Are you a business owner? How do you promote it, word of mouth (aka reputation), on Facebook, paid ads, SEO? In today’s show we talk about what works—what doesn’t (based on our experience).
We’re joined by Bree Watson of MiAz Marketing Solutions. She shares some free tips that will make an immediate impact. We’re also joined by our marketing man behind the scenes Phil McKeown of McKeown MarKeting to talk about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and what he calls “authentic automation.”
Last but certainly not least, special guest Pk Jordan of East Valley Mediator shares vital information about a bill coming before the Arizona State Senate designed to protect our children online.
Episode Recap
FRIENDLY TAKEAWAYS:
- Keep yourself safe from catfishing online
- Your business needs online reviews, so get them and manage them
- Support HB2646 and make it illegal for an adult to encourage a child to die by suicide
- Make sure your business’ Google listing is complete
- If you’re too busy to follow up with leads, automate that!
Catfishing Online: Keep Yourself Safe
Matt Watson, State Farm Risk Advisor, and his wife, Bree Watson, filled in today for Steve and Felecia. They discussed a reality show on Netflix called “The Circle.” The show is based around people acting as a personality they want to be and try not to get kicked off. They never meet each other, but they form beautiful bonds. The show is a big hit in the Watson home. The show contains elements of catfishing — people pretending to be somebody their not in order to manipulate others. A famous example is Mantai Teo, football player at Notre Dame. Being a catfish victim cost him $15M! Be aware, anything can happen to anybody online.
Matt shared another catfish story of a repo man. He became a catfisher himself, set up dates, and took their cars when they showed up for the date.
Matt asked Phil what he’d do as a catfisher. He didn’t bite. No catfishing from Phil. Or from Bree. Matt would be a woman, a lady.
Matt transitioned to discussing marketing for his agency. He goes for digital marketing and review. On Fridays, it’s always Dad Joke Fridays, and he had a Dad joke to tell: If you ever get cold, just stand in the corner — they’re always 90-degrees! Ouch, that was bad.
Marketing ROI from Reputation and Review Management
In this segment, they heard from Bree. She does online reputation management marketing. They work with businesses to get and react to reviews with all of the review platforms. The goal is to get a great reputation online. They do this by contacting your current customer base and making a gentle ask for reviews. That results in reviews and a better reputation.
What do you do with a bad review? An occasional review actually makes your listing more natural and believable. When replying to a bad review, check out Google’s FAQs on responding to a negative review. First, always respond to reviews, both positive and negative. Shoppers look for those reviews. Be sure to acknowledge the experience and provide a real phone number to contact somebody at the business.
Bree tries to get ahead of the bad review and get the people to reach out to the business first rather than leave a bad review. That helps the business address the issue.
Matt is a customer of Bree’s. He appreciates the ability to interact with customers and build relationships. It creates a real return on investment (ROI). The ROI is that customers aren’t allowed to forget to leave a review. They’ll get gentle text and/or email reminders to do that review. Most people just need to be asked. More reviews means more business. 75% of people who are asked to leave reviews do so.
Phil shared a story of how he’d “lit up” a hotel on Yelp!. The hotel instantly reacted and made things better. He went back and updated the review. It was the perfect case of how all of this should work.
Helping to Prevent Teen Suicide, HB2646
PK Jodan called in to talk about the big news from her foundation, the Laloboy Foundation. Nine months ago, PK lost her son to suicide. An internet predator had an influence over him, with hundreds of messages. Her son had concealed depression, and she found out about all of this after the fact. There is no law in the US to make it illegal for an adult to talk to a minor into suicide. PK is pushing a bill through the Arizona government to make it illegal for an adult to pressure a minor into suicide. It will be prosecutable once this bill passes. There are eight countries around the world that have a law like this. In the US, the First Amendment was the issue, but that doesn’t give the right to do others harm. HB2646, the Laloboy Act, is the bill. If you support it, please send a letter to PK, addressing the Senate Committee, to laloboyfoundation@gmail.com and PK will deliver it.
There is a real danger with concealed depression. Talk to your kids now. Talking to them about suicide will not cause them to think about it. So, how do parents start that conversation? You want to have some parent controls in place on your kid’s technology. These monitor your kids’ conversations for words of harm or concern. PK is available to speak to your organization or group about safety.
Local SEO and Authentic Automation in Marketing
What can businesses do to optimize their sites?
- Optimize your Google My Business page. Complete the entire profile.
- Add more pictures that are relevant to your business, including products, services, clients, and storefront. Be just as interactive as Facebook.
- Get more reviews!
- Manage and respond to your reviews.
- Create Google posts — content!
- Make use of Google’s Insights, the Google My Business analytics.
These are some free ways to get your business boosted. Not enough time? Contact Bree and get MiAz’s help. They can also help with other sites (over 200 of them) above and beyond Google, Yelp!, and Facebook.
Phil’s focus is on marketing follow up. The key is to ask for business consistently. When your business gets a lead, his systems will automatically — authentic automation — follow up on that. Follow up is important, but it also takes a lot of time. Phil’s systems take care of that, freeing up your time. The biggest challenge is prospects calling the business owner already having built a relationship. The trick is to have a robot’s efficiency with a human touch. That way, when a lead calls, they’re ready to buy. You want to follow up with a lead in the first five minutes. Most small business owners are too busy to be able to do that. When they automate it, more leads convert into customers. Business owners end up working with leads that are warmer.
Phil also has a cool tool for networking groups called QuickTip. Check that out if you’re in a leads or networking group. It drives word-of-mouth referrals.
Wrap Up
Until next week, Drive Friendly Arizona!
