When it comes to marketing your water damage restoration business, everything has changed since the internet became a mainstream service in the 1990s. In 1993, the first online advertising was sold, marking the beginning of a brand new era of marketing all over the world. Since then, we’ve seen the introduction of Google AdWords, the birth of social media and in 2009, the internet beat out TV as the most popular medium for advertising for the first time.
If you are in charge of marketing your business and you aren’t dedicating time to establishing your online presence everyday, you are missing out on an incredible opportunity to get your company’s name out there. It isn’t so simple as creating a Facebook page and putting up a website, there is so much to learn about securing your space and driving more traffic to your spot on the web. Beginning with Google Maps and working our way to blogging, we will touch on the key points of establishing your presence online.
Take What is Rightfully Yours
Did you know that you exist in the online world, whether you like it or not? Thanks to services like Google Maps and Facebook Pages, businesses are represented online as a sort of digital phonebook.
Claiming your real estate online is important. The only way to make sure the information being shared about your company online is relevant and accurate is to take what is rightfully yours by gaining control of your Google Maps and Facebook pages.
- Starting with Google, following the directions outlined here to take ownership of your business or add it to Google Maps if it isn’t already online. This will allow you to edit business information, respond to Google Reviews and fix any irrelevant information in your business listing.
- Next, move on over to Facebook and make sure you have ownership of the page representing your business. Facebook has made it pretty easy to do this and they have outlined directions here. Being owner of your Facebook business page is the only way you can carry out advertising campaigns, share posts with your audience and engage with anyone who is commenting on your page.
Let’s Talk About Social Media
Love it or hate it, your business can’t stay competitive without a consistent effort to make social media a big part of your marketing campaigns. There are so many social media platforms out there and you don’t have join them all, but you do need to join the top five.
Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest are the big players in the social media world. Of course, at the top of the social media food chain is Facebook, with a reported 1.79 million users who log on at least once a month.
Starting with Facebook, your first course of action should be to make sure your company exists on each of these platforms. For the sake of creating a cohesive online brand, make sure your identity—such as usernames and display names—all read the same, preferably as the name of your business. Visual cohesiveness should also be a priority, keeping profile pictures and color schemes consistent across all of your accounts.
Next, you need to commit to creating a consistent presence online. This is especially important as you are trying to connect with and grow your online audience. Learn to use social media schedulers, like HootSuite, to make posts automatic and consider outsourcing to a virtual assistant if you don’t have the time to prioritize daily social media posts. Of course, don’t use schedulers as an opportunity to forget about your social media pages, make sure you are not only posting regularly but that you are also engaging with any comments and messages being left on your page.
Lastly, determine if paid advertising is going to be beneficial to your company. Across all major social media platforms, there is the opportunity to have your presence boosted with paid ads. Determine where most of your audience exists, instead of spreading your advertising dollars across all channels. Of course, make sure you pay careful attention to what is and isn’t working and be prepared to make adjustments quickly to make the best use of your marketing budget.
Should I Be Blogging?
One question that frequently comes up is why a water damage restoration business would ever need a blog attached to their website. The simplest answer is: what Google wants, Google gets and Google gives preference to websites with fresh content on their website. Blogging is the simplest way to add new content to your site weekly. Additionally, through skilled use of keywords, high quality images and backlinking, you can increase your search engine optimization and bring more traffic to your website.
Blogging is one of those tasks that is easy to commit to, but not so easy to carry out. Aim to add a new blog post to your website each Monday and then make sure you promote it across all of your social media channels. If time, or a lack of interest, is holding you back from consistently creating new content for your blog, consider hiring out. Using job boards or word-of-mouth, it is pretty simple to find a blogger with knowledge of search engine optimization and excellent writing skills to take on this important task for your company.
We’ve only just scratched the surface of what it takes to establish your presence online. At More Floods, we are committed to helping our network members learn the ins and outs of search engine optimization, blogging and social media marketing. If you are looking for resources for marketing your water damage restoration company’s brand, click here or call 1-866-667-3356 to learn more about becoming a member.