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When it comes to developing a website or creating a content strategy, SEO should always be top of mind. You may have amazing services to offer and a great message to get across, but no one will ever know if your content is not easily visible on search engines.

There are many important aspects of an SEO strategy that start with your website, like developing a responsive website and performing adequate keyword research for blogs. However, we know several insider secrets to boosting your site’s SEO and gaining credibility on Google through building backlinks.

While the typical process of getting backlinks can make you feel like a spammer or contestant in a popularity contest, there is more than one way to earn backlinks to your site. For instance, a solid content distribution strategy recycles your content, allowing you to reach your audience in more way than one while linking to back to your site.

Want the full scoop? Then keep reading because we’re about to deep dive into how backlinks can help supercharge your SEO and unveil Beacon Media + Marketing’s newest content distribution package.  

Want to jump ahead and see what a content distribution strategy can do for your company? Schedule a free consultation.

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

In short, a backlink is a link from one website to another. For example, someone may link to another website if they are trying to cite a statistic or information they pulled from another source. People may also link to a page on another website if it is relevant or provides more context on a topic they are discussing or expanding on in a blog. These are different than local links, which are links you place on your content that direct readers to other pages on your site.

Backlinks, or inbound links, to your website are one of the most important factors for SEO. When someone links to your website, Google and other search engines consider this as an endorsement for your company. They are saying a page on your site has valuable, credible content that is worth looking at. For Google, this translates to your website having authority, relevance, and trust, which are the three pillars of SEO.

Having your link on other websites also gives your target audience more exposure to your content. While they may start out on another blog post, if they see a backlink to your website, they may click on it and engage with your brand that way.

How To Earn High-Quality Backlinks

Where a backlink to your site exists matters. Google not only judges the quantity of inbound links to your site but it also considers their quality. There are several factors search engines consider when determining if a backlink is high quality.

  • Website authority: If a website that Google already identifies as having authority and credibility links to your site, this will have a more positive impact toward your SEO. On the other hand, low-quality backlinks from sites that Google deems uncredible can actually hurt your SEO.
  • Page traffic: How many people visit the page the link your website is featured on also affects how Google judges the backlink’s quality.
  • Relevancy: Google favors backlinks that are on a website with content relevant to the topic it links to. For example, if your blog post on the future of microwave ovens is featured on a page or website that talks about new technology trends or kitchen appliances, it improves the quality of the backlink.

Now that you know what backlinks are and how important they are for your website’s overall SEO, the big question is how do you get other websites to link to your content? While adding the right keywords and making sure you use SEO-friendly headers are easy enough to implement on your own website, you can’t force anyone else to vouch for you on theirs. Here are a few secrets we’ll let you in on.

1. Write Quality, SEO-Friendly Content

If you want people to link back to your website content, the first step should always be to create content that is worth linking to. If your blogs or web pages are poorly designed, dull, or irrelevant to the audience you’re trying to reach, chances are no one will want to send their website visitors your way.

While people are always looking for new tricks to put their website on the fast lane to the top of the search engine results page, the main focus when creating content should always be to create a top-quality piece worth reading. With literally billions of pages on the internet, you need to make your content stand out.

Fortunately, Google has made several core changes to its algorithm to help keep high-quality, relevant content at the top of the SERP while penalizing pages that have little value to offer. For example, pages with low word counts, keyword stuffing, and duplicate content are all unlikely to be valued by Google or anyone who reads them.

By putting time and effort into writing unique, relevant content your audience will enjoy, people are more likely to use as a source in their own work. By following basic SEO guidelines, you can ensure your website is high up on the SERP, making it easy for people to find and link to your content.

2. Reach Out for Backlinks

Another tactic you can use to gain more backlinks is reaching out directly to other website owners. It can be difficult to do this without coming off as spammy, but there are a few tactics you can try to get your content on a relevant page or site:

  • If someone mentions your brand without linking to your website, reach out to the author and ask them to credit you with a backlink.
  • Reach out to journalists and bloggers who have linked to your old content when you create new work.
  • Add images, infographics, and free tools that others can link to in their own content.
  • Get featured on directories that are highly used or relevant to your content.
  • Find pages that have broken links and suggest a link from your website to replace it.
  • Ask people you know personally, like colleagues and business partners, to link to your site.

3. Use Content Distribution to Your Advantage

If your content strategy starts and ends with a blog post, you’re missing out on a major opportunity. With a digital content distribution plan, you can take a single piece of content and use it in more way than one, expanding your reach and gaining quality backlinks.

Our new content distribution package at Beacon Media + Marketing does exactly  that. The process starts with us writing a high-quality blog for your website that is relevant to your company and your target audience. We put substantial research into every blog we write, making sure it follows best SEO practices and is engaging to anyone who visits your site.

From here, we recycle this blog to create and distribute new pieces of content that all link back to your site including:

  • A video that is featured on the Beacon Media New YouTube channel
  • A press release that is distributed through hundreds of news outlets
  • A blog summary that is featured on the Beacon Media News website
  • Social media posts that link to different assets we create

Not only do these unique pieces of content give your audience more than one way to engage with your brand, but they also all link back your website, helping you earn high-quality backlinks with every blog we write.

Want To Team Up and Take Your SEO to the Next Level?

Developing an SEO strategy that gets your content noticed takes a lot of legwork. Whether you need help developing a website that is functional and appealing, establishing an SEO strategy that gets you noticed, or creating high-ranking content that is engaging and recyclable, we can help.

Ready to watch your business grow, scale, and thrive? Schedule your free consultation now.

Written by Kym Van Arsdale, updated by Sara Jokela 1/2/25

Hosting refers to a service that allows your website to be stored and maintained. It’s an important decision for every company, so we asked our developer to answer your FAQs about web hosting and domain hosting.

Do you need quality hosting for your website?  Check out our website hosting packages.

Understanding Web Hosting

Web hosting is a service that allows individuals and organizations to host their websites on the internet. Essentially, it involves storing your website’s files on a physical server, which is then connected to the internet, making your site accessible to users worldwide. Web hosting providers offer various types of hosting services, each catering to different needs and budgets.

For instance, shared hosting is a popular and cost-effective option where multiple websites share the same server resources. On the other hand, VPS hosting provides a more isolated environment by partitioning a physical server into virtual servers, offering better performance and security.

Managed hosting takes the hassle out of server management by handling all the technical aspects for you, making it ideal for those who prefer a hands-off approach. Cloud hosting leverages multiple servers to ensure high availability and scalability, making it a robust solution for growing websites.

Choosing the right type of hosting depends on your website’s specific needs, such as traffic volume, security requirements, and budget. Understanding these options can help you make an informed decision and ensure your website runs smoothly.

What Exactly Am I Paying For When I Sign Up for Hosting Services?

When you pay a monthly fee for website hosting, you’re paying to use space on a website server where your website’s files and software are stored. Some hosting packages also offer a free domain, which can be a great incentive for new website owners. This space is available online at all times.

It’s important to remember that hosting is different than domain registration. You must always be sure to keep both your hosting services and domain registration active for your website to be live.

Are There Other Web Hosting Services I Need Besides Server Space?

There are a number of items that should be included in your website maintenance plan as part of comprehensive hosting solutions. To keep your website safe, secure and relevant, be sure the following list of items are covered:

  • Software Updates: Website software must be updated on a regular basis to take advantage of new features and to patch security vulnerabilities. When you’re running a Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, this includes updating WordPress itself, along with themes and plugins installed on the website. Updates are typically very easy to run, but there are occasions when an update may break a website. It’s important to have the expertise to fix these issues.
  • Security: No-one wants their site to be hacked! It’s estimated that on average 30,000 new websites are hacked every day. In addition to regular software updates, websites need to be firewall protected, the code should be free of vulnerabilities, and site should be monitored regularly for malware and any other anomalies.
  • Back-Ups: There are a number of things that can take down or mess up a website: hacks, malware, unexpected errors in updates, editing mistakes, and more. Make sure you have a good backup system and a simple way to restore back-up files in case the worst happens.
  • Performance: Google has found that 53% of mobile website visitors will leave if a web page doesn’t load within three seconds. Your website needs to be fast! Websites also need to be useful and attractive. All those images, videos, animations, and code can add up to a lot of files for users to download. You need a fast server and caching software to deliver the best experience. (Not sure what that means? Check out these helpful web terms.)
  • Up-Time Monitoring: Is your site up? How do you know? You can’t check it all the time. That’s why your website should be constantly monitored to catch service outages so you can get it back up and running as soon as possible.
  • SSL Certificates: SSL certificates encrypt website data as it is downloaded and uploaded to your website service. If you have a certificate and it’s valid, you’ll see the lock icon next to your website address in the browser. If you don’t, you’ll either have a broken lock or you may get an error that won’t allow your site to load at all. SSL certificates must be installed correctly and renewed on a regular basis. This is something a developer can help you do.
  • Software Licensing: Many high quality themes and plugins for website require a licensing fee. If your license is not up to date, you won’t be able to install key updates.
  • Updates and Edits: Don’t let your website get out of date! As things change in your business, your website needs to be offering potential customers the most current information. Updating and adding content to your site can also help your search engine rankings, as Google rewards high-quality and up to date web content. Small updates are often simple to make but if you want your website to look its best, it can help to have a pro perform website edits on a regular basis.

Is your website being properly taken care of? We can keep your website happy and healthy!

Key Features to Consider

When selecting a web hosting service, several key features can significantly impact your website’s performance and reliability. Here are some crucial aspects to consider:

  • Storage Space: This refers to the amount of space available to store your website files and data. Ensure the hosting plan offers sufficient storage to accommodate your current and future needs.
  • Bandwidth: Bandwidth determines the amount of data that can be transferred between your website and its users. Higher bandwidth is essential for websites with heavy traffic to ensure smooth performance.
  • Server Type: The type of server used to host your website, such as shared, VPS, or dedicated, can affect your site’s speed, security, and scalability.
  • Operating System: The server’s operating system, whether Windows or Linux, can influence the compatibility and functionality of your website.
  • Control Panel: A user-friendly control panel, like cPanel or Plesk, simplifies website management tasks, making it easier to handle updates, backups, and other administrative functions.
  • Security Features: Look for hosting providers that offer robust security features, such as SSL certificates, firewalls, and regular malware scanning, to protect your website from threats.
  • Customer Support: Reliable customer support is crucial. Opt for providers that offer 24/7 support, live chat, and a comprehensive knowledge base to assist you whenever needed.

By considering these features, you can select a web hosting service that meets your website’s requirements and ensures a seamless online experience.

How do I Choose the Best Hosting Plan for My Needs?

Choosing the best hosting plan for your needs involves evaluating several factors to ensure your website performs optimally. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you make the right choice:

  1. Determine Your Website Type: Different websites have varying hosting needs. For example, a WordPress website may benefit from managed WordPress hosting, which is optimized for WordPress performance and security.
  2. Assess Your Traffic Needs: Estimate the amount of traffic you expect. High-traffic websites require hosting plans with more bandwidth and storage space to handle the load without slowing down.
  3. Consider Your Budget: Hosting plans come in a wide range of prices. Determine your budget and find a plan that offers the best value for your money without compromising on essential features.
  4. Research Hosting Providers: Look into different hosting providers and compare their features, pricing, and customer support. Consider factors like uptime guarantees, server locations, and additional services offered.
  5. Read Reviews: Customer reviews can provide valuable insights into a hosting provider’s reliability and performance. Look for feedback on uptime, support responsiveness, and overall satisfaction.

By following these steps, you can choose a hosting plan that aligns with your website’s needs and ensures a smooth and reliable online presence.

How do I chose the best hosting plan for my needs?

There are a number of considerations when choosing a web hosting provider and a hosting plan.

Most hosts have packages with different limits for the number of websites you can host, the amount of disk space you can use, and the amount of bandwidth your website can use. Disk space is the total amount of storage your website files will take up on the server. This includes the website code, database, images, and videos.

Bandwidth is the number of bytes required to transfer your site to all visitors. When a user looks at your website in a browser, they actually download the website files and the browser bundles them together into a web page. If your website has a lot of users viewing the content, you may run out of bandwidth quickly.

In addition to these limits, hosting companies offer different types of web hosting. Some common offerings are shared web hosting, dedicated hosting, and VPS hosting.

Shared Web Hosting Services

Shared web hosting is when a website is hosted on the same server as many other websites. Some providers even offer free web hosting as part of their shared hosting plans, making it an attractive option for budget-conscious users. This is a very common and inexpensive solution, but can be risky.

Many website hosts thousands of sites on the same server. If the server load is not balanced well, other websites can effect your website’s performance and security. There is also very limited access provided to shared servers.

Dedicated Web Hosting Services

Dedicated hosting provides the entire server for just your website. For those looking for advanced hosting options, platforms like Google Cloud offer dedicated hosting with high reliability and global data centers. This can be very expensive and is only necessary for extremely large websites with a lot of traffic.

Virtual Private Server Hosting

Virtual Private Servers (VPS) provide clients with a dedicated server to host websites, offering better security and configuration access. The server itself runs many different websites but software is used to divide the server up, which allows the user to have configuration access and better security.

There are also different management software tools, technical support, and caching and backup services provided by hosting companies. Choosing a plan should depend on the size and traffic of your website and your expertise in configuring and managing the server and website.

Don’t know where to start? Let our experts create the best hosting plan for your website.

Web Hosting Costs and Pricing

Web hosting costs can vary widely depending on the type of hosting and the provider. Here’s a general overview of the typical pricing ranges for different hosting options:

  • Shared Hosting: $2-10 per month. This is the most affordable option, ideal for small websites and blogs with moderate traffic.
  • VPS Hosting: $10-50 per month. VPS hosting offers better performance and security, making it suitable for growing websites with higher traffic.
  • Managed Hosting: $20-100 per month. Managed hosting takes care of all the technical aspects, providing a hassle-free experience for website owners.
  • Cloud Hosting: $50-200 per month. Cloud hosting offers high scalability and reliability, perfect for websites that experience fluctuating traffic.
  • Dedicated Hosting: $100-500 per month. Dedicated hosting provides an entire server for your website, offering maximum performance and security for large, high-traffic sites.

These are general pricing ranges, and actual costs may vary based on the provider and specific plan features. It’s essential to compare different options and choose a plan that fits your budget and meets your website’s needs.

Security and Support

Security and support are critical aspects of web hosting that can significantly impact your website’s performance and reliability. Here are some essential security features to look for:

  • SSL Certificates: SSL certificates encrypt data transmitted between your website and its users, ensuring secure communication and protecting sensitive information.
  • Firewalls: Firewalls help block unauthorized access to your website, providing an additional layer of security against potential threats.
  • Malware Scanning: Regular malware scanning detects and removes malicious software, safeguarding your website from security breaches.
  • Regular Backups: Ensure your hosting provider offers regular backups to protect your website data. In case of a security breach or data loss, you can quickly restore your site to its previous state.

In terms of support, reliable customer service is crucial for addressing any issues that may arise. Look for hosting providers that offer:

  • 24/7 Support: Round-the-clock support ensures that help is available whenever you need it.
  • Live Chat: Instant support through live chat can quickly resolve issues and answer questions.
  • Phone Support: An additional channel for support, providing direct communication with support representatives.
  • Knowledge Base: A comprehensive knowledge base offers resources for troubleshooting and resolving common issues on your own.

By prioritizing security and support, you can ensure your website remains safe, secure, and well-maintained, providing a positive experience for your users.

Don’t know where to start? Let our experts create the best hosting plan for your website.

You know that digital marketing is essential to growing your business. You’ve had a successful digital marketing campaign in place for some time. You sit down to execute the next part of your strategy. The first step is creating content, whether that’s social media posts, blogs, or video.

And… nothing comes out. You sit, staring at your computer screen, and you can’t make any words come out. The longer you sit, the more stressed you get, the more paralyzed your mind becomes. It’s a vicious cycle. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Some people call it brain fade. Some people call it writer’s block. Some people call it paralysis by analysis. Either way, you’ve hit a creative brick wall, and you don’t know what to do. Does any of this sound familiar?

Don’t worry, this is something that affects all creatives from time to time. If you want to get those brain cells firing again, here are some techniques that may help generate some ideas.

Looking to delegate? Our full-service digital marketing team can help.

Step One: Digital Marketing Doesn’t Happen Alone

You’ve been sitting in front of your computer for hours. Your eyeballs are drier than the Mojave Desert and your legs are so restless you can’t sit still. You’re stubborn – we get it, this is a common trait amongst business leaders – so you keep sitting, willing yourself to get it done.

There’s no winner here. It’s you versus you. Allow us to save you some time… SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTER AND BACK AWAY SLOWLY. Think about the place you feel most inspired. Admittedly, we don’t know you, but we’d put money on the fact that it doesn’t involve the four walls of your office and abundant blue light of your monitor. It’s okay to get out and take a beat.

Walk barefoot in grass. Treat yourself to a slice of pie. Climb a mountain. Scream at the top of your lungs. Call your grandma. Shoot for a PB at the gym. Whatever your process is, allow yourself the time and space to do it. Humans are not machines, so we shouldn’t expect ourselves to fire straight back up like a lawnmower that’s been collecting dust in a garage for the past six months.

You’ll be amazed what a little mental reprieve can do for your creativity. This is a great way to produce content when you need to knuckle down and schedule the next batch.

Content marketing got you down? Check out our services.

Step Two: Create a Digital Marketing Brains Trust

Good ideas can come from anywhere. That’s something we can say with authority, because one of the unique aspects of our process at Beacon Media + Marketing is to involve our whole team when we’re brainstorming strategies. Many good ideas come from sources like our account managers or creative team. But sometimes other members of our crew – such as our Google Ads specialist or VP of Finances – will come up with something truly genius. Creativity knows no bounds.

Two heads are better than one. Four heads are better than two. Eight heads are better than four. You can see where we’re going. Whether you’re running a wealth management firm, a counseling business, an equipment manufacturer, a remote fishing resort, pull in your team and see what they can come up with. You’ll be amazed what happens once you start spit-balling.

One tip we’d love to give you (because we’ve definitely learnt this the hard way) is to delegate note-taking to someone right at the start. That way, you won’t whip up a frenzy of excitement with your greatness only to discover that no-one can agree on (or remember) the exact wording.

This is a great way to define your branding, key messaging, and strategic goals.

Brand in need of a refresh? It’s time to bring in the experts.

Step Three: Check Out Other Digital Marketing Strategies

Sometimes, it can also be helpful to identify your three biggest competitors and scope out their marketing strategy. What are they doing? Who are they targeting? What kind of responses are the getting? Are there any things you can learn? And is there anything you could do better?

This can be helpful in a few ways. If you’re struggling to find motivation, this might get you fired up enough to smash out that content that’s been tying you down. If you’re short on ideas, it might ignite a flash of inspiration that will fill your mind with ideas (again, we can’t tell you how much we recommend writing them all down while they’re fresh!). If you’re planning a period of aggressive growth, this might help you develop the strategy you need to attract new customers.

The most important thing, when using this technique, is to be strategic. Don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed, especially if your competitors are still a bit bigger than your business. Choose three businesses, pick three things they’re doing well, and identify three gaps that you can fill.

Simple. Oh, and also, be sure to avoid copying any of their ideas directly.

Struggling to get excited about Facebook? Here’s what our team can do.

Step Four: Use Your Own Experience To Inspire Marketing

Chances are, if you’re running a business, you’re an expert in the products you sell or the services you offer. Lean on your own experience to come up with ideas for content. It could be pain points that you’re frequently asked about, or that you’ve worked through yourself (confession time: that’s exactly what inspired this blog post). You might focus on the reasons you got into business – what is it about your product or service that got you excited right back at the start?

Digital marketing isn’t theoretical. It’s based on creating genuine human connection. Nothing is more attractive than authenticity, so don’t be afraid to share your story. You have a lot of knowledge and experience you can share with your target audience. So if you’ve hit a creative block, remember you already have all the information you need. You just need to get it out of your head.

This is a great way to fill a content calendar. If you’re planning to post three days a week, allocate a theme for each day. Monday could feature problem-solving tips based on FAQs. Wednesday could be cool product features that you’re genuinely excited about. Friday could feature tips based on your own experience. Once you create a framework, you’ll simply need to color it in.

Ready to turbocharge your engagement? Try our video production service.

Step Five: Call In A Digital Marketing Agency

If you’re utterly, completely, hopelessly stuck, it’s time to call in the big guns. The team at Beacon Media + Marketing specializes in developing strategies and creating the content that will bring your plan to life. We’re in the business of helping other businesses grow, scale, and thrive. And we’re experts in overcoming creative blocks to ensure every piece of content achieves its potential.

We can help with everything from branding to website development (which includes SEO and hosting), social media marketing, paid ads, and content creation (which includes video and blogs). Our process is pretty straightforward. First, our account managers will arrange a meet and greet so they can learn about your business and find out what’s holding you back on the digital marketing front. Then they’ll bring in our full team for the brainstorm we mentioned earlier.

After this, we’ll create a strategy designed to achieve your goals based on the specific services you need. Once that’s approved, we’ll begin production. Every month, you’ll get a fresh batch of shiny new content. No more dry eyes. No more restless legs. No more hours in front of a screen.

Just lots of digital marketing goodness delivered straight to your customers.

Sound good? Schedule your free consultation today.

Clutch is an established B2B review and rating platform based in Washington, D.C. It helps businesses make buying and hiring decisions with confidence, with a combination of market research, data-driven content, verified reviews, and a ranking system.

Every year, decision-makers at millions of businesses visit the site to learn more about credible service providers and find the partnerships they need to grow.

Why are we telling you this? Well, we recently started working with Clutch in a bid to gain traction on the internet. As a marketing company, we’re always looking for new ways to reach people.

There are two main reasons for this. First, we do it to ensure we stay up-to-date with industry best practices. Second, we want to make sure our clients can benefit from the best third-party products and services available. As an added bonus, testing new theories on our own brand is also great way for us to grow our business and reach new people. If you’re new here, welcome!

Without further ado, let’s talk through our plan with Clutch.

Prefer to pick up the phone? Call our team to learn what positive reviews can do for you.

Igniting Our B2B Marketing with Clutch

We started working with Clutch in a bid to increase awareness of our digital marketing services, including website development, SEO, social media marketing, and more. We’re writing about it now because we’ve actually just had our first review! We wanted to share our experience.

(Okay, yes, we’ve been in the digital marketing game since 2012 and we’ve had a lot of reviews over the years, but it just goes to show that you can never hear enough great feedback.)

In this case, a Clutch analyst personally contacted Rosalind Griffin, the owner of SAV-ON Flooring in Anchorage, Alaska. We’re currently working on a project for SAV-ON Flooring to rebuild its website and optimize the content for SEO to attract more customers down the road.

Reviews Are Essential in the B2B Marketing World

Here’s what Rosalind had to say about Beacon Media + Marketing:

“The original website done by Beacon was beautiful and totally interactive. Content would come up whenever we clicked on anything. We never had problems with it, and we got a lot of business through it. The process was very easy and very smooth... Beacon worked diligently to get that website set up, and that’s why we returned with our business to them.”

Any other small business owners out there feel that on a deep level? It truly doesn’t get any better than knowing your hard work is paying off and your client is happy with the outcome.

The analyst also asked for her thoughts as to the most impressive thing about our business:

“When I think about Beacon, I can only think that they’re excellent. Their web design is beautiful, sleek, and there’s elegance to it. Given that we work in flooring and design, those are important elements — it has to look good to the eye. The pictures that they use are crisp and nice looking. Those are key elements for a website.”

Anyone else getting a little misty-eyed? Just us? We’ll be honest, that hit us right in the feels.

First of all, we’re very grateful to SAV-ON Flooring for the great review. Second, we’re excited that potential clients will see it when they’re searching for a new marketing partner in the future.

Every business owner knows the best way to attract new business is through word of mouth. Positive reviews are just the digital version, which means the can be very powerful.

B2B Marketing is Also About the Snowball Effect

Following that review, Beacon Media + Marketing was also recognized on The Manifest, which is a business news platform. This is what we call the snowball effect. One good thing happens, which leads to the next, and the next. It’s amazing how often we see this play out for clients.

We were included on a list of global social media marketing agencies with the highest-performing diversity and inclusion. We’re really proud of this, because it speaks to our company’s values. We hope it will help us connect with other like-minded businesses so we can help them grow.

Other Key B2B Marketing Essentials

Great B2B marketing doesn’t happen in a silo. In addition to collecting a list of great reviews and increasing awareness of your brand name, you’ll need to follow through on the other steps of the path to purchase: education, consideration, and conversion.

Here are some key items to consider.

Develop a Sparkling Website

Say a business owner is looking for services just like yours. They see a positive review and want to learn a little more about your business, so they click through to view your website.

You already know they’re curious and that they’re coming with a positive frame of mind. What experience are you going to give them when they land? A website functions as a digital shopfront for your business, so it’s important that it presents the right image and creates a strong first impression.

It needs to be clean and well-organized, just like the reception area out the front. It needs to give people a taste of what your company is about, just like the atmosphere in your office. Most importantly, it needs to be functional and easy to find, just like the physical building.

It’s worth the investment to make sure your website looks great, loads quickly, has all the information they need, and runs smoothly with no bugs.

Optimize Your SEO for Growth

A common SEO mistake we see all the time is focusing on short-term growth. Often, this means solely focusing on new trends or taking a haphazard approach that sees flurries of content followed by months and months of digital crickets chirping. The truth is SEO is a long game. The best results come from sticking to a plan and chipping away at it week after week, and month after month.

Optimizing SEO for growth usually means picking all the low-hanging fruit. Have you figured out a list of keywords that best summarize your business? Do your pages have meta descriptions? Do your images have alt text? Have you optimized your H1 and H2 headings? If you’re not sure what this means, have you thought about finding a marketing partner with a strong track record in SEO?

As with many aspects of digital marketing, consistency is key. Over time, you’ll build a body of content filled with short-tail and long-tail keywords. This will answer most of the questions people are typing into their preferred search engine, which will significantly improve your company’s ranking on the results pages, and ultimately boost your web traffic.

Connect With Your Audience

Finally, find out where your target audience likes to spend their time online and connect with them. If that means maintaining an active LinkedIn presence, create a content plan. If that means participating in conversations on Twitter, schedule some time every day to log in and tweet. Or if that means creating an account with a company like Clutch so decision-makers can find all the information they need to make a decision, go ahead and sign up.

This is a simple and effective strategy that can yield impressive long-term results. If you’re short on time, it’s important to know that this is also something you can outsource.

Looking for a B2B Marketing Partner?

B2B marketing is one of our specialties. In the past, our work in this space has primarily focused on native corporations, manufacturers, professional services, and technology companies.

For Equipment Source, Inc., an Arctic equipment manufacturing business based in Fairbanks, Alaska, we increased web traffic four times and set a record for the amount of new leads we generated in 2020 – you can read more about that here. If you’re looking for a B2B marketing partner that will help your business grow, scale, and thrive, get in touch.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation today.

Written by Sabrina Martinez, updated by Sara Jokela 1/2/25

Low Facebook engagement sucks. You’ve put hours of work into creating amazing content that you thought your audience would love. But when you posted it there were… crickets.

You might get a like or two here and there, but people aren’t commenting or sharing as much as you expected them to. Your business Facebook page is definitely not growing, more the opposite, you feel like you keep losing people. Urgh, we know exactly how frustrating it can be.

You have two options.

  1. Keep creating and posting as you were. You can keep investing energy into creating all this fantastic content and risk not getting anywhere.
  2. Take a step back and follow this simple guide to troubleshooting your engagement problem and to kick-start your Facebook growth.

Need to call in the experts? Schedule a free consultation today.

Understanding Facebook Marketing

What is Facebook Marketing?

Facebook marketing is the process of promoting a business or brand and its products or services through the Facebook platform. It involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.

By leveraging the vast reach of Facebook, businesses can build brand awareness, engage with their target audience, and drive meaningful interactions. Whether it’s through organic posts, paid ads, or a combination of both, Facebook marketing allows businesses to connect with potential customers in a more personalized and direct way.

The key is to create content that resonates with your audience and encourages them to take action, whether it’s liking a post, sharing it with friends, or making a purchase.

Benefits of Facebook Marketing for Your Business

Facebook marketing offers numerous benefits for businesses, making it an essential component of any digital marketing strategy. Here are some of the key advantages:

  • Increased Brand Awareness: With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook provides an unparalleled opportunity to reach a large and targeted audience. By consistently posting engaging content, you can increase your brand’s visibility and recognition.
  • Improved Website Traffic: Facebook marketing can drive significant traffic to your website. By sharing links to your blog posts, product pages, or special offers, you can attract visitors who are interested in what you have to offer.
  • Lead Generation: Facebook’s lead generation features, such as lead ads, allow businesses to capture leads directly from the platform. This makes it easier to collect contact information from potential customers and nurture them through your sales funnel.
  • Increased Sales: By targeting specific audiences with tailored messages, Facebook marketing can help businesses increase sales. Whether you’re promoting a new product, running a special offer, or retargeting past visitors, Facebook ads can drive conversions and boost your revenue.

Understanding Your Audience

Understanding Your Audience: The Key to Engagement on Facebook

Understanding your audience is the cornerstone of a successful Facebook marketing strategy. By leveraging Facebook’s analytic tools and insights, you can uncover key demographics, interests, and behaviors of your followers.

This data is invaluable in crafting content that truly resonates with your audience’s preferences, leading to more meaningful interactions.

Timing is also crucial. Posting when your audience is most active can significantly boost engagement. Think of it as catching the wave at the right moment – your content is more likely to be seen, shared, and commented on, making it more visible in news feeds.

Engaging content that encourages users to comment, share, and react not only increases interaction but also builds a loyal community around your brand.

Consistently sharing great content and responding to interactions promptly can turn casual followers into dedicated fans.

Define Your Target Audience

Defining your target audience is essential for creating an effective Facebook marketing strategy. Start by identifying your ideal customer based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and pain points.

Facebook’s built-in analytics tools are a goldmine for gathering insights about your followers. Use this data to create detailed buyer personas that represent your target audience.

Understanding your audience’s needs, preferences, and behaviors allows you to tailor your content to meet their expectations. This means crafting posts that address their pain points, answer their questions, and provide value.

Adjust your strategy based on the feedback and engagement you receive. By focusing on what your audience wants, you can create a more personalized and effective Facebook marketing approach.

Setting Up Your Facebook Business Page

Create a Facebook Business Page

Creating a Facebook Business Page is a crucial step in establishing a strong online presence for your business. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started:

  1. Log in to Your Personal Facebook Account: To create a business page, you need to have a personal Facebook account. Once logged in, click on the “Create New Page” button.
  2. Choose a Category: Select a category that best describes your business, such as “Local Business” or “Company/Organization.” This helps Facebook users find your page more easily.
  3. Enter Your Business Name: Add your business name, ensuring it matches your brand identity. This will be the name that appears on your Facebook page.
  4. Add a Profile Picture and Cover Photo: Upload a profile picture, typically your business logo, and a cover photo that represents your brand. These images are the first things visitors will see, so make sure they are high-quality and visually appealing.
  5. Add a Brief Description: Write a short description of your business, including relevant keywords. This helps visitors understand what your business is about and improves your page’s searchability.
  6. Set Up Categories and Tags: Choose categories and tags that are relevant to your business. This helps Facebook users find your page when searching for related topics.
  7. Add a Call-to-Action (CTA) Button: Include a CTA button to drive traffic to your website or promote a specific offer. Options include “Shop Now,” “Sign Up,” or “Contact Us.”
  8. Customize Your Page’s Settings: Adjust your page’s settings to control who can see your page and what features are available. This includes setting up page roles, managing notifications, and enabling messaging.

By following these steps, you can create a professional and engaging Facebook Business Page that attracts and retains your target audience.

Define Your Facebook Marketing Goals

Defining your Facebook marketing goals is a crucial step in creating a successful Facebook marketing strategy. Your goals will serve as a guide for your content creation, engagement, and advertising efforts. Here are some common Facebook marketing goals:

  • Increase Brand Awareness: Reach a larger audience and build your brand’s reputation.
  • Drive Website Traffic: Send visitors to your website to learn more about your products or services.
  • Generate Leads: Collect contact information from potential customers who are interested in your products or services.
  • Boost Sales: Drive conversions and increase revenue through Facebook advertising.
  • Improve Customer Engagement: Encourage likes, comments, and shares on your Facebook posts.

To define your Facebook marketing goals, consider the following:

  • What are your business objectives?: Align your Facebook marketing goals with your overall business objectives to ensure consistency and focus.
  • Who is your target audience?: Understanding your audience will help you tailor your goals to meet their needs and preferences.
  • What type of content will resonate with your audience?: Create content that aligns with your goals and appeals to your audience.
  • How will you measure the success of your Facebook marketing efforts?: Use metrics and analytics to track your progress and adjust your strategy as needed.

By defining your Facebook marketing goals, you’ll be able to create a focused strategy that drives real results for your business.

Content Strategy

Types of Facebook Posts to Use in Your Strategy

Facebook offers a variety of post types that can help you achieve your marketing goals. Here are some of the most effective types of Facebook posts to use in your strategy:

  • Image Posts: Share high-quality images that showcase your products or services. Visual content is highly engaging and can capture your audience’s attention quickly.
  • Video Posts: Create engaging videos that tell a story or demonstrate a product. Videos are highly shareable and can significantly boost engagement.
  • Link Posts: Share links to your website or other relevant content. This can drive traffic to your site and provide additional value to your audience.
  • Text-Only Posts: Share short, engaging text posts that encourage conversation. These can be effective for asking questions or sharing quick updates.
  • Live Posts: Use Facebook Live to connect with your audience in real-time. Live videos can create a sense of urgency and foster a deeper connection with your audience.
  • Story Posts: Share behind-the-scenes content or sneak peeks to keep your audience engaged. Stories are a great way to show the human side of your brand and keep your audience coming back for more.

Create a Facebook Content Strategy

Creating a Facebook content strategy involves planning and scheduling your content in advance. Here are some tips to help you create a successful Facebook content strategy:

  • Define Your Content Goals: What do you want to achieve with your Facebook content? Whether it’s increasing engagement, driving traffic, or generating leads, having clear goals will guide your content creation.
  • Identify Your Target Audience: Who are you creating content for? Understanding your audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors will help you create content that resonates with them.
  • Develop a Content Calendar: Plan and schedule your content in advance. A content calendar helps you stay organized and ensures a consistent posting schedule.
  • Create a Mix of Content Types: Use a variety of post types to keep your audience engaged. Mixing up your content keeps things fresh and interesting for your followers.
  • Use Facebook Insights: Analyze your Facebook data to see what’s working and what’s not. Use this information to refine your content strategy and improve your results.

By creating a Facebook content strategy, you’ll be able to create a consistent stream of engaging content that drives real results for your business.

Want to kickstart your Facebook growth? Our team can help.

Troubleshooting Low Engagement on Facebook Marketing

There’s nothing more disappointing than creating beautiful Facebook content only to feel like you’re not getting anywhere with Facebook users. After a while, it’s easy to start thinking that you’re getting it all wrong.

Maintaining a strong Facebook presence by engaging with your audience and consistently posting high-quality content can make a significant difference. But that might not be the case! There might be a very simple solution.

One effective tool to consider is the Facebook Ads Library, a searchable database that allows you to explore all current and past advertisements on Facebook and Meta’s platforms. This can be invaluable for campaign inspiration and competitor analysis, helping you enhance your strategies and improve engagement.

1. Are You Posting At The Right Time?

The easiest fix (by far) to optimizing underperforming content is to check whether you are posting your Facebook post at the right times. What do we mean by the right time? This means that you are posting when your audience is active on Facebook and open to hearing your message.

Think of it like a DJ playing their best track when the club is empty. If nobody is there to dance to it, how can they appreciate the brilliance of that song?

Your content might be absolute killer, but if you’re posting it when your target audience is not using Facebook, they might never get to see it. It’s important to remember here that the social media algorithms determine the relevance of content by how much engagement they get shortly after posting.

If nobody reacts to your post shortly after posting, it won’t get pushed out to the rest of your audience (long live organic social media, right?!).

So how do you fix this problem? Super easy! You go to your Facebook Insights and then head to “Posts”. Here you will see a clear overview of what days your existing audience is online and what times they are most active. Now you can simply start posting at those times and see your engagement increase instantaneously.

2. Are You Asking Your Target Audience To Engage?

Another common mistake with organic content on Facebook is forgetting to tell your audience what you would like them to do. If you’re simply sharing a beautiful image of an item on sale but you forget to tell them to click through to shop, how is your audience able to find the sale?

In marketing terms, we call this a CTA or a call-to-action. It might feel a bit weird to ask people to like your photos, to click on something, or to comment on your post, but people follow your page for a reason and they tend to be happy to engage.

But you don’t have to create CTAs only to sell your audience something. Who knew that creating engaging content actually means that you could, and should, engage with your audience? Using a CTA can be lots of fun for both you and your audience! Ask them questions about topics that are related to your niche, ask them to tag friends who would love the content, link through relevant content, and more.

There are lots of options. Additionally, utilizing Facebook Messenger can enhance customer interactions through automated chatbots, making your engagement more efficient and effective.

But whatever you do, do not forget about the “Story” feature. Here you can create incredibly engaging content through the use of fun polls, question boxes, and so much more. The added bonus? The market research you can gain from these polls is incredible. Definitely grab your notepad because your audience is going to give you some great ideas.

3. Are You Giving Your Audience Value?

Organic social media marketing shouldn’t be all me, me, me. In fact, it really should be more about your audience than it is about you and your business. Let’s unpack that a bit.

There are many ways that you can create value for your audience, get them to engage with your business more, and in the end get them to purchase more. This type of content could range from short tips that they can save for later, elaborate and valuable blog posts that solve your audience’s problems (you’re reading one of those right now!), inspirational content such as beautiful images and videos that your target audience loves, and much, much more. User-generated content is also highly effective in building trust and authenticity by showcasing real experiences from customers, which can enhance brand credibility, community building, and customer loyalty. Make it worth their time to stop by and interact with your posts.

There really is an endless supply of content to be created when you stop thinking about what you can get and start thinking about what you can give.

4. Are You Posting The Right Content to Facebook Posts?

Are you posting the right types of content on your Facebook Pages? What works best? Are you using video? Are you posting too much of the same kind of thing? It’s important that the type of content that you are posting is actually the type of content your target audience likes to consume.

To find out whether your current Facebook audience is connecting with your content, you can dive back into Facebook Analytics. Head to the “Followers” tab and you can see on which days you gained followers and on which days you lost some. You can also review the analytics of each post and plan to post more of what worked well with your audience.

On a side note, we’d love to remind you here that Facebook has put a strong emphasis on video during the last few years. Facebook has even publicly admitted that it will prioritize video in the organic algorithm. Almost any written content, whether it was posted on social media or in a blog post, can be turned into great video – here’s how to do it.

5. Are You Posting Too Much or Too Little?

Consistency is key when it comes to social media success. Whether you enjoy posting once per day or even once per week, as long as you stick to your posting schedule, the platforms tend to reward you with showing your posts to your followers.

Utilizing the Facebook platform can help businesses grow their audience, manage advertising, and optimize content scheduling for maximum engagement.

We all know that life and business, however, tend to have ups-and-downs. That means consistency can be easier said than done, which is why we always recommend creating a content calendar. This will allow you to prepare content in batches and schedule them in advance so your communications are consistent and they never fall from your to-do list.

If you already have a consistent posting schedule, but you are still wondering whether you are posting too much or too little? Social media is all about testing and improving. Try a month with more content and a month with less content and keep an eye on your analytics. Did you gain followers when you posted less? Or did you lose followers when you posted more? It’s all about finding that magic number that works for your target audience.

6. Are You Having a Two-Way Conversation?

Over the years of building your brand, you have worked hard on creating an audience, often starting with a Facebook Page. These people have been with the business since the beginning or maybe you even bought a few followers to kick-start your follower count. Businesses evolve and there is a chance that your followers no longer consist of your target audience.

It’s important to investigate on a regular basis whether your target audience is still aligned with your current following. If they are not, find out how you can reach them better. There are two ways you can do this. First, ask the question straight up and seeing what responses you get from your followers. Second, prepare to dive back into your analytics.

7. Is it Time to Refresh Your Facebook Presence?

It’s easy to get lost in the business, you’re busy serving your clients and developing new products and services. Your business is growing, but it’s not reflecting in your social media growth and you’re beginning to worry that it might start affecting your business growth.

That might mean that’s time to take a step back and work “on” the business rather than “in” the business. Perhaps your brand and/or key messaging has become outdated? A fully optimized Facebook Business Page can be a critical tool for brand visibility and customer interaction, serving as a digital front for customer service and engagement.

The internet moves at a fast pace and that means that branding and messaging should represent what customers are looking for. Is your ideal client going to be attracted to your branding, key messaging, and website design? If not, it might be time for a rebrand.

Engaging with Your Audience

Utilizing Facebook Insights to Inform Engagement Tactics

Facebook Insights is a powerful tool that provides valuable data about your Facebook page and audience. Here are some ways to utilize Facebook Insights to inform your engagement tactics:

  • Analyze Your Audience Demographics: Understand who your audience is and what they’re interested in. This information can help you tailor your content to better meet their needs.
  • Track Your Engagement Metrics: See what types of content are driving the most engagement. This can help you identify what’s working and what’s not.
  • Identify Your Top-Performing Content: See what content is resonating with your audience. Use this information to create more of the content that your audience loves.
  • Use Facebook Insights to Inform Your Content Strategy: Create content that resonates with your audience. By understanding what your audience likes and engages with, you can create a more effective content strategy.

By utilizing Facebook Insights, you’ll be able to create a data-driven engagement strategy that drives real results for your business.

Facebook Marketing Strategy

Developing a Facebook Marketing Strategy

Developing a successful Facebook marketing strategy involves several key steps. First, set clear goals for what you want to achieve, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, or generating leads. Knowing your objectives will guide your entire strategy.

Next, define your target audience using Facebook’s analytics tools to understand their demographics, interests, and behaviors. This insight will help you create content that resonates with them.

A content calendar is essential for planning and organizing your posts. Include a mix of promotional, educational, and engaging content to keep your audience interested.

Utilize Facebook’s advertising platform to reach a wider audience and drive conversions. Facebook ads can be highly targeted, allowing you to reach specific segments of your audience with tailored messages.

Regularly monitor your performance using Facebook analytics and adjust your strategy based on what’s working and what’s not. By staying flexible and responsive, you can continually improve your Facebook marketing efforts and achieve your goals.

Want to kickstart your Facebook growth? Our team can help.

Digital marketing helps grow your business. But how do you do it strategically, in a way that minimizes your investment of time and money while maximizing conversions?

All marketing works best (or even only) by creating genuine human connections. You could have the best creative, the smartest key messaging, the biggest marketing budget, and the greatest product, but if you don’t know who you are actually talking to, or you’re not making a memorable connection with your ideal client, all your efforts will be for nothing.

Rather than pumping more money into a marketing strategy that’s not working as you wanted it to, take a step back and focus on finding your dream client.

Ready to start driving sales? Speak to our team today.

Who is Your Target Audience?

The best way to stop your creative assets disappear into thin air is to define your target audience. That’s right, instead of broadcasting your message to everyone and their dog, you need to talk to the right people. That means fewer than you might actually believe.

Obviously, while we all want the maximum number of customers, trying to appeal to everyone on the whole internet will simply not work. For one thing, your product or service won’t be relevant to everyone. For another, they might not resonate with your brand.

Knowing who you are talking to and why you are talking to them is the beginning of any successful digital marketing campaign. It all starts by defining your target audience and talking only to them. A target audience is, in essence, a subset of people who share a set of common characteristics that is most likely to purchase your product. This could consist of their age, gender, location, interests, etc. It’s your job to figure out who that is.

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

What Information Do You Already Have?

To define your target audience, you’re thankfully not starting from scratch. You probably have a pretty good idea of who is buying your product. You may even have a mailing list or a little bit of data. We recommend looking through all the information that you have about your current customers. You can do this! Here are a few characteristics to keep in mind:

  • Locations: Do they live in a certain area? Do they purchase from anywhere?
  • Interests: Do they care about the environment? Do they love to travel?
  • Lifestyle: Do they have children? Do they regularly talk about a certain hobby?
  • Communication: Do they even open their emails? Do they prefer social media?
  • Income: Single income with kids? Double income and no kids? This is important.
  • Gender: Do you notice mostly women or men purchasing from your business?
  • Education: Are they college-educated or learned a trade?

Write all of this down to start defining the group you need to be targeting.

How Many Target Audiences?

The next step is to define whether all that information fits into one group of people, or whether there are several groups with different characteristics. After all, the world is a big place and multiple different groups of people might be interested in your product. For example, it is perfectly possible that your business will attract first-time homebuyers and stay-at-home moms with three kids. That’s why a list is so helpful in identifying trends.

Time For an Imaginary Friend

The easiest way to approach this target audience is to create an audience persona. An audience persona is essentially your new imaginary friend who perfectly matches your ideal customer or customers. You can even give them a name! Not only does it make it easier to define that elusive target audience, it’s also much easier to talk to them.

For example, how would you feel about writing a message to a group of people who care about the environment, are between 28 and 35 years old, try to eat healthily, and love road trips. I’m sure you will be able to do this. But it might take you a few minutes of head-scratching to get something on paper. What if you’re writing a message directly to Jessica, who is 31 years old and who is always posting about her healthy food on Instagram and seems to be on a road trip to a beautiful forest every weekend. A bit easier, right?

Now it’s time to do the same for your customers. Maybe it’s Robert, the 52-year-old construction company executive who needs new equipment. Or Sarah, the 24-year-old new mom struggling to transition to motherhood. Or Bruce, the 64-year-old aerospace engineer organizing his finances before retirement. You get the idea.

Analytics Are Important in Defining Target Audience

Want to hear something surprising? The people seeing your content on Facebook or website might not be your ideal customer. Alternatively, it’s possible that the people buying the most from you might not be the people you originally had in mind as your target audience.

The best way to confirm your target audience and your marketing efforts align is to look into your analytics. Both Google and Facebook gather a vast amount of data about anyone who visits your website or who engages with your social media. Thankfully, they let us in on a little bit of this data. Here are a few ways to get the best out of your analytics.

Google Analytics

Anyone who owns a website can use Google Analytics. While a normal user may know Google as a search engine, website owners can gain a wealth of knowledge from the platform.

Google Analytics essentially tracks the movements of all website visitors and gathers data along the way, which is mostly used to optimize Google advertising. It can help you figure out how long people are spending on your website, where they are coming from, what search term they are using, who your audience is, and so much more.

To find this information in Google Analytics, go to the “Audience” tab. The most interesting tabs here will be the following:

  • Demographics: Here you will find the age and gender categories.
  • Interests: This is gold! Look at the overview to see which broader categories your audience is interested in. You can also dive deeper and look at both the Affinity and In-Market audiences tabs to gain a deeper understanding of the people who visit.
  • Geo: Here you can find the location of your audience and which language they speak. The latter might surprise you! This can open up a lot of doors for you.
  • Mobile: Find out whether your audience is visiting your website on their phones or from the desktop. This is important so you know where best to reach them.

Facebook Analytics

Another great tool to look into your audience is through Facebook Insights. Facebook is known to provide some of the most advanced segmenting options when it comes to targeted Facebook Ads. This, of course, means that they track an abundance of data. Head to your Facebook Insights now to find all the juicy info about your followers (and lurkers)!

To find your Insights, you first have to navigate to your Facebook Business Page. Click on the “People” tab to find out more about how old your followers are, where they live, and what language they have set on Facebook. Look at the “Posts” tab to discover what times they are online and what posts resonated the most with them. You can also see how your audience is growing, what type of posts your audience loves the most (photo or video).

You can even see what actions people are taking on your Facebook page. Are they clicking on your website or on your Action buttons, are they getting directions, or are they clicking on your phone number? Combine this information, and you now have a pretty good idea of who is following you and whether all of that content is achieving your business goals.

Compare Analytics and Target Audience

Now that we know who we want to reach (and have even created a few audience personas) and we know who sees our website and social media, we can see whether those audiences align! Did you get it right? Awesome! More than likely, though, this will be an opportunity to improve your digital marketing strategy by asking yourself a few questions:

  • Is my target audience following me on Facebook, or have they not found me yet?
  • How can I tweak my message so I speak more directly to my target audience?
  • Is my target audience reading my blog posts and visiting my website?
  • How can I make my website better so that it appeals more to my target audience?
  • Is my branding in line with what my target audience likes?
  • How can I use my website to solve my target audience’s problems better?
  • Are my analytics showing me that there is an untapped audience out there?

Want to maximize ROI by reaching the right people? We’ll help you find them.

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.

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.

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.

There’s a big difference between good copywriting and bad copywriting. A huge difference. A massive difference. A monumental difference. But it’s about more than just choosing the right words for the job, it’s about connecting with your audience and persuading them to act.

In this guide, we tell you everything that you need to know about copywriting – what it is, why it matters, and why you should consider outsourcing it for your company.

Want to talk about copywriting? Schedule a free consultation today.

What is copywriting, anyway?

Copywriting is any words related to your brand: your tagline, website copy, sales brochures, social media content, press releases, and everything else that uses text. It’s very common, when you’re starting out, to write everything yourself. But if you want to make your words work (and by work…we mean sell) then it’s time to think about getting a professional copywriter.

Also, copywriters have nothing to do with copyright law, despite the fact it sounds the same.

What does a copywriter do?

Copywriters write words that promote your business and persuade your customers to buy your products or services. It broadly falls into two different categories:

  1. Developing the creative parts of a brand (like packaging and advertising campaigns).
  2. Creating ‘sales’ related collateral (like emails, website copy, and blog posts).

Copywriters are also very skilled at content marketing, which is integral to helping your brand presence grow online. This includes SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to ensure customers can find you when they need your products or services through platforms like Google.

How can a copywriter help your business?

Wherever there are words, copywriters can help. This includes:

  • Writing the copy for a company’s website
  • Content marketing like blog posts and articles
  • Crafting paid advertising copy
  • Coming up with creative headlines for an advertising campaign that’s going to run on billboards or in magazines
  • Crafting social media content for channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more
  • Writing a company’s in-house magazine, newsletter, or intranet content
  • Email marketing (promotional emails to your customers)
  • Packaging copy (if you’re a business with tangible products)
  • Crafting landing pages that convert
  • Video scripts to tell your brand story

Marketing for the first time? Here are the top digital marketing trends for 2021.

Why should I use professional copywriting services?

While anyone can write, not everyone is a writer. Anyone can nail two pieces of wood together, but not everyone can build a house. See what we’re saying? Your brand is just as precious as your house, so it’s important to find someone you can trust to do the job well. Here’s why:

  • Readers only read 20% of the content on the page (which means that 20% better be working hard)
  • Nearly 75% of readers pay attention to spelling and grammar (meaning there’s no room for mistakes)
  • Eight out of 10 people will read a headline, but only two people will go on to read the rest (which means your headlines need to do some serious heavy lifting)

It’s reasons like this that explain why getting a professional copywriter is so important if you want to grow your company. Is your website working hard enough? Are your emails actually persuading anyone to buy anything? Is your social media marketing getting results?

When you use a professional copywriter, you can trust that your brand is not just producing words – it’s producing words that actually work. This is essential to growing your business.

How can copywriting grow your brand?

Companies are as unique as their owners. They all have a different tone and style. Professional copywriters can adapt their writing to fit the personality of your brand and to suit the needs of your audience. By doing this, they create content that persuades your audience to act. That action could be straight to purchase, booking a sales call, or requesting more information.

Not only can copywriters help your brand grow your bottom line, but they can also help you increase your brand awareness and brand equity (how many people recognize your brand). They do this by creating memorable content that is shareable and relatable to your audience.

What are some common copywriting mistakes we see?

  1. Not bothering with audience personas. If you want to connect with your audience you’ve got to know who they are and what they want.
  2. It’s full of spelling and grammar mistakes. Sloppy mistakes like this show your audience that you don’t care. So why should they?
  3. Getting the voice wrong. Every brand has (or should have) its own unique voice and way of writing. Every word needs to match that brand voice (seriously…like, imagine if Red Bull started to sound like an insurance firm!)
  4. You’re being too verbose. Don’t use 50 words if you can say it in 10. One of the hardest things in the world is keeping it simple, but simplicity is often the key when it comes to good copy.
  5. You’re writing for yourself and not your audience. You need to lead with the benefit to your audience at all times, not the benefit to your company.
  6. There’s no clear call to action. What do you actually want your audience to do? Make it clear what people should do to take the next step.
  7. Forgetting SEO. When it comes to getting your business found, you need to make good friends with Google. And that means writing highly searchable content that follows the rules of SEO.
  8. Trying to say too much at once. We get it, your brand is great. But you can’t say everything about it all at once. Write with a singular and explicitly clear purpose.
  9. Not considering readability. Our brains like to scan content quickly to make decisions on whether it’s useful, so it’s essential to avoid huge blocks of text.
  10. Relying on adjectives, not proof. You need to be able to back up what’s said, not just keep throwing in superfluous adjectives about how great your company are.
  11. Not telling your story well enough. We have a functional and emotional side of our brain. When we buy something, both sides are helping us choose where to spend our dollars. Your brand’s story is an important emotional trigger, but are you telling it right?
  12. Not having a clear purpose. Why are you even writing something in the first place? Every piece of content – and every word within it – should have a clear purpose. Don’t just write something for the sake of it. No-one benefits from shouting into the void.
  13. Articulating your special offers wrong. Special offers are a great way to increase sales but they need to be positioned in the right way that don’t devalue your brand.
  14. Missing opportunities. There are opportunities everywhere to use words to sell – your website, your transactional emails, your signage (and plenty more).

Want some examples of copywriting that converts?

Frank Body

This beauty brand oozes personality. From the packaging to the website and everything in-between, it’s intrinsically Frank every time. But it’s not just quirky – every word drives action.

  • Clearly shows the products and their fun tone of voice and product descriptions.
  • A fun ‘10% off’ call to action encouraging people to sign up for the newsletters.
  • ‘Shop My Kits’ calls to action makes it clear what the reader needs to do next.

Tasters Club

This whisky club has nailed simplicity. Check out this beautiful home page:

  • A single headline says exactly who this company is and what it offers.
  • The two very clear calls to action are worded in a way that’s super inviting – driving people straight to the content they need.

Nike

Okay, okay, we’re putting in the big guns here. Copywriting is more than just content marketing and social media. It can also become intrinsic to your brand. Nike’s tagline ‘Just do it’ is one of the world’s most iconic copywriting examples. It’s globally recognized and is just as powerful as the brand name itself. Want something this good for your brand? Get a copywriter. Just do it.

  • What can we say? It’s a thing of beauty.

Patagonia

If you’re an eCommerce site, your product descriptions are one of the most important things you’ll ever write. They need to rank for Google, provide practical information for your audience, and give shoppers the warm-and-fuzzies that make them want to buy, all at once.

We love how Patagonia has written theirs. Although it’s just a product listing, it manages to reinforce the company’s key messaging around sustainability and make the shopper feel good.

  • Short, concise product descriptions that fuses the functional with the emotional (functional = technical details like what it does and the weight; emotional = environmental information, which pulls on the emotive tendencies of readers).
  • Expandable sections for ‘Features’ allow more functional information and ‘View Impact’ which delves into the environmental impact of the product.

Ready to work with a copywriter?

If you’ve been persuaded by the power of words, we’d love to hear from you. Schedule a free consultation.

Deciding to employ a digital marketing agency instead of DIY-ing your digital efforts can feel like a daunting step. But if you’re serious about growing your business, it’s a step that you need to take. Here’s everything you need to know to ensure your new partnership is seamless.

Prefer chatting to a real person? Schedule a free consultation now.

Questions to ask when choosing a digital marketing partner

First up, you’ve got to choose the right agency. While it might sound easy, there are a few more things to consider than you might think. When you’re choosing your new agency partner we recommend looking at two things; the ‘hard’ facts like track-record, process, results, and costs etc, and then the ‘softer stuff’ like culture, and communication style. 

Track record

Let’s not beat around the bush. You want results. And the best way to see if a potential agency can deliver is to see how they’ve performed in the past.

Ask:  

What track record do you have managing digital marketing for other companies in my sector? What results did you get? Can I see your portfolio?

Agency structure

All agencies are set up differently, and it’s important to know who will be working on your account and who you will have direct contact with. If you’re having an initial meeting with the CEO, that doesn’t mean they’ll be your point of call if you start working together. 

Ask:  

What is your agency structure and who will be working on my account? Who is my day-to-day contact and who is working behind-the-scenes? What experience do they have? 

Process

Just like agency structure, different agencies will also have lots of different ways of working. Do they have a set/rigid structure and protocol? Or do they tailor projects more specifically for each client?

Ask:  

What is your process from start to finish? How will we work together? How do we communicate – email? Project management software? Phone? Video call? In-person meetings?

Services

Digital marketing can mean a million things; social media, paid social media advertising, google ads, blog writing, email automation, landing pages, video creation. If you have a clear understanding already of what you want, make sure they can deliver on all of it. If you’re unsure, delve into their marketing services and see what their recommendations are. 

Ask:

What marketing services do you offer? How do I know what ones are right for my business?

Culture

Your new partner is going to be charged with growing your business and spending (ideally) between 7% to 8% of your revenue on doing so. You’re going to want a great relationship built on trust and transparency. That’s why we reckon it’s pretty important that you like each other! 

Ask: 

What is your agency like? What is your culture/community? How long has your team been working together? How long on average do you work with clients? (length of relationship is a great indicator of what an agency is like). 

Price

When it comes to choosing who to work with, budget is a big part of the decision-making process. But price shouldn’t be your deciding factor if you can avoid it. Of course, the cost is important and you’ll need to make sure that they’re competitively priced.

Ask:

What is your pricing structure? And your payment terms? (You can also find out more about what you can expect to pay a digital marketing agency here)

How to work effectively with a digital marketing agency

Congratulations! You’ve chosen your new digital marketing agency! Now it’s time to get to work on building your brand and elevating your business. For the best results, this has to be a two-way relationship. The agency – and you – need to communicate and deliver every step of the way. 

Set clear, realistic expectations

For this new partnership to succeed, you need to ensure that you’re both on the same page when it comes to expectations. 

Top tip:

Work out together what success looks like (website traffic? Data capture? Direct online sales?) Discuss and set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and decide at what intervals you’ll be reviewing them.  

Give them what they need

A digital agency can’t succeed if you don’t give them as much information as possible about who you are, what you do, your customers, and your products. They will also need feedback on performance. 

Top tip:

Try and carve out a set time (maybe a fortnightly call) where you’re there to answer any questions your new agency might have. 

Collate your feedback

One way that businesses can get stung by agencies is by being charged for additional rounds of refinement. It’s so easy to keep wanting to make changes to digital assets and content, but sometimes even small changes can all add up. 

Top tip:

Gather all internal stakeholder’s feedback at once to help minimize rounds of refinement. Chat to your agency too about how they manage refinement and how many rounds are included.  

Stick to deadlines

Agencies often work to strict timelines to make sure that they can deliver the results you need when they need them. If you don’t give feedback at the time expected this can have a big knock-on impact on whether a project can be delivered on time. Agencies also have lots of other clients, so if you’re unexpectedly missing a deadline they might not be able to get to your work straight away when you do finally give feedback. 

Top tip: 

Most agencies understand that missing deadlines is sometimes unavoidable. It’s all about communication though; if you can’t make a deadline let the agency know as soon as you can. That way Plan B can quickly be put into action. 

Trust that they know their stuff

Sometimes your agency might push back on something that you want to do or offer advice that you’re not sure about. If they do, remember that it’s because they want to make sure that you’re spending your marketing budget on things that will get you the highest return on investment.

Top tip:

Ask them to explain why they want to do this/make these changes and see if they have some solid examples from previous clients that show results.

Check-in regularly

Your business can change rapidly; new product offering, targets that adapt each quarter, changes in business priorities. Your digital marketing should support this, which is why it’s important to check in regularly with your agency and adapt the output and results required. 

Top tip:

Add an item to the regular agenda to discuss any business updates from your end that might inspire your agency or give them useful insights. Read the results and reports they provide you with and be sure to ask any questions.

Have realistic expectations

You’re most likely investing in digital marketing because you want to drive sales and/or increase brand awareness. Digital marketing is absolutely the right way to do this, but it doesn’t happen overnight, especially for organic tactics like social media and SEO. Paid advertising and email automation are easier to see a direct correlation but do still take a bit of time.

Top tip: 

Speak to your agency about realistic timeframes for seeing an impact on your business. The KPI settings, regular reports, and check-ins which we’ve discussed above will all help keep this all on track.

Want to learn more about how a digital marketing agency can help? Schedule a free consultation now.

Facebook made a monumental decision to shut down the news in Australia this week. All content from all news sites, including public and commercial broadcasters, broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, magazines, websites, and even government departments such as the Bureau of Meteorology and Department of Health, evaporated literally overnight. This is a big deal.

As you’d expect, it was politically charged. We’re not going to dive into the details here, but to give you a general overview, a number of local news companies have been demanding Facebook pay for hosting news content, claiming the company profits from their work. The ban was lifted after a few days, following further talks between Mark Zuckerberg and the government.

“Okay, but how does this affect my small or medium-sized American business,” we hear you asking. Good question. The reason we’re bringing this up is because it shows the importance of having a multi-faceted marketing strategy. Facebook is a commercial entity, which means it has the right to host – or not host – any content it chooses. It can change the rules at any time.

If Facebook posts and Facebook Ads are your sole strategy for growing business, it’s time to consider diversifying to ensure your business can continue to grow with or without it.

Worried about what this means for you? Talk to our team.

Will Facebook shut down my business page?

The circumstances that led to this week’s drama are unique to Australia, and unlikely to occur on such a large scale in the United States (although if this week has proven anything, it’s to never say never). On top of that, if you’re a paying customer who uses Facebook Ads to drive leads for your business, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be targeted and shut down. Facebook profits from your business, and it’s unlikely to give up this revenue stream. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be protected from all sweeping rule changes that are rolled out in the future… even just on accident.

This isn’t something you should panic about. However, when Facebook banned news in Australia, it took many micro publishers with it – all of whom run small and medium-sized business. The sweeping changes didn’t worry about any of the little guys that would be taken out as collateral damage. That’s worth keeping in the back of your mind, because you never know that will happen in the future.

This also sets an interesting precedent for future negotiations between Facebook and governments. As a global community, we’ve come to depend on Facebook for lots of things. it’s where we catch up with friends and family, plan high school reunions, organize events, promote businesses, create brands, build audiences, buy and sell items, learn about things that are going on in our communities. If it was taken away tomorrow, we’d all be in a pretty sticky situation. File that thought away in your mental archives as well – just in case.

That brings us to the reason we’re writing this blog. Many small and medium-sized American businesses rely on heavily on Facebook for their marketing. And so they should, because it’s a tremendously powerful platform with excellent targeting and analytics capabilities. It generates great results and can play a key role in helping your business grow, scale, and thrive. That’s what we want!

Our goal in writing this today is to educate you about all the options that are available to diversify your marketing strategy so you can take control, protect yourself from snap decisions, and make sure you never lose touch with your digital client base. Think of it as a great way to broaden your digital horizons,

We offer a range of digital marketing services. You can check them out here.

How can I diversify my marketing strategy?

This is where things get exciting. New marketing tools are popping up all the time, which makes digital marketing a really exciting space to be investing your time and energy.

Here are some of our favorites:

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is great for a number of reasons:

  • It’s free.
  • It’s incredibly effective.

Short-Tail Keywords

SEO basically refers to the process of making sure your content can be found on search engines. This means adding digital “signposts” that will tell sites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo what your content is about. There are a few ways you can go about it, but the most important one by far is to optimize your website. For example, if you’re a HVAC contractor, you need to make it clear exactly what it is that you do – these are what we call “short-tail keywords.” This means including every combination of words people are likely to search to find your services: furnace repairs, furnace maintenance, new furnaces, boiler repairs, boiler maintenance, new boilers, etc. If you’re a medical spa, you need to do the same: Botox, lip fillers, face fillers, Juvéderm fillers, and so on. This is key to generating leads.

Long-Tail Keywords

The second thing you should be doing is creating a stream of fresh content. Most businesses do this via blogs, because blogs are another effective way to answer commonly searched questions. For example, “How do I re-light a furnace pilot light?” or “What is the right age to start Botox?” These are called “long-tail keywords” because they use what’s essentially a searchable phrase. The best place to start is with your frequently asked questions. What do customers ask you all the time? Brainstorm a list, and then write details answers that are about 600-800 words long.

Google My Business

Google My Business is another free tool that we highly recommend. You know when you search a business in your area, e.g. “mechanic near me” or “restaurant near me” and they all pop up on Google Maps? That’s because they all have profiles on Google My Business. Or when you search for a specific business, e.g. “HeatSource Mechanical,” and an information panel pops up on the right-hand side of your screen? That happens for the same reason. It makes leads very easy to find. All you have to do is log in and claim your profile. You can do that by clicking on this link, or we’d be very happy to help you our with our Google My Business + Maps service. It’s well worth the effort.

Digital Advertising

If you’re still reading, chances are you’re currently running Facebook Ads and you’d like to think about some alternatives. There are lots of options available, including Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and YouTube Ads, just to name a few. Each one has different strengths, which we’ll explain below.

Google Ads

Google Ads is the most diverse, allowing you to target (and retarget) really specific groups of people within the community according to the things they’re actively searching. It’s based on a bidding system, where you set the limit you’re willing to pay per click, and it can be efficient and cost-effective because you’re only targeting interested people instead of the general public.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn is great if you offer a B2B product or service, because it’s a professional networking community focused on work. It’s not something we recommend to everyone, but in this right context, it can be very powerful. LinkedIn is great for increasing brand awareness in business circles which can be a great way to generate inquiries that lead into bigger deals.

YouTube Ads

If your product is so revolutionary it has to be seen to be believed, or if it’s a complex service that’s best explained in person, YouTube is the place to be. Video ads are very compelling because they show, rather than tell, people exactly why they should choose to work with your business. YouTube is popular with many demographics, but especially with young men aged 18-35, so that’s also something to keep in mind. You may be able to use that to your advantage.

Reducing your reliance on Facebook

All of the strategies we’ve set out in this blog are things you can do on your own without too much trouble. However, if you’re short on time or you don’t enjoy researching the different options and weighing up the pros and cons, we’d be happy to help you. We are a full-service digital marketing agency that can take care of everything from developing a strategy to creating a new website, optimizing your paid ads, and managing your social media accounts. Just let us know what you need and we can tailor a digital marketing solution to help your business continue to grow.

Want to talk business? Let’s get started.