BELANGER TREE CARE
AMPLIFYING THE REPUTATION OF CENTRAL MAINE'S MOST TRUSTED ARBORIST
THE CHALLENGE
Founded in 2018 and led by career arborist Phil Belanger, Belanger Tree Care built a strong reputation in Central Maine for professionalism, safety, and care. But despite being known locally as the trusted arborists of Skowhegan, they lacked a digital presence that reflected the scale of their expertise and growing enterprise. A sporadically updated Facebook page and a one-page website were the extent of Belanger Tree Care’s digital image.
Looking to shift gears and showcase the company’s growth in a more consistent manner, Phil reached out to DS Media just after New Years’ 2024 and asked to hit the ground running as soon as Spring hit.
THE STRATEGY
Instead of taking the traditional service business route, we framed Belanger Tree Care’s brand as one of a creator, combining educational content (safety tips, tree care insights, before-and-afters) with entertaining, shareable content highlighting the personality of both the Belanger crew and the brand overall. With an emphasis on both expertise and relatability, every organic piece of content served two primary goals:
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Build trust by showing the reality of hiring and working with Belanger.
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Build attention by delivering content their existing - and potential - audience truly enjoys consuming.
Without getting into the nitty-gritty details (yet), Belanger’s successes stacked so rapidly in the early Spring that the strategy expanded heavily in just a few short months, stretching to include a website redesign and a comprehensive brand identity kit tailored to the company’s more engaged overall presence.
THE EXECUTION
Starting from scratch, we:
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Designed a content strategy tailored to the strengths of Belanger Tree Care and poised to leverage current social trends.
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Built and curated a comprehensive brand and visual identity kit specific to Belanger Tree Care
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Built a fresh, fully optimized website to more readily showcase Belanger’s expertise
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Crafted a voice for the brand aligned with the strengths and competitive advantages of Belanger Tree Care: practical, trustworthy, and humorous.
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Expanded their reach into new service areas by targeting surrounding Maine communities with location-based content.
THE RESULTS
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Over just nine months in 2024, Belanger Tree Care’s growth was not only easily measured, but dramatic:
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8 million organic impressions across all platforms
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25% increase in website traffic
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Average monthly reach of more than 60,000
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Brand endorsement deals with professional equipment companies
FROM THE CLIENT
"Sick."
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- Phil Belanger, Owner
WHAT WE WANT YOU TO TAKE AWAY
Belanger’s success lies in the approach - highlighting the humanity of businesses and operating online like a creator brand. When expertise meets engaging storytelling and timely references to what audiences are experiencing in the real world, the numbers speak for themselves: it creates not only trust, but both community and top-of-mind relevance to new and existing clientele.
The secret sauce lies in striking the right balance of potential for virality that brings attention and brand-centric content that builds authority and emphasizes expertise.
THE FUTURE
With momentum on their side from both our endeavors together and the Belanger crew’s unrelenting commitment to quality service, Belanger Tree Care has already expanded operations from the Greater Skowhegan area stretching toward the Canadian border. Our focus is now on continuing that growth as we’ve introduced paid campaigns, and scaling their digital presence to match their service footprint.
Our goal remains the same: solidify their reputation as Central Maine’s Most Trusted Arborist.
