A twelve-month marketing calendar for a gutter company

By Steve Meitler · 2026-08-25 · 6 min read

What to run in each of the two peaks, how to fill January and July, storm playbooks, and the offers that convert a cleaning customer into a guard job.

Gutter demand is not evenly spread and pretending otherwise is how owners end up with a January payroll problem. Two peaks carry the year: leaf drop from late September into November, and the spring window from March through May when winter debris, pollen and seed pods come down. Storms produce a third, unscheduled peak that can be worth more per day than either.

The dead stretches are January and February, and July and August. What you do in those four months decides whether you get to keep your crews.

August: sell the fall season before it starts

The fall schedule fills faster than owners expect. The last two weeks of October are usually gone by mid-September in a leafy metro, so the selling happens in August while nobody is thinking about it.

• Email and text every past customer: "We are booking fall cleanings now. Last year the last week of October filled by Labor Day. Reply with a week that works."
• Turn on the Meta cleaning offer with a date on it. Details in the Meta ads guide.
• Raise Google Ads budgets in the last week of the month.
• Post to your Google profile weekly with fall booking availability.

A company with 600 past customers can fill three to four weeks of the fall schedule from the list alone, at zero acquisition cost. That is the whole argument for keeping a clean customer list.

Late September through November: run the peak properly

Do not spend the peak acquiring customers you could have acquired in August. Spend it doing three things.

First, hold capacity for storm and emergency work. Two open slots per crew per day. Same-day availability during a wet week is worth double a routine cleaning and it is how you meet the customers who later buy guards.

Second, ask for a review on every single job. This is the eight-week window that determines your review count for the entire year. With the trade median at 6 reviews and 59.6% of companies under ten, a disciplined fall moves you past most of the field. The reviews guide has the process.

Third, book the second visit. Anybody with heavy tree cover needs a follow-up cleaning after the oaks finish in late November. Sell it on the spot.

December: the pivot month

Cleaning demand falls off a cliff after the last leaves. Two moves.

Sell repair and fascia work to the houses you just cleaned. Your crews photographed rot, sag, loose spikes and separated seams on 300 roofs in October. Every one of those photos is a quote waiting to be sent. Go through them and send twenty a week.

Start the guard campaign. Homeowners who just paid for two cleanings in three months are the most receptive audience for guards that exists, and they will never be more receptive than in December.

January and February: guards, installation and the books

This is where a gutter company either builds something or waits.

• Guard installation at a winter rate. "Book guard installation before March 1 and take 15% off, because our crews would rather work than wait for spring." Homeowners find that honest and it converts.
• Retarget your own customer list on Meta with the guard math: "You have paid us for six cleanings. Guards cost about four." That audience is the cheapest and best converting one you own.
• Seamless replacement in mild climates. Where the ground is not frozen, winter is a fine time to install and there is no competition for the crew.
• Fix the foundation. Rebuild the website, write the town pages, clean up the Google profile, set up missed-call text-back, and get the bookkeeping current. These are all things you cannot do in October. The website guide is the checklist.
• Commercial and property management prospecting. Property managers set their annual maintenance vendors in the first quarter and almost nobody calls them then. Only 15.6% of gutter companies even publish an email address on their listing, which tells you how little competition there is for that channel.

March through May: the spring peak

Spring is the underworked half of the year for most companies. Homeowners do not think about gutters in April, so demand has to be created rather than caught.

The angles that work:

• Winter damage. "Ice, wind and heavy snow pull gutters loose. Free inspection with any spring cleaning."
• Pollen, seed pods and helicopter seeds, which clog worse than leaves in many regions and which homeowners genuinely do not know about.
• Pre-storm season readiness, timed to your local rainy months.
• Roof-and-gutter packages with a pressure washing or roof cleaning partner.

Spring is also the right time to sell the twice-a-year maintenance plan to everyone you cleaned in the fall, which is covered in the pricing guide.

June, July and August: partnerships and installation

Cleaning demand is near zero and the heat makes ladder work miserable. Two things carry the summer.

Seamless installation and repair. Dry weather is the best installation condition of the year. Run ads on replacement terms rather than cleaning terms and let the cleaning budget rest.

Roofer partnerships. This is the highest-value summer activity in the trade and most companies never do it. A roofer replacing a roof almost always disturbs the gutters and rarely wants to run a gutter line himself. Approach it properly:

1. Make a list of the fifteen busiest roofing companies in your area. Not the nationals, the local ones with three to eight crews.
2. Show up with photos of your seamless work, your insurance certificate, and a per-foot subcontract rate.
3. Offer a same-week response promise and photos he can forward to his own homeowner.
4. Do the first job flawlessly and early. Do not ask for the second until the first is done.
5. Return the favor with roof referrals from your own cleaning route, where you see failing shingles constantly.

Two active roofing partners can carry a crew through January and July both. This is the closest thing to a moat a gutter company can build.

The storm playbook, any month

When a significant front is forecast 24 to 48 hours out:

• Post to the Google profile that day with held emergency slots.
• Launch the storm Meta ad, budget $30 a day for three days.
• Raise Google Ads bids 20% for the following morning.
• Confirm missed-call text-back is live and somebody is on the phone, including Saturday. Only 27.6% of gutter listings show Saturday hours, so answering is a differentiator.
• Keep the crews' cameras out. Storm damage photos are your best content for the following three months.

Storm weeks are the highest margin days in the trade. Being ready is a checklist, not a talent.

Frequently asked

Should I lay off crews in January? If the alternative is paying idle labor, that is a real business decision, but every owner who has built a winter guard and installation line says the same thing: keeping a good crew through winter costs less than rehiring and retraining in March.

Does advertising in July waste money? Cleaning advertising does. Installation and guard advertising in July is often cheaper per lead than in October, because the auction is quieter and the buyer is not in a hurry.

How far ahead should I book? Three to four weeks in peak, one week in shoulder season. Booked further out than a month and you start losing the same-day storm work, which is the profitable part.

Marketing that follows this calendar without you managing it is what the free 14-day trial is for. Text or call (385) 832-6175.