Your Offsite Brand - Frank Andolina

Editor's Notes

• #3: This month, I’m celebrating my 13th Year Anniversary of Adulthood aka the 13th year anniversary of graduating from college, aka the 13th year anniversary of getting kicked off my parents’ payroll.
• #4: I’ll start off with my 15 month old daughter named Lemon
• #5: Yes, Lemon like the citrus fruit. I won’t be shocked if she legally changes it some day but for now, that’s her name.
• #6: I’ve completed over 20 marathons. Before our daughter was born, my wife and I logged some pretty serious miles. We don’t run as much as we used to but we still run. Otherwise, I’d look like the 35 yr old version of this guy:
• #7: I’ll just leave that up there for a second...
• #8: I’ll just leave that up there for a second...
• #9: So I was saying, 20 marathons. And my wife would like me to tell you that she finished ahead of me in every one of them.
• #10: Rewind to 2004
• #11: About a year after this guy cleaned up his act
• #12: I landed my first big boy job. I started in an internet marketing department at a big public company. It was still around the time we still used these bad boys to find service companies. And I happened to work at a phone book publisher. But this was a great way to begin learning the basics of local advertising and I was able to use those fundamentals to help me get another job. Jason mentioned this was the first form of inbound marketing and I 100% agree. The biggest difference is these were just ads. Nothing was organic beyond the listings. If you saw an ad and you didn’t believe the claims, you had two choices - give it a shot and form your own opinion or rely on word of mouth.
• #13: By 2009 and I was working at an actual marketing agency That’s where I ran into this guy.
• #14: Now, I think I may have lacked a bit of what they call business savvy because I’m pretty sure one of the first things I ever said to Donnie was, “what do you need us for?” But it was true. The self proclaimed spam master had Triangle Pest showing up for just about every pest control keyword you could imagine. This was the golden age for getting your site to show up for just about anything you wanted. Donnie and I stayed in touch a bit over the next few years
• #15: In 2015, Donnie called me to run the marketing for TPC where I learned the ins and outs of a pest control company. Early this year, Donnie and Jason thought I would be best suited to come to Coalmarch to work with the team here on the strategies that I’ve developed over the last 10+ years so here we are. And that was the long way of me telling you that I’ve been doing this marketing stuff for a long time since Google looked like this.
• #17: Your offsite brand. What do I mean by that?
• #18: It’s how your own website displays when someone searches for you It’s local listings that help legitimize your business It’s what people are saying about you. It’s content you are creating that others are publishing on their websites. It’s reviews and how you are interacting with them.
• #19: It’s also your image across devices and different review sites
• #20: Now, ideally, your website has all of the information to help potential customers make a decision. We highlight all the benefits that we think are important. Great reviews, good for the environment, our treatments work and we guarantee it. We make a convincing argument that you’re the best in town and we make it easy for you to sign up.
• #21: We capture great customer reviews and they are all legitimate and help convert website visitors into leads but...
• #22: But human nature tells us we have other ideas I was talking to one of our developers a couple weeks ago about my research and presentation and he said something that really resonated with me. I was telling him how I thought reviews and what people were saying about our clients were really impacting their ability to grow their business. Now, Will is not a marketing guy. He’s a great developer who works at a marketing agency but he doesn’t think about this stuff every day. But he is a movie buff and had a great analogy. He said our clients websites are like the movie poster but the reviews are what help him decide if he should go see the movie. I thought about that and I said, Will you are exactly right.
• #23: Look at these posters. Looks like an exciting adventure. Halle Berry as catwoman. How could that be bad? Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. How romantic!
• #24: Well, here’s what the internet says: 18% like catwoman Halle Berry is the lone bright spot but even she can’t save this laughable action thriller/
• #25: And 13% liked Gigli Bizarre and clumsily plotted, Gigli is a mess.
• #26: And then you have comic book store guy giving his opinion. So you can’t judge a movie by its poster just like we can’t always judge a business by their website.
• #27: So By the end of this presentation, you will
• #28: You’re going to read their minds.
• #32: But, before we really get into this, I wanted to walk you through the sources I used throughout my research.
• #33: Google Analytics tracks how people find your website and what they do once they are there. Every client with Coalmarch and about 70% of the top websites throughout the web use Google Analytics to track their website data.
• #34: The professional pest management alliance releases a research report each year. Based on what I reviewed, I thought their findings could be applied to any service company. More on that in a bit.
• #35: BrightLocal produces some pretty slick SEO software but what I really like about them is they release a survey on consumer reviews each year. We’re going to use a few of their survey questions throughout the presentation.
• #36: Finally, I want to highlight how a good deal of these strategies also contribute to how Google will rank businesses within their local results.
• #37: Around the time we decided I was going to present on this topic, I started noticing a trend with our client’s data. This is partially due to advancements in Analytics tracking that follows users across devices. I used a report called a Path Length report in Google Analytics. This measures the total number of interactions (in this case website visits) it takes for EVERY lead your website generates.
• #38: This is what it looks like. This is a snapshot of a report from one of our clients but I found this trend +/- 10% across the board.
• #39: We can really break this down into two groups.
• #41: This is about where my design skills begin and end...
• #42: Stick figure is your website visitor The laptop is your website The check mark indicates a lead
• #43: The good news is most of their leads (about 39%) were convinced after 2 interactions...10+ group next
• #44: The other half needs a bit more convincing.
• #45: Then you have these lunatics who take 10 or more times to convince them...not sure what their problem is.
• #46: Looks a little something like this
• #47: But this is the group that I was really interested in finding out more about. And what I found could even be applied to that first group. If you consider what research might be taking place before they ever find your website but we’ll get to that in a bit.
• #48: These guys
• #49: SO WHAT ARE THEY DOING. MORE SPECIFICALLY, WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING FOR? Anyone want to guess what they are looking for? Yup, they’re checking you out. They want to make sure what they see on your website...
• #50: matches what your customers’ experience with your services and is reflected away from your site.
• #51: Here’s an example of Anti-Pesto’s search results page. Point out each of the listings. But I had to wonder how common this type of behavior is.
• #52: And this is where are friends from BrightLocal come into this.
• #53: This is the first of a few surveys were going to look at. Do you read online reviews to determine whether a local business is good or bad? They found that 91% read online reviews to make this decision. This was a 30% increase over their first survey in 2010. And where are they going?
• #54: Ok how about this one? How many different sites do you look at before you make a decision about a business? Here we see that almost 60% look at 2-3 review sites before they make a decision about a business.
• #55: And we know they are going here: Searching for your name on Google or going to yelp for reviews. Looking at facebook for more reviews. Checking out how you interact with customers. And our referral data in Google Analytics also indicate they are going here:
• #56: They might be going to the first two (Groupon or Angie’s List) to try to find deals but all three of these sites have very robust review platforms. And based on the bright local survey, they are more than likely checking out a couple of them.
• #57: Ok so they are checking 2-3 review sources. What are they looking for?
• #58: THe PPMA focus group found the 5 most important factors when considering a pest control company (and like I said, I think this could be applied to lawn care, plumbing, any service company really), name rec, guarantees, reliability, professionalism and price.
• #59: When I look at these 5, I really think they are looking to see if you are reliable (you come to their house when you say you will and your treatments are effective. And while you’re there, you’re respectful and very knowledgeable, offer suggestions, answer questions etc. So they’re looking at these reviews and they are trying to determine if you are reliable and professional. And they are looking at multiple review sources but what else impacts their decision?
• #60: The BrightLocal survey tells us that 73% of people think reviews need to be left within the past 3 months in order for it to be relevant. 23% think it needs to be within the last 2 weeks which is pretty extreme but I think this data is pretty telling about how important the freshness and cadence of your reviews can be for customers forming an opinion.
• #61: NOW I’M NOT GOING TO ASK YOU DO ANYTHING CRAZY TO HELP ME PROVE A POINT. I JUST WANT YOU TO RAISE YOUR HAND (OR DON’T RAISE YOUR HAND)
• #62: online...
• #66: SO BRIGHTLOCAL ASKED THIS SAME QUESTION. 50% SAID YES AND THEY LEFT A REVIEW FOR THEM. This doesn’t mean that THEY leave a review for every business who asked but of those who were asked 50% said they left a review. 30% have never been asked to leave a review so you have to assume that some from that group would leave a review if asked. I have to tell you that our client’s with the most successful review generation strategies have about a 10-15% success rate. So if you think about the number of new customers you add in a year, with a strong review strategy you might see 10% of those customers leave you a review.
• #67: Remember these guys? The website visitors that became a lead the very first time they hit your website?
• #68: I thought this question was relevant to them: There’s research being done about before they ever find your website. After reading positive reviews 54% will visit your website and 7% will contact you maybe not even ever looking at your website. I’m speculating but have you noticed how many sites doing this type of thing?
• #69: Looking for the best exterminator in greensboro? 10 best exterminators, 24 best, find an accredited company with the BBB.
• #70: Look how easy it is to call right from search results
• #71: So how do we convince these guys?
• #72: The group that left and then came back
• #74: How many of you send out a survey to customers after every service?
• #75: The first thing you want to do is make you send a survey to every customer who has a service.
• #76: If your customer had a positive experience, it’s a great time to follow that up with asking that they review you.
• #77: When you ask for the review, make sure to ask them to share specific details about their experience.
• #78: Trust me. Some people will write a novel.
• #79: Make sure you contact them to make it right.
• #80: Send them directly to the review page. Whether it’s Google, Facebook or Yelp, you’ll have a better chance of getting that review if you send them a link to exactly where you want them to go.
• #81: Send them directly to the review page. Whether it’s Google, Facebook or Yelp, you’ll have a better chance of getting that review if you send them a link to exactly where you want them to go. If you have different service areas or multiple branches, make sure you send the customer to the right location.
• #82: Start with these guys Talk about the benefits of each
• #83: We’re going to talk specifics about google in a minute
• #84: Yelp still gets a good deal of traffic and is still considered a reputable source. But I think the most important aspect of it is not necessarily on yelp.com, but it does power reviews on Bing.
• #86: Does anyone not have a facebook account? People are already logged into their facebook account. Probably more so than Google it makes it very easy to leave a review.
• #87: Make sure you have an alert system so you’re notified when you get a review or someone posts a comment or asks a question on social media. Whether it’s from your review generation strategy or these are happening naturally, you need to monitor them.
• #88: Talk about Mention Most of the review platforms will have a notification system in place. Just make sure the person responsible for monitoring and responding to reviews are getting those notifications.
• #89: The last step can easily be ignored or overlooked but might be the most critical of them all. Respond to all of your reviews. Good or bad. I recommend having 4-5 canned responses that you can customize for each review. Make sure you respond to any questions left on social media. People will notice if you have unanswered questions or complaints. The least you can do...
• #90: The least we can do is thank them for taking the time to review us.
• #91: The least we can do is thank them for taking the time to review us.
• #93: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE
• #94: Talk about Mention
• #96: There is software that can helps automate the process I described earlier. Find the one that makes the most sense for your business.
• #97: You’re not getting a bunch of reviews all at once. Sends unnatural signals to search engines and might look fishy to potential customers. Software will help with this but if you’re doing it on your own, I recommend sending 5-10 requests/week so those that do review you should look like a natural pace.
• #98: ONE MAJOR PERK TO GENERATING A STEADY STREAM OF REVIEWS. This year, google released information on what they use to determine local ranking factors
• #99: I’m talking about these. I call this the new #1 organic result. If you consider how prominent this is in the search results. Especially on mobile devices where many of our clients see about 40% of their traffic.
• #100: I want to touch on three factors. There are several but these are the most noteworthy for this topic. I have to mention location because while the other factors
• #101: Prominence refers to how well-known a business is. Prominence is also based on information that Google has about a business from across the web (like links, articles, and directories). Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business's local ranking. Your position in web results is also a factor, so SEO best practices also apply to local search optimization.
• #102: Interact with customers by responding to reviews that they leave about your business. Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business. High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location. Google said it, must be true.
• #104: I think we know this is pretty obvious right now.
• #105: We call this a bold statement. We see it in the analytics. We see it in survey results.