If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance you run a business in Hattiesburg (or in the Pine Belt area).
Over the next 10 minutes, you will at minimum walk away with a few key takeaways that you can directly apply into your own business today.
Let’s dive in….
Marketing your Business Online in Hattiesburg
When it comes to marketing your business online in Hattiesburg, there’s a number of factors at play which all effect your ability to do so well.
We’re going to break this article down into 7 sections, going through each one by one.
- Online Presence
- Reviews
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Content
- SEO
- Video Marketing
1) Online Presence
First and foremost, we have your businesses online presence (aka your website).
Some of you may already have a nice website as you read this, but it’s important to cover regardless.
Why?
Your website is your digital storefront. It’s the first impression that you make on viewers who come across your business for the first time online.
Quick example….
Let’s say you drove up to a new doctors office for an appointment today and the:
- parking lot was full of debris
- paint on the building was chipping away as you got out of the car
- reception area looked run down
What would your 1st impression be?
You would unconsciously make judgements about the place…even if the service they offered inside was great. The same goes for all businesses, whether in the real world or for your business online (via your website)
If you have a great website already, you have this first section covered (move on to Section #2 below). If you don’t at the moment, that’s okay. Take some time to consider getting a new website in the near future or at least give it a facelift (structural improvement, speed, SEO- more on this later).
A website refresh and improved online perception will be a positive return on investment.
Once you have an acceptable website in place, a key area to look at next is your online authority.
That’s where our next section comes in -> reviews.
2) Reviews
Whether your current business reviews online are good, bad, mediocre, or maybe you don’t have any yet…..it’s important to know that reviews matter.
Not just to search engines/algorithms, but to people deciding whether to do business with you or not.
In short, Online Reviews = Trust on the Internet.
Customer reviews generally take place on a variety of platforms (Google, Yelp, TrustPilot, Facebook, etc) depending on your business.
Yelp may be common for a restaurant down the road, but may be irrelevant for your business. Google Reviews may be crucial for your business, but not for another business. It’s important to learn which platforms your prospective customers spend their time on to ensure you are capturing attention there.
Online reviews can be frustrating in the sense that they are somewhat anonymous and not always an accurate depiction.
For example, let’s use a restaurant since this is an easy one we can all relate to.
If you go to a restaurant and the food is just okay, it’s unlikely you’ll be inclined or remember to leave a review.
Why would you?
The food was just “okay” and it’s not high on your priority list.
Let’s say though that you either
had an amazing experience (delicious food, friendly staff, free dessert)
OR
an awful one (they got your order wrong, cold food, rude service)…
In either instance you would be more inclined to leave a review, right? Yes…you feel compelled to inform others about the experience (good or bad).
To some extent, this is what the majority of legitimate reviews are comprised online of no matter the industry.
If a business has 14 1-star reviews with negative comments, it’s a potential reg flag.
On the other side, if everyone’s raving about the service with 5 star reviews left and right, that’s generally a good signal.
So how do you get more positive reviews for your business?
Besides providing consistent value to your customers (this ones obvious), you need to make it easy for people to leave you a review. You also want them to know where you prefer them to leave a review.
This could be as simple as having a review logo with a link somewhere on your current website. You can also manually ask a customer in person if they’d like to leave you a review.
We’ve helped many businesses do this the right way and it works great.
Important note: NEVER ask someone to leave you 5 star review.
It is completely up to them to decide what type of review they honestly want to leave. My guess though is that if you are willing to ask someone to leave a review, you’ll get a solid review.
You then need to make it as easy as can be for your customers to leave a review.
This can involve a direct link or creating a small printout with 3-step instructions on how to leave you a review (like this quick one I made below). This one works great….
We help our clients garner more organic reviews from their audience all the time. Don’t get worked up if you don’t have too many reviews currently or there’s a pesky inaccurate one from a while back.
It takes time to build up organic reviews, but they all help.
3) Social Media
Every business is a media company today.
Some of you may be reading this at first glance & saying to yourself, “we’re not a media company”…
Yes, you 100% are in some capacity (it’s 2021). Let me explain 😀
As people continue to make more purchasing decisions on the internet, the more important it becomes for your business to be relevant there (Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram, etc).
Keeping your business up to date across the social platforms where your audience already spends their time is key. Without it, you’re slowly losing a chunk of potential revenue.
For those of you who are actively promoting your business across social media channels currently, awesome.
You’re already doing more than many people are in this regard. Bravo!
Maybe you have a Facebook, Twitter, & an Instagram account for the business.
I can probably guess what’s occurring for you though at the moment…..
You’re either posting the “same old same old” content continuously or posting a ton and just not seeing great results.
We see this often with many businesses before we initially bring them on as clients.
This is understandable. You’re busy……there’s no way you can be a social media expert. Let alone have the time to do it well. Social media algorithms also change over time. What worked great on social a year ago may not be what works the same today or tomorrow.
To combat this vicious cycle of poor results on social media, you need to change the way in which you view your content.
A great question to ask yourself:
If I was a prospective customer scrolling past this social media post, would I be inclined to care?
Try to answer this without any bias (it’s hard).
There’s two reasons this question is so crucial to ask before posting content on social media about your business.
- people are busy
- quality matters
In a world of short attention spans & a crowded social media newsfeed, it becomes all the more important to stand out.
We help our clients by creating compelling content consistently around their business offering.
For some businesses, the content can be more light/fun….for example if you’re a massage therapist, a post like this might work great.
Whereas if you’re a lawyer who helps patients who’ve been in serious accidents, the tone in your outreach will be much different.
This leads us nicely into the next key area when it comes to marketing your business well.
And that is email….
4) Email Marketing
If you don’t have an email list yet for your business, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.
Am I really?
Yes!
If executed correctly over a long-term basis, email marketing is one of the most powerful channels a business can use to both keep and acquire new customers.
Depending on your age, you may remember a time back in the late 90’s when people were actually excited when they received an email.
I know….times have changed.
Over the years, many businesses have failed with email lists by spamming the heck out of subscribers. This leads to unsubscribes, poor open rates, and so on.
If you have an email list already, this may sound familiar. If not, we’d be happy to recommend a few best email service providers you can use for this.
So how do you get people to care about your emails?
By providing value….over the long term.
Relatable example ⬇️
Let’s say you walked into a clothing store and immediately upon entering, the salesperson was instantly in your face with a few products asking you to pick one.
You’d be turned off by this approach, right?
Instead…..if you walked in and they greeted you, helped you find a few sizes in back, and kindly recommended a few outfits based on your preferences….you’d be more inclined to purchase. You’d also enjoy the experience more.
The SAME goes for your email list subscribers.
They signed up your email list to extract value. It is your job to deliver that value to them over time (this gives them reason to stay).
Having run hundreds of email lists over the years for clients, we have found this to be true no matter what industry you’re in.
When an email subscriber signs up for a new email list, they should know:
what to expect in their inbox (value/benefit to them)
how often they will receive email (1-2x week, once a month)
how to unsubscribe (it should be an easy 1-click at the bottom of your email, always)
I won’t dive into tactics about how to write compelling copy and turn those into sales here in this article. What’s most important as a start pointing now for you is to first have an email list. Once you have one, you need to provide value consistently in your email outreach to subscribers.
You will 100% get a positive return on investment over time if your emails engage with them.
Now that we’ve established why email is essential in your marketing efforts……let’s move into talking about content.
5) Content Marketing
In short, content marketing is the creation, publishing, and distribution of content to a specific audience on the internet.
Writing content online consistently is HARD because it takes time…..and results are definitely not immediate.
Over time though, publishing quality content about your business can have a beneficial impact on your business. Depending on what your business provides (product, service, etc), content marketing may or may not be the best strategy for you.
More often than not though, content marketing can only help you.
If we (32 Metrics) can make an industry like Self Storage interesting, we can probably do the same with most any other industry.
Let’s say for example you have 3-6 competitive businesses in your industry. You’re all vying for customers in Hattiesburg (or elsewhere) who are interested in your services.
If you put out quality content that these prospective customers find informative or entertaining (perhaps both), you now have a better chance to stand out when they decide who to bring their business to.
Why?
Because through your content, you’ve built up a virtual dialogue, brought them value, and they now see you as an authority in the space.
Just as you’re reading this article right now, we are an authority in the digital marketing space based on our years working with businesses just like yours.
When it comes to creating content for your business, it’s important to keep these 3 points in mind:
A. Be Narrow
Most businesses owners (including you) know your industry like the back of their hand. But if I were to ask you what type of content you would write on your website or blog, what would you say? The more specific (narrow) your content is, the more beneficial it will be to the end reader. If you serve a customer base in a geographic area, make your content appeal to that audience. This helps you escape competition since you are competing for a more specific target market.
B. Customer Centric Content
Before writing content, it’s always good practice to think about your content from your customers perspective.
What problems do they have? What questions do you get asked routinely? Answering these questions in written form is a great starting point for content creation. If one person within your audience has a particular question, nine others just like them may have the same question.
C. Get Started
Writing content online for your business can seem intimidating.
What if no one reads it? What if I have a typo? What if people judge it?
These are all normal worries and the benefits of hitting publish heavily outweighs the worry. As you start writing a few pieces of content on your websites blog, you’ll become more comfortable writing.
There’s also a convenient feedback loop when you publish content online. As your audience (friends/clients/email list) reads your early posts, ask them what they think. You can then iterate on their responses with each new piece of content you put out.
As you start writing more content online for your business, you’ll then be able to share a single piece of content in a variety of places.
Write once = share across multiple platforms
Next, you’ll then want to ensure you’re following best SEO practices.
6) SEO
What the heck is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Just as the name implies, SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines.
The better optimized your website is, the higher ability you have to rank for your target keywords.
Example: search querie = “best ____ business in Hattiesburg.”
Putting aside the technical parts of SEO, one of the top ways to improve your website traffic is by creating quality content based on what people are searching for. We talked about this in the section above (Section #5- Content Marketing).
If you search for “best restaurants in Hattiesburg”, Google wants to give you the best results possible?
Why?
Because the better answers Google provides, the more often you’ll use their platform.
The hard thing about SEO (search engine optimization) is that it’s a long-term game. It can take time for SEO to pay off (3-9 mo) and for it to help your website receive more traffic. Once you see positive results, you then want to maintain them once your website is ranking.
Depending on your industry, competitors, and audience size geographically, these all factor into how feasible it will be for your website to rank for particular keywords.
It’s part art, part science.
We won’t dive into technical SEO (indexing, crawling, & optimization) in this article, but I’d like to have you do a little homework to see how you compare to your competition.
Take a moment to go over to Google in a new tab & search a few common keywords that your prospective clients would type in.
When you’re doing this, look to see:
- how do your competitors rank?
- how does your business rank?
- what else do you notice?
Then come back here to continue into the next step.
Taking even 5 minutes to do this will give you a sound indication on how you’re ranking. You likely already know how visible you are online, but it’s good to do a check every few months to keep an eye on it.
The importance of ranking will vary greatly form one business to the next. Higher rank equates to higher visibility
Let’s move into the last section of this article….
7) Video Marketing
Video Marketing is one of the most impactful forms of marketing online today.
It’s the practice of using video content to reach your intended audience and promote your brand, product, or services.
Much like written content, video content can also be created ONCE and then shared across a wide variety of channels.
I could go on for hours on techniques you can use to implement video marketing for your business….
But for this articles sake & for both of our time, we’ll start with one Pro Tip that can instantly improve your video quality.
Lighting and Audio are Essential
If you’re creating video content online for your business, using proper lighting & having decent audio makes all the difference in the world.
Watch this quick video clip of me below explaining why in our office studio….
In one shot, I use a soft box light and a simple mic in our office….in the other clip, I don’t use a light or a microphone at all (just a camera).
Notice the difference?
The point here is that you can film decent video on a smartphone. All you need inside is some lighting on you and decent audio.
At 32 Metrics, we focus on video marketing heavily with our clients because of the positive impact it has on their businesses. A great part about video marketing is that you can truly add personality to your business through the use of video.
Creating video content for your business consistently can help portray your business in a professional manner. Most of our clients are busy, therefore, our team professionally edits and produces content for them to make it easy.
Practice makes perfect when you’re shooting video content too……so don’t worry if you’re not great at it right away. Talk to the camera as if you’re talking to a friend.
Based on all the 7 sections above, the most important part for each is to just get started.
Whether you implement a few parts above yourself or decide to work with someone like us to amplify your marketing efforts for each, you’ll be on the right path to better marketing your business online.