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Mental Health Marketing: How To Reach Your Ideal Client

Picture of Sabrina Martinez

Sabrina Martinez

More people are seeking mental health services than ever before, which means now is the time to revamp your mental health marketing strategy and build your client base. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen immense growth in the field of mental health, to the point that some mental health professionals are spending more time on the phone with potential clients than they are in sessions. However, just because your phone is ringing doesn’t mean your practice is seeing substantial growth or bringing in the right clients.

If you’re seeing an influx in unqualified leads reaching out to you (and by unqualified we mean people reaching out who are unfamiliar with your services or generally a poor fit for your practice), it means that your current marketing efforts aren’t targeting the right people. For example, if you’re a therapist located in New York that specializes in treating women’s mental health concerns but you’re consistently getting calls from men in Delaware asking if you’re accepting new clients, there’s probably something askew with your marketing.

Creating a mental health marketing strategy that targets your ideal client is the key to experiencing true growth and finding your happy spot as a therapist. In this blog, we’ll discuss how you can identify your ideal client, if you don’t already know who they are, and what you need to do to target them more effectively.

Ready to make your mental health marketing strategy? Tell us how we can help.

Who Is Your Ideal Client? Narrowing Down Your Mental Health Niche

Whether you’re just getting started as a therapist or you have several years of running your own practice under your belt, you likely have a type of client you like to work with best. Your ideal client will be unique to you, your specialties, and your passions.

You may assume being a generalist and accepting anyone who needs mental health services is the best way to build a client base. After all, if you’re struggling to get new clients and are desperate for new leads, it’s hard to rationalize not marketing to anyone and everyone who is looking for therapy. 

However, many therapists experience more growth by narrowing down their services. When you choose a niche and stick with it, you may actually see an increase in clients. Specializing in a specific area allows you to establish yourself as an expert in that subject. This lets you build credibility with your target audience and focus on what you’re most passionate about. And narrowing down your focus means you’re narrowing down your competition.

Questions for Discovering Your Ideal Client

If you don’t already have a clear idea of who your ideal client is, ask yourself these questions:

  1. What fills you with passion and gives you purpose as a therapist?
  2. What subject do you know so much about you could teach on it?
  3. What clients have you had the most success with in the past?
  4. Do you prefer providing one-on-one, couple, or group sessions?
  5. What is the gender, age range, characteristics, and background of your ideal client?
  6. Do you plan to accept insurance or only accept out-of-pocket payments?
  7. What is your service area?
  8. Will you be offering in-person therapy, teletherapy, or both?

These questions will help you narrow down what kind of clients you want to draw to your practice. You’ll also begin to discern some of the characteristics of your ideal client, which will be useful when you start to market to them.

How Mental Health Marketing Draws in Your Ideal Client

Once you have a clear idea of who your ideal client is, you can get laser-focused in your marketing. Marketing takes a lot of time and money, so the key to success is identifying the exact kind of client you want to draw to your practice and only putting effort into attracting those people. This is a much more productive use of your time and resources as you can spend less time weeding out unqualified leads (or answering phone calls that lead nowhere) and instead focus your energy toward fulfilling your passions and helping people that are a good fit for your practice.

Establishing Your Brand

Now, what goes into a great mental health marketing strategy? At the foundation of your marketing strategy is your brand, which ties in closely with your niche. Your mental health brand is what sets you apart from your competitors and gives clients a reason to visit you. This means developing a strong brand story, creating your missions and value statements, understanding your messaging and purpose, and designing logos, colors, and other visual elements that people can associate with your brand.

Making Your Website Accessible

Once you’ve clearly developed your brand, you need an accessible website that is easy to navigate so your ideal client can quickly identify that your practice is exactly what they’re searching for. This mental health website should be visually appealing. It should have a clear goal and purpose. And website visitors must be able to quickly find your services and know how to get in touch. The fewer barriers to access the better. Clear, eye-catching call-to-actions should be on every page of your website.

Learn about Google E-A-T and its impact on your SEO strategy

Creating Content That Matters

Next, you need content. Blogs, videos, and social media content serve several essential purposes in your mental health marketing strategy:

  • Create brand awareness
  • Educate your audience
  • Generate new leads
  • Convert leads into new clients

Mental health is a very personal topic. People put a lot more thought into choosing a mental health provider than they do when deciding what they want to eat for lunch. Your ideal client is out there, but they need to know you exist and trust you enough to reach out. Good content helps fulfill both of these needs.

What’s the key to putting out content that converts your ideal client into an actual client? Creating content that matters. People can often tell when you’re just trying to sell them something. Instead, aim to make a real connection with the person on the other end of your content. Your goal is to start a conversation with your audience and to offer them something of value.

Getting the Word Out

When you create content, the hope, of course, is that people will see it. With a strong SEO strategy and distribution plan in place, you can push this content into the world where your ideal client can see it. With SEO, your goal is to get your content on the first page of Google when people search specific keywords. A well-optimized blog ensures your ideal audience can find you when to search terms related to your services.

A content distribution strategy is another way to take the same piece of content and maximize its reach. Let’s say you’ve written a high-quality, educational blog. You can distribute this blog by posting a link to it on social media, creating a press release, converting it into a visual slideshow, making a podcast, or repackaging it into a white paper or e-book. Not only does this get as many eyes as possible on your content, it also saves you time by getting the most from every piece of content you produce instead of just focusing your strategy on creating more content that only a few people see.

Start Reaching Your Ideal Client

Concentrating your mental health marketing on your ideal client brings motivation and joy to what you do. You can focus on treating the issues you are most qualified to address and connecting with people that are the perfect fit for your practice. If you’re ready to make every phone call count, we can help you create a mental health marketing strategy that checks all the boxes.

Ready to get laser-focused in your marketing? Schedule your free consultation now.

The Seven-Step HVAC Marketing Checklist Your Business Needs

Picture of Sabrina Martinez

Sabrina Martinez

There are a couple of reasons why we love HVAC marketing. First, we respect your commitment to exceptional customer service. Second, we appreciate the service businesses like yours provide in keeping people safe and comfortable during the winters. Third, we love working with our HVAC marketing clients to create a brand that makes a splash in your local community.

If your business has grown to a point where you’re ready to bring on a HVAC marketing partner, we’re glad you’re here. Stick with us, because we’re going to set out a step-by-step checklist to help you identify all the areas in which your business can grow, scale, and thrive.

Want to jump in the fast lane? Schedule a free consultation now.

HVAC Marketing Relies on a Strong Brand

Step one: Create a brand so your HVAC company stands out from the rest.

A brand is so much more than a pretty logo and a catchy slogan. It needs to capture the essence of your business. Is your business family run? Are you locally born and bred? Are you the experts in your field? Is there something you do that your competitors don’t? What gives you an edge?

You need to create a brand story that customers will remember. One of the most interesting aspects of HVAC marketing – particularly if you’re working in the residential space – is that emotions always sell more than facts. (Okay, yes, you got us. Big commercial sales are a different story, but for the purposes of this blog we’re going to focus on direct-to-consumer sales.) People care how you make them feel. They want to trust you and they want to feel safe in your hands.

Once you get this right, it will set the tone for all of the steps to come.

Start HVAC Marketing Through Local Search

Step two: Make your presence known on Google so customers can find you.

Okay, now that you have a brand, the easiest way to start getting sales is to set up a Google My Business profile. It’s free and it means you’ll show up right at the top of the list when people search for things like “HVAC near me” or “Boilers near me.” You can add information about your business, such as contact details and opening hours, to make it as easy as possible for people to connect.

Importantly, Google My Business has a review tool (more on that later), so make sure you check it regularly to acknowledge people who leave good reviews and thank people who leave bad reviews. Think of this as constructive criticism that can help you address customer concerns, improve parts of your business, and figure out how to deliver a better service to people in your area.

Set Up HVAC Marketing Ads on Facebook

Step three: Capitalize on the opportunity to reach people through Facebook.

The next most important step, when it comes to connecting with people in your area, is to run Facebook Ads targeted to your ZIP code. This ensures your name is delivered straight into the pockets of anyone who might be looking for you (or might need your services in the future).

Brand recognition is key here. We don’t need to tell you that HVAC is a highly cyclical business, so it makes sense that HVAC marketing follows similar patterns. Often, it’s about being in the right place at the right time, so you should plan a strategy that runs over 12 months to maximize impact.

Get Reviews to Boost Your HVAC Marketing

Step four: Collect reviews everywhere you can to build trust.

Reputation is the most valuable thing any business has. Nothing will help your business grow like word of mouth; however, reviews are a pretty close second. Remember how we touched on them earlier? Google My Business is a great way to get reviews. You can also collect them on a Facebook business page or by emailing customers and asking them to write a review at the end of each job.

Reviews don’t just have to sit and collect dust. You can also repurpose them as content and share them on all your social media channels as well as your website. They’re extremely persuasive if someone is thinking about working with you for the first time. HVAC jobs can be expensive, every new customer will want reassurance they’re in safe hands. Again, it all ties back to trust.

Start Creating Helpful HVAC Content Online

Step five: Invest in helpful “how-to” videos and blog content to attract new customers.

This might be a little bit outside your comfort zone, but content is one of the easiest ways to make sure your business shows up at the top of the results page on Google. When it comes to HVAC, the most common questions inevitably start with, “How to.” Here are some examples:

  • How to clean my air ducts
  • How to re-light my pilot light
  • How to reset my thermostat
  • How to safely maintain my furnace
  • How to tell if my boiler needs replacing

Creating a series of short videos, or a series of helpful blogs, is a big investment when it comes to time. However, it can pay dividends, because it establishes your business as a local authority and gives you a chance to make a great first impression before a customer even picks up the phone.

Optimize Your Digital Sales Eco-System

Step six: Make it as easy as possible for customer to take the next step.

A digital sales eco-system is a relatively new concept when it comes to marketing. The idea is that you should optimize your efforts so that you can generate leads while you sleep.

This means making it clear who you are and how you can help customers in your area (brand), making your business as easy as possible to find (Google My Business + Facebook), helping them understand why you’re the best choice (reviews + content), and making it super clear what they need to do next. For example, get in touch! Set up an appointment! Schedule a free consultation! Keep it consistent and make sure it’s super clear on every platform you’re using.

There are lots of digital tools available to streamline this process so you can take online bookings. Simply put, a digital sales eco-system means the leads come to you. All you have to do each morning is check your inbox for messages and look over your appointments for the day. That’s it.

Keep Your HVAC Marketing Strategy Fresh

Step seven: Remember that marketing evolves quickly so you can’t set-and-forget.

The last thing we want to mention quickly is that digital marketing changes all the time. The steps we’ve laid out in this blog won’t change, but your strategy and messaging may. It’s worth setting aside a bit of time every month to research best practice to ensure you’re up to date. This is a simple way to ensure you’re maximizing ROI on your time and money while growing your business.

Want to Bring on an HVAC Marketing Partner?

If you’re nodding your head in agreement, but thinking there’s no way you’ll have enough to time plan and execute all of these steps on top of running your business, don’t stress.

That’s where we come in. Beacon Media + Marketing is a digital marketing agency based in Anchorage, Alaska, and Reno, Nevada. We specialize in helping HVAC businesses reach the next level – for example, Moore Heating. We achieved a 742% increase in web traffic with more than 180 new client inquiries every month. Sound good? You could be our next successful case study.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation here.

Two Important Mental Health Marketing Basics

Picture of Sabrina Martinez

Sabrina Martinez

Mental health is a rapidly growing field of health care. As demand increases, it makes sense that mental health marketing increases too. Right now, more Americans are accessing mental health services than ever before – partly because the outbreak of COVID-19 has challenged us in new and different ways and partly because we’ve all become much better educated on the subject.

At the end of the day, mental health marketing is about connecting the right providers with the right clients. We can all benefit from getting this right. Here are two mental health marketing campaigns that demonstrate a mastery of the basics: knowing thyself and knowing thy target audience. Both use video. Both encourage people to ask for help. Both highlight the brand’s values. Both can give you ideas to incorporate into your own marketing strategies moving forward.

Prefer to make your own headlines? Call our team today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnkSMOhPBOE

Mental Health Marketing Should Know Thyself

JanSport is a popular backpack brand. At the height of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, it decided to conduct its own research to find out how its target market – Gen Z – was faring. It commissioned a survey through Pew Research, which revealed that 70% of people were struggling. The company wanted to do something about it, so it created that #LightenTheLoad campaign.

This is great for a few reasons – but let’s focus on the many fine puns that ensued:

  • The mission was to “unpack” the mental health crisis
  • If something is weighing you down, let it out
  • If you’re not sharing it, you’re carrying it
  • Help lighten the load

Remember this is a backpack brand. Its messaging was bold, consistent, and smart. It could have checked the proverbial “do good” box and blithely trotted out some clichéd comments about how much it cared for its consumers – but that wouldn’t have aligned with its values. Let’s be real: a lot of the copywriting that echoes around the internet really is incredibly lazy.

However, JanSport is a company that cares about social issues like fair working environments and modern slavery. As such, it invested the time and effort to create a campaign that brought these values to life with thoughtful messaging that tied the #LightenTheLoad campaign to the broader vision and mission. It knows itself and it has a very clear set of brand guidelines.

The importance of a great brand can’t be overstated, because it reflects the beating heart of your company. The best way to start is by gathering your team and brainstorming three things:

  1. Vision: Why do you do what you do? What are you hoping to achieve?
  2. Mission: How are you going to get there? What action are you going to take?
  3. Values: What principles will guide your decisions? How will you resolve conflicts?

Once these elements are crystal clear, you can move onto aspects like key messaging, visuals, sale funnels, and other marketing collateral. However, it’s important not to rush, because these statements are things you’re going to refer to over and over again as your practice grows and you reach the stage where you can launch mental health marketing campaigns of your own.

This one is the perfect example. The campaign probably didn’t make a lot of commercial sense – at least, not initially. It costs money to produce high-quality videos and create resources hubs. Don’t get us wrong, it’s great from a brand recognition and loyalty perspective, but it will take time for that to trickle down to your bottom line. However, JanSport’s values are such that it seized the opportunity to speak up and try to make a difference. We can’t help by admire that.

Key messaging need a refresh? It’s time for a new brand story.

Mental Health Marketing Should Know Thy Audience

Instagram is home to a community of approximately 1 billion active monthly internet users. This gives the company a front-row seat to people’s lifestyles, relationships, and internal monologues. Back in 2017, founder and CEO Kevin Systrom announced a campaign called #HereForYou. It included a blog (which you can read here) and a one-minute video featuring a number of Instagram users discussing their mental health struggles, including suicide, depression, anxiety. It was designed to show people the importance of finding support within their communities on the platform.

This mental health marketing campaign was great for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is the fact that it nailed its target audience. Instagram is primarily used by younger people, with an estimated two thirds of users aged between 18-34. The video features people in this demographic, talking about the kinds of issues that pop up on the platform all the time, before bringing it home with a frequently used hashtag. It’s presented in a way that makes them feel like your own friends, so nothing is forced or cheesy. It’s the right message, via the right medium, to the right audience.

Now, running a mental health marketing campaign for Instagram is a little different to running one for a suburban mental health practice. It’s a juggernaut of the social media world, with access to an enormous amount of data (and an enormous amount of people to crunch it). It’s unreasonable to plan a campaign at the same scale, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a thing or two.

Here are our key takeaways:

  1. Define your target audience. What kinds of people are most likely to come to you for help? How old are they? What gender? Where do they live? What’s their level of education? These questions will help you craft a message that specifically appeals to this group of people.
  2. Listen to your target audience. Once you’ve figured out who you’re talking to, you need to figure out what you’re talking to them about. One of the best things about Instagram’s campaign is the fact that it didn’t manufacture anything – it used words its audience was using, it explored themes they were exploring, and it used a hashtag that was trending.
  3. Meet your target audience on their level. Instagram users love video: first there were post videos, then there were Stories, then there were Reels. That’s why video was so effective for this campaign. Instagram could have created a mental hub, with a brand-new website and social media accounts, but it didn’t. It was restrained, with a simple but powerful approach.

Want to boost your social media marketing? Learn about our services.

Inspired to Create Your Own Mental Health Marketing Campaign?

Mental health marketing can be as simple or sophisticated as you like. However, every successful campaign comes back to two basic questions. First, who are you? Second, who is your target audience? Once those are answered, you can start thinking about the rest of your strategy. What sets you apart from your competitors? Why should consumers care about your practice? How can you optimize delivery of services to give clients the best experience possible?

We can guide you every step of the way, whether you’re looking to change lives in your local area or change the world. We’re a full-service mental health marketing agency, which means our team can cover everything from branding to strategy, web design and development, videography and photography, social media, content marketing, paid advertising, and more.

Let’s put these lessons into practice. Schedule your free consultation now.

Learn From Real Businesses in Mental Health Marketing

Picture of Sabrina Martinez

Sabrina Martinez

Mental health marketing is an exciting space for two reasons.

First, mental health providers make meaningful differences in the lives of their clients every day. That’s a truly awesome thing and, as marketers, we have so much respect for what you do.

Second, therapists are an innovative group of people who are always looking for ways to make things better for clients. The enormous volume of behavioral health research published every year makes this clear. But the actions of individual therapists also make a big difference.

We love helping mental health professionals grow their practices and help increasing numbers of people in their local areas. With that in mind, we want to show a little client appreciation. Here’s an overview of some of our favorite mental health marketing clients (and why we love them).

Want to get your name on this list? Tell us what you need.

Innovating in Mental Health Marketing

Marketing is a rapidly evolving field. Just because something has been working for a while doesn’t mean it’s going to work forever. For example, we know you’ve heard of a little website called Psychology Today. We also know it’s highly likely that you have a profile and that it probably drives huge amounts of referrals through to your front desk. It’s served the industry for a long time.

Our client Nancy Cowden, a licensed marriage and family therapist from San Diego, California, believes it’s time for the next evolution. She’s been working as a therapist for about 20 years, opening her own practice about nine years ago. She gets a whole lot of referrals from Psychology Today, which on paper is a good thing. The truth is, however, that she’s crazily busy.

She has no availability to help. Prospective patients are frustrated because they’ve been trawling through profile after profile, looking for someone with the right skillset, who takes the right insurance, who has the right availability to help. Nancy is frustrated because the calls and emails keep piling up and it means she has to squeeze in time between sessions or stay late at the end of the day just to call them back and tell them how sorry she is that she can’t help.

It’s more than just an inconvenience. It’s dangerous, because the majority of people are at or near a crisis point when they need help. The last thing they need is to be overwhelmed by the process of trying to find a therapist. Nancy knew there had to be a better way, which is why she started Ravel Mental Health, a platform that will revolutionize online bookings for therapists.

It uses an extensive and inclusive set of filters to ensure prospective clients can match with local therapists who are the perfect fit. What’s more, they can check your availability and make an appointment on the spot. That means no more phone calls hanging over your head. No more administration-related stress. And no more turning away people who need help.

It’s a win-win. You can see why we love it, right? And while you’re here, why don’t you go ahead and sign up for the Ravel Mental Health newsletter to stay up-to-date with Nancy’s progress.

Read more: Mental health marketing tools every therapist needs

Finding a Mental Health Marketing Niche

One of the simplest ways you can take your mental health marketing campaign to the next level is to find a niche. This allows you to target specific people with specific problems, which ensures you have the skills and experience to make a real impact in someone’s life. This is another win-win scenario, because helping your clients get their lives back on track increases the chance of a word-of-mouth recommendation. After all, this is – and will always be – the most powerful form of marketing.

Our client, Dr. Christina Zampitella, is a perfect example. She specializes in thanatology, which is the scientific study of grief and loss. Christina became interested in this field after experiencing grief and loss first-hand and realizing there was a need for specialist therapy services for the bereaved. Her practice, the Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy, is the only mental health provider in Delaware that focuses on this field. It helps people recover from unspeakable loss and rebuild their lives.

Her message is incredibly positive: that healing creates hope. Having walked this path herself, her key messaging is warm and inclusive, focusing on things clients frequently say:

  • I feel like I’m grieving wrong…
  • I don’t know where to start…
  • I don’t know how I’m going to get through this…
  • I’m not sure I need therapy…
  • I feel like I’m totally stuck…

Everyone experiences grief and trauma differently. Christina is committed to helping clients understand that whatever they’re feeling, or not feeling, is completely normal. She knows it takes a lot of courage to reach out and ask for help. She also knows she can help them get better.

All the clinicians working at the Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy specializes in a sub-niche. That means whether you’re a grieving couple, a grieving child, a surviving parent or sibling, or someone who has experienced any other type of grief or loss, you can find the support you need. They are ready to help clients process their experiences and find meaning in what happened… but only when they’re ready to do so. Christina ensures no-one has to walk the road to recovery alone.

We wholeheartedly support the Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy, both from a values perspective and a marketing perspective. There is a valuable lesson here for other mental health providers looking to help as many people as possible – choose a niche, and start small to go big.

Read more: Telemedicine is booming, so it’s time to develop your strategy

Making Change with Mental Health Marketing

The final client we’re going to talk about today is Dana Group Associates. It’s a large multi-disciplinary behavioral health service based in Massachusetts, with more than 50 providers. The team includes everyone from psychiatrists to psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, licensed mental health counselors, and more.

America is facing a mental health crisis. About 23 million adults received mental health services in 2019, according to figures from the National Institute of Mental Health. However, even in states with the greatest access, about 38% of people are not receiving the services they need. Dana Group Associates runs on the premise that behavioral health support should be easy to access. That value is clear the moment you click on the home page, because it’s the first text you see.

This practice is interesting because it has the resources to make significant change in the lives of the communities it serves. At the time of writing, it’s offering a 12-week psychotherapy group to help COVID-19 first responders develop resilience. The program is designed to support doctors, nurses, and EMTs by helping them process what’s happening around them and develop coping skills.

Dana Group Associates doesn’t require clients to reach any thresholds before they can ask for help. They simply accept each person as they come, making it as easy as possible for incoming clients to connect with the right provider and take the first steps on their mental health journey.

Here at Beacon Media + Marketing, we consider ourselves a values-based business. It means the world to us when we partner with a company whose values we share, because it means we’re just as excited about your success as you are. We want to help you create the mental health marketing plan you need to grow, scale, thrive, and help as many people as possible.

Does this resonate with you? Schedule a free consultation to discuss.

Mental Health Marketing Tools Every Therapist Needs

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Sabrina Martinez

Why do we need mental health marketing? Let’s start with mental health services. Mental health services are designed to help people, often through the toughest times in their lives, so they can be happy and healthy and achieve their goals. It’s pretty straightforward – if you’re reading this blog, you’re likely to be a therapist, so we won’t tell you what your job entails.

Marketing comes into the picture when you want to connect with new clients. Maybe you’ve just graduated with your degree. Maybe you’ve just joined a new practice. Maybe you’ve gone out on your own and started a business. Whichever category fits your circumstances, you need to get the word out so that local people know they can turn to you when they need help.

In this blog, we’ll cover the basics of digital mental health marketing.

Want to jump in the fast lane? Call our team for a free consultation.

Digital Media is Critical to Mental Health Marketing Success

This might seem really obvious, but we really can’t emphasize just how important digital media is to success in the mental health marketing space. If you haven’t started yet, get excited about growth! If you’ve already got a strategy in place, stick with it. It’s well worth the effort over the long-term.

The reason is simple: you’re meeting people where they spend the majority of their time. The average American now spends more time looking at screens than they do sleeping – according to data from Nielsen, screen time has now reached approximately 10 hours and 39 minutes per day.

If you’re thinking seriously about mental health marketing, we’ll assume you already have a decent website in place. This means something SEO-friendly, with great information, a professional and modern appearance, fast loading speeds, and a good user experience. (If not, there’s no need to stress! We would be delighted to help – you can read about our web development service here.)

Your website will form the foundation for your entire social media campaign. This includes:

  • Your branding, including colors, fonts, and styling
  • Your key messaging, which will flow from your homepage
  • Your target audience, which will flow from your services page
  • Your calls-to-action, which will direct people toward your contact page

Want to learn more about social media marketing? Check out our service.

Google is a Springboard for Mental Health Marketing

Let’s start with Google. Once your website is set up, you’ll need to create a Google My Business profile. You know the business panel that pops up on the right-hand side of your Google Search Results? That’s Google My Business. Or when you search for a service in your area and a map pops up with pins showing all the locations? Yup, that’s Google My Business again.

It’s not just desirable for local businesses to have a profile. It’s essential. Without a presence on Google My Business, you’re missing the low-hanging fruit. People searching for mental health services WANT to find a provider who can help them. It makes sense that they find you.

Google My Business allows you to list important details such as your location, opening hours, and contact information. You can also answer frequently asked questions, collect and respond to reviews, and post content showcasing your products, services, and wins.

While we’re talking all things Google, let’s turn our attention to Google Ads. You know how, when you search for something via Google, the first three or four results often have the word Ad in bold? That means someone has put some money behind the search term you used to ensure their business ranks. There are two types you should know about: search ads and display ads.

Search ads are connected to keywords – for example, “mental health marketing in Anchorage.” If you’ve created ads targeting this phrase, it will ensure that you pop straight to the list when people type this combination of words into Google’s search bar. Again, it makes sense to go after the easy wins. These people are actively searching for you, so you need to make yourself easy to find.

Short on time? You can outsource your Google marketing.

Mental Health Marketing on Facebook

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in the world, which makes it perfect for mental health marketing. You can deliver your key messaging straight into the pockets of the people who need yours services in two ways: organic content and paid ads.

Organic content describes all the things you normally publish: inspirational posts, new research, new practice members, informative videos, interesting images, and events such as webinars. There’s no secret to success here (sorry). The key is to be consistent as possible, which means posting regularly and making sure you stick to a theme. Remember how we said your website would form the foundation for your entire campaign? Keep referring back to it to ensure you stay on track.

Consistency is important because it allows members of the public to feel like they are getting to know you. The very last thing any marketer wants to do – especially in the mental health marketing space – is take a client by surprise. Many clients are vulnerable – we don’t have to tell you that people often wait until they’re nearing a crisis point to reach out. We want them to feel safe and secure. We also want to position you as being an expert and your practice as being trustworthy.

And what about paid ads? This refers to the “dark side” of Facebook – the Business Manager. You can log in here to create targeted advertisements educating people about your services. You can be quite specific, using filters such as location, gender, age, and interests to ensure you reach your target audience. Once this is set up, you can also “boost” posts. Say, for example, that you post a video talking about depression, and you notice that it’s getting really great engagement. Boosting this post – putting a little bit of money to boost distribution – means more people will see it.

Feeling overwhelmed? We have a dedicated Facebook team.

YouTube Can Boost Your Mental Health Marketing

The final platform we’re going to discuss today is YouTube. Before we dive into that, however, we’re going to recap three important points we’ve covered to ensure they’re front-of-mind:

  1. Americans spend most of their waking hours on screens
  2. If people are looking for you, you need to be easy to find
  3. Trust is the cornerstone of successful mental health marketing

Add 1 + 2 + 3 and what do you get? Okay, we’re marketers here and not mathematicians, but to us that screams VIDEO. (Apologies if you were going to say SIX.) Video capitalizes on each of these points. Talk to people and meet them where they’re spending their time. Make yourself visible, because this ensures people know they can turn to you for support in times of crisis. And finally, build trust by letting people get to know you. Yes, video can be a little intimidating if you’re new to the medium, but it’s a great way to virtually build a rapport with a wide group of people.

Video has exploded in the last decade. An estimated five billion videos are watched on YouTube every day and the platform is especially popular with people aged 30 and below. This makes it an excellent long-term growth strategy. Starting now will put you ahead of the curve.

Start Your Mental Health Marketing Campaign

Mental health marketing isn’t just about building a business, but helping as many people as possible. That’s why it’s so important to have the right tools in place. Each platform we’ve discussed will help you connect with new people in your area – and more than that, make yourself available to people who are actively searching for someone with your professional expertise and experience.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation today.

Fitness marketing 101: Making your brand stand out

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Sabrina Martinez

The fitness industry is a crowded space, so it’s important to create a memorable brand to attract and retain customers. In order to stay competitive and relevant in today’s business environment, you need to embrace and adopt a strong fitness marketing strategy. Here are the basics you need to know.

Want to set your business apart?  Talk to one of our experts.

Creating a strong and authentic brand

Having a strong and authentic brand is crucial to your fitness marketing strategy.  So how do you create that brand? Building a brand is never straightforward, and when you’re in an industry that deals with people’s health and fitness, it’s important to brand yourself correctly to gain trust with your customers.

A strong brand is more than a fancy logo and tagline. It’s a way to set your business apart from the rest. And fitness marketing is more than just posting photos of your gym or fit people via ads. It’s about communicating with a real audience by providing them with real messages that resonate.

Just like your clients, you need to make sure your brand has a strong heart. Your brand should clearly communicate the philosophy that drives your fitness business and conveys the top-notch quality of your service or product. Your brand is an articulation of your core beliefs, specifically your:

  • Vision: What future do you want to help create?
  • Mission: How do you create that future?
  • Values: What matters the most to you?

Vision

Everyone in the fitness industry understands the importance of settings goals. Your vision is your goal, and it should communicate the difference you will create in your customer’s lives.

Mission

Your mission statement will define your fitness marketing goals. What are you doing to reach your goals? Why? For example, do you want to enhance performance? Or do you want to create a sense of community?

Values

Whether you realize it or not, you have likely already built your entire gym or fitness brand around your core values. And while those values probably include health and fitness, you’ll need to think outside of the box to stand out from your competition. In an industry that’s rife with myths and misinformation, what you stand for can demonstrate your credibility and attract the right customers. This is the key to your fitness marketing strategy.

Your vision, mission, and values all drive what you do, but it’s impossible to be everything to everyone. If you’re marketing messages are going to cut through the noise, they need to be designed with a specific audience in mind.

Winning over the right clients online

When you’re developing a fitness marketing stategy, it’s extremely important to focus on who your customers are, because they’re the center of your business universe. A great way to determine your target audience is through well-crafted customer personas. This is a detailed description of exactly who your customer is, including information such as demographics, goals, behaviors, hobbies, and more. Customer personas help you visualize specific groups within your current and audience.

These groups might have different reasons for seeking fitness services. If you can understand their needs and motivations, you can create more effective marketing campaigns. For example, let’s say you run a yoga studio that offers group classes to its members. Your audience might include personas such as:

  • Sarah Sometimes: She’s an avid hiker who only comes to the studio when outdoor conditions are unfavorable.
  • Weight Loss Wayne: His goal is to feel comfortable and supported as he works on his weight loss goals.
  • Timid Tommy:  He’s never gone to a yoga class before and is nervous about the idea of trying something new in a group setting.
  • Newcomer Natalie: She’s an avid yogi, but recently moved to the area and doesn’t have a preferred studio yet.
  • Friendly Fran: She comes to yoga classes to socialize with friends.

You’ll need a slightly different strategy to reach each of these customers. Once you develop customer personas, you can target your fitness marketing efforts to services that speak to their preferences and challenges.

For example, maybe Sarah Sometimes would enjoy a group hike that ends with yoga in the mountains. Friendly Fran might find a yoga and happy hour fun, so she can enjoy a drink with her friends. Or Timid Tommy might feel more comfortable in a beginners-only yoga class so he can learn the poses.

Overall, fitness marketing is more effective if it’s personalized to specific audience segments.

Building an strong online presence

Having an online presence is imperative for businesses today, since it allows you to generate more leads and target your audience more effectively. Here are a few tips to help you grow and maintain your online presence.

Boost your local ranking

If you’ve ever used Google to search for a service or product, you will surely have noticed one thing: the search results appear based on the location set or that is automatically detected, either from a smartphone or from a computer.

If you’re trying to attract more local leads to buy your services or products, Google My Business is the ideal online advertising tool for you. Google My Business results provide business information including photos, location, hours, contact information, and reviews. Creating a My Business listing for your gym or fitness business makes it as easy as possible for potential customers to find it, maximizing the chances that you will get a new customer.

Here’s how to optimize your Google My Business page to get noticed and stand out from other business.

  • Enter complete information: Make sure you fill out as much information as possible on your My Business profile, including your phone number, physical address, and category. This makes it easier for Google to match your business with relevant searches, increasing the odds that you’ll show up in a potential customer’s search.
  • Verify your location: Google provides several verification methods to prove your business is where you say it is, which increases the chances it shows up on Google Search and Maps.
  • Update your hours: Make sure your hours and holiday hours are up to date on your My Business listing. This lets potential customers know when you’re open for business and improves the reliability of your listing.
  • Respond to reviews: Read and respond to the reviews your customers leave about your business. This shows your customers that you care about them. Receiving high-quality, positive reviews from customers will help your business’ image and increase the chances it’ll show up on Search.
  • Add photos: Uploading photos to your listing helps you show potential members your facilities, equipment, and amenities, increasing the chances that they’ll choose your business.

Put the “social” into social media

Having your business online is not enough. Your fitness marketing strategy needs to include business accounts on all social media platforms that your customers favor. These accounts help you promote your business and nurture the relationships you have with both current and prospective customers.

Some things you can post on social accounts include posts about students’ progress (if they give you permission), nutrition tips, and video clips of workouts – the point is, you want to be as visual as possible, and social media makes that easier than ever!

Capitalize on content marketing

In addition to social media, content marketing stands out as a powerful and cost-effective strategy to reach an engaged audience and grow your client base. Traditional fitness marketing is geared toward selling a particular product or service, the goal of content marketing is to provide informational content for readers in an effort to establish your company as an authority. This increases awareness of your brand without explicitly promoting your fitness business, making people feel like they’ve stumbled across you all by themselves.

There are many different types of content marketing, including blog posts, emails, podcasts, infographics, and videos. As long as the content is educational, entertaining, or informative and not overtly ‘salesy,’ content marketing can be a highly effective way to demonstrate your expertise and establish yourself as an industry leader.

Developing a clear sales funnel

The final step to a strong fitness marketing strategy is building a sales funnel. This is essentially your customer journey, from the moment they first hear about your fitness company to the moment they sign up for a membership or make a purchase. Most sales funnels start with a general audience and use retargeting campaigns to deliver increasingly segmented ad campaigns to potential customers, depending on where they are in their buying journey.

Start with Facebook Ads

One way to initiate the sales funnel is through Facebook Ads. Facebook advertising, specifically, can be a hyper-targeted way to get the word out about your fitness brand and reach your target audience on social. The best part: Facebook ads are relatively inexpensive.

Follow with Landing Pages

Landing pages are a great fitness marketing tool. They work alongside your website to capture a completely different source of online traffic. While your website is capturing leads from those actively searching the web for “fitness programs near me,” landing pages are enticing viewers with an attention-grabbing promotions.

A landing page is a single page on your website built to achieve a single conversion objective. It’s a page that’s designed, written, and created for a single purpose. For your fitness business, this could mean a number of different things, like booking a gym tour for a potential new member or signing someone up for a free trial class at your yoga studio. Landing pages don’t want you to sign up for a gym membership AND buy workout clothing AND contact a trainer – they have only a single ask.

Bring in the Experts

If you don’t have time or aren’t sure where to start with your fitness marketing, consider hiring a digital marketing agency. Agencies have the tools and expertise to help make your brand come to life. Think of it as a supplement regime – in order for your marketing to be effective, sometimes you need a little help. A digital marketing agency can provide your fitness marketing with a boost of energy to launch effective campaigns that work.

See how we can help grow your business. Get in touch today.  

Is dental marketing worth the investment?

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Sabrina Martinez

The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending 7-8% of gross revenue on marketing. Why? When it comes to dental marketing, the pay-off can be huge. An online marketing strategy does take time and money, however. As a dentist running a practice, it can be difficult to find the time and resources to effectively run an online marketing strategy. Here are a few tips to get you started and get your phone ringing.

Looking for more information? Talk to our marketing experts.

Dental marketing is key to staying competitive

The dental workforce has been projected to grow 19% from 2016 to 2026 — much faster than the average growth rate for other industries – rising from 153,500 dentist jobs in 2016 to a projected 182,800 jobs by 2026.

The American Dental Association (ADA) Health Policy Institute contributes this anticipated growth to an influx of younger and more diverse dentists, something they predict will continue through 2037. Not to mention that more and more dentists are waiting even longer to retire. The result is a marketplace that is oversaturated with qualified dentists who are competing for the same clients.

The good news is that despite this increased competition, the overall demand for dental services remains strong. In 2019, 64.9% of American adults visited the dentist at least once within the past year, up from 58% in 2018.

But patients won’t automatically file into your office. If you aren’t attracting new customers to your office, then you’re losing patients to your competitors. Other practices are marketing themselves, even if you’re not.

With the market not getting any less competitive in the coming years, the key to success is to create an effective and forward-thinking dental marketing plan. Branding is critical in marketing because otherwise your business will get lost in the competitive crowd. This is why investing time and money in branding is worth it.

Building trust and loyalty online

Building a trustworthy brand for your dental practice is the single most important thing you can do to set yourself up for success in the long term. A better brand means better marketing results, which means more patients and more revenue for your company.

Your brand will give patients a reason to choose you over another dentist. But if you expect patients to put their health in your hands over someone else’s, you first have to earn their trust. Your dental marketing can help you build that much-needed trust to create a loyal customer base you can depend on for many years to come.

You don’t want to focus all of your dental marketing efforts on attracting new patients, though. New patients are critical, but beware of concentrating too much on them. Acquiring new patients is costly in comparison to retaining current patients. For most dental offices, the cost to acquire a new patient is between $250 and $300. By focusing on existing patients first, you are subsequently investing in prospective patients for a fraction of the cost.

Prospective patients often pay careful attention to the opinions and experiences of current or past patients. What an existing patient has to say about your dental practice will significantly influence whether a potential client chooses your practice. Conversion rates for new patients are usually much higher for practices that invest in improving patient satisfaction and patient loyalty.

With the internet creating a hyper-connected environment, patients pay a lot of attention to things such as online reviews, website testimonials, and ratings. If your practice builds up positive reviews and ratings from existing patients, this can help create a strong online reputation for your brand.

Strategically manage your reputation with dental marketing

Dental marketing and reputation management has greatly evolved over the past few decades, and even more so in 2020. As mentioned above, dental practices are now able to receive feedback in multiple public spaces, through the help of the internet.

According to Google Trends, there has been a 6x growth in searches for “dentist near me” over the past 5 years. When current or potential patients see your practice on Google, a certain amount of stars will appear next to it based on your overall patient reviews. Customers may also be able to see your ratings and reviews on Yelp or Facebook.

According to The Local Consumer Review Study, 91% of people read online reviews, with 84% trusting online reviews as much as their friends.

A positive star reassures current patients that they already have the best dentist around and encourages potential patients to contact your practice to learn more. However, no reviews, or a less than 3-star rating could be a red flag and may steer potential new patients away.

So, how can you take control of your dental practice’s online reputation?

Make it easy for patients to find you

Your Business Listings

If you haven’t already, claim your dental practice’s listings on third-party review sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Angie’s List, and Healthgrades. You should ensure your profiles are completed and optimized with accurate information about your hours, phone number, address, and any other details that can give potential patients a high-level overview about your practice and the services you provide.

Your Website

There’s about a 70% chance that a patient’s first interaction with you will be through your website, so it needs to make a good impression. Your site needs to look professional, be well-organized for easy navigation, and be thorough in the information it offers visitors.

Your Social Media

Social media gives your practice an opportunity to reach out to potential and existing patients to build and strengthen relationships. In addition to staying in touch with patients online, you can also provide updates and information. This is also a great place to collect reviews from existing patients. A positive social media community for your practice provides new patients with more potential touchpoints, and a better immediate first impression whenever they find you.

Generate More Positive Reviews

The best way to get more positive patient reviews? Ask! Here are a few of our favorite ways to get more reviews online:

  • Follow up with patients via email or text after their appointment. Digital communication is great way to ask patients if they were pleased with their appointment. If they say “yes!” ask if they’d be willing to provide a review for you online. Make sure to include a link to the exact review site that you’d like to have a review left on to make it easier for the patient.
  • Train office staff. After each appointment, train your office staff to ask how their visit was. This way, if a patient was disappointed with how something went, your office can address the issue right then and there. If the patient responds positively, staff can quickly follow up with a request to leave a positive review online.
  • Add signage in your office. Let patients know you want positive reviews by having signs in your office that politely asks patients to leave a review online. Sometimes you just need to get it on a patient’s radar and they will happily oblige!

Embrace Negative Reviews

If and when you receive a dreaded negative review, the first thing to remember is to always remain calm. Respond within 48 to 72 hours so other viewers can see that you’re actively monitoring online reviews.

Getting a negative review isn’t the end of the world – if potential patients see you provide a genuine and professional response, they will understand that things can happen. The most important things you can do after receiving a negative review are:

  • Analyze the complaint and note the validity of your patient’s points; if your practice made a mistake, this is the time to own it – it instills accountability. Apologize to the reviewer and let them know that you want work toward a successful resolution.
  • Consider the bad review as opportunity to improve. Bad reviews can help you understand what you’re doing wrong, and where you can make improvements in your practice.
  • Finally, make sure to follow-up with the patient. Give them a number or email address where they can reach you and keep the lines of communication open. This lets patients know you’re dedicated to making the situation right.

Bring on a marketing partner

Reputation management can be both a mysterious concept and stressful situation for dental practices. You likely have a multitude of questions on how to get reviews, improve your online reputation, as well as the effect reviews can have on your business from both a patient-perspective in addition to SEO. The right marketing agency can help your practice increase new patient numbers and thrive with cohesive dental marketing strategies.

Ready to up your dental marketing strategy? Call us now.

Five fun financial marketing strategies to try in the year ahead

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Sabrina Martinez

This year has been a wild ride. Our dreams of visiting Europe, or even visiting family and friends interstate for the holidays, may be on hold – but our business goals are still in full play, and so are our marketing plans. The sector has changed drastically in the past 12 months. We’re seeing companies having real conversations on social media, personalizing  experiences, and reinventing themselves as real people behind a screen.

It’s been a year of experimenting with new digital marketing strategies to reach your target audience and start generating new leads online. There’s never been a better time to have a little fun with your financial marketing strategy.

Want to generate new leads? Schedule a free consultation.

Content, content, content

Content marketing is a beautiful thing, and a great way to drive people to your website. Whether you’re starting a conversation, doing a giveaway, or sharing an educational video, content marketing can create valuable relationships with your audience.

It’s no secret that finance is probably not everyone’s first language. That’s why it’s crucial to educate prospects about what your products and services can do for them. Everyone has that one website that they go to for information. Our goal is to make YOUR website everyone’s first stop. Giving yourself a credible and trustworthy reputation is worth it in the long run because people are always learning.

But it’s not just your audience that you have to convince about your credibility. Google is always prioritizing websites and social media channels by targeted keywords. If you’re posting quality content but only posting once a month, Google probably won’t give you a good ranking. This is why creating a quality content marketing calendar may be beneficial.

Break it down into bite-sized chunks, use fun analogies, experiment with creative media, and take customers along for the ride. Mapping out your content for the month on all channels will help you stay ahead of the game, plan for upcoming national or industry trends, and give yourself the time to tailor everything to fit your brand. Remember, the people you’re targeting are not experts, so take the time to connect with your audience on a human level and explain why you’re different.

The power of influencers

Before you reject the idea of using influencers for financial marketing, get the image of Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber, or Taylor Swift out of your head. We would never do that to you.

Influencer marketing has taken the world by storm. Whether you know it or not, you have been exposed to influencer marketing ever since you were a child. Remember that big man with the red suit who made Coca-Cola look magical? That’s right, Santa Claus is the original influencer. Following the release of Santa in their 1995 holiday campaign, Coca-Cola’s net income increased from $708 million to $802 million, compared to 1994, while the New York Times reports that revenue rose 9.7%. It’s not that companies couldn’t vouch for their products themselves, it’s just that families trusted the big guy in the red suit.

It turns out it’s not about what the message is saying, it’s about who is saying it. This is a great opportunity to think outside the square and try something new.

According to a recent study conducted by the McCarthy Group, most millennials trust their relationships on social media for information more than most news sources. Who are they looking to find their right home? The right baby products? The right home decor? Whoever that is, that is your influencer. If a rapper like Snoop Dog can attract 50,000 new users in just one week to make Klarna, a Swedish bank app, into Europe’s largest fintech product… then the possibilities are truly endless. How can you use this technique in your business?

Capitalize on digital storytelling

Stories stick. Historically, when it comes to financial marketing, we’ve found that many firms play it safe and stay a little on the stiff side. The ads they run are usually text-heavy and cover topics that people without a basic background in finance wouldn’t even begin to comprehend. Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to reach your audiences – this can include videos, blogs, reviews, testimonials, and can be as serious or as silly as you like.

A popular idea for most financial small businesses would be to feature customers who have been loyal or have an influential story tying them to you. 82% of Gen Z would be more trusting of a company if they use people who are customers according to Business Wire.

If someone has an established connection with your small business, they will sit through that 15-second ad you have on YouTube or anywhere else. Specifically, 58% of young people according to a study from Defy. A great example of this is Amazon’s “Meet” ads, which feature short stories from people throughout the entire company like warehouse workers, truck drivers, and packagers. These people share uplifting and inspiring stories about their time at the company to make customers feel emotionally invested.

These stories are examples of ways that digital storytelling can evoke strong emotions, create a lasting memory, and give your small business a human persona. They’re short enough to share on social channels and websites, all the while being shareable and accessible, which will help set you apart from the competition and create a lasting impression. And remember, it’s okay to use a little humor to set your brand apart.

Strategize on social media

Social media is such a powerful tool in today’s world. People of all ages are using it to connect with companies and brands that resonate with them and people who influence them. It’s even becoming a part of our daily routines – according to the Pew Research Center, 74% of users are on Facebook and 63% on Instagram daily, making them incredibly powerful platforms when it comes to financial marketing.

Making sure your business is a part of the global conversation happening online can help you reach an audience broader than you ever thought possible. The fact that a small financial business in the middle of nowhere Indiana can be seen online just as easily as a million-dollar Wall Street company is one of the many beautiful facets of social media.

A strong social media strategy isn’t usually built overnight. It takes genuine content marketing, an engaging brand personality, and creative approaches to campaign. Giving yourself the tools you need to make this happen will pay off in the long run. Implementing a social media strategy means you can enter a whole new ball game. It’s time to have a little fun with your audience and surprise them with something new.

Make finance easy-breezy

Millennials and Gen Z consumers expect convenience and accessibility. Their time is quite literally (your) money. To be fair, companies and services have no excuse to not be progressing with the times – I mean, these days even little kids running lemonade stands are accepting cashless payments with Square. Times are seriously changing.

We’re entering the age of automation, which means digitizing the entire process and having everything you need with a touch of the button. With streamlined paths to purchases and easy access to business contact information, people are making purchasing decisions in the blink of an eye. A great website is a big factor in this. How long does it take from placing something in your digital card to getting a confirmation email? If it takes longer to checkout than it does for a Keurig to fill up your mug, you’ll need to take a second look.

Digitizing your processes isn’t always a walk in the park. Finance companies like SaleCycle are finding that they have the highest digital abandonment rates – reaching up to 75%, according to Forbes. It’s important to keep the process simple and avoid any confusing steps. You can also streamline processes by automating things like form fill, adding progress indicators, and looking into mobile apps. User experience is critical, so focus on your audience and what they need from you as a business, and let your brand personality shine as you guide them through the process.

Want help with a financial marketing strategy? Let’s connect.

Tips to level-up your financial marketing before 2021

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Sabrina Martinez

Leadership is important in every industry. However, given the year we’ve all just had, it’s never been more important in financial marketing. American businesses of all sizes, in all industries, have ridden a rollercoaster of government policy, shutdowns, booms, busts, and technological advances. Now that 2021 is on the horizon, it’s time to start planning.

Since we’re all friends here, we want to give you a tip: this is a huge opportunity for you. Everyone is looking for direction and guidance, and you have the expertise they need to make it through these tricky times. It’s time to step up and be the leader they need. To take a quote from William Shakespeare, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” (Does that send tingles up your spine too?)

That means it’s time to talk about thought leadership. This is a financial marketing strategy that leverages the experience of your team to build an audience and generate leads.

Have we piqued your interest? Schedule a free consultation.

Thought leadership in financial marketing

The most effective way to display thought leadership is through content marketing or publicity. The former can include virtually every type of media from blogs to videos, social media, and more. The latter can include speaking at events like conferences and webinars in order to build brand awareness. There are lots of ways you can establish your expertise:

  1. Discuss the latest industry news and offer an opinion
  2. Create a step-by-step guide to tackling a common problem
  3. Answer questions your clients frequently ask during appointments
  4. Write long-form articles that give advice using strong keywords
  5. Examine trends and predict where the industry is heading
  6. Share case studies about the way you achieve success
  7. Collaborate with colleagues and other experts

Truthfully, the sky is the limit when it comes to thought leadership in financial marketing. Since you work in finance, we know you like numbers, so pay attention to the analytics. Check in regularly with Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics to see what kinds of content are getting the greatest reaction. Which blog posts are people most likely to click? Which ones are people reading all the way to the end? What types of social media content get the best engagement? What are people talking about in the comments?

Paying attention to the data will help you refine your strategy over time, capturing as much attention as possible and presenting your brand in the best possible light.

Pay attention to financial marketing trends

What’s trending in the finance sector? How will this affect your business? Most importantly, how will this affect your customers? It’s really important to stay up-to-date with industry news, because this is great fodder to not only improve your practices, but fuel your strategy.

Financial marketing is changing rapidly, just like the industry it promotes, and there are several reasons why it’s important for you to stay ahead of the curve. The first one is so that you can provide a calm port in a storm for existing clients and give them the best possible service. The second to build trust with prospective clients to start winning them over.

Think about it. There are generally two ways people find a new financial services partner: they ask for recommendations from people they trust, and they start Googling. You’ll catch their eye with snazzy Google Ads and a sparkling SEO strategy, and then you’ll only have a couple of seconds to make an impression and win their confidence.

Here are some thought-starters. What’s your take on these topics?

  1. Artificial intelligence integration
  2. Best practice in cybersecurity
  3. Importance of data analytics
  4. The rise of Blockchain technology
  5. Re-thinking the concept of money

This isn’t a random list. It’s the result of a quick search for “finance trends,” which means they’re the kinds of topics people are talking about online. Are you taking part in the conversation? What are you going to do if a client asks for your take? The best way to be prepared is to include them, and any other trending topics, in your financial marketing strategy. That way, the next time people are searching for answers, your content will start to appear in search results lists.

Make sure your content works double-time

If you’re going to invest in thought leadership as a financial marketing strategy, you’re going to need strong content. Content requires a considerable investment of time and effort, so it makes sense to get the biggest possible return on investment. Right? If you’ve ever heard of the marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk (we’re big fans here at the Beacon office), you’ll know he’s the king of repurposing content. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Digital marketing is versatile. There are many platforms, many mediums, and many methods you can use to share your messaging with the masses online. Here are some simple and time-saving ideas you can use to maximize your impact while minimizing your effort:

  1. Share video of your speaking engagements on your website and social platforms.
  2. Combine blog posts into an eBook to boost your credibility as a thought-leader.
  3. Present blog posts as videos (or vice versa). Then share the audio as a podcast!
  4. Screenshot Tweets and share them on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
  5. Share content from colleagues and experts with a thoughtful comment.
  6. Freshen up your old content and reshare it with a modern twist.
  7. Create a quick infographic to accompany a report.

The progression is simple. Thought leadership needs content marketing. Content marketing needs a marketing strategy. A marketing strategy needs a strong brand with clear goals. This will lay the foundation you need to successfully start growing your audience online.

Secrets to financial marketing success

Before we let you go, we’re going to run you through some very practical tips to help you level-up your financial marketing strategy for the year ahead.

The most important, by far, is consistency. Thought leadership, and content marketing, are both long-term strategies. Each piece of content will build on the ones that came before it, leading to exponential growth over time. There’s nothing to be gained by publishing one or two think pieces and then simply hoping for the best. Consistency means you’ll need to budget the time to research trending topics, plan a publishing schedule, and create the content you need. You’ll also need to check-in regularly to ensure it’s hitting the mark and that you’re across any sub-topics that need further explanation.

The other thing we’d like to mention is the importance of making content marketing a two-way conversation. Don’t just shout into the void of the internet! Respond to all the comments people leave on your blogs or videos, and dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to interacting with people on social media. This doesn’t mean simply dropping a few likes here and there, but asking questions or leaving thoughtful comments to encourage people to engage in a dialogue with you.

Looking to hire a marketing partner? We can help.

What is financial marketing and why is it important?

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Sabrina Martinez

Marketing refers to the methods you use to promote your products and services to your customers. When we talk about digital marketing, we are referring to all the different ways businesses can do this online. And when we refer to financial marketing, we’re talking about the way you specifically can grow your business. Are you ready to start scaling? Read on! In this blog post, we’re going to run you through the basics so you can reach your goals.

We’ve worked with a lot of financial services firms over the years, helping with everything from merchant services, to local banks, and even Alaska’s infamous Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program. We’ve worked hard and generated some awesome results:

Want to see numbers like these? You know where to find us.

Step one: Define your voice

Ready for a rapid-fire round? Here we go. Who are you as a company? What do you offer your clients? What makes you different from any other bank, credit union, accountant, financial advisor or stockbroker? What are your values? Why should a client choose you?

These are all really important questions, because from a financial marketing perspective, they lay the foundations for a memorable brand that will encourage client loyalty. Financial services can be confusing for people who aren’t up to their elbows in spreadsheets every day, so you need to make sure you’re accessible and approachable to the kinds of people you want to help. Position yourself as a friend who speaks the same language.

Financial marketing tone example

Here’s an example of the kind of thing we mean. Our client, eComm, is committed to re-inventing the merchant services industry. It’s a national brand owned by an Alaskan financial services company called Cornerstone Credit Services, and it launched in 2017. Looking back, the owners say: “We were entering an industry that had a bad reputation, but we were doing it for a reason… We knew that the business community deserves better.”

This attitude defines the client’s brand voice, which sets the foundation for a financial marketing campaign. The message is simple. The tone is straight-talking. The communications are transparent. This company works with small business owners all over the United States, who don’t have time to beat around the bush, which is reflected across all of eComm’s digital assets. This is immediately clear through the use of phrases like:

  • “You probably have first-hand knowledge that the merchant services industry is wildly unethical.”
  • “Some merchant services providers don’t seem to understand the golden rule: don’t lie to people.”
  • “Our aim is to be undeniably up-front with you about everything from mark-up fees to monthly charges.”

This is strong language. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. However, the up-front style is very effective from a financial marketing point of view, because it connects with this client’s target audience. These are people who need answers now and want to work with someone they feel they can trust. The voice reveals everything you need to know straight away.

Step two: Build trust in your community

The best way to build trust in your community when it comes to financial marketing has always been, and will always be, word of mouth. People are much more likely to trust the recommendation of a friend or family member who has had a great experience than take a risk on an unknown company. The logical conclusion, of course, is that the best way to build trust is simply to give every single customer a great experience. Listen to them. Solve their problems. Save them money. Make them great coffee. Write them thank you notes.

Financial marketing example

Cornerstone Credit Services has a range of divisions, including payment solutions. The company has an outstanding reputation in Anchorage, Alaska, and it’s the go-to merchant services provider in the region. From a financial marketing perspective, this is gold, but it doesn’t mean no further efforts are required. Cornerstone has actually capitalized on this reputation across their digital assets as well – take this homepage, for example. For one thing, it recognizes the positive impact clients have on the business, and makes them feel special. For another, it encourages them to go ahead and make even more referrals in their personal circles by offering an enticing cash reward.

Ready for another set of quick questions? Here we go. What are your strengths? What are some things you’re already hitting out of the park? How can you use them as part of your financial marketing strategy to grow your business even further? This is important, because it will help you work as efficiently and effectively as possible to reach your goals.

Step three: Nail your value proposition

Once you’ve defined your brand, and you’ve built a strong reputation, you need to work on your value proposition. Catch the attention of your prospective clients and make them an offer they can’t refuse. This is the part where you’ll be encouraging people to click onto your website, guiding them down the path to purchase, and hopefully converting a sale.

Financial marketing example

A key part of this is a strong landing page. Our client, Bookkeeping Alaska, is currently in a growth phase. The owner, Tabitha, asked us to create a landing page to encourage more people to sign up to a special offer that will help them organize their accounts for just $97. She’ll help you set up QuickBooks, start reconciling your statements, start reconciling your transactions, generate system reports, and provide email and phone support along the way.

Landing pages can be really simple. In fact, there’s a recipe for success, because there are a few key touch-points every prospective client will consider in making a decision:

  1. Professionalism of your appearance (i.e. design, layout, text, etc.)
  2. An offer that is immediately very clear and easy to understand
  3. An explanation of what exactly the offer includes (i.e. a list)
  4. Some social proof or a testimonial to encourage trust
  5. An explanation of why your business is a great choice
  6. Several very clear calls to action so they can take next steps

Once you’ve addressed all those points, you’re good to go. When it comes to building effective landing pages, we recommend a tool called Leadpages, which has templates tailored to different industries and different types of offers, making them easy to create. It’s a great way to qualify leads and ensure the people who reach out are a good fit.

Why you need financial marketing services

Once a client has clicked through to your website, the only thing left to do is streamline the path to purchase so it’s easy for them go to ahead and do business with you. Make sure that the next steps are clear, with a strong call to action, and ensure your contact details are prominent so they can get in touch with any questions. It’s that simple.

Want it to be this easy in real life? Give our helpful team a call.

Trends you need to capitalize on in financial marketing

Picture of Sabrina Martinez

Sabrina Martinez

If you’re working in financial services, there’s a fair chance you’re a left-brained person. Along with your aptitude for numbers, and your talent for problem-solving, we’re guessing you also like being organized, you like planning, you like details, and you like executing a well-developed financial marketing strategy. Right?

You like researching the most effective techniques, methodically putting them into place, and watching the leads roll in. Marketing is an interesting sector in that it blends science with art. On one hand, it’s very methodical (and we always tell our clients that consistency is key). On the other, it can be incredibly creative and fun.

In this blog, we’re going to run you through three trends you need to capitalize on to ensure your financial marketing strategy is giving you maximum return on investment. We’ll tell you which bits are about process, and which are about personality, to help you grow.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation.

1. Google Ads: Help clients find your financial services

The first trend you need to capitalize on when it comes to financial marketing is Google Ads. It’s no longer enough to rely on word of mouth, or start a company Facebook page, or build a website without taking further action. These are all great methods, of course, but when it comes to financial marketing, there are simply better ones you can use –like Google Ads.

There are a lot of reasons why Google Ads is amazing, but the main one is simply because it helps people find you when they’re looking for you. BAZINGA. Modern marketing doesn’t get any better than that! Google Ads allows you to target specific keywords, and zero in on your key demographic by selecting things like location, age, income level, and gender.

Let’s put it this way. It makes sense to cast a wide net in the hope of catching a nice fish… unless you have a dependable strategy that will help you catch a trophy king salmon.  You’d take the second option every time, right?

(Well, we would, but then again, our headquarters are based in Anchorage, Alaska, and many members of our team know their way around a fishing boat! Ask us for tips any time!)

The second reason Google Ads is awesome is because the client already knows they need you. They’re actively searching for you, so all you have to do is capture their interest and convince them you’re the best choice to solve their problem. (And let’s face it, people usually engage financial services firms because they have an issue they’re unable to deal with on their own.)

2. Landing pages: Tell your clients why they need you

Google Ads are like a one-two punch. Boom. The client is yours! The first part is setting up the ads; the second is making sure you’re sending clicks somewhere that will seal the deal. This is where landing pages come in. A “landing page” simply refers to the first page a client will see when they visit your website. It’s the first impression you have, so make it count!

When Google Ads first started, it was customary to direct traffic to an existing page on your website, like your home page or services page. More recently, there has been a trend towards directing people to custom sales pages. This is definitely best practice, because it will significantly increase your chances of converting a client and making a sale. So what does a great landing page look like? There are three main points we recommend:

  • A clear offer or deal to show people why they should act now.
  • A value proposition, such as a free download, so people feel like they’re getting value.
  • A number of very clear calls to action to help people know what to do next.

Landing pages don’t have to be long. A really common mistake people make is to stuff landing pages full of key words, thinking that will increase their ranking through SEO (we’re definitely guilty of this too – we’ve mastered our strategy over many years with a lot of trial and error). The trouble is that SEO isn’t really the point of a landing page.

Running Google Ads means you’re already targeting the keywords you need, and because you’re paying per click, you don’t need to worry so much about SEO. Instead, you need to kick your sales brain into gear, and think about the key information a prospective client would want and need to know because deciding to take action.

If in doubt, less is more. Make it snappy. Make it interesting. Make it helpful.

Most of all, make sure the next step is crystal clear and very inviting.

3. Personalization: Let clients know how much you care

Let’s take a moment to recap quickly. Step one was capturing people’s interest with shiny Google Ads. Step two was making them an offer they can’t refuse with a sparkling landing page. Step three is showing the client exactly how important they are to you and reassuring them they’ve made the right choice. We’re not talking champagne and corporate suites at the basketball (although hey, surely no-one would complain about that!).

Here’s a word we know you’ll love: data. Personalization starts with data collection and analysis. You’ll need to figure out exactly who your ideal client is, who is responding to your Google Ads, and who is taking action on your landing page. Are they the same types of people? If not, why not? You may find an audience persona really helpful here to help focus your efforts and ensure you’re targeting the most profitable demographics – i.e. those who are most likely to convert.

Once you know who you’re talking to, tailor your messaging accordingly. Don’t be generic. Target their specific interests. You’ve discovered this group loves football? Great. Make some football puns. Or do they all come from the same neighborhood? Great. Make some local references. Make them feel like you know them, that you understand, and that you can help.

And remember, a follow-up phone call after they take action on a landing page is always a classy touch. Nothing shows a client how important they are like you taking a few minutes out of your day to introduce yourself and thank them for their interest in working with you.

Stay on top of financial marketing trends

Modern marketing moves quickly. It’s an innovative industry, because marketers are always trying new ways to capture people’s attention and make their message heard. Staying on top of the latest trends can feel like a full-time job (and for us, it is! Seriously!).

If you’re running a financial services firm, you’ll have a lot on your plate, so it makes sense to work as efficiently and effectively as possible. You may find it valuable to bring on a marketing partner, who can stay across all the latest trends to ensure you’re capitalizing on the ones most likely to grow your business. If that’s the case, please reach out.

What are you waiting for? Let’s talk business.

HVAC marketing can boost your reputation (and your sales)

Picture of Sabrina Martinez

Sabrina Martinez

The digital revolution has done so much to democratize marketing in the last few years. Now small, local HVAC businesses can compete with bigger companies on a much more equal footing.

Here, we’ll look at three low-cost, and in some cases, free, methods to get huge reach and effective targeting as part of your HVAC marketing strategy.

Prefer to chat to a person? We get it. Give us a call.

Building sales funnels in HVAC marketing

Sales funnels are a widely used marketing technique that you can use to draw in new customers for your business. The basic premise in HVAC marketing is that you start by making people aware of your business and gradually draw them down the levels of the funnel, giving them the information they need, until they decide to become new customers. It’s called a funnel because it starts broadly – i.e. who are you? Then the information gets more specific as they go further along. What’s your full range of services? Then what’s a special offer specific to their needs? Then how do they contact you? The focus narrows until you’ve given them precisely what they need to address the issue they’re having. It’s important to keep this in mind as you design your website and build your strategy from there.

Read more: Capture more qualified leads with landing pages

Awareness is key to good HVAC marketing

Awareness is the first stage in a HVAC marketing funnel. At this point, your main concern is with getting as many people to see your content as possible. You’re trying to convert people from general consumers to prospective leads. These people will remember you next time they need HVAC services. At this stage quantity is as good as quality, you want good coverage, but you also need to make sure that when people read your content or see your ads, they aren’t put off by low quality.

A big part of HVAC marketing is education

Next, you want to be putting out content that answers people’s questions. This shows them the problems they are having, even ones they don’t know they are having, and how you can fix those problems. We like to recommend that you include helpful advice on how people to fix these problems themselves. This breeds goodwill and helps make people trust you so that they remember you as a helpful, trustworthy business next time their A/C unit or furnace needs its annual service.

Read more: Is marketing the new sales?

HVAC marketing relies on engagement

The third stage of the funnel, when it comes to a good HVAC marketing strategy, is engagement. This really requires quality production. Every time someone clicks on one of your ads, or a link in one of your blogs, they will be taken to what we call a “landing page.” It is important that this is just as high quality as the ad or the blog. The purpose of all these ads, blogs, landing pages, and so on, is to get people to reach out to them, to walk into your metaphorical showroom.

The best part of HVAC marketing is conversion

Finally, we come to the thin end of the funnel, conversion. At this point, people are actively coming to you. They know who you are, they know what services you provide, and they have a good impression of your business. Now that, you’ve got them coming to you, you need to sell to them. Let’s continue our showroom metaphor. They want to buy a product that you sell or use a service that you provide. What you have to do is prove to them that they want to buy from your business, not your competitor. At this point, you’re no longer really doing digital marketing, but rather you’ve transitioned into sales.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation.

Social media is key to HVAC marketing

Social media is another incredibly powerful HVAC marketing tool that has made the job of small companies easier than ever before. Because platforms like Facebook have such huge reach, with more than 2/3 Americans using it, you can market directly to your most likely buyers. It’s an essential element of every strategy, because unlike the broad funnel of your website, waiting to catch interested customers, you can use social media more like the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner.

The advantage of social media, and advertising platforms like Google, is targeting. Social media platforms gather huge amounts of data about their users which allow them to model those people really accurately. This means that you can target ads to people and be confident that they are more likely to succeed than traditional ads. The real advantage with social media is that you can do this, while still advertising to huge numbers of people, which makes your sales funnel very effective.

Social media is useful in other respects as well. It allows you to create a community following around your brand, with real person-to-person interaction and gives your customers a direct line to your business for reviews. Some may see this as a benefit only for the customer, but your business can benefit as well, as long as this is done right. When you post content on your Facebook page, you open yourself up to the whole world, and anyone can say anything. This means that any negative reviews you receive can be responded to directly. When doing this, it’s important to do it well though! You have an opportunity to turn a negative review into a positive with a well-reasoned, polite response. We often find that these actually give a better impression of a business than great reviews alone.

Read more: Is your social media producing results?

Blogging can boost HVAC marketing efforts

We briefly mentioned blogging in our sales funnel walkthrough, and here we’ll discuss how to make sure your blogs have maximum effect. Blogging may not be an obvious HVAC marketing strategy, but it’s essentially a method to game Google’s search algorithms, known as Search Engine Optimization.

Whenever someone searches for something on Google, the search engine searches through everything on the internet to bring you the most relevant results. It works out what is relevant based on various criteria some of which we’ll list here, along with the way you can meet those criteria:

  • Relevance: Google calculates relevance based on the amount of time users spend on the search results provided for a given search term. If someone searches “HVAC near me” and they click the first result and realise it isn’t what they’re looking for, they click the back button quickly and Google interprets this as the page having low relevance. You, therefore, need to make sure that your blogs are relevant to the title and keywords you’re using.
  • Questions: You’re probably aware that Google searches are often used to answer questions. A great strategy for blog writing is to find out what questions are being asked, using services like Answer The Public, which allows you to find out what the most common questions are for certain keywords. Just type in the name of service or product you want to sell, find out what people want to know about it, and answer that question. Make sure you link to a page where people can either buy the product online or a contact form so they can get in touch.
  • Backlinks: Google uses links on webpages as a sort of review system. If someone links to your site, it means they think it is good. However, getting other websites to link to yours can be challenging, so we use the practice known as backlinking. This involves linking between pages on your own website, to accrue multiple “recommendations” of your own content.

Ready to develop your strategy? Call our friendly team.

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