Why Customers Buy

Mosquitoes are a nuisance. That is why most customers seek out mosquito management programs, said PMPs.

“Our typical customer is a young family with pets or middle-aged with water access,” said Brent Young, Brent’s Bugs. “Generally, we hear they tend to be outside later in the day for family events, bonfires or working outside in the evenings.”

They don’t want to be eaten alive while doing so.

“Customers just want to be able to lounge on their back patio and not be slapping something every five seconds,” said Craig Keller, Bohannan Services. The company provides the service to mostly older customers who live on sloughs or marshes leading from creeks, rivers and lakes. The environment is ripe for mosquito breeding. “The backwater creates the issue,” he said.

Other customers want to reduce the risk of illness spread by the blood suckers, such as West Nile virus, Eastern equine encephalitis, dengue and other serious diseases.

Customers understand the risk of mosquito-borne diseases, reported 56% of PMPs in the 2026 PCT State of the Mosquito Control Market survey.

The high pressure of pests in general in Hawaii motivates people to call Sandwich Isle Pest Solutions. “We get a lot of people coming from parts of the country where they just don’t experience the pest pressure that we have. They come here and freak out, and they get every service under the sun,” said Steve Russo. This includes mosquito control.

Depending where they live on Oahu, mosquitoes can be fierce or nearly non- existent. If you live high on a ridge more exposed to wind, mosquitoes aren’t much of a problem. If you live in a wooded valley, they are. “Some places, they experience mosquitoes constantly, and other places almost never,” said Russo. “It’s real location dependent.”

This can make it difficult to market mosquito service to a broad area, said Russo. Instead, he relies on an individual approach where technicians offer solutions if they notice mosquito breeding issues while performing other services on the property.

Planet Pest Solutions, which offers monthly mosquito control from April through November to upscale residential accounts in Kansas City, Mo., also relies on technicians to sell the service.

“We don’t really advertise this program, but when we see evidence of mosquito presence or highly conducive conditions, we approach with a solution and a price,” said Craig George.

Bohannan Services starts promoting mosquito control in February. Keller puts a banner outside the office, which is located on a high-traffic road. He supports local sports teams and advertises online, including social media. Service vehicle decals work well. “They’re seen everywhere,” said Keller.

In the PCT survey, PMPs said the most effective types of advertising were word of mouth (67%), online efforts (63%) and email marketing (39%). Most service locations (43%) began marketing mosquito control services in March.

Olympic Pest & Termite Control mainly targets existing customers to add on the service. The company reaches out to customers in late January before the season starts, reminding customers to sign up. “We get a tremendous response doing that,” said Glenn Fordham.

Mosquito trap manufacturers have driven demand for mosquito service in South Florida, and that is prompting consumers to contact Hulett Environmental Services, said Ben Gillenwaters.

“The manufacturers of these new products have been educating the consumer, and so we’re getting a lot of interest on the new types of control methods. It’s really the consumer driving that, which is interesting,” he said.

Hulett typically uses traps in combination with other control products. “Being able to add the mosquito traps has been another tool in the arsenal to further reduce the mosquito numbers,” said Gillenwaters.

Olympic Pest & Termite Control saw customer interest jump when it incorporated mosquito traps into its control programs in 2024. “We’ve had pretty good success with them,” said Fordham, who said he expects technology like this to become the norm for mosquito control given anti-mosquito spraying sentiment in his market.

“I think that type of control is going to get to be more and more popular,” he said.