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Ep. 106 The Holy Grail of Local Business Marketing

by Torie Mathis | Smart AF Show

The Holy Grail of Local Business Marketing

By now you’ve grasped the power of digital marketing for getting in front of more potential customers, but are you actually using it to your full advantage. Or are all your marketing eggs in the WRONG basket?

In this episode, Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean go over the one place too many business owners are overlooking online as they spend too much time and effort in the wrong place. Find out how you’re missing out on hundreds if not thousands of new eyes on your business every month for free.

Listen or watch the full episode below:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

(transcription is auto-generated)

SAF 106

Sean: [00:00:00] That then did create a couple people that went to our office, trying to find it.

Torie: [00:00:05] We’re at the ups store. Where are you at?

Hey, what’s up. It’s Torie Mathis and I’m here with the one and only Sean Mathis, founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

Sean: [00:00:24] What’s going on?

Torie: [00:00:24] You know, the other day, I got another one of those Google emails from Miles Through Time. And it said that you had like a bazillion. Fuse on your photos again.

Sean: [00:00:35] You didn’t forward that one to me.

Torie: [00:00:38] Many of them, like I don’t always, I get them a lot. Like today I got one for you in a couple of our clients, because if you put photos on Google, they will actually show them to people that are searching. And it actually sends you an email now and again, telling you how many views your photos got. No man, there was there’s been one I think. And I have shared it, I think on my Instagram that it was like 89,000 views in a month for photos on the Miles Through Time Google my business page.

That’s crazy. I think a lot of businesses are using their Google my business page. Like you do. Sean does a fantastic job of utilizing the services that Google are giving us for free and, really getting in front of a lot of people because that’s a lot of people that see that.

Sean: [00:01:29] Google try that whole. Was a Google plus. Right. And it never really took off. And so they scrapped it and all that kind of stuff. And the thing is they, they, they pretty much still have Google plus they just don’t call it Google plus. So you still it’s your go business. And you can still make posts and deuce things on there.

It just, nobody thinks about it. It’s like all they think about is Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and really google, it should be right up there with the rest of them, as far as being a relevant place to share things. And maybe you don’t share, you know, some of them. Some of the less important stuff are filler type content.

But if you’ve got something that your, your customers or clients should really know about, like share it on Google.

Torie: [00:02:20] If you think about it like if people are only putting their eggs in the Facebook or the Instagram basket, those are. Search engines. People don’t go there to find answers. People go there to be entertained to waste time. And so they might just happen to fall upon your business maybe because they are following you or maybe somebody shared something or you’re running an ad. But then if you’re running an ad, you’re kind of like interrupting cat videos and political BS. And so I think it’s a little bit harder of a sell on Facebook.

I think there’s a place for it and don’t get me wrong. I really think you should put, be posting on Facebook. But to utilize Google because it’s a search engine. Like people are going there for answers. People are going there to find your business. Like if you can put the most information on there to make you look fantastic, to give them lots of information. I think that it’s just something that people are falling short on.

Sean: [00:03:13] Yeah. The thing is, is for the most. Most businesses do have something on Google. At least you hope so.

Torie: [00:03:21] But it’s like a Google listing, like their business’s listing.

Sean: [00:03:24] And there’s so much more right. If they’re not listed on there, then don’t worry about them. But if they are. Yeah, the thing you want to try to do is have more than they do, and it’s going to totally turn things around and help it’s even like I dunno how it is currently, but at some point, Google wouldn’t even show your reviews until you had five. You know, so like you need to, you need to keep having, adding to it, the posts.

If, if you, if you have your list, your business listed on Google, just Google the name of your business. So then it’ll pull up everything that you have, don’t go into the backend or do any of that kind of stuff. And don’t search the industry you’re in and have the competition pull up. Your competition might pull up in some of the search results because they’ve got a lot of cool stuff going on that.

You know, they still pull up, but for the most part, you want to see everything that pulls up for you. And so that’s going to show your Google maps, the posts that you have on there, all your, all your stuff that’s associated with your listing on top of, you know, your website and various pages of your website.

Like if your business doesn’t pull up every single non-ad list. You know, so now it doesn’t count if somebody paid for an ad and they show, or they show like five or say, they show a ton of them now, but every other listing should be yours. And a lot of them are going to be Google’s pages. You know, it’s going to show those posts and your YouTube channel.

It’s going to show all of those videos, but that gives you a good snapshot of how much. Different stuff you have out there so that when somebody is searching for your industry and not your business, all those things are possibilities that pop up that will outweigh your competition. If all they have is that bare minimum of a listing, that they don’t have all that other stuff.

They don’t have a YouTube channel. They aren’t using the post feature. They aren’t doing all these other things that you do. You have a much higher success rate of, of being shown to those, those people.

Torie: [00:05:25] You might think that like, maybe you don’t have time to do all of this stuff, but you most likely are already throwing this stuff on Facebook. The thing is, is that everybody was like, you got to use Facebook, you got to use Facebook. And now everybody pulled back from everything else. And I think people are putting too much on Facebook. And I think in the last year, I think some people have gotten off Facebook.

Sean: [00:05:44] Hands down. There’s all kinds of people. Absolutely hate Facebook now.

Torie: [00:05:48] You know w with the current situation of how, like, how things have gone. I think that it’s a really good time for all businesses to kind of step back and be like, okay, where should I be allocating my time, my money. And if you are just posting on Facebook, just take some of that stuff that you’re posting and post it in addition on your Google, my business page like Sean said, there’s places for photos and places for videos or for blog posts, videos would go on YouTube, which is owned by Google. And if you look at search results on Google, you’ll find that Google will show Google ads. Before they’ll show anything else.

They’re gonna show ads, which are their assets. They’re making money on those, obviously. But then the second one is going to be, you know, the videos based on whatever you’re selling, and then it’s going to be the map views based on what kind of search you’re doing. Like if you’re doing some type of local business view, you know, or search, then that map is going to come up really high.

So you do want to be listed on that. And then all those other assets that you have that you could be utilizing. Again, you can post those all day on Facebook, but nobody’s going to be able to search online and then find those posts.

Sean: [00:06:53] And then you gotta, you gotta demographics. You gotta take into account as well. For the most part, the younger generation today aren’t on Facebook. And so if that is who your customer base is you got a problem right there. That is a major red flag.

Torie: [00:07:08] The Facebook door is I told you what this was. I believe that the Facebook door is children. The young people that have kids, they are on Facebook because they want to share their kids’ pictures with their family that maybe they don’t live near, or they want to, you know, with other parents or whatnot. But the young people that don’t have kids, are for sure not. On Facebook, like, it’s just, they’re not there.

Sean: [00:07:32] It’s, it’s either Instagram or Twitter for those ones.

Torie: [00:07:35] Or, yeah. And, and I really actually have seen the power of Instagram a little bit more since I kind of left Facebook. Like I got tired of it. It was bumming me out. Like I enjoy going on there and seeing my family and seeing like the people from the army and stuff like that. Like I like seeing that kind of stuff, but it was so overwhelming. And then with all the like fake posts and people being like it, it just got too much. And I’m sure that I’m not the only one that feels this way.

So. If you are reaching your, you know, 35 to 55 year old people on Facebook and it’s not doing as well again now is a really great time to kind of step back and see where else you can be posting.

Sean: [00:08:15] You know, where the younger generation is though, guaranteed on YouTube. Well that, and they’re Googling shit.

Torie: [00:08:21] Everybody’s Googling stuff. I hope you’re Googling stuff.

Sean: [00:08:24] And the thing is, is now even if you, if, if somebody is a binger and you gotta use Bing. Being, and Google my business linked together. So you go on there and you create your, your being accounts, which is a mirrored image of Google. Right. But it’s, Microsoft’s version.

It just links up to your one, your, your Google one, and you don’t even have to double it anymore. I sign in, I sign in with my Gmail and I, I link it all together so that I only do it once.

Torie: [00:08:54] And it’s hilarious.

Sean: [00:08:56] Like Microsoft, they did not even, it doesn’t matter to them anymore. They’re like, yeah, they use the search engine. We’ll just take Google stuff. Well, why not? It’s a win for them as well.

Torie: [00:09:05] I think that a lot of these companies used to be before that they made it difficult so that you had to choose. And now, like that seem like they’re just trying to make it a little bit easier so that everybody just gets used. Yeah. Yeah. That’s crazy. I didn’t know that they did that.

Sean: [00:09:18] So make sure that not only are you on Google, but you’ve taken the time to check out being, which is the number two search browser engine out there. Besides YouTube and all those ones, but yeah. Just connect it to your Google business and call it done. It’ll take you a couple of minutes.

Torie: [00:09:35] That’s pretty amazing. So Sean, what about these businesses that don’t have locations because the whole no location thing or no actual brick and mortar location has been a really big deal for Google. And it’s changed so many times. And you know, Sean is the one that for all of our clients, Sean manages the Google pages. So what about somebody that’s like a coach or somebody that’s a little bit more virtual? What do they do for the Google page?

Sean: [00:09:59] You fill it out just as if you have a brick and mortar business. The difference is going to come when you put in your address. You there now, there is a box that says it’s not a physical address. You click it and you’re golden. It doesn’t, you won’t show up on the map as a physical location, which totally makes sense because nobody’s going to it. But you’re you still put you, you can still fill everything else out and be a part of it because. Originally, you know, we’d put home addresses and you can’t do the post office box.

Torie: [00:10:31] They don’t like that. They do the post office box that isn’t really looking like they advertise it as like, yes, it’s a post office box, but we’re giving you a real street address. Like, they’re smart to that. Like, you, you can’t do that anymore.

Sean: [00:10:42] But then also that, that did create a couple people that went to our office, trying to define us. So that’s not ideal, you know, like if you really don’t have a brick and mortar business, just click the button and it won’t be shocked.

Torie: [00:10:58] Okay. What about where we’re driving in the Tesla? The Tesla has an awesome map on it and you’re going through the neighborhoods and you can see that it has the name of businesses inside the neighborhood. Oh, those people that are using their, their home address for their business. Yeah.

Sean: [00:11:15] Yeah. And some of them, it almost seems like they’re doing it as a joke because of the names that I see full up on there. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of.

Torie: [00:11:24] What are some of the names that are pulled up?

Sean: [00:11:26] I can’t think of any right now to show me those.

Torie: [00:11:30] Maybe I haven’t even paid attention.

Sean: [00:11:33] I’m not sure if it’s a real business or not.

Torie: [00:11:35] But it’s like, you know, Daisy’s notary or something. Like it was like just somebody that would be like, it’s their spare business or it’s, you know, more of a virtual business that you wouldn’t need to have enough. And I could see that that’s going to be a lot more in, you know, coming up that people have gone to working online.

People have discovered I don’t have to have you know, location or I don’t have to come into the office. It’s an overhead that I don’t really need that it’s possible that a lot more people are going to, you know, go a little bit more virtual, which I think is fantastic. Like all these people drive into work and stuff like nobody needs to be driving so much.

Where are you going? You’re getting that from home.

Sean: [00:12:11] Yeah. I mean, you, you can fill out your who you, what area you service. And I mean, that’s all that really matters, you know? Cause the, the map is there to show people where a physical location is. You know, you, you lose out on the map itself, right?

Torie: [00:12:27] However, if you have a business that you have competitors that come up on the map, and so in order for you to be competitive, you need to come on that map, then that may not work for you. And so there are going to be some situations that may be. You may want to sublet from somebody and get an address, or you may want to put your home address because we’ve had a couple of like HVAC companies that the big HVAC companies, like the top five, the top 10, are coming up on the map. And so bumping some of these other little or guys down that they really don’t have like a location where you would walk into.

And we noticed once we put them on the map by using their home address, Bumped them right back up and they started getting calls. So it’s kind of a bummer, but like, if you need that map location, then you may need to make some adjustments.

Sean: [00:13:14] Let’s say that that goes to show how much power that map does have though. So, I mean, you’re, you’re, it’s really gonna, it’s gonna depend on what you want to do as far as your business and how you, you want people to find you because if you don’t have that brick and mortar business, it is. It’s not as good honestly. So if it, if it makes sense to have a location just an office or something that you can put on there yeah.

Even if you tried it for a little bit and just to see, you know, if that did make a difference and if it doesn’t, then you turn it off. I mean, not everyone’s going to want to put their home address and I totally get that. Not wanting to have the home address, but if you don’t care about him, maybe try that.

Yeah. It doesn’t really matter if, if you don’t care, you know, it just matters whether or not somebody tries to show up to your, your office without doing any research at all. And then realizes they just pulled up to some residential house which could happen. It could happen, but. Well, whatever. I mean, how you, you can go talk to them or they can pull away, gone all that was a bus, you know, either way, you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter.

Torie: [00:14:22] With the home address and showing up. I did have a meeting one time with some accountants that wanted to do business with us. And I think it was one of those. Like they wanted our business. But then they were kind of like we may want to use your services and then they flipped it on me and they actually were trying to sell me. Do you remember that?

Sean: [00:14:37] Oh yeah.

Torie: [00:14:38] So they actually sent me the address to where to meet them at. And they had some house that they were using, but it was in a residential area and it made me feel very uncomfortable. That I was walking. I’m like, what the hell am I going? Like it was in an actual neighborhood. And it was like they had their office in the back of this and it looked like there was other offices. So maybe they were, I don’t think it was zoned for commercial, but it was a little bit weird. Yeah, it was a little bit strange. So you really got to see what works for your business and what works for your customer. But no matter what kind of business you have, you still need to use the Google page. Even if you don’t like Google, even if you don’t, you know, it’s one of those things that you kind of gotta play the game because they’re offering these tools that are for free.

And like I said, Sean got in front of 90,000 people 90,000 photo views. So maybe it was, you know, maybe people viewed a couple of photos. However, that is a lot of people in 30 days to go and now know about Miles Through Time that wouldn’t before, if Sean was in their own pictures up.

Sean: [00:15:41] Plus you want people to leave reviews on your Google page. And I mean, if you have any coupons, you can put coupons and it categorizes it as a coupon, which obviously people always love their coupons and discounts. So you can do that kind of stuff at any event, you can put it on as an event, just general posts, you put it.

Torie: [00:15:59] And you really need to make sure that what, whoever. I don’t know how it works for how many people you can put as an admin on your Google account. But I know you can put more than one because Sean and I are both on Miles Through Time. The thing is, is that I get emails that you don’t get. I like they’ll send me and tell me that you got reviews, but you don’t always get the same ones.

Right. So I would definitely stick more than one person as an admin on your Google accounts so that you are more likely to see all of these things. Like I said, the emails that I get for the photo of you. I know that you don’t see him because I know some of those are so amazing that you will be like, look at this, you know?

And so I always try to send Sean, Sean those. So make sure that you have an address that you are going to get those emails from Google and that maybe a couple of other people that you trust somebody in your office, your spouse, and somebody else that you know, that that can have access to it so that you see that.

Because then when somebody leaves you a review, You’re going to know. And so you’re going to be able to respond to that and you want to respond even to the good reviews, hit or respond to every single review and you need to do it quickly. So that doesn’t mean that you need to log in once a month to see if you have any reviews like you need to make it so that you actually get notified.

And then Google also emails you for other things like are you going to be open on 4th of July? Do you need to put special hours? Like they’re trying to get you to be in more involved. In the entire site and what they’re trying to offer you all the different tools that, you know, you have an ability to use, thus them saying, you know, Hey, you got this many views from your photos. That’s encouraging you. There wants you to put more photos on there because when people go on to Google and then they find these listings that are well filled out, that just makes Google look so much better. So they want to show the businesses that are using the tool. The most robust way. So make that you, cause I guarantee most of your competition is not, no.

Sean: [00:17:50] I’ve gone on to our clients of ours, Google page that they did create and they had, which is great, but I go on there and literally nothing else has filled out. And what I mean, nothing else. I mean, they put their address and name and phone number, and their website was listed there. And then they stopped. There’s areas you service there’s services, you offer the services you offer is huge. You, you have your whole business out there, right? And you don’t actually click the dropdowns that Google has that says the things that you do, like that, is like a major part of Google’s algorithm to show you to certain people, because you’ve, said you do those things.

Like if you don’t say that, then you’re just a blank slate business. Like you’re there you’ll show up. If they search your name,

Torie: [00:18:40] I have to give Google some type of information. Otherwise, they don’t know how to categorize.

Sean: [00:18:44] You have to do that yourself, but it’s super easy. It’s a dropdown with some dropdowns and you just click the ones that are relevant for your business. If you actually do it, then say you do it. If not, then leave it blank. It’s fine.

Torie: [00:18:56] Well, and just like, you know, we, we always talk about like people not filling out their Facebook page, you know, the same, or that changes happen happened has happened with Google. They’re trying to make it better. They’re reorganizing things or, you know, bringing up new products or testing to see if things work.

So if you did this two years ago, The shit’s out of date. Like you got to go back in there and at least make sure everything now is filled out because those little changes can knock things off or, you know, reorganize something. So they don’t want to give, put out bad information. So I think they’d rather drop whatever, you know, was there.

Right. Rather than, you know, try, to reorganize it some other way for you. You need to go in there and be proactive in your Google business page so that everything is filled out. So that means, you know, maybe quarterly you go pull it up and take a look. Because I know for the, some of the clients, they probably thought they had it.

Yeah. We’ve got our Google page filled out and then Sean goes in there and it’s, it’s not filled out at all.

Sean: [00:19:49] Let’s say I know a local brewery that they, they just. And so if you go in there and look at their Google business page, it would say they’re a brewery. Right. Which is great. Yeah. The thing is, is they eventually started adding food.

Torie: [00:20:03] Do they have food because that’s pretty important.

Sean: [00:20:05] And so now, now, now they’re a restaurant brewery, but if they don’t tell people that Google doesn’t know that still they’re not getting pulled up. And the thing is most people want the restaurant part of the brewery, like a brewery’s cool and all, but the minute you add food. Yeah, it’s a game changer. And if they don’t fill that out, it they’re losing all kinds of opportunities.

Torie: [00:20:31] Hmm. That’s very interesting. So I hope that you really see the importance of utilizing a Google business page, no matter what kind of business you have if you’re a local business if you’re more of an online virtual business. The Google, my business pages for you too. And you have to make sure that you fill it out, which means that you have to make sure that you go in there and check to see if there’s new places to fill it out. Utilize all of these tools, utilize posting photos. You saw how many views Sean got utilize posts.

If you’re doing blog posts, you can do them also on the Google business page, which means that they’re going to show you to more people. And if you can do videos and put them on your YouTube channel, like that is going to explode your reach to even more people. And like, I always say like, this is free. You guys, that you don’t have to pay the TV network for some commercial to get in front of people. These are tools out there that these businesses are using, that they are showing your business to people for free. So utilize these free tools. You have no reason not to. Did you know that we have new episodes every Tuesday, Thursday, where we talk about stuff, just like this, where you can market your business much smarter?

We also have lots of tools and resources at toriemathis.com that you can go and check out. And a lot of them are for free. We really want to help businesses grow. We want you to be smarter about your marketing. We want you to use your money wisely. Use your time wisely. I finally figured out how to use social media. And a lot of these things like you can do these things yourself. You do not need a huge budget. You don’t need a marketing department. You don’t need a marketing agency to handle this stuff for you. These are things that you can do and you know, we’re out here to help you out. We want to help out business owners.

We’re business owners too. Like we understand that it’s a little bit difficult, so we’ll catch you on the next one. Thanks. So I hope that you enjoyed this episode and if you would like more tools like this, or that’s what I say.

Shit balls.