Ep. 66 Jump on the Bandwagon – Dig Into Digital Marketing

Jump on the Bandwagon – Dig Into Digital Marketing

Advertising power used to be solely in the hands of big business. Big money won ALL the attention. But not anymore.

Most small businesses now at least have a website up, but many are still not “all-in” when it comes to digital marketing. This is a huge missed opportunity.

And if this is you, listen up!

Torie and Sean Mathis discuss different strategies any business can take to get their business to take advantage of the digital marketing boom.

Most are free or low cost and many could easily double your business.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

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SAF 66

Torie: [00:00:00] This is the time, man. This is a great opportunity for anybody that’s in business and we want you to take advantage of it.

Hey, welcome to Smart AF on your host Torie Mathis. We have got a great show for you today, so let’s get started. Hey guys. Welcome to the show. I’m your host, Torie Mathis and I’m here with the one and only Sean Mathis, founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum here in Georgia. 

Sean: [00:00:27] I got perks. 

Torie: [00:00:28] You do. So say best museum in Georgia, Best Automotive Museum in Georgia. I might say that it was Alabama. I might think differently, Alabama now. 

Sean: [00:00:46] That’s Alabama. Yeah, that’s a pretty sweet museum. 

Torie: [00:00:49] That is a pretty sweet museum. 

Sean: [00:00:51] Shout out to the motorcycle museum. There’s a bunch of cars in there. 

Torie: [00:00:56] It’s a beautiful museum though. You guys, if you haven’t checked out the barber motorcycle museum, the biggest motorcycle museum in the entire world, man, it is beautiful. I think like high class art gallery, but for motorcycles just, it was worth the trip. 

Sean: [00:01:18] Yeah, it’s pretty much nothing.

Torie: [00:01:23] Oh goodness. Minus your time is a nice automotive museum, but it is, it’s a different style and that’s okay. Businesses are different. So we were talking digital marketing. I want you to continue what you were talking about. Had to jump on here. 

Sean: [00:01:45] Okay. So when you’re talking about back in the day, if you were to advertise, promote your business in any way beyond word of mouth, you had to pay for an ad in the phone book, maybe pay for an ad in a magazine or newspaper.

You had a real big budget. You might pay for a commercial on the radio or TV. That was about it. There wasn’t really a whole lot else you can do. 

Torie: [00:02:12] So you could cold call. You could cold call. I know that there are people for that type of business that would just, 

Sean: [00:02:19] yeah, but let’s go back to the dog room or can you imagine their downtime? Let’s open up that those yellow, I would guess it wouldn’t be yellow. The white pages and start calling. You got a dog. How’s there a grooming. 

Torie: [00:02:32] Wow. I don’t know how they are crazy, right? Yeah. They can mail, you could mail and you would probably have to mail to everybody. No, it’s not in printing. Isn’t cheap. So yeah, but now and I say this, and I’ll say it again like it really is one of the greatest. Times to be a business owner. Why digital marketing? 

Sean: [00:02:59] Yeah. There’s almost no end to what a business could do now to market their business. And it starts with a ton of free things to do. 

Torie: [00:03:10] I think that’s one of the. Crazy differences is that before, and it’s funny that I say 20 years ago, but maybe it was more, maybe it was less like we’re going to call it 20 years ago, guys. Adjust as necessary 20 years ago, all of the control was in really large businesses because they were the only ones that had the money to really reach out.

And grab the attention of consumers by going on TV, by doing all these things that Sean just talked about by creating a commercial nobody else really had the means to get out at all. In the kind of way that big businesses did like money was the calling card okay. 

Sean: [00:04:00] Even if you’re thinking of like we talked about in the other one, or just how easy it is to take photos and videos nowadays. I don’t have any video from my childhood because of the difficulty of doing that. Even just regular pictures, you had to go get this stuff developed. You didn’t even know what the quality of the most of them were garbage blurry in one way or another, or they just didn’t print. There, there is, there wasn’t a whole lot.

An individual business owner could do this because everything that was available was also difficult. 

Torie: [00:04:35] It was when I started building websites, which would have been 2007. It was not. Easy. Luckily like I am, I’m pretty detailed oriented. I’m organized. I want to learn how to do like everything. So I was able to, I learned a little bit in advertising school but I learned how to build websites and flash and flash did not last that long.

So I had to actually go out on my own and learn how to code websites. And it was literally coding websites. Like it wasn’t using any type of builder. It was like literally by hand. And so at that time, those with the skills or the money to pay for somebody to do it, they were the ones that were able to even be online.

So when I moved back to California after I got out of the army and everything. I got a job, like I was already going to school and I was working at my dad’s business. Cause he was like, if you come back and get a job at my business for a while, he like, he just wanted me to come back. And definitely not like the thing I wanted to do.

I wanted to do what my job was going to be, what I was going to school for advertising. And I actually was able to get a temp position at A T and T however, like I was able to do there. I was there like website building content collector, and at that time. And so that would have been 2000. Five six. They actually, so people would call the businesses and get them to buy ads in the phone book.

And at that time, people really couldn’t build their own websites by any means. And so it was an upsell that they’re like, Hey. We’ll build you a website. And so my job was after the salespeople would make the sale, I would actually contact the business and collect everything they needed and organize it all and get it all ready so that somebody, I dunno, who would build the website.

So I was just like the collector. And so that even then, like the power was not. In the business owner’s hands by any means. It was still those yellow page times. Like what a crazy different time it was then. And now with the power of digital marketing. And like Sean mentioned in the very beginning, the power.

Of these free tools to market your business digitally 24 7 to all of these people that are already online looking stuff up is crazy amazing. And I don’t think people put enough value into it. 

Sean: [00:07:33] Yeah. There’s yeah. Even our clients 

Torie: [00:07:36] still scared. I think that might, that could be a two. Maybe they value it, but they’re like in not for my business is too hard, too much work. You guys like you could do this. Yeah. 

Sean: [00:07:50] There’s definitely, you can get a little bit more difficult on some of the stuff that there is available. But from a starting standpoint, like there’s. Nothing difficult about claiming your Google business. Even if they’re, if Google hasn’t gone in and created some sort of a listing for you that you have to claim and you have to go and start at the very beginning and put your business name in there, it’s still.

Checking boxes and filling out information that you already know. There is nothing difficult about it. Why would you not at least do that? Even the social media Places that you could advertise your business on like Facebook, 

Torie: [00:08:37] But, okay. So you said advertise. So to me, advertisers spending money and 

Sean: [00:08:42] so just a free list, even like Yelp, if you just take the free visit and I tell our clients too, because Yelp is notorious for upselling or at least attempting to, so you go and you fill out your business listing on there. You can pretty much assume you’re going to get a few phone calls. They are.

Torie: [00:09:01] They’re the new yellow pages. They’ll keep calling you and harassing you, 

Sean: [00:09:05] Pay for a featured listing, which you don’t need. Not necessarily not at all. But the search results. If you’re a HVAC technician, Yelp pulls up most of the time, no matter what area you’re in for HVAC technician. So you might as well be listed on there.

Whether or not you’re in their top five or whatever the case may be, maybe that’s something you want to look to in the future, but for now, if you don’t have your stuff on there, get that on there. First.

Torie: [00:09:33] My suggestion always for any business that wants to start to get online and wants to start digitally marketing their business.

Obviously like the first one would be to claim your Google listing. And then your social media accounts create them business accounts, not using your personal account because it’s very different. So creating a business account, which is completely public because when you actually have your business on for example, Facebook when people search on Google, your Facebook page for your business will show up as a result.

And that’s the whole point of putting your business online is for people to find you. And anybody to find you. And so if you put it on your personal page, the only people that can see that are people that are your friends, it’s also against Facebook’s rules to have your business on a personal page, but you want to make sure that things are set up properly and that things are set up as a business.

Super important. So if you don’t have that, like you can get it changed over. You can Google how to do that. And it’s not that difficult if you’re going out there to set something up. So again, always set it up as a business, which as a business gives you like really cool analytics that you can see how many people visited it.

Sean: [00:10:39] The analytics alone should be enough to ensure that you don’t do it as a personal page. And I still see it. I still see people out there on Facebook friend requesting me as a business. But as their personal profile, which then I almost like these people are just going to solicit me. Like we don’t need to be friends, right?

Torie: [00:10:59] Because when you become friends with somebody, that means that you are giving them access to all of your stuff that you want on their private. And really you don’t need that as your business, you need to be set up as a business page. So once those things are done, the next thing to do is to Google, whatever it is your services are. So we’ll say dog groomer, because we love talking about the dog groomer because there’s so many missed opportunities about the dog groomer. So if you go into Google and Google dog groomer, it’ll probably pull up, dog groomer near me, whatever. That’s fine. But then you’re going to find.

That you’re, a Google listing is probably what’s going to come up first, maybe a map that has all of the dog groomers that are around that area. If your business is on there, that is where you could probably say, claim this business. If you found, your business on there and it’s not already, but then if you start to scroll down, you’ll notice it.

Obviously Google is going to be the top one, but the next couple they might be, if they say sponsored, that means those people are actually paying Google to show them first. And so if you refresh the page a lot of times it’ll be different ones because they’re only bidding for your attention.

And so those ones don’t count. Okay. Then if you scroll down a little bit more, you’re going to probably find that the top ones are these directory type sites or review sites. Like Yelp. So that means if anybody is searching dog groomer near me, dog groomer, your town, those directory sites are going to be what comes up first.

And you want to try to go down and fill out all of the ones that you can. They’re free. A lot of times, like Sean said, Google, Yelp. These different places, they’re going to make a listing for your business. Just off of general information. Maybe you have a, a business address or a phone number that’s listed somewhere.

You’re I dunno. However, they find it. Okay. They’re going to put something out there, but it may not be accurate. It’s definitely not going to be filled out all the way and it’s not going to be utilizing like your hours, photos and have your logo on there and all of those important things that you need to fill out.

So you can go through find all those directory sites and then make sure that each one of those that you have an account that way you’re not buying anything, but that’s giving you access to the information so that you can update it. And it’s allowing you to respond to reviews. 

Sean: [00:13:15] The reviews part is. Essential on that, because if all these different online resources are creating something for you and you don’t even know about it it’s also giving a platform for disgruntled employees. Maybe some shady competition to leave negative reviews, legitimate, negative reviews that maybe you don’t even know about that you should, especially if you’ve got employees and somebody leaves a negative, that’s your opportunity, then reach out and find out.

What’s going on with your business and how you can, make the correction, otherwise, all that stuff left alone. Even when people do see your business on there, it doesn’t look good and they’re going to pass over you. 

Torie: [00:13:56] So all of these places, these directory sites and things like that, these are your first step to digital marketing, where you’re going to be able to put your business out there, be able to keep your business updated and to be found by all of these people. That are looking for whatever the services are that you offer,

You say would be anything else that I missed for if people want to get started with getting found online that you would suggest that maybe I missed 

Sean: [00:14:25] As far as filling it out

Torie: [00:14:26] Just now, just in general. I know, but both of us, Sean and I work with our clients in doing this, but a lot of the Google stuff and a lot of the business listings is something that, Sean has really taken over and helps our clients make sure that those things are filled out and filled out correctly.

We have another video that we talked about, like adding photos to a Google listing and how that helps your Google listing be seen more and be seen in front of a lot of other people. 

Sean: [00:14:51] I think the biggest thing is just don’t focus on what anything costs and just complete. Everything that’s out there that’s available. Your industry might have a directory website that, we don’t even know about, but in your world it’s relevant. Make sure you’re enlisted 

Torie: [00:15:10] Sometimes like the, your local chamber might be something that comes up for businesses that people are looking for. So that’s another opportunity for you to get out there in the digital world and get noticed a little bit more any type of local websites.

Sometimes they have a local restaurant web restaurant websites or things like that. That if you were a restaurant you could be added to so just doing a few Google searches, you can find all kinds of things, and it’s just doing some due diligence research so that you can figure out where you need to be.

And again, not difficult. Probably all free I guarantee a lot of these are going to try to sell you stuff. Block their number. If that’s what you want to do, otherwise you just tell him you just want the free services for them. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to digitally market your business.

You don’t have to have a designer or pay a marketing company, like when you’re ready to take things to another level, like for sure, go for that get a little, few more skills and stuff like that, or hire somebody to do some of the more difficult things, but there are so many things that every single business can do.

And I guarantee even the ones that are doing like a really great job, I guarantee we could go and do a little audit and find some missed opportunities of you could be here. You could be there, things change. The Google listing. Things like that get updated, get made better. They offer more opportunities for you to use the service.

Maybe like a few months ago they didn’t offer videos and now they do, or they offer, different hours, like right now with COVID stuff coming out. Now you can like, Put a special announcement if you have any restrictions or things like that so it isn’t like a set it and forget it.

This is something that you probably, if you said oh 10 years ago, I filled out my Google listing. Dude, you got to go back and fill it out again. Like you got to keep up with that kind of stuff. So I guarantee even people that are doing it really well. Are missing some things. I would hope that you wouldn’t be like, I’m fine.

Go Google the services that you’re in Google your business and see what comes up. And then that’s another way of being like, I didn’t even know I was on this business or I didn’t even know I was, attached to this website or my Facebook page does come up. Like what, when someone, when somebody Googles, what do they see when they click into that?

So it’s just a way to audit your own business and be able to find all these different opportunities. What’s missing. 

Sean: [00:17:20] If you have analytics on your website, you can then see where all your traffic’s coming from. So if they are all coming from Yelp, maybe you want to focus a little bit more on that one because it’s, the most beneficial to you.

Or if you’re listed somewhere that they keep hounding you like, yo, nobody comes from there then obviously you don’t need to give them any money whatsoever. But once you can get into it, it’ll be pretty interesting to see. Where all your different traffic comes from. You’ll see they’re coming from Facebook.

They’re coming from a Google search result, TripAdvisor you’ll, when you can see where all that, then you can really start to understand, your customer, really, you know what. Where are they coming from? 

Torie: [00:18:05] And if you look at your analytics and it shows that everybody is direct, meaning only people that are typing in your address are coming. That’s a big sign that something is wrong. Like you should be getting traffic from all of these other sources. And really, if you didn’t go and look at your analytics, you may never know this. There are things that have happened.  We’ve seen like clients that we’ve taken over their website and it turned out that somebody somehow blocked Google from showing their website at all.

And so they weren’t getting any traffic from anywhere. Cause it, it wasn’t even allowed. So checking out, your analytics again, free service, all you have to do is have one little piece of code. It’s like a little number that attaches it. It’s in Google, if you went to Google my business, it’s in like the same type of area.

We use Google analytics, there’s other companies. And then it just, it shows you exactly where everybody’s coming in. It’s pretty interesting. Facebook, similarly, if you have we talked about that a little bit. If you have your business set up correctly, you can see how many people came to your page.

How many likes you have? How much engagement? If Sean talked about in another video, the Helen article, like if he just made the hell in article and didn’t go and check what was happening, he wouldn’t have known if it was popular or not, but by looking at the analytics, he was like, that’s one worth, sharing a few more times because that’s actually is driving more traffic, getting more traffic getting. So we say traffic, like if people don’t know like traffic is, we call that Is people actually clicking into the website. So that’s like how much traffic you have coming to your website. Like he can see that  article was getting people to click into the website without analytics. So you wouldn’t know that Sean didn’t pay for that article.

It was free. He wrote it himself, put it together really simply. And when you’re digital marketing, that’s the amazing opportunity that you have that you didn’t have before. You don’t have to spend, $10,000 to get a TV commercial. You can reach the same amount of people or more people for free on Facebook, on YouTube, 

Sean: [00:20:13] Even for the museum. I thought it would be cool to have a billboard. Billboards are expensive. I think it was like 500 bucks and it was just a digital one. So it wasn’t even up there all the time. And when I had the billboard, if the museum was open because I was there and the entire time that billboard was up, I had two people come into the museum.

Because of that billboard. And they came together thinking together as two separate people, I asked every single person how they heard about the museum, just so I would know $500. For two people in one trip, 

Torie: [00:20:53] I got to take a picture of it 

Sean: [00:20:57] On the flip side of the coin, on that most people at this point, see it on Facebook, a friend of theirs or TripAdvisor. Yeah. You don’t really have to pay for that. Now we do have a Facebook ad going for the museum, but even without that it’s still. Facebook is how most people are finding the museum. 

Torie: [00:21:22] Even the Facebook ad that we have going. I think it’s what $5 a day, literally $5 a day. And it continually gets new people, 

Sean: [00:21:32] At least that I can then say, okay, I’m spending $5 a day, but I’m getting at least, eight person into the museum every day. So it’s paying for itself. Whereas that billboard, that was it. Com. We paid $500 at the time, so the admission was $5. So let’s say a $10 deducted. That’s $490 for a picture of the digital billboard is all we got out of it. Not money well spent too 

Torie: [00:22:02] About all of these digital things as well is that you can turn things on and off very easily. If you do a print out, a lot of times they want like an annual contract the billboard that was for the whole month, like it, isn’t something you can dip your toe in and test. All this digital stuff. Like I did print for so long and I really do love print. I did printed magazines and though I do love it.

There’s a permanence to it. That digital is so much more flexible that, if something isn’t working today, reword it, change it in two minutes. It’s something totally different. So it’s easy to be flexible and to be able to do things yourself. Without having to rely on some big company to do all these things for you. Or to cost a bazillion dollars. 

Sean: [00:22:53] So into wanting to put some money behind some stuff, you can really start to target exactly who you want to see your business instead of just blindly putting it out there and hoping something bites, at least nowadays with digital marketing, like you can really hone it in and try to get the biggest bang for your buck, which is again huge. So not only is it. Yeah a lot less money than it used to be. It’s a lot more effective.

Torie: [00:23:20] None of that shotgun approach anymore 

Sean: [00:23:23] Now, which also ruins me because I’m still in an area where I get a lot of walk-in sales guys that want me to advertise. And I just, I, I. I can’t do it. Even if it seems like it, it’s local and it would be like, in my back of my mind, I’m just like, that’s wasted money because I can’t tell whoever is going to see this is actually going to come into the museum.

And, we don’t have a huge budget. It’s just a nonprofit. I gotta be really selective. And although I would like to, be everywhere to be everywhere and be in the local magazines and all it just, I can’t do it if I’m going to spend it, especially since it’s it’s hundreds of dollars, usually it’s not like we’re talking 25, 50 bucks.

No. So in a business card ad in a magazine for one issue, one month’s worth, it’s going to be like $200. 

Torie: [00:24:22] Which if you had a thousand dollars service, like that’s great if you have one client, but when it’s $7 to get into the museum, 

Sean: [00:24:29] No, it’s just, it doesn’t make any sense where I, if I did want to, if I did have the $200 to spend, I could apply that in a more strategic application and really get my money’s worth out of that.

Torie: [00:24:43] Digitally 

Sean: [00:24:45] Something to think about.

Torie: [00:24:46] Absolutely. So if you liked this episode, we would appreciate it. If you would give us a and if you could subscribe to our channel, we would think that’s great too. And you know what? We’re trying to get the word out. So if you can drop us a review, we would really appreciate it.

And if you want some free resources, We have lots of those over on TorieMathis.com  that you can check out thanks to grow your business so that you don’t waste your time and money. Cause we definitely don’t want you to do any of those things, but we want you to grow your business, especially online, because like we said, this is the time, man.

This is. This is a great opportunity for anybody that’s in business and we want you to take advantage of it. So we will see you on the next one.

You want to get smart tools to build your business go to getsmartaf.com