marketing strategy

3 Ways Businesses Are Changing Their Marketing Due To COVID-19

September 8, 2020 by Michael Sanders Leave a Comment

Everyone has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, but we know that many small and medium sized businesses are feeling particularly vulnerable right now. Brick-and-mortar retailers are looking for new ways to sell amidst a number of physical challenges; doctor’s offices are looking to assuage doubts about in-person visits; and online businesses want to attract new customers.

Whatever your situation, a half-year of varied customer responses to COVID-19 have given us some insights into the marketing trends that are working and what to expect in 2020 — and beyond. While we all know consumers have shifted more online, businesses need to structure their marketing teams to best tap into that traffic, communicate more effectively, and ensure that social media gets increased attention.

Marketing Goes Digital

The most obvious marketing response prompted by COVID-19 has been the acceleration of digital. Stay-at-home orders, physical distancing, and remote work & school have changed the way consumers shop and interact. Naturally, businesses are shifting how they attract new clients and retain long-time ones. Deloitte outlines four marketing keys for organizations to make the shift a smooth transition:

Keep Your Team Connected – Ensure your team has the resources needed to effectively communicate and coordinate with each other and customers
Engage Customers with Unified Empathy – Listen to your customer and ensure the interactions they are having with your brand are consistent across channels
Personalize Digital Experiences – Now is the time shift resources into digital techniques such as remarketing ads to deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time
Optimize Marketing Resources – Now more than ever, you need analytics experts in your corner to ensure you’re leveraging the wealth of information at your fingertips

Especially when engaging with potential clients, you need to create personalized journeys across the channels and in the settings that they are now using. For example, in recent months, we have seen a sharp reversal in the trend away from mobile devices as at-home users move back to desktop. Without a careful adjustment to your SEO strategy, your website might have the wrong focus, leading to lost customers. You also need to carefully consider how your customers can and will interact with your business. As customers expect a seamless experience, your service channels must deliver a consistent message to maintain loyalty.

Communicate Availability

According to McKinsey, the availability of products and services is the number one reason customers are switching their brand allegiance. For marketers, this means a number of things. The most obvious (if most difficult) tactic is to increase the days of inventory on-hand of products or the availability of time slots for services. With more people working from home and many kids learning remotely, some physicians and doctors offices with whom we work have reconsidered staffing toward more daytime slots and fewer night and weekend hours.

But what if the overseas lead time for your products precludes increasing stock levels? This is where timely communication is paramount. Depending on industry, we’ve seen returning traffic increases of up to 1200% in the months following the COVID-19 pandemic, as users return again and again to a website. For high-volume items, consider placing a banner on your cite to indicate when the product will be in-stock. If you aren’t collecting customer emails, now is the perfect time to create a subscriber list so that you can be proactive with notifying customers of availability.

Social Holds The Key To 2021

Organizations should be prepared to dedicate more resources to social media marketing in 2020 and beyond. Social media budgets accounted for almost one-quarter of total US marketing budgets this summer, up from 13% this winter. During the pandemic, marketers are increasingly making customer retention a priority. Presented with a list of 5 objectives and asked to choose their primary one, more than twice as many marketing leaders pointed to customer retention (32.6%) as acquisition (14%).

And the primary method businesses are using to engage and retain is social media. Your customers are looking for ways to interact with others in a social-distanced world; to connect with others and even to be distracted from everything that’s going on. Social media is the perfect platform for brands to engage with customers in this way and create opportunities for now and into the future. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn can help you start and maintain meaningful conversations with your most important assets.

Toward Marketing In 2021

Being prepared for the post-COVID world means setting up your marketing and customer service teams for success, communicating more effectively, and ensuring that you’re having good conversations with your clients and leads. Stop wasting valuable resources on pre-pandemic tactics — re-allocate your marketing spend to attract and engage the right customers, in the right place, at the right time. If you still have questions, contact DaBrian Marketing Group today.

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What to Look for in Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency

May 1, 2018 by Dabrian Marketing Group 5 Comments

In the age of digital marketing, it’s hard to know where to begin or even the different avenues you can take to market your business online. In most cases, digital marketing requires businesses to hire specialists in all areas of digital marketing including PPC, SEO, Social Media, Graphic Design, and Programming, just to name a few. This process can not only be time-consuming for you but costly. By selecting the right digital marketing agency, you can not only cut down on in-house costs of hiring and maintaining staff, but you will be working with experts who stay up to date on the latest developments in the digital world.

So you’re ready to start looking into agencies, but not quite sure what to look for. Here are a couple tips in order to help you select the right one for your business.

Selecting the Right Digital Marketing Agency for You:

You might think that hiring the right agency will strictly depend on performance-based work and the culture of the company doesn’t matter, right? Wrong! Before selecting the right agency, it is important to meet with them and get a feel for their company’s culture. Make sure that it aligns with yours. Ask to meet or speak with the team members that will be working on your account to get a sense of their background and that their vision aligns with what you want. They must take your company’s culture, values and mission seriously.

Figure Out What Kind of Client You Are

A good digital marketing agency will understand each client is different and has different approaches to their marketing and goals. An agency will tailor a marketing campaign that is catered towards your business but first, figure out what kind of client you are and want to be.

“Do It All” Client– Once you have chosen the right agency, your motto is, “Just get it done”. You want all the work done by your agency with little input.

“Do It My Way” Client– These clients have a definite vision of what they want and are hiring an agency to deliver those visions. They are less interested in feedback or collaborating.

Collaborators– These clients want an agency that will sit down with them and strategize the best approach to reach their marketing goals and conversions. The agency and your business will go back and forth to collaborate the best strategy for your business.

Do Your Homework!

If you have never worked with a digital marketing agency, you will want to make sure you do your homework and learn a few things about them. There are many digital marketing agencies out there that will promise their clients the world, and deliver lackluster results. While most businesses are not like this, there are some things to be cautious of when researching a potential agency. To make sure you are hiring the most reliable agency, there are a couple things you can do:

Be cautious of hiring overseas agencies
Hiring the cheapest agency isn’t always the best choice. Sometimes the cheapest equates to low-quality services
Look up agencies on the Better Business Bureau
Reach out to clients in a potential agency’s portfolio and ask questions about their service
Check their credibility: Do they work with similar industries as yours? Do they have an eye-catching website?
Request case studies: Ask to see specific examples of how they have helped their current or past clients achieve success. What did they do to help their clients reach their goals? What steps did they take? What were the results?

Make a List of What You Want

Every client wants something different out of their marketing agency. make a list of must-haves when hiring an agency and follow some of these guidelines when doing your research. There are many different tools a company needs to be successful, but online marketing is definitely the most effective.

To learn more about what DaBrian Marketing can do for your business, schedule an appointment today with our marketing consultant!

How To Keep Your Gmail Organized

October 23, 2017 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Looking for every opportunity to automate our workflow is a big help, even the smallest changes can have a major effect. One way is by taming our inboxes! I use Gmail specifically, and I love it. But no matter what you use for emails, they tend to run a mock. Between keeping up with new emails and finding older ones when you need to reference them, it can be a headache when you are trying to accomplish much larger tasks efficiently.

Cleaning House

The idea of cleaning out your inbox and archived emails probably falls at the end of your to-do list and understandably so. However, you do not want to have to do it out of necessity when your storage space is completely filled up.

Then, you have to decide between paying for extra storage or cleaning out your storage at the most inconvenient times. Instead of deleting emails one by one, utilize the filters in the search bar. Type in the email address or date range to filter out dated emails and delete it! Once you’ve whittled down your old emails (and freed up some storage space), you can focus on keeping new emails organized as they come in.

Gmail creates several labels and categories by default but you can add/edit more by going to your setting, then “labels”. By building in a few extra labels such as “Accounting”, “HR”, “Travel”, etc, I can more easily navigate to an email I’m looking for in the future.

Gmail Extensions

There are some pretty great extensions out there. One add-on I really like is called Mail Merge for Gmail. I find it very useful because it allows us to send personalized emails to a larger group of people without much work on my part – can even merge attachments if needed. This add-on- starts in Google Sheets were you can input the info you want in a template. From there, you can open your Gmail and compose the email with the special fields. You can set the emails to send at scheduled times or right away It will all come from your personal Gmail account. I have found this useful for things such as emailing job candidates or sending updates to clients.

Stop composing emails that are sent into the abyss. With the help of Boomerang for Gmail, you can set a reminder for when the recipient hasn’t responded to you within a certain amount of time. This way, you don’t have to keep notes on when to follow up. Boomerang’s Respondable also gives a helping hand in writing your email to increase your chances of getting a response in real-time as you write your email. Boomerang also has a few other neat tricks: being able to schedule your email to send at a scheduled time or even tracking whether the recipient opened your email.

Gmail Labs

Don’t forget to check out Gmail Labs for some added help (in your settings > under the “Labs” tab). You can enable/disable different experimental settings. One small, but effective setting is the Preview Pane. This will assist you in reading emails quicker without having to actually go in and out of each one.

By keeping your email organized and up to date, your overall workday can go a lot smoother. Google also provides some helpful tips and tricks to get your Gmail setup the way you like.

What are your favorite email tricks to staying organized? Share them with us in the comments or on our social channels!

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.

5 Plumbing Marketing Ideas to Grow Your Business

May 22, 2017 by Daniel Laws 19 Comments

Within 5 miles of our office, there are 12 plumbers. All of which appear in the local search results, but none of them clearly differentiate themselves from the others. While plumbers may be experts when it comes to fixing broken pipes and unclogging drains, many fall short of marketing their business to allow their customers to find them. Get your plumbing business flowing in the right direction with these 5 marketing strategies.

#1 - Tighten The Bolts of Your Brand

You can’t fix a plumbing issue without tools, and you can’t build a business without a brand. The building and foundation of your brand is essential for success and local awareness. Define your plumbing company by clearly stating what makes your organization different and create a unique value proposition that will be the foundation for your plumbing marketing. Your brand must be consistent everywhere – from print to digital marketing. Brand guidelines, a set of standards for the design of documentation, signage, and any other form of other brand identifiers, will help to bring consistency.

#2 - Local SEO: Be the “Local Plumber Near Me”

When it comes to search engine rankings, every business strives to be #1. What many don’t realize is that due to Google’s personalized algorithm, the top organic search results (for service related searches) tend to be businesses listed on Google maps.

To ensure your spot in the local pack, the content on your website should be specific to your service region and consistently show your name, address, and phone (NAP). In addition to on your site, this information should also be listed on your Google My Business. You should also include all of the services you offer within the region. This will help you to dominate in mobile searches and acquire positive reviews that will help you to stand out from the crowd.

You’re an Expert? Prove it With Plumbing Videos

Videos are an effective plumbing marketing tool because they can be placed on your website, local listings, social media, paid search, and more. Videos are a great way to engage your audience and provide relevant information. Create simple “how to fix” videos for minor issues, such as a clogged sink. You want to provide your customers with tips they can do themselves, without giving away everything and the kitchen sink.This will establish yourself as an plumbing expert and build your audience’s trust. Building their trust will improve new customer acquisition, extend brand reach and visibility via social sharing, link earning, and word of mouth, and increase your current customers’ willingness to give positive reviews and testimonials.

Target Your Customers With Paid Search Campaigns

When I search “plumber near me”, I see about 4 different plumbing companies running paid search campaign which appear before the maps and organic search. Paid search can be specific to your service region, banners, videos, text, gmail and mobile. It allows your company to be present when consumers are searching for your services. With remarketing, you stay top of mind as they make a purchasing decision.

Measure Campaigns and Adjust Your Plumbing Marketing

Just as you would test a pipe after fixing it, you need to make sure your marketing efforts are working. Invest in the measurement of marketing campaigns to reallocate budget to successful campaigns. Just putting Google Analytics on your website isn’t going to collect the necessary information. Most of the time, consumers are going to call you so you’ll need call tracking connected to Google Analytics and your marketing efforts. Look at the entire customer process and what marketing tactics impacted the decision. This will give you more context to make budgeting decisions.

Have a leak in your plumbing marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments below, or contact us today! For more information, subscribe to our newsletter.

Our New eBook, Your New 5-Step Guide to Ecommerce

August 15, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

The Ecommerce Revolution

Shopping, today, is different for consumers when compared to traditional methods and practices. Where people once had to travel to stores and order from paperback catalogs for nearly every purchase, people currently sit down with a phone or tablet in their hands. Ecommerce – online shopping – has transformed the marketplace for retail companies.

The New Marketplace

The act of researching products online – finding their basic information, availability, and price – is almost a prerequisite to visiting a company’s physical location. Similarly, increasing amounts of people choose to purchase products through online stores in addition to visiting physical stores. This overall trend in consumer behavior is the reason that DaBrian Marketing Group’s new eBook, A 5-Step Guide to Improve the Performance of Your Ecommerce, has been written.

DaBrian Marketing’s Solution to Your Problem

Watch our SEO Consultant, David McDowell explain Ecommerce.

Within your FREE Guide to Ecommerce, our Bing Ads-certified team details the five major objectives that work to maintain an effective online store for your company:

Create a strategy
Use the right Point Of Sale (POS) system.
Study your customers’ journey.
Meet expectations.
Invest in the right channels.

Inside of this FREE eBook, find valuable information about today’s marketplace from reputable sources within the digital marketing industry. Get recommendations for several online shopping platforms that are easy to use and actually make shopping easier for your customers.