by Chris Barnard | May 1, 2020 | Digital Marketing
Small Business Action Plan By Constant Contact
You might not think now is the time to acquire new customers, but by effectively communicating with your existing customers you are in effect laying the groundwork to acquire new ones when your business operations come back online – however that looks.
Furthermore, some local businesses are enjoying lower advertising costs across both Google & Facebook.
Not because they’re greedy or even opportunistic – because they are serving their communities. (more…)
by Chris Barnard | Apr 17, 2020 | Digital Marketing
Google Is Giving $340 Million In Ad Credits To Small Businesses Affected By COVID-19
BOOM, COVID-19 hit causing most local businesses in most states across the country to close entirely, many indefinitely at the time of writing this post.
Some businesses we work with are open for emergencies only – like dentists, or pivoted to doing takeout – like restaurants, but in effect, local business is shut down.
People are staying at home, business owners are staying at home, we’re all staying at home. At least most of us, we hope.
So what’s the good news? (more…)
by Chris Barnard | May 15, 2019 | Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing Acronyms for Local Businesses
Do you know what ROI means?
Ok, how about PPC…and LTV??
Digital marketing speak is sometimes difficult to decipher, and with new acronyms popping up all the time it can get downright frustrating just trying to understand what the heck you’re reading.
As marketing professionals, it’s downright embarrassing when we happen upon an acronym of which we are not familiar.
Of course, most local business owners are probably thinking, “BFD” or “ who cares, acronyms won’t make or break my marketing.”
Allow me to illustrate the importance of acronyms with one simple real-life conversation between myself and one of our clients, he’s a dentist: (more…)
by Chris Barnard | Jan 8, 2019 | Digital Marketing
Social Media for Local Businesses: What Are The Costs?
The costs of social media marketing for any local business are directly tied to the ROI you receive from social media marketing.
The ROI of social media for your local business can be substantial, but so can the effort and costs of properly managing your social media presence.
Whether you have a big budget or a small one, there are several options available to business owners poised to hashtag your way to social media success.
But before we examine the costs of social media marketing, let’s again review what your goals should be, or moreover which goals will deliver you the best return on investment. (more…)
by Chris Barnard | Sep 15, 2014 | Digital Marketing
Will Your Google Local Listings Soon Be A Paid Advertising Product?
BREAKING NEWS: Dateline August 11, 2014 – A Soon To Be Google Local Search Near You
With recent “Google My Business” updates donning both Google anointed and informally applied avian monikers, it appears Google is testing paid ads in place of what has up to this point been a free local search environment.
We’re all familiar with this local search picture of map icons and business contact information:
With the number of updates to the local search environment, these “map listings” or “local results” or whatever you want to call them have been further pushed down the page and supplanted with more ads, as seen in the here and now:
But what does the future hold?
Google just gave us a possible glimpse…It seems there is actually proof that Google is testing paid ads in place of these free listings, it was first written about – or at least noticed by this author (using the term loosely) on Wordstream.com, and here is what it looks like:
Notice the disappearing act of the “local pack” and the emergence of paid real estate.
From what this screenshot shows, we can all plainly see that the local map results have the yellow “Ads” label – which means someone is paying for them to be there…or Google is dishing out some free real estate in exchange for the guinea pig placement.
Now granted, the screenshot shows a search for “gas grills” – but will Google soon make searches for say…”a dentist in Carlsbad to fix my grill ” a pay to play proposition?
Me thinks so.
Will Google Adwords Soon Offer Local Listing Ads for Carlsbad Business?
I’d go so far as to bet you dollars to donuts that’s an affirmative.
After the most recent update – nicknamed “Pigeon” which came on the heels of a larger mobile contextual semantically driven universal “Hummingbird” update in September of last year- there was a widely realized significant drop off in local listings results (once dubbed the “10 pack” then “7 pack” and now “3 pack“) across a variety of industries.
Noticing a trend?
Although these ads appearing in place of what are still free local listings is just a test for now, and we certainly haven’t been able to duplicate those results with any Carlsbad-centric searches, the writing does seem to be on the wall for all local businesses.
So what does all this horse pucky bird doo-doo have to do with a local search for what your Carlsbad business sells on Google?
Here’s three reasons why this cowpoke thinks your Carlsbad business (and all local businesses) will have to pay Google in order to get some local play on the search engine results pages. (more…)
by Chris Barnard | Dec 17, 2013 | Digital Marketing
Human beings are social animals, and generally speaking we’re also a fairly needy bunch; we’re constantly on the lookout for attention from and approval of others. Now whether that statement applies to us individually only sometimes or all the time, it’s usually the emotional elixir of getting attention and receiving approval from others that drives the behavior.
It’s not the approval and attention we’re after; it’s the way the attentive approval makes us feel that reinforces our triggers to go seek more of it.
We all have emotions that sometimes drive our actions a little more so than they should.
That’s all well and good, but what in the H E double hockey sticks does this psychobabble BS have to do with North Korea, Dennis Rodman, or digital marketing for local your Carlsbad business new customer acquisition?
(more…)
