Lately, the organization has been focused on growing the industry and its workforce along with advocating for landscapers.
According to NALP, the workforce promotion projects completed include Landscape Career Day with its 21-page tool kit containing numerous resources like flyers, digital ads, social media posts and activity guides.
It concluded an advertising blitz from Dec. 20 to March 10, which garnered 96,000 clicks to the job board. NALP also debuted three new videos to help generate millennial interest in green industry careers.
It also held two Facebook Live chats during NCLC highlighting what students studying industry-related careers do. These gained more than 214,000 views.
Meanwhile, there is much more workforce promotion currently in the works. NALP says it plans to create five more videos targeting millennials and is creating YouTube Ads as well to promote the profession.
NALP will launch its influencer campaign, which will consist of working with bloggers to write about the industry careers while targeting students, parents and educators.
It will conduct research to gather data on industry compensation and on how career decision making is carried out between high school students and their parents.
WhyILandscape social channels and an SEO campaign to drive traffic to the job board and career site will be launched soon as well.
In order to promote industry careers even further, NALP says it will begin media relations activities, including creating resources for landscape companies to expand industry curriculum in high schools, improving the career site with photos and videos and expanding its reach with key stakeholders including FFA and NAAE.
As for promoting the industry in general, NALP has published its 2018 Landscape Trends report that was covered in a number of publications, including DIYNetwork and Realtor.com. It also launched the LoveYourLandscape Backyard Sweepstakes to build a base of followers on LoveYourLandscape properties.
It conducted research on residential and commercial landscape enhancements, along with NAR, and the results are expected to come out April 2018.
Meanwhile, the ongoing industry promotion efforts include creating seven to nine videos for social media content use, placing articles in magazines targeted at business owners in various vertical markets and regional media relations.
NALP is also conducting a media blitz for National Lawn Care Month, covering the values of healthy lawns and similar content throughout the month of April.
On the advocacy side of things, NALP recently published The Advocate, a weekly advocacy-focused news brief that goes out to several hundred professionals currently.
It has developed new H-2B related social media content and produced new podcasts updating members on its H-2B advocacy efforts. These podcasts have been viewed more than 75,000 times.
The NALP Member Advocacy Center has also increased opportunities for members to engage in advocacy. In 2018, professionals have used the center to send over 5,000 emails, tweets and Facebook posts to members of Congress.
Notable progress on legislative matters includes securing language in the 2018 omnibus budget bill that allows for additional H-2B visas. NALP credits the collaboration of others for the federal and state regulation successes.
Other federal advocacy successes are NALP’s meeting with senior Department of Homeland Security staff to examine possible options for program reform. It is also working to have federal pesticide preemption language included in the next Farm Bill.
On the state level, NALP was represented as an appointed member of a legislatively-formed pesticide study commission in Rhode Island looking into the current approach to regulation and responsible for making recommendations for change.
In Missouri, NALP is working to rally with local groups to support a bill that would establish state preemption for seeds, fertilizer and soil conditioners.
