Top 5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing is So Important for Your Service Company

 

"Online" used to be such a misunderstood word. It was a scary world where scary things could happen to those who didn't know how to navigate it's various pathways. The mystery of the internet has been revealed over the past few decades, but it doesn't mean it's any less confusing. So, why should you even bother? Why clog your brain with statistics and trends that don't bring dollars to your bottom line?

Well, as the title of this article might suggest....here's Trending Up's Top Five Reasons you should be employing a strong, well crafted, online marketing strategy. 

ONE: Your Customers Are Online

Let's face it....you're here online reading these words just as your prospects are online reading other words on another site. Our mission is to bring the two parties together. But is just being there enough? Can you just throw up a cheap website and expect to land new clients? 

What if you're not looking for new customers or enhanced revenue? What if your desired "prospect" is a qualified employee? Well, guess where that prospect is hanging out on a daily basis....LinkedIn. Effective management of your online presence is the same as maintaining the physical appearance of a brick and mortar site. If you're physical store was in a main thoroughfare where potential business saw you everyday, would you care about it's appearance? You bet you would. 

TWO: Your Competitors Are Online

If your potential clients are online, so are your competitors. The good news is that the internet is a big place and in this Win-Win Marketing™️ world we're creating at Trending Up....there is plenty of food at the table for everyone. We don't need to worry about "beating" your competition. Our job is to make sure that your online presence is as appealing as possible. We put a lot of science and experience into the strategies we deploy. When a potential customer goes looking for your services on the Internet, the only way you can give yourself a fighting chance of landing on their radar is with a proper Digital Marketing Strategy in place. Winging it simply doesn't work in this day and age. Your investment into a marketing strategy with an established agency like Trending Up is going to cost far less than the distress, lost opportunities, and damage to your reputation delivered by a weak strategy. 

Yes....your competitors are online, but you can be a more appealing choice. You can do the things they are not doing to capture more of the vast audience out there. Many of your competitors may look big and intimidating with graphics and logos, but that doesn't mean they're active. Focus on your strategy and use it consistently. That's all you can do.

THREE: Compete Globally

You may not have ever considered a "global" presence for your service company. Most of your clients are local. So are your vendors, employees, and distributors, but that doesn't mean that your online presence should ignore the world outside your existing sphere. Partnerships are made across the planet these days. You don't necessarily have to provide a service for a client to be a source of influence. Your social media posts could serve as inspiration for a young company across the globe....your Customer Appreciation Video could get the attention of a much larger parent company with interests all over your area. Obviously, unless global expansion is on your list of goals for the upcoming future, your focus in this area will not be as intense as the others, but it is important nonetheless. The world is connected. You should be plugged into that connection. 

FOUR: Targeted Acquisition

The days of "wasting half the marketing dollars spent" are over. In generations past, marketing was done with the same concepts as an ad on the side of a bus, or Direct Mail. There was a lot of hope involved in those early strategies. Not today. Today, we can focus our marketing efforts down to a very specific group of people. Global capabilities make the potential audience infinitely bigger, but we still have to aim those efforts somewhere. Got a new service you want to push? Let's say you're a plumbing company and you know you're going to be doing some trench work for a family in a specific neighborhood. Would it hurts for the neighbors to start seeing your logo in their social feeds for a few days prior to work beginning? How about a blog article regarding the benefits of the specific service you happen to be doing for their neighbor? A before / during / after video that eases their minds about the process. You could potentially create months of work for you and your team in one geographic location and it all springs from one job. The possibilities for targeted marketing strategies are endless and somewhat overwhelming. Get a professional involved so you don't damage your reputation, but once you see the benefits, you won't know how your business survived without it.

FIVE: Brand Loyalty / Recognition

Your image is all you've got when it comes to marketing. The reputation of your brand; the future of your team; it all depends upon the effectiveness of your marketing. Like it or not, brand reputations are managed online. Respond in a horrific manner to a customer review...your brand goes viral for all the wrong reasons and that Win-Win Marketing™️ concept is out the window, Manage your online presence correctly, and your brand is a welcomed sight in the browsers of prospects around the world. Strategy. Consistency. Patience. They're all going to be tested and those who stay the course are the ones who reap the benefits. Instant success is a myth. You have to design, deploy, analyze, adjust, and commit to a Digital Marketing Strategy and see it through. Details are key. Get your building blocks in place and then put them everywhere. Building blocks for brand recognition are your logo, your colors, your tagline, and your elevator pitch. (More on each in coming articles!) Get those down and do not change them. 

Humans are visual. We see things and our mind makes connections before we even realize what it is we're seeing. Colors, Logos, taglines....they're all big examples of that. When was the last time you had trouble spotting a McDonalds? Whenever we hear the phrase "just do it" our brain automatically pictures that famous swoosh. Your brand is what makes you attractive or ugly in digital terms. The cruel reality is that few people look at anything ugly next to something beautiful and choose the former. Those who do are only doing so for weird purposes. You know it's true,

Bottom line is that you need a proper strategy for your online presence,. Whether it's a product, a service, an event, or a job posting you want people to hear about...effective design, deployment, and tracking is what makes or breaks your marketing efforts. It's what we do.