Dabrian Marketing Group

DaBrian Marketing Assists The Uhrig Companies With Digital Marketing

July 5, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Reading, PA – July 5, 2017 – Donald M. Uhrig Jr. is the president of three highly successful companies – Uhrig Construction, Uhrig’s Professional Painting and Paperhanging, and Hannahoe Painting – in Reading, PA. With decades in business, Uhrig’s companies are the area’s leading experts in beautifying homes and businesses in Reading. Their websites and online presence, however, needed some updates and renovations to help all three companies remain competitive in their respective industries. After an assessment and analysis of their existing online presence, DaBrian Marketing designed a modern website for each company and ramped up the sites’ search engine optimization (SEO) to make them appear higher on Google and other search engines. The Uhrig Companies can also turn to DaBrian Marketing for content marketing when in need of contextual information that website visitors would find appealing and useful.

The local SEO experts at DaBrian also created, verified, and optimized the local listings of all three businesses to enhance the visibility of each within their local market. SEO is most effective through continuous maintenance of online accounts and providing current or potential customer with correct information.

In addition to providing more user-friendly content, DaBrian Marketing gave each visitor a better visual representation of each company. The agency made it easier to find more information about each company, stated the details of their services, provided easy-to-find contact information for team members, displayed information about previous projects, and improved contact forms to make it easier for customers to contact each company and find directions. Each website is now mobile and tablet friendly, so the websites look great on any size screen. DaBrian Marketing Group also improved and expanded the social media presence for all three companies. Uhrig’s Painting and Hannahoe had previously established Facebook pages; DaBrian helped all three companies become more active on Facebook, as well as on Twitter and LinkedIn, by claiming or creating the social media accounts. The companies’ social media accounts provide industry information, company updates featuring new products and employees, helpful tips for interested homeowners and business executives, and as a source of constant customer service. DaBrian also made it easier for visitors to access each business’s social media channels. Senior Vice President, Teri Yeager, says:

“We are very pleased with the value we received investing in our companies, the fresh new look of our websites, our online presence and our decision to partner with DaBrian Marketing. Working with the team at DaBrian has been a great experience: extremely responsive, always there to walk us through the processes and keep us on task every step of the way. The attention we received made us feel like we were their top priority.”

Visit the newly designed websites and find the social media accounts of Uhrig Construction, Uhrig’s Painting and Paperhanging, and Hannahoe Painting respectively at: www.UhrigConstruction.com, www.Uhrig.com, www.Hannahoe.com.

About Uhrig’s Uhrig’s Professional Painting and Paperhanging, Uhrig Construction and Hannahoe Painting

Uhrig’s Professional Painting and Paperhanging has been family owned and operated since 1950. Uhrig Construction was incorporated in January 2001. Hannahoe Painting was formed in 1980 then joined DMU Enterprises, Inc. in 1995.

The headquarters for all three companies is at 1700 North Fifth Street in Reading, Pa. Contact Uhrig Construction by calling (610) 373-1612 and Hannahoe Painting by telephoning 610-373-9743. Reading residents can contact Uhrig’s Professional Painting and Paperhanging by calling (610) 373-8814; those in Allentown call (610) 435-0256, customers in Bryn Mawr can phone (610) 525-6779 and those in Pottstown may dial (610) 323-3110.

About DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC

Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency. Focused on providing original and strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses, DaBrian Marketing Group offers a number of essential services, such as include content marketing, social media consulting, web hosting, local SEO, email marketing, digital branding, search engine optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, web design, web analytics, social media marketing, and more. For more information about DaBrian Marketing Group, located at 500 Penn Street, Suite 201 in Reading, Pennsylvania, visit dabrianmarketing.com or call 610.743.5602.

2017 Social Media Updates

June 27, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group 4 Comments

In my younger years as a millennial, there seemed to always be a new social media platform. From Xanga, to Myspace, and then finally to Facebook, none of them seemed to stick around and keep our attention. However, Facebook started a new trend – consistent updates and new features. Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram also utilize this method to stay relevant and appealing to its users. These updates are critical to their survival.

As a millennial, these changes were simply… fun. But, now as a social media marketer, they are important to keep your audience’s attention. Only half way through the year and we have seen many updates thus far! Here are a few of the latest.

Twitter - Live From The Twittersphere

Twitter has been having an identity crisis. Competing with the ‘almighty’ Facebook could leave it feeling lost and distressed. Last year, began its outcry to rebrand itself. They began to reiterate the fact the Twitter is for what’s happening right now around the world. This led to the recent launch of the #SeeEverySide campaign. This will feature tweets from real people across the globe of every point and perspective. Check it out:

Who’s your greatest of all time?#SeeEverySide https://t.co/x3g3fHVur1
— Twitter (@Twitter) June 26, 2017

In addition to its fight to stay top-of-mind, they’ve recently unleashed its ‘refreshed’ look. Some features were initially on Android last year, but after a lot of approval, it is now on IOS, too. The Twitter updates include:

Reorganized navigation
Articles open directly inside app, so a user stays logged in
Bolder headlines and refined typography.
New symbols – Many new users complained the old reply button looked like a ‘back’ or ‘delete’ button.
Live updates on likes, retweets, and replies proving Twitter is providing you real-time information

At the request of its users, major improvements have made the user experience great. Most people are pleased with how it looks. Next, Twitter needs to listen to the businesses, those connecting with their users, to provide each “Tweeter” an even better (local) experience.

Snapchat - “X” Marks The Spot on Snap Map

Snapchat, another “real-time” social media platform not only has consistent updates, but very unique ones at that. The latest update, which has been stirring up controversy, is their Snap Map. You can explore any event around the world and see exactly where your Snap-friends are at that moment. Snapchat wants you to see where your friends are or local events nearby, so you can join in on the fun, too! This worries parents, but the company assures anyone who does not want their location visible to friends, the user can turn on ‘Ghost Mode’ to disable the Snap Map.

A business update Snapchat has implemented is that every business now has its own geofilter. It shows the business name along with the city it’s located in. This screams to me, “Brand Awareness!” and I like it, a lot.

Instagram - Helping Businesses Tell Their Story

Since being bought by Facebook, a lot of what you see on Facebook is also on Instagram which now makes it a major competitor. Instagram’s recent updates focus more on businesses who use platform than their audiences. Instagram Stories now has business tagging and linking. From someone’s story, a location can be found on a map or an external link can be clicked on. Instagram Story ads also have new objectives (not simply to build brand awareness). We can now track reach, video views, traffic to a website, conversions, and mobile app installs which will be great to track future performance of a particular ad.

Facebook - The Older You Are, The Wiser You Get

Lastly, my absolute favorite to manage – Facebook. As soon as I finish writing this, I am sure that Facebook will be soon releasing another new feature that we will have to get up-to-speed with (and personally, I am completely okay with that – hence why, I love social). If you currently are on Facebook or are running a Facebook account get ready for:

GIFs in comments – However, I can’t wait until these are added to posts
More control over ad placement – The location of ads will change slightly
Soon-to-Come Cover Videos along with new text headlines – How fun is that?!
Target a particular post to a specific audience
Facebook Live updates coming soon – I highly recommend your business use Facebook Live
New Photo Album Features

Phew! This is a lot of to keep up with and this isn’t even all of it. In a few years, Facebook will release an augmented reality component. There are many things this will allow a user to do. One in particular, you will be able to leave secret messages for friends a bar or restaurant. By using the app, the message will appear exactly where they left it on the table or bartop.

Overwhelmed? This is why hiring a social media marketer makes your life easier.

While it might be a pain to constantly update your applications (and clear more room on your IOS system), your business’ social account must stay trendy and relevant. Your competitors may find new features to grow their business before you and you’ll be forgotten just like Xanga and MySpace.

To learn more about social media marketing, ask a question below or check our social media accounts.

Three Considerations When Building an Ecommerce Website

June 19, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Building an Ecommerce website requires extensive planning to account for every detail; the product feed, the filtering system, and just the right amount of bandwidth to power a large site. From personal experience, many unknown issues may arise especially depending on the size of the business’ inventory. So, plan for the known and for the unknown you can’t control. Understand what you are diving into and what vital pieces that will make or break your Ecommerce website before you dive in head first.

The Three Ecommerce Website Considerations:

Product Feed:

The product feed is by far the trickiest piece of the puzzle unless you are lucky enough to be given a properly formatted one. Unfortunately, you most likely to need to scrape and reformat the file. To make things more difficult, you may need to build a product feed from scratch! Regardless, this can be a very complex process. It may involve stripping out unnecessary code. Any unused categories, tags, and images must be removed to speed up the site. This can take a significant amount of time depending on the size of the file but it’s mandatory to revise it.

Filtering System:

A filtering system won’t always be necessary depending on the amount of variations. I recommend a filter once you reach about 25 different products or variations. A filtering system can make for a much better user experience (UX) because it gives the consumer the ability to slim down their search to exactly what they’re looking for. In most cases, I like to rely on the product tags and categories to build filters which connects directly back to the product feed. Tagging should start with high-level categories and break down to very specific attributes of the product to ensure they can use the filter effectively.

Bandwidth / Power:

So, you have a couple hundred products and feel ready to build it on the first low-cost option. Will this work?

What seems like a simple build can easily blow up exponentially. Consider which platform is the best option for your Ecommerce site. You could start with Woocommerce, BigCommerce, or Shopify, also consider your website host. A few options you could use are WPEngine, Rackspace, or Amazon. With many products and variations, you will find that you don’t have enough power through certain databases to load the products fast enough. With slow load times, you are ruining the UX and in turn, your sales numbers.

To Wrap Things Up:

There are so many unknown issues that can arise when building an Ecommerce site. We, as developers, designers, and decision-makers, need to prepare and plan for the unknown as best we can. Do your research and study before you bite off something bigger than you can chew. If you do, you may end up hurting your own reputation as well as the others involved in the project.

What are the biggest issues you have with Ecommerce websites? Let us know in the comments below!

Right Start Children’s Services Seeks Digital Marketing Support from DaBrian Marketing

June 19, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Reading, PA – June 19, 2017 – Right Start Children’s Services has enlisted the help of DaBrian Marketing Group to help parents and families find information about early intervention and pediatric therapy services available in Pennsylvania.

Many parents find their family therapists through a doctor’s recommendation. In a rush to secure help for their child, parents often accept the first recommendation they receive, sometimes traveling to a nearby county. While immediate care is always beneficial, finding the right therapist in the right location is essential for the health and development of a child.

Right Start Services came to DaBrian Marketing not in hopes of growing their business, but rather in search of a website redesign to provide easy access to relevant information and helpful resources to help parents make informed decisions. The experts at DaBrian Marketing responded with a search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing strategy, and social media consulting to help parents find appropriate service in their area.

Right Start Children’s Services has an existing presence on social media, specifically Facebook, which continues under the management of one of the company’s owners. DaBrian Marketing provides account optimization and recommendations for Right Start’s Facebook page, on-going consulting, and analytics reporting on their performance. DaBrian Marketing also assists with guiding Right Start to take the appropriate actions that will benefit their social media presence.

DaBrian Marketing performed extensive content optimization to help build awareness of Right Start’s brand, services, and service areas. They also gave the website a modern look and feel, with features like a sticky header, which is a common feature that allows the user to navigate the site without scrolling to the top to choose a different page or option. Other features, such as a Google map with polygons that indicate service areas, improve user accessibility by clearly displaying the appropriate information. The new Right Start Children’s Services site is mobile and tablet friendly so it fits correctly on screens of all sizes.

About Right Start Children’s Services

As an Early Intervention and Pediatric Therapy provider agency established in 2005, Right Start Children’s Services is a therapist owned and operated provider agency offering pediatric therapy services in a child’s home, school, daycare, or community setting. Services include behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, special instruction, and speech and language therapy. Right Start serves Berks County, Lebanon County, Lehigh County, Montgomery County, and Schuylkill County Pennsylvania. Right Start Children’s Services is located at 204 Cameron Drive in Douglassville, PA. For more information, call 1 (888) 532-4671 or visit rightstartservices.com.

About DaBrian Marketing

What Is a CRM and Where to Get Started

May 30, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

CRM may be an acronym you’ve heard floating around before – but what is it? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, basically it’s how you can keep track of data on past, present, and potential future customers and log interactions with them whether it’s through, emails, phone calls, mailings and so on.

Why would you want to have that information? With information like that you can manage how to regain former customers, retain customers, and gain new ones. You’re probably starting to see that a CRM is an integral tool for sales and marketing for businesses and in fact it is.

You could start a CRM system by collecting and entering customer and potential customer information into something like an excel sheet but that can become tedious work that wouldn’t be very helpful in the long run. Fortunately, there are a ton of CRM systems out there that can help.

There are a few helpful things to keep in mind when picking out a CRM:

Is It Automated?

As in does it integrate with any platforms you are already using such as your email and social media? This is useful because it will save you or your employees time from having to manually enter every bit of customer information on your own.

Is It Mobile?

Can you access your customer relation information on the fly? This is helpful when you meet a new prospective customer and want to get them in the system right away or access all the information about a customer out in the field without having to log into your computer.

Is It Usable?

A major factor to consider: is the program easy to use for you and your employees? A big reason for businesses leaving their CRM to the way side is not knowing how it functions.

However, searching through all of the CRM options out there can be overwhelming in of itself. I’ve picked a few of some of the best ones out there to get you started.

SalesforceIQ CRM

One of Salesforce IQ’s features is the automatic collection of customer data such as emails, calendar events, and smartphone calls so you can spend more time focusing on the client and less time on data entry. You can also share information with other employees in order to collaborate when communicating with customers. It also creates reports to keep you on track and focused on the most promising sales. It’s mobile so you can work from anywhere and streamline your workflow.

Prosperworks

If you use G Suite then Prosperworks might be the best option for you. It was made for G Suite and seamlessly integrates with G Suite’s apps such as Google Sheets, Docs, Slides, Calendar, Inbox and Gmail and automatically syncs collected information from these apps. It will also remind you when you are not following your schedule to follow up with customers or potential customers. And whenever you update your Google contact information, it will roll over to your CRM.

Hubspot CRM

Hubspot has a great dashboard to gain visibility into what’s going on in your CRM to keep everything organized. You can also swiftly sort customers by a number of filters to keep track of what’s happening. Hubspot also syncs information across several platforms for email, social media, and phone calls. One of the best things about this platform is that it’s free!

Do you use a CRM platform? If so – which one? What are some of the benefits and pitfalls you’ve experienced with a CRM platform? Let us know in the comments.

How SEO Can Help Your Local Business Compete With Bigger Brands

May 15, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

In the story of David and Goliath, David (not very big) is faced with the daunting task of killing Goliath (the name speaks for itself). With an effective strategy and persistence, David accomplishes this feat over his much more powerful adversary.

In today’s economy, your local business probably feels a lot like David: small and up against much larger foes such as national brands. But, fear not! With a well-thought-out SEO strategy, combined with hard work and dedication to the tactics listed below, your small business can walk amongst the giants.

Local SEO: David Has Home Field Advantage

If you’re going to battle, you’d ideally want it to be in an area you’re familiar with. The same is true for your small business. If you’re going to compete with bigger businesses, you have to do it in your local market. While bigger companies surely carry more notoriety, local SEO will prevent your business from going unnoticed.

When it comes to Local SEO, there are two tactics you need to cover: on-site and off-site.

Tactic #1 - On-Site

On-site local SEO is essentially optimizing your website (hence “on-site”) from a local perspective. To do so, I suggest covering the following:

Include Your NAP (name, address, and phone number) on every page of your site.
Create localized content.
Include local signals within your tags, titles, descriptions, and headers whenever possible, while sounding natural.
Add schema tags to your website.

Tactic #2 - Off-Site

Off-site local SEO deals with factors that influence your website’s performance that are not directly on your website. A huge factor for visibility within search engines is local listings. Being identified or “listed” accurately and consistently within local listings will send local signals about your business to search engines. This will allow you to appear higher in the search engines in your geographic area.

For example, when I conduct a Google search in Reading, Pa for “Italian Restaurant,” local restaurants appear as opposed to bigger chains.

On top of that, these local listings appear above the organic search results. That means that if you’re listed in them, you could be the first thing your searchers see.

Tactic #3 - Local Link Earning: Get The Crowd Cheering For You

When you’re in a competition, positive support from those around you can help. The same applies in the digital realm. In order to gain recognition and increase reach and visibility within the local market, you’ll need to place a heavy emphasis on local link earning (also known as link building). Link earning is a crucial part of any SEO campaign; but, the strategy is different for local businesses.

As opposed to going after major brands and influencers to obtain links like national brands do, local businesses should target the influencers within their community. These include:

Local Chambers
Local Online Directories
Local News Stations
Other Local Business
Local Bloggers

Tactic #4 - Social Media: There’s Strength in Numbers

Social Media has continued to grow in popularity and influence in digital marketing. For SEO, specifically, a social media presence is now an important ranking factor. Search engines want to see you engaged with your audience, having an active conversation, and disseminating relevant content.

As opposed to other digital marketing tactics, Social media is not all about metrics – it’s about relationships. This is where most big bands miss the mark. Many major companies are more concerned with just having high-level brand accounts that all speak the same (non-personalized) message.

You know your local audience better than the big brands, so speak to it! Craft messages they’ll relate to and connect with other local accounts. The more locals that share your social posts and the more local accounts that engage with you, the more buzz you’ll generate within your area. This will help boost your local positioning within search results, too.

Local businesses tend to stick together, so it shouldn’t be difficult to gain support from others. You know what they say: “The more Davids, the better.”

Moral of This Local SEO Story:

With an effective SEO strategy intact, combined with a dedicated team, your small business can go toe-to-toe with the Goliaths of your industry. Oh yeah, and that all Davids are bound to be successful.

What are the biggest issues your small businesses face? Let us know in the comments below! To set up a consultation, contact us today!

By: David McDowell