Homeowners and businesses are continuing to look for ways to expand outdoor living areas. Not only does outdoor lighting significantly increase property value for your customer, but it can also make your business more profitable. Whether you are a seasoned lighting installer or looking to add lighting services to your business, staying up to date with the latest outdoor lighting trends and selling points is essential. Read on to learn about three of these trends.
1. Ledge lighting
Ledge lighting is a great technique to include in your lighting design portfolio. If you’re just starting out, ledge lights are relatively inexpensive and are a great way to light specific portions of a homeowner’s property. They are slim and fit under the cap of hardscapes, typically a block wall or a seating area. If you’re in hardscapes already, use this as an opportunity to add value through additional ambiance and the safety measures lighting brings to an outdoor living space.
2. Shadowing
Shadowing is a technique used to create a dramatic effect in your customers’ landscaping by placing a light directly in front of a plant, tree or shrub to cast a shadow. This uses the natural shadows of the tree to help dramatize an exterior surface. This look can be achieved by positioning the fixture 12 to 18 inches in front of a plant with light cast toward the wall or surface behind the plant—creating its shadow against the backdrop of the house.
3. Water accents
Over the last few years, many homeowners invested in their landscaping, and in many cases, this included adding water features or even a pool. Help your customers enhance these areas of moving water with accent lighting. Highlighting water in motion creates a calming effect that lasts into the evening. Accent a waterfall by staggering flood lights evenly in surrounding rocks on each bank and position them to wash across and over the moving water.
These three outdoor lighting trends will not only expand and enhance the living space for your customers, they will also give them year-round access and enjoyment to their landscape investment. With opportunities to upsell, outdoor lighting also presents an opportunity to increase your bottom line.
Demo kits
The best way to sell these three outdoor lighting trends is to take the time to prepare a demo kit for your customer. Outdoor lighting demos allow you to show architects, builders and homeowners what outdoor lighting will look like on a property. With lighting, you can’t count on imagination—seeing is believing. This is different from a technical sale, where things are “essential” for programs to run, like sprinkler heads in irrigation. Lighting is visual and emotional; you are trying to change how someone sees their space.
Demo kits will help you convey those emotions throughout the landscape and convert to sales. You can set up a demo for any outdoor space—the façade of a house or outdoor living area or lighting for security purposes.
While you can’t lay out landscape features like trees and ask customers for feedback, you can with landscape lighting, making it an extremely customizable opportunity for them and a great chance to upsell for you. Demos can also help you identify gaps before putting a lighting plan into place, which keeps you from having to add any fixtures (and subsequent costs) after the closing and reveal.
