Geofencing: Four Creative Uses To Build Awareness and Drive Traffic

Geofencing is a highly effective way to target your ideal customers the moment they’re primed for responding to an ad from your business when done right. For example, traditionally you may put a geofence around a competitor’s location, and send ads to people who enter the area letting them know your products or services are currently discounted.

Thanks to COVID-19 and the ongoing pandemic, however, many businesses have changed their business model and many consumers are now shopping online as opposed to in-store. So how can small business owners still take advantage of geofencing, a location-based targeting tactic? Here are a couple of ways to keep it functioning as an integral part of your marketing strategy.

Expand Your Location Parameter

Curbside pick-up, long lines outside of stores, and drive-thrus are becoming increasingly popular as this pandemic continues. Because of this, it’s important to expand your geofencing parameter to a larger area in order to incorporate those consumers. Of course, you’ll want to double-check that the locations you’re targeting are still open, or what their current hours are so that you’re not targeting locations without an audience present.

Build Awareness About Amenities

Whether it’s a city park, a stadium, a hospital, or a shopping center – instead of driving traffic to your location from a competitor, you can use geofencing to alert consumers already on or near your site to available amenities. This can include food services, public restrooms, taxi pick-up; a number of services consumers still require, but that are more difficult to locate these days.

Strengthen Your Current Strategy

By adapting your strategy to include a larger parameter, or targeting more people for brand or amenity awareness, you naturally bring a larger audience into your range. Now is a good time to review the audience layers of your strategy and tighten them up to ensure you’re only attracting the most ideal customers to your business. This will help increase your conversion rate.

Keep Your Content Fresh

When driving traffic to your website through geofencing during COVID-19, ensure you’re updating your web and social media content regularly. You want to make sure the potential customers you are attracting have the most accurate information possible, understand what you are doing in terms of COVID protocols, and know how to purchase from you safely. Stale content will result in a potential loss of conversions.

If geofencing is part of your strategy, or you want to incorporate it, but aren’t sure of the best way to do so during the pandemic, send us a message. We’re always happy to help and set you up with a strategy for success. 

Why An Active, Accurate Google My Business Listing Is So Important

Have you been reading our blog for some time? Then you know that having an accurate Google My Business listing is essential for driving web and foot traffic to your business, improving your SEO, and helping build your brand reputation through reviews and posts. But what happens when the system breaks and your listing on Google is no longer accurate?

Daniel Gavsie, owner of Aliyah Massage in Montreal, had the unpleasant experience of twice having his business location changed on his Google My Business listing. For reasons unbeknownst to Daniel, after almost two years at his current location, Google updated his street address from Jean-Talon Street West to Jean-Talon Street East – a 30-minute drive away.

“It’s crippling,” said Daniel, who first noticed the problem when a client was 10 minutes late to their appointment. After calling his client to check-in, Daniel discovered the client was lost and looking for the clinic at the wrong end of the street. The client didn’t make their appointment – and Daniel missed out on the business.

“Searches for information are higher this year,” said Vanessa Gingras, an industry expert. “Every time government regulations change, there is a spike in searches. Ultimately, these inaccuracies lead to lost revenue.”

Guard Your Revenue Drivers

During the pandemic, when small businesses are lucky to be open and operating, lost revenue is no small matter. And when clients are already exasperated with COVID and with trying to figure out if businesses are open or operating regular hours, inaccuracies like this can lead to lost business on a larger scale, too. These inaccuracies may include:

  • Loss of new business.
  • Loss of already scheduled appointments.
  • Loss of recurring business from clients upset with travelling to the wrong location.

So how can you get ahead of Google’s automation system, which determines if your information is accurate or not and, sometimes, makes changes without you knowing? Along with ensuring you are updating your business information regularly, having an active listing is crucial.

“Keep updating the listing even if there are no changes,” says Vanessa. “This tells Google you are an active business, which helps it value your business more than others.”

Because Google is a user-centric business directory, it will always prefer listings that it believes are active and up-to-date.

“It’s important for business owners to understand that having an ‘updated’ listing isn’t just about ensuring your hours are accurate. You have to be consistently updating your description, add photos, and so on, to stay relevant.” Doing so sends the right signals to Google, as their algorithms are always looking for business owners who are active and engaged. And why would they be if their listing was inaccurate? 

Agencies Connected To Google Can Help

That’s why, when you’re relying on Google to maintain your online business information, it’s crucial to stay on top of your listing and show Google you are both active and that your information is accurate. While it’s not a fool-proof system, as Daniel witnessed, it’s your best bet to ensure Google leaves you alone and doesn’t try to override the content you’ve created.

If you’re still unfortunate enough to have an issue with how Google interprets your business information, it’s good to associate yourself with an agency. Choosing the right agency is key because some oversee thousands of business listings and work closely with Google to help solve these types of problems. With an agency on the case, these types of issues get solved more quickly than if you’re attempting to navigate the waters yourself, as the agency will have more pull with Google. And, for small business owners, a quick resolution in these instances is everything.

“This error is on every level,” said Daniel. “It’s tough right now. We’re lucky even to be open.”

And Daniel is thankful this problem is now in his rearview mirror.

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If you have questions about how you can better manage your Google My Business listing to avoid this unfortunate situation, send us a message – we’re always happy to help.

Five Reasons Why Your New e-Commerce Website Is Having Trouble Attracting Traffic

Throughout the pandemic, many local businesses pivoted from in-store to online sales. Of course, this requires an e-commerce website, set up to allow customers to purchase directly from the website with little to no interaction with the business. 

This year, the e-commerce industry is expected to generate $4.5 trillion in sales by the end of the year. Any local business owner with an online store will obviously want a piece of the pie, But, in order to get that, your e-commerce site needs to first attract the right kind of traffic. If your e-commerce website isn’t bringing in the revenue you’d like it to, your traffic is the first thing to consider.

Here are five reasons you might be having trouble attracting traffic:

You haven’t set up an SEO Strategy

If you’re selling products and/or services that people want or need, then the safe assumption is that people are logging into Google to search for companies like yours every day. You want to make sure your e-commerce site is one of the ones they see first.

One of the best ways to do this is by investing in an SEO strategy, which involves optimizing your site to make it easier to find – including by using the same keywords in your content that your audience is searching for. 

If your e-commerce website is easy to find, you’ll generate more traffic than if it’s hidden back on page two or three of the search results.

You’re not running ads

Combined with a smart SEO strategy, running ads through Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or elsewhere can help drive both new and returning visitors to your website. Most platforms have an advertising component, so it’s just a matter of choosing the network where your audience is. 

And if you do have a good understanding of who your target audience is, you (or an ads specialist) can create highly targeted ads. And these ads will be put in front of exactly the kind of person who is more likely to buy from you. This not only generates more traffic but generates the right kind of traffic for your e-commerce site to be successful.

Your site isn’t optimized for mobile

Many, if not most, of your potential website visitors, will scroll from their cell phones. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile traffic, you will automatically lose those visitors. So make sure that you have a responsive site, which means that it will load properly on a phone or tablet. 

Optimizing for mobile also means thinking about your e-commerce website’s speed. In fact, 41% of users will leave if your site takes more than 5 seconds to load.

You don’t have enough reviews

Whether on your Facebook page, your Google My Business listing or in your Instagram Highlights, customer reviews are incredibly important for generating website traffic. In fact, we’ve shared before that:

  • 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations, and
  • 90 percent of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business
  • 10% of all website traffic is a result of online reviews

How do you generate reviews? Send a thank-you email to all customers post-purchase. Your email should include a link to leave a review in the body and in your signature. And don’t forget to respond to all the reviews left by your customers – both good and bad!

You’re not on Social Media

Instagram launched in 2016, and by 2018 almost a third of all referral traffic was coming from social media. Who wouldn’t want to secure that extra traffic? You don’t have to be everywhere, but choose one or two platforms to show up on and share value with your audience, and then guide them off of social media and to your website.

Creating a successful e-commerce website isn’t as easy as “if you build it they will come.” It’s important to take the right steps to generate traffic to your site, so you can then focus on converting those visits to sales.

If you have questions about setting up or promoting your e-commerce site, book a free consultation and let’s chat about how we can help you generate more traffic.

How A Car Dealership Can Increase Foot Traffic – and Website Traffic Too

Whether you have one location or multiple, generating traffic to your car dealership is just as important as increasing traffic to your website. Yes, we know that it can sound like two very different goals, but they don’t have to be in all honesty. Here are some of the tools and tactics we recommend including in your marketing strategy to ensure that you increase your car dealership’s visibility.

Geofencing Targets Your Ideal Clients

Geofencing puts a virtual fence around a specific location – for example, a competitive car dealership – and serves ads to the smartphones of people who enter the fence perimeter, presumably, your ideal customers. The ads then let those people know about a sale you’re having, new inventory, or anything else that would encourage them to visit your dealership.

Geofencing helps drive foot traffic to your dealership, but it also helps with brand awareness and recognition, since people see your ad. It can also help drive traffic to your website, as the display ad is clickable on a smartphone. 

Use Google Ads To Generate Valuable Leads

Google Ads uses keywords to show an ad to your ideal clients. To rank, or show up, on the first page of search results differs in cost depending on the keywords used, but it’s a great way to guarantee brand awareness (because people will see your ad), and you only pay if someone clicks on it and visits your website.

Google Ads can be used to drive three main actions: visit your dealership, call your dealership, or visit your website. You can even kill two birds with one stone by sending people to your website to book an appointment at your physical location. 

Social Media Marketing Increases Awareness Of Your Business

Social media for business has come a long way in the past couple of years. It’s no longer just about posting pictures or updates. Platforms like Instagram give you tools to help your dealership get found, drive more people to your website or find your physical location. Hashtags, location tags (that open in Google Maps), a call button, an email button, a link to your website, and searchable name and username fields – these are all features that are built into the platform to help your business grow.

Social media accounts also appear in search results, so having optimized social media platforms can help your business visibility off of those platforms, too. You can also enable paid advertising strategies on these networks to get more out of your social media presence, often with the same goals as Google Ads. 

Content Marketing Is The Engine That Generates Trust

Content Marketing is when you create content (in the form of blogs, YouTube videos, infographics – whichever type you choose!) to share valuable information with your ideal clients to build trust with them and encourage them to take profitable actions. 

Content marketing helps in two ways: 

  • By adding new content to your website (with a minimum of 300 words), you signal to Google to come back and crawl your site, helping with your SEO (search engine optimization) rankings.
  • The more valuable information you share freely with your audience, without selling to them directly, the more you build trust with them and the more likely they are to come to you instead of a competitor when they are ready to buy.

An example of relevant content might be a blog post titled, “3 Reasons Why it Might be Time to Invest in Winter Tires”. Then, to expose your content to a broader audience, use social media to distribute your content to an even wider audience.

Local Listings Management Cost Little For Big Returns

Several online business directories help dealerships become more visible and send people to your website. These include Google My Business, Facebook, Apple Maps, FourSquare, N49, Hotfrog, ShowMeLocal, Uber, TomTom, and many, many more.

These online profiles include essential information about your business, like a website link, physical address, hours, and phone numbers. When you have active listings on these directories, it helps potential customers call, get directions, click through to your website, or share details about your dealership with others.

Consistency across several business directories helps validate your business for each one, which impacts your overall SEO rankings, making your locations more findable.

Listings Management is part of a suite of marketing services 10|20 Marketing can help your car dealership with, whether the end goal is to increase foot traffic, website visitors, or both.

If you’re interested in learning more about some or all of these marketing solutions, or ones we didn’t list here, contact us or give us a call Toll Free: 1-888-388-1020. We look forward to hearing from you! 

Small Business Tips: Optimize Your Online Presence To Prepare For The Second Wave

Whether you’re looking for foot traffic or website traffic, ensuring your online presence is up-to-par will help your small business as we enter the second wave of COVID-19 in Canada. Up-to-date and easily findable information goes a long way towards consumers building confidence in your business.

If you haven’t yet, you’ll want to review three main pieces of your online presence to ensure the information is accurate:

  1. Your website
  2. Your Google My Business listing
  3. And your social media accounts. 

Whether you own a car dealership, coffee shop, dry cleaners, restaurant, clinic, sports venue or any other small business, here’s what you need to do to gain an edge during these challenging times for small business owners. 

Your Website

For those customers that already know you, one of the first places they’re likely to go to get information about your small business is your website. Update your essential business information, including your hours, how you are operating, whether or not your physical location is currently open, and other critical elements. 

You may also want to include a couple of FAQs about what you are doing to ensure everyone’s safety during the pandemic (staff and customers alike). It would help if you also took this opportunity to answer any other questions you’ve been consistently receiving over the past six months.

For example, if you own a restaurant, make it clear if you’re open for in-house dining or take-out only. For hair salons or spas, include any protocols clients must follow (wait outside and call when you arrive, wear a mask inside, and other directives.) Knowing what to expect upon arrival will help put your clients at ease and reduce any confusion.

Your Google My Business Listing

It’s vital that your Google My Business listing is optimized and up-to-date with accurate information so that you’re more likely to be prioritized by Google in their search results. Doing so will also help potential new clients instantly get the answers to everything they need to know before visiting your business or clicking through to your website.

Updating your Google My Business listing includes:

  • Having an accurate phone number
  • Including your website address (to an updated website)
  • Providing the address to your physical location, if applicable
  • Updating your attributes (take-out, curbside pick-up, delivery)
  • Updating your hours
  • Answering all questions people leave for you – especially those related to COVID-19 protocols
  • Repurposing your website FAQs in the Questions & Answers section
  • Responding to all reviews

Creating confidence in your small business leads to trust and action. When your listing is up-to-date, and consumers can find answers to their questions there, they’re more likely to follow through with a visit to your store or make a purchase online. 

When you consider that 80% of all local searches convert to a sale or action, it’s clear how important it is to have your small business ready to properly intercept local and “near me” searches. 

Your Social Media Accounts

Similar to your website, any current clients may turn to social media to quickly check whether you’re open, what your hours are, and if there’s anything they need to know about how you’re operating during COVID-19.

On the other hand, 54% of people on social media use it to research products – so you can bet they’re also using it to search for and support local businesses. With hashtags and location tags, plus searchable name fields, it’s easy to search for and find small businesses on platforms like Instagram. With both current and potential clients turning to social media for information, it’s essential you keep these accounts up-to-date as well. 

Here’s how to share that information:

Posts 

Communicate your updated hours (due to the pandemic, or even just the changing season), COVID-19 protocols, or new operational practices (i.e., take-out only) through a static post on your feed. Use a graphic that clearly says “New Hours”, instead of an image, to make it easy to find. On Facebook, you can pin a post to the top of your business page.

Stories 

More and more people are watching Instagram Stories instead of (or in addition to) scrolling through their feed. With the ever-changing algorithm only showing your content to 10% of followers, it’s vital to share your information in stories to reach as many people as possible. You can do this with a graphic (dimensions should be 9:16) or by filming yourself directly in the app giving the updates. 

Because stories disappear after 24 hours, you can do this as a weekly reminder – not only does this ensure your business information gets found easily, but it also gives you a content idea for at least one day of the week.

Profile

All social media platforms have a profile of some sort. On Facebook, your business page has spots to fill out your hours, physical address, phone number, website, list services, and a business description. Make sure all of these are filled out and up-to-date. On Instagram, you have a much shorter ‘bio’ field to fill out. 

Your handle (@username) and the name field are both searchable, so include keywords here like your location, industry, or business name, and be sure to include a link to your up-to-date website. 

Need Help?

If you’re not sure how to set-up or optimize your online presence, send us a message, we’re always happy to help get you on the right track. Business is hard, especially this year, so let’s make sure you’re set-up for the most success possible. 

Four Top Marketing Tips for Realtors in 2020

We’ve pulled together our top four tips for realtors to ensure you have a successful, well-rounded online marketing strategy.

Why? Because the marketing landscape in real estate has changed dramatically in the past ten years or so. Door knocking and print advertisements aren’t quite a thing of the past, but as more and more people – your target demographic among them – move online, it’s important your marketing strategy does, too.

Top Marketing Tip for Realtors #1: A Landing Page

Nothing you do online matters if you don’t have a strong landing page. A landing page is a single webpage that opens when a person clicks a link that appears in your content. This content could be an ad, a social media platform, newsletter, or any other content part of your strategy.

Once they’ve shown interest in your services by clicking the link, the landing page should then clearly direct them to take further action:

  • Schedule a viewing.
  • Book an initial meeting with you.
  • Sign up for your market insights.
  • Or another act that you decide. 

The landing page not only gives those interested a way to contact you but also allows you to collect email addresses. Doing so will enable you to contact them directly with targeted emails.

Top Marketing Tip for Realtors #2: A Solid Organic Social Media Strategy

Because of its visual nature, social media is one of the best performing marketing channels for realtors. Social media, as a whole, encompasses several platforms. You can choose one or two that you enjoy most to focus on and use to drive traffic to your landing page.

Why is it essential to enjoy the platforms you choose? Because social media relies heavily on personality and brand connection. That’s why it’s so important to show up consistently and build relationships with your audience. Only posting occasionally won’t do the trick.

Some tips for a successful organic social media strategy include:

● Optimizing your bio or profile can make it very clear who you work with and how you help them. For example, do you specialize in assisting people in purchasing investment properties? Or working with first-time homebuyers?

● Be consistent posting to your feed, appearing on Instagram Stories, sharing video to your youtube channel, or doing whatever it is you choose to focus on.

● Show up with purpose. Of course, you’ll want to share the homes you have for sale, but don’t forget to share value for those who may be planning for the future. Market Insights, buying and selling tips, and neighbourhood stories are all ideas that share value and build trust with your prospective clients.

● Use high-quality images. Whether you’re posting a single static post, a carousel (multiple images on one post), a 360 photo, or Instant Experiences (Facebook’s new ad format), it’s important your images are professional and draw in your audience.

Top Marketing Tip for Realtors #3: An Ads Strategy

Instead of posting organically to your feed, you can create an ad within Facebook that appears on Facebook and Instagram. In particular, Carousel Ads have a high click-through rate, and you can either target new audiences or retarget those who have been to your website before for much cheaper – pennies a day. To do this, you’ll need to add a Facebook Pixel to your website to track visitors.

You can also set up a Google AdWords strategy to improve your chances of appearing in search results when someone searches for specific keywords related to your niche.

Top Marketing Tip for Realtors #4: Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Claiming and optimizing your Google My Business listing will help you appear in more Google searches and drive more traffic to your website or landing page. A properly set-up listing makes it easier for future clients to call you, find your office, visit your website, and share your location with others.

10|20 Marketing can help you set up your Google My Business listing and make sure it’s working for you. We will ensure that people find your listing by making sure that your contact information is readily available. Our team can also help you with your review strategy or make sure there are valuable content and images that teach your audience about your business.

If you have questions about Google My Business or other aspects of your online marketing strategy, send us a message and let’s chat. We’re always happy to help.

Got a Negative Review? Here’s what you can do.

Stewing over a negative review that a customer left online? Read on for the solution.

In 2019, 90% of people searched the internet when looking for a local business, and 33% of them did so every day. While consumers search for restaurants, bars, and shops, they also search for accountants, physiotherapists, doctors, car dealerships and garages, pet services, and salons – to name a few. No matter what industry you’re in, ensuring you have social proof should be a crucial part of your marketing strategy. 

“Social Proof” in the form of reviews, ratings, testimonials, and recommendations is a critical factor in most consumers’ decision-making processes. 85% of people trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation. Reviews can: 

  • Increase consumer trust in you,
  • Convince consumers to spend more money with you (up to 31% more), and
  • Increase your overall business revenue

And these are only a few reasons. For more, check out this previous post of ours for more examples of why building a bank of online reviews is essential. 

There’s also evidence that 57% of customers won’t use a business with fewer than four stars – so what about negative reviews? How do they affect your business, and what can you do about them? We’ve broken down the impact of negative reviews and how you can handle them as business owners or managers. 

You Got a Negative Review – Is it That Bad?

Aside from the blow to your ego, a negative review (yes, even just one) can hurt your business: it causes people to think twice about working with you. Studies show that one bad review can cost you about 22% of customers, and three negative reviews can drive away almost 60%.

What Can You do to Mitigate a Negative Review?

While you want to respond to the review, having your Google My Business account set up properly comes in handy. You’ll get a notification when someone leaves an online review, which will help you create a timely response as the business owner – but you don’t want to rush into it.

First things first: figure out what happened.

Take a look at the customer’s purchase history and try to determine if this is a long-time or new customer. Find out from your staff what happened and gather any information you can. Ideally, this allows you to see what went wrong and when. Not only is this helpful for the current situation, but it can hopefully prevent the same thing from happening in the future.

Second, you’ll want to come up with a way to make it up to them.

In today’s customer-first world, how you handle unhappy customers says as much about your business (if not more) than if a mistake had never happened. Now is your chance to go above and beyond, make it up to them, and win them back.

Be sure to respond quickly (but not until you’ve discovered what went wrong, as we mentioned), and apologize – yes, even if it wasn’t your fault. Tell the reviewer how you plan to fix the issue and follow through.

The majority of people are understanding and realize that mistakes happen. Once everything is resolved and everyone happy, make a polite request to update the review with the outcome. Keep the old review available, though, as you’ll want to appear transparent!

It’s not all bad news

While a negative review can drive consumers away, it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate how you handle these situations publicly. When a potential customer has faith that you’ll quickly solve a problem, they’ll be more likely to purchase from you despite the odd bad review.

Don’t forget that your overall star rating is critical, and is an average of all of your reviews. Make collecting online reviews part of your marketing strategy by adding a link in your email signature, on your website, social media feeds, and even by reaching out to your top customers to ask them to leave you a review. Requesting a review will help tip the balance in favour of your business and bump you back up over the 4-star crest.

What do you think? Do negative reviews typically turn you away from a business? Let us know in the comments – we’re always interested in hearing your perspectives!

How Your Car Dealership Can Take Advantage of Google My Business

If you’re looking for a way to get more foot traffic into your car dealership, look no further than Google My Business. Google My Business is a powerful tool that can help raise awareness, drive website visitors and ultimately increase foot traffic to your car dealership. The goal? To help you find new leads and increase sales.

What is Google My Business?

Not to be confused with Google+, Google My Business is one of several listing sites – and probably the internet’s most important. A listing site is a directory where your business can appear. When the listing is correctly set up and managed, the people who actively search for a car dealership near them will be able to quickly find your business. A proper set up in Google My Business makes it easier for potential buyers to discover you and:

  • call your car dealership
  • get directions
  • click through to your website to browse the inventory
  • or share your location with others.

Google My Business is often the first point of contact people have with your business. This makes the platform even more important than your website in some ways. Why? Because Google My Business can become an online hub for your business location. The platform will feature all of your pertinent business information, reviews, posts and updates, events, offers, products and photos.

Also, when you take advantage of all that Google My Business has to offer, Google will understand your car dealership more and be able to point even more qualified shoppers your way.

How Can Google My Business Help My Car Dealership?

No matter how established – or new! – your dealership and its online presence is, there is an opportunity to increase your visibility and the number of interactions potential customers take with your dealership.

Still unsure of how important it is to have your dealership listed on Google My Business? The eight key metrics we track will indicate improved awareness and increased interactions. The metrics we track will show numbers steadily increasing when your Google My Business listing is active and optimized. They are:

  • Total Views:Total number of times your Google My Business (GMB) listing is presented in a given month.
  • Total Actions:Total number of times people clicked through to call, map your dealership’s address, or visit your website from your GMB listing.
  • Action Rate:Total actions/total views. The action rate shows the percentage of people who acted on your business information to learn more about your dealership (for example, called your location).
  • Map Views: The number of times your local listing appeared in the Google maps results following a query.
  • Search Views:The number of times your local listing appeared in search results following a query.
  • Calls:The number of calls made to your dealership initiated from your local listing on desktop or mobile.
  • Directions:The number of times someone mapped your address from your local listing on desktop or mobile.
  • Website Visits:The number of times someone visited your website after clicking from your listing on desktop or mobile.

Of these eight, the two most important metrics we track for our clients are views and total actions. We recently worked with a local dealership with three locations (and therefore separate listings for all three). One of these was brand new, opening just before working with us. Take a look at the trend report below for those two metrics after working with us to optimize the listing at this location (i.e., manage information, reviews, and post to the listing twice weekly):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This car dealership had impressive, business-changing results with all three locations, not just their newest one. For one of the dealerships, our service helped improve views and actions by 88% and 61%, respectively, after ten months of working with us. Results like these represent a lot of new leads – and car sales!

What Happens If A Car Dealership Doesn’t Optimize Their Google My Business Listing?

Every error in your dealership’s information across the internet reduces your chances of appearing in results when potential customers search online.

Without having an active and optimized Google My Business listing, each day you miss out on:

  • Increased awareness of your business (eyes on your listing)
  • Additional awareness by appearing in Google Maps
  • Phone calls to your dealership
  • Website visits
  • Easy directions to your dealership for potential customers right from their current location (key for attracting those who are spending an afternoon browsing dealerships)

In addition, Google My Business helps validate your business, which has an impact on SEO, and makes your dealership more ‘findable’ overall.

Remember the days when you needed a plumber, and you went right to the Yellow Pages Book under P for ‘Plumber’? No plumber in town would intentionally not have their business listed there, and Google My Business is today’s digital version of the Yellow Pages. You can’t afford not to appear there when people are searching for your business.

Not using or not optimizing your Google My Business listing is a missed opportunity.

What You Get For Your Car Dealership When You Work With 10|20 Marketing

When you work with us, you get more than just a quick review to ensure your listing is set-up correctly. We will:

  • Claim business listings online
  • Manage how locations appear across the internet
  • Fix errors in listings that are costing businesses sales
  • List locations on new engines, review sites, social networks and maps
  • Improve search engine optimization
  • Monitor customer reviews and ratings
  • Drive more customers to your client’s locations

If you have questions about how your car dealership can start taking advantage of a Google My Business listing right away, and start seeing more foot traffic on site, send us a message and let’s chat. Want more info on the process and results you can expect as a car dealership? Write us and we’ll happily send you our case study.

POST Promise: How Businesses Can Keep Employees Safe From COVID-19

If you’re getting ready to reopen your workplace (or maybe you already have), chances are you’ve thought long and hard about how to implement new policies and procedures to keep your employees safe and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Enter Canada’s POST Promise.

There is a lot of information – and misinformation – out there, but POST Promise is a Canadian platform we’ve recently discovered that helps businesses by providing communications and implementation tools to help educate their staff on the Five Steps to Workplace Safety – keeping everyone healthy and keeping businesses open!

We’re always looking for ways to be a source of advice for and support small businesses in our local community, so we thought we’d pass along the information so you, your staff, and your customers can be confident in a safe reopening.

What are the Five Steps?

The Five Key Steps to Workplace Safety in the POST Promise program are based on the guidelines recommended by the Public Health Agency of Canada:

  1. Maintain physical distancing.
    • Keeping a distance of at least 2 meters
  2. Stay home if unwell
    • Self-monitor for symptoms such as cough, fever, or difficulty breathing
  3. Practice respiratory etiquette.
    • Cough or sneeze into the bend of your arm, or wear a face mask when social distancing is not possible.
  4. Clean and disinfect all surfaces and common areas regularly
  5. Wash and sanitize hands
    • Wash hands for at least 20 seconds

How does it work?

First, businesses participate in an online training and education process which includes a declaration to implement the five steps to workplace safety listed above. You then receive communication and implementation tools to educate staff and can display the POST Promise logo to let customers know you’re committed to keeping your business safe for everyone.

A not-for-profit organization has been set up to provide oversight to the program, with a Board of Directors that includes both senior business leaders and public health experts. Their focus is on creating a solution to help Canadians safely begin returning to the community; something we’d all like to see in our future.

COVID-19 has really put a bend in the business plans most of us had for 2020, regardless of how big or small our organization is. Now that we’re slowly starting to return to work, it’s important we support each other through the reopening phase and make sure our employees and customers are kept safe.

The POST Promise program is a great way to show that commitment and support each other getting back on our feet.

Will you participate? How have you been preparing to reopen? We’d love to hear from you.

Small Business Owners: Use This Pandemic To Build Your Online Foundation

Calling all small business owners, particularly those with retail locations.

Our world has changed significantly over the last two months. With lockdowns in place, people have been stuck at home and/or afraid to venture out. With that in mind, getting food, clothes and other household items — essential or not — has often come down to an online order.

But what if you’re a small business owner who has a retail location that isn’t open right now? Or, even more importantly, what if your store is about to open but you expect traffic to be slow once restrictions are lifted? If this sounds like you, it’s time to ensure that you have a solid online foundation in place so you’ll be good and ready to service your clients. And some of this may require some flexibility on your part.

Google Thinks for Small Business Owners

Before we get into how to build your online foundation, consider these numbers as published by Google Think earlier today:

  • 60% of Canadians used search to see “what is open or closed near me” in April.
  • In late March, global search volume for curbside pickup grew 70% in one week (e.g., ‘curbside pickup near me’, ‘what is curbside pickup’).
  • According to Ipsos research between April 16-19, over 25% of consumers said they tried a new brand or product due to unavailability of their regular brand.

What does this tell us? People are looking for businesses like yours and you need to be prepared to intercept that search, particularly on a local level. But how?

Three Ways Small Business Owners Can Use This Pandemic To Build An Online Foundation

1. Ensure your listings are claimed and consistent – and then optimized

The first thing you can do – and likely the least expensive – is to go to key directories, including Google My Business, and claim your location. Once they’re claimed, spend time on Google My Business specifically to optimize this listing as their directory appears on the search engine that accounts for over 70% of all Canadian searches. As Google My Business now acts as a social network too, we recommend regularly updating your listing with content. Feeding content directly into Google My Business ensures that Google understands who you are, what you do and who you help – and you don’t have to wait from their crawlers to come to your website, as you can feed content directly within their engine. There are three areas where you can concentrate to optimize this listing:

  • Google Posts + Photos: Update your listing with content and photos twice a week. Highlight your products, specials, environment and then take advantage of the text areas to describe what you’re showing in as much detail as possible. The more detail, the more meat you provide to Google to associate to your listing and the more likely your business will be presented.
  • Questions & Answers: Google helps people ask businesses questions via their listing that the business owner can go and answer. But did you know that you can also ask the questions? This allows you to create an entire FAQ right into Google. Again, this helps you put keywords right into Google and get your listing discovered.
  • Review Solicitation: Businesses that do not have a 4-star rating or higher lose sales as people seek the opinion of others before deciding on who to work with. Ask your best customers to review your business to gain social currency with those who discover your listing.

When you claim your local listings and optimize them in this way, you’ll end up with more views of your listing, which leads to more foot traffic to your location and online traffic to your website. In a post-lockdown retail space, you’ll want to increase both in any way possible.

2. Increase your online presence through social media

Keeping your customers informed means being on the networks where they’re highly present. This could mean Google, of course, but also Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest or elsewhere. While each of these platforms may require unique approaches, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to double up your content efforts. The same pictures and posts you use on Google can also be posted to these other networks. Sure, go ahead and change up the copy or play up to the individual network’s strength, but by all means use the media you’re using. When you post to Instagram, put all relevant hashtags. Live content works really well on Facebook. Videos on LinkedIn. You get the gist.

Evaluate your abilities and comfort zone and choose the networks where your best customers are that also play to your strengths. That’s where the win is. Hitting these channels will help you increase awareness of your business and also allow others to magnify your content through the built-in sharing tools within each of the networks. The more shares, likes and comments you get, the more people your message will reach. Just develop compelling content or great specials or anything to help your business get noticed and watch your word-of-mouth grow.

3. Push forward with an e-commerce platform

When this lockdown started and retailers were forced to close, our partner at Red Dream Studios helped one of their clients get up and running with an e-commerce platform within that first weekend. First there was a soft launch for this clothing retailer promoted through the store’s email list, and over time more products were added. The online store may have saved this retailer’s business, generating revenue for the business when the store itself otherwise would’ve been empty.

Getting set up with an online store doesn’t have be expensive. Nor does it have to be complicated. If you have an existing clientele that you can easily communicate with, offering them a new way to buy from you could be all they need to spend money. “Not able to leave the house? Don’t! Buy my goods online.” And the easier you make order fulfillment, the easier it will be for clients to sing your praises and spread word of mouth about your extraordinary goods and services.

Don’t just survive, thrive

Remember, folks. This pandemic will not last forever. What may last a long time, though, is how people behave once the lockdowns are lifted. How quickly will Canadians feel comfortable crowding into shopping spaces? It may take a good long while. Use these tips to help you prepare and survive. Start with the easy and inexpensive and move on to the more involved investments of time and money. Who knows, it just may be the answer to help you not only survive this lockdown, but also thrive once restrictions are lifted.

Looking for more tips on how to weather the storm? Read our other pandemic-related content:

Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash.