team set a 20% growth goal for the company. To hit it, they poured most of their marketing budget into print. With multiple ads running in a daily newspaper, ALM took on the tedious work of tracking which customers came from which section’s ads.
After adding radio to the mix, Bryan waded into online marketing and built a website on GoDaddy. It had the bare necessities — a company section, a services section, and contact info — but Bryan and his team had no real visibility into how it was performing for SEO or paid search.
The Challenge
Print results had started to decline, and Bryan knew ALM wasn’t going to hit its 20% growth goal by spending the same dollars the same way. They needed to diversify how customers found the company — and they needed to see what was actually working.
Bryan heard about Coalmarch at a conference, paid us a visit in Raleigh, and decided the move from print to digital was the right one for ALM.
“We took a leap of faith. We figured if Coalmarch can talk the talk, we’d give them the shot to walk the walk. And they have ever since.”
— Bryan Raehl, General Manager
We worked closely with his team to find the right marketing package, then built ALM a new website with a re-optimized homepage and improved keyword rankings. Just as important, we started tracking the data — cost per lead and cost per sale — so ALM could finally see where the budget was going. With Coalmarch Performance Insights, Bryan could be as hands-on as he wanted and trust that the recommendations were built around his business.
“Coalmarch is really forward-focused because they are staying on top of what the best way is for business owners to spend their marketing dollars.”
The Results
ALM signed with Coalmarch in 2016 and moved onto a digital foundation. From there, growth compounded year over year rather than arriving in a single jump. As the business scaled, we shifted the strategy with it — from winning early lead volume, to sharpening conversion and channel mix, to holding efficiency steady as spend grew.
By 2020, that shift was paying off: ALM grew 46% in a single year — more than double its annual goal — with overall lead performance up 86% and cost per lead down nearly 12% to an average of $13.40. That momentum has held every year since.
Business growth
- Revenue scaled from $3.8M in 2017 to roughly $17.5M in 2025 — about a 360% increase over eight years.
- Growth accelerated during early digital adoption, then settled into sustained double-digit annual growth as the business matured.
Lead generation & efficiency
- Organic leads grew 27% year over year from 2024 to 2025.
- Lead volume climbed sharply during early digital expansion, including an 86% year-over-year lift in a major growth year.
- Cost per lead dropped in the early phases and has stayed competitive even as ALM scaled.
Digital advertising in 2025
- Paid campaigns delivered strong lead volume at an efficient blended cost per lead across the full channel mix.
- Google Ads and Local Services Ads worked in tandem to capture high-intent demand, with LSA efficiency holding steady year over year.
- Bing added efficient incremental volume, with cost per lead improving over the prior year.
- Strong impression share and top-of-page presence across paid search and LSAs kept inbound demand consistent.
Local & organic visibility in 2025
- Visibility for high-intent terms like “lawn care near me” increased more than 500%.
- Google Business Profiles earned 8 new #1 local pack rankings across core markets in a six-month window.
- Local SEO gains drove incremental demand without a matching increase in spend.
Why It Works
ALM’s trajectory mirrors what a lot of scaled, regional operators go through: early growth driven by lead volume, a middle stage focused on conversion and channel mix, and long-term success that comes down to whether marketing efficiency holds as revenue climbs.
Across nearly a decade, ALM’s results show what a real marketing partnership can do — improve lead quality, not just lead count; keep CPL and acquisition costs competitive as spend grows; balance SEO, paid search, and LSAs based on performance; and turn steady marketing work into durable, multi-year revenue growth.
"We've continued to work with Coalmarch for ten years because, quite frankly, the bottom line is results. A minimum of 10% growth year over year is huge — and you just don't walk away from results."
— Bryan Raehl, General Manager