Lead Gen Diaries: Yelp - Get ahead of the competition

HVAC Services, plumbers, electricians and other service businesses rely on Yelp for new customers and brand awareness. Even if a potential customer comes in as a referral, that customer goes to Yelp and looks at the reviews to validate what others told them. Consumers use their phone to research products and services before they pull the trigger. 

Here are some ways for small businesses to compete and pull ahead of your competition.

1. Sponsored Listings 

   1.  It doesn’t feel fair to work hard and do right by your customers only to have Yelp show dozens of sponsored listings higher than your hard work. Unfortunately, it’s Yelp’s ecosystem so you have to play by their rules. That being said, you don’t need to be the highest bidder in the Sponsored Listings to get good leads. Combining your hard work with good user engagement and just a bit of paid budget can get you the same success as your competitors.

2. Be proactive with Customer Reviews 

   1. It’s simple but it’s also hard because you never like asking for things. Ask your customers to submit positive reviews about your work. The best way to stay ahead of the competition is to have the highest ratings by volume. 

3. Keep an Updated and Accurate Yelp Profile. 

   1. Update your profile so customers can research and contact you for questions and even schedule an appointment. And if you find that Yelp has put up a different phone number than yours, be sure to reach out to them for an explanation (and to have them change it to your business’ phone number)!

Depending on where a business lands on the search results page, there are additional solutions to increase visibility. Try the recommendations above and see how much higher in the ranking your business climbs. Contact us and let us know your thoughts. 

Lead Gen Diaries Part III: Using Yelp to Drive New Customers

Gain New Customers

Yelp is a good destination site to read reviews but it’s also a better way for Small Businesses to win new customers and retain existing ones. Yelp does a good job providing key details like contact information and promoting your business within their platform. The Yelp website and app drive leads through mobile devices by click-to-call and click-to-email.

Here are a couple of Better Practices for using Yelp to find new customers:

Set up Yelp Deals and Check in Offers - A Business account allows you to create Yelp-only promotions by having users ‘Check In’ on their mobile app. It’s a win-win since the customer gets a deal while the business gets attention through the user’s social network. Think of it like a restaurant having a line of your friends outside the door as you walk or drive by. Referral marketing is the best marketing and this is the best way to get it without being too in-your-face.  

Track and use metrics in your Yelp dashboard - One of the benefits to a business Yelp account is getting feedback on how customers interact and engage with your business profile. This includes measuring lead generation activity like how many users visit the page and how many leads drive users to your business through getting directions, writing an e-mail, and making phone calls.

Through a combination of these good business practices, up-to-date contact information and business hours, responsive customer engagement, there’s an entirely new potential revenue stream for your business.

Make sure to follow for more tips on other platforms in the future.

Lead Gen Diaries Part I : Top Ways to Maximizing your Yelp Business Profile

Creating and Optimizing your Business Profile

In a post-Covid Era, small businesses need every advantage to capture new customers and re-engage existing ones. One of the best ways is managing your brand on Yelp. You can be a restaurant that’s re-opening indoor dining or a brick-and-mortar store that is competing with online competitors or a service-based business managing customer reviews - here are tips on maximizing your Yelp business profile.

Claim your business Yelp page (if you haven’t already). This creates a business account so you can access Yelp suite of tools to make changes to all of the information on your business page. How do you know if your page is claimed? Go to Yelp (through your computer, phone or tablet) and enter your business name. If you haven’t claimed it, Yelp will ask you, “Is This Your Business” 

Verify address and contact information  It’s important to provide updated contact information so customers can reach out through the method they are most comfortable with. Pro tip: Yelp can sometimes put their own phone number that routes to your business number so don’t be alarmed if you see a number that isn’t your own. This typically happens if your business has a paid package of services from Yelp.

Check and Update Yelp Profile Photo - Positive photos and videos profiles increase the level of engagement of your profile and increase brand awareness.

Update your Photos Gallery  - Similar to updating the Yelp profile photo, updating photos adds color and personality to your business. Pro tip: Include photos that show yourself, your employees, shots of the exterior of your business and replicate what customers will see when visiting you. 

Update Hours - Yelp allows businesses to update business hours for both regular and holiday hours and even closures for vacations, etc. A side benefit of posting business hours is to capture users searching for businesses that are currently open. Pro tip: During pandemic times, business hours may have been affected so be sure to change them back when your business is ready.

Add a complete description of your business - Yelp profiles can include mission statements, provide customer competitive advantages, and any other value added information.

Select Categories that your business falls into -  Filling out the products and services also helps categorize the business with the Yelp search engine as well as Google and Bing.

Lead Gen Diaries: Top 3 ways to Maximize your Yelp profile

How have reviews shaped your opinion on a local coffee shop or car repair service center? Yelp influences potential customers opinions & decisions about businesses based on profiles and customer feedback. Whether you’re a restaurant, a service-based business or a retailer - finding the best way to shape your Yelp profile is important in managing your business’ reputation. Here are 3 different types of optimizations to maximize your Yelp profile.

Creating and Optimizing your Business Profile:

Claim your business Yelp page (if you haven’t already done so). It creates a business account to open up their suite of tools to make edits and changes to all of the information that they provide to users and more. How do you know if your page is claimed? Go to Yelp (through your computer, phone or tablet) and enter your business name. If you haven’t claimed it, Yelp will ask you, “Is This Your Business” 

Verify address and contact information  It’s important to provide current contact information so customers reach out to the appropriate method for booking an appointment or asking questions for additional information. Insider tip: Yelp can sometimes put their own phone number that routes to your business number so don’t be alarmed if you see a number that isn’t your own.

Check and Update Yelp Profile Photo - Positive photos and videos profiles increase the level of engagement of your profile and increase brand awareness.

Update your Photos Gallery  - Similar to updating the Yelp profile photo, updating photos adds color and personality to your business. Pro tip: Include photos that show yourself, your employees and replicate what customers can experience. 

Update Hours - Yelp allows businesses to update business hours for both regular and holiday hours and even closures for vacations, etc. The other importance of utilizing business hours is for users searching for businesses that are currently open. Pro tip: During pandemic times, business hours could have been affected so be sure to change them back as conditions in your area may have changed.

Add a complete description of your business - Yelp Profiles can include mission statements, provide customer competitive advantages, and any other value added information.

Select Categories that your business falls into -  Filling out the products and services also helps categorize the business with the Yelp search engine as well as Google and Bing. 

Customer Engagement

Set up Yelp Messenger  - this feature allows users to send direct messages to your Yelp Profile. The benefit is enabling a communication flow for setting up estimates, asking for additional information, and messaging for inability to service. Pro tip: This requires having a device set up to handle these messages (phone, tablet, laptop). If you need assistance with this, feel free to reach out to us to walk you through it.

Read and respond to Yelp Reviews - get notifications when reviews hit your profile. It’s important to respond to reviews that get posted to your site to show gratitude for positive reviews and constructive feedback on negative reviews. This is key tool for reputation management and where responses can have a direct impact on customer experience with your brand. Reviews are opportunities to drive word of mouth recommendations and provide users with the level of customer service and experience they can expect as a current and future customer. 

Share positive reviews across different social media platforms - Add credibility and transparency for branding using positive reviews across other social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Angi, Instagram, etc.,. Reviews provide context to your business that includes products, services, customer experience, and anything that comes out top of mind for any given review.

Gain New Customers

Set up Yelp Deals and Check in Offers - a Yelp Business account allows access to creating promotions by having users Check In on their mobile app.It’s a win-win opportunity for the customer to get a deal while the business gets attention. It’s analogous to a restaurant having a line outside the door which draws interest by the crowd. 

Track and use metrics in your Yelp dashboard - one of the accretive benefits to a business Yelp account is getting analytics on how customers interact and engage with your profile. This includes measuring lead generation activity like how many users visit the page and how many leads drive users to your business through getting directions, writing an e-mail, and making phone calls.

Claiming your Yelp page and optimizing your businesses profile is an effective tool in managing your brand and engaging your customers. The reputation management that businesses can do to stay on top of your business changes and manage customer feedback is critical for sustainable business growth. When Yelp users see that a business is customer-centric, it helps with increasing loyalty and word of mouth marketing that bring customers back again and again.

Content Marketing | Part 4 - Promotional Content Examples

Promotional content is designed to get the word out for your company or service by any means necessary. Typically, you see it used with giveaways or contests as people love anything that is free but it can also be used in other, less cheap feeling promotional ways.

You can highlight key additions to the team, product releases, new venture partnerships, new services, etc.

Here are a few ideas to help drive different promotional content:

• Share company news. On a platform like LinkedIn, this could be highlighting a new hire or set of hires. This has the dual benefit of announcing to the business community that you have new team members and lets the followers & friends of those new members to see that they now work with your business.

• Hold a contest or giveaway for a new product or service that you have. Note: Be sure to have clear rules publicly posted. While almost no one reads those rules, your legal department (and if you don’t have one, just us personally) will want to make sure that you are protected! Many times the wrong kinds of people (the lawsuit-happy ones) are the ones looking to take advantage of lax or nonexistent terms & conditions.

• Collaborate with an influencer on a contest or giveaway. This way your business takes advantage of their audience and reach, so don’t forget to tag or link to them and require them to tag or link to your business.

The next steps are :

1. Include an image or description of the content. provide a caption for the image {this works well for search engine optimization [SEO] and image based social media platforms i.e. Instagram and Pinterest}.

2. Add Hashtags (#) - depending on the platform add relevant hashtags by context and popularity.

Here’s an example.

There’s going to be new content for Behind the Marketing Curtain. Stay tuned for new updates coming soon….

#companyupdate #promotionalcontent

Content Marketing | Part 3 - Inspirational Content Examples

Inspirational content is intended to uplift and provide motivation to the reader/viewer. Usually it consists of a quote or video that makes users feel good or better about themselves. Other times, that same quote or video throws a challenge to the reader/viewer to make them perform an action.

Here are a few suggested prompts to help drive different inspirational content:

• Sharing a client/customer success story - Relatable stories of success can resonate with your target audience with the intent of having them reach out to you so you can duplicate your past success with them.

• Create a motivational/inspirational/encouraging quote - This is something that is everywhere on the internet but it doesn’t make it any less valuable. You never know the mindset of your viewer so any little thing can serve the purpose of inspiring them to get up and do (preferably, calling your company to hire them for a project).

• Share a testimonial - This is similar to the client/customer success story but having it come directly from someone who benefitted from your expertise or product. Referral marketing will forever be the strongest marketing effort even if it comes from someone you don’t know.

Some potential next steps are :

1. Include an image or description of the content. provide a caption for the image {this works well for search engine optimization [SEO] and image based social media platforms i.e. Instagram and Pinterest}.

2. Add Hashtags (#) - depending on the platform add relevant hashtags by context and popularity. Note: Do NOT go overboard on hashtags. Studies have shown that 9 hashtags is the ceiling when it comes to spreading your message through hashtags. Anything beyond 9 gives a bad impression to the reader/viewer that your post is disingenuous.

Here’s an example.

Content Marketing | Part 2 - Entertainment Content Examples

Entertainment content is designed to bring humor and is an easy way to pass the time. This type of content is usually the most viral. You can recognize it as the latest funny cat/dog/baby hijinks video or meme. One note: clients often ask about wanting to create ‘something that will go viral.’ No one has that lightning in a bottle and if anyone claims that they do, they won’t be selling their services for hire as they’ll have already retired to an island in the Pacific.

Now what can you do to make entertaining content? Here are a few prompts to help in the creation process:

• Create a funny and engaging graphic quote;

• Share a Meme.

• Show behind the scenes image or video about your business;

The next steps are :

1. Providing a caption description for the image (this works well for search engine optimization [SEO] and image based social media platforms i.e. Instagram and Pinterest).

Here’s an example.

That one time you fell into the proverbial rabbit hole and never got out. #humor #toofunny #starwarsmemes

Now if meme sharing or graphics creation isn’t what you feel comfortable for yourself or your business, then go with some behind-the-scenes action of your business. What seems boring and mundane to you because you do it every day is brand new and interesting to an audience that probably has never seen it. And hey, you may even make something that will go unintentionally viral (the best kind!).

Content Marketing | Part 1 - Educational Content Examples

Here are examples of content marketing part 1 of 4.

Educational content is created to inform and teach a target audience and drive awareness for a given topic.

Here are a few prompts to help create different educational content:

• What’s the best way for someone to save money/effort/time by working with your business?

• What’s something that is often misunderstood about your industry?

• Answer a FAQ

The next steps are :

1. Include an image or description of the content. provide a caption for the image {this works well for search engine optimization [SEO] and image based social media platforms i.e. Instagram and Pinterest}.

2. Add Hashtags (#) - depending on the platform add relevant hashtags by context and popularity.

Here’s an example.

Let our CPA’s expertise help you save money on April 15th with tax planning and savings. #accounting #smallbusiness #taxday #taxsavings

Content Marketing | The 4 strategic types of content to post

Content marketing can be tricky and hard to navigate in terms of what type of content to post. These are the 4 types of content we generally recommend creating. The strategy for content is providing real value for the reader/end-user:

1. Education - This type of content is to inform and teach a target audience. This type of content’s intent is to drive awareness of given topic/product.

2. Entertainment - This type of content is to bring humor and other ways to whimsically pass time. This type of content is usually the most viral including your latest funny and cute cat/dog/baby hi-jinx video or meme.

3. Inspiration - This type of content is utilized to uplift and provide motivation. This type of content usually is a quote or video that makes users feel good or better about themselves.

4. Promotion - This type of content is similar to company newsletter material. Information on key hires, latest product releases, joint ventures, new services, etc. It’s less about company self-promotion and more about providing company information.

Each of these 4 types of content will help drive value and create an overall better brand. Drop a comment or question and we’ll be happy to respond.

Why is SMS marketing vital in today's strategies?

We came across this question on Quora and answered it there but wanted to make sure we included it here since we wrote it!

The answer is immediacy. People have been trained to at least look at their phones when the SMS notification dings. Email marketing is filtered by mail providers and your own settings. Telemarketing is easily screened out especially in this day and age of robocalls.

What makes SMS marketing valuable is that the open rates are quite high (94% are read within 90 seconds of receipt). So your immediacy of generating a consumer response is extremely high but it also demands that you deliver the right message at that right time. If it’s an appointment reminder or a thank you message, that’s a positive outcome.

But if it’s something that appears out of the blue and is irrelevant to the consumer’s state of mind, then you’ve done nothing but harm yourself and your company’s reputation.

So if you or your company are thinking of engaging in SMS marketing, be sure to ask yourself, what is the actual/true value that we are delivering to the recipient of this message?

Marketing 101 : Affiliate Marketing

Definition - Traditional affiliate marketing is when a retailer or service company pays a referral fee (usually a Cost Per Acquisition or % of sale)  for a sale or lead.

Marketing - Marketers use affiliates to drive additional sales/leads they wouldn’t have gotten through traditional marketing. Affiliates tend to be publishers whose user base utilize them to make buying decision as first time users or bottom of the funnel activity.

Optimization - When utilizing affiliates make sure the traffic is accretive  and not overlapping or cannibalizing sales that would have occurred without the affiliate.

Marketing 101 : Dayparting

Definition - DayParting is an optimization technique used in marketing by targeting ads by time of day and day of week.

Marketing - The advantage of DayParting is getting ads in front of users based on the optimal time of day and day of week that users are most likely going to convert.

Optimization

1. Optimize by day-parting isn’t as simple as measuring by conversion. It’s equally important to measure by engagement via clicks, etc.

Marketing 101 : Geo-targeting

Definition - Geo-targeting is an optimization technique used in marketing to target users based on their location. This is usually captured by IP address, location based services (mobile), country, state, city and other means.

Marketing - The advantage to using geo-location for marketing is narrowing down marketing so that it reaches a targeted audience based on that locations specific demographic and has the highest conversions.

Optimization-

1. Whenever optimizing a given marketing channel - geolocation is a critical way to maximize ROI and conversion rates. It’s recommended to Increase the CPC/CPA/CPL for high performing locations.

2. In combination with utilizing day-parting, geo-targeting is the most common optimization technique.

3. The latest common technique for geo-targeting is a specific technique called geo-fencing. It’s the use of geo-targeting users when they get into a specific area commonly used in social media (facebook, yelp, etc).

Marketing 101 : Paid Search

Definition - Paid search is the buying of keyword(s) from a search engine for the sponsored ads.

Marketing - This is typically one of the top paid marketing channels for introducing users/customers for online marketing. It’s typically used for top of the funnel marketing in terms of branding and exposure but can also help finalize a sale or lead for a user/customer.

Optimization -

1. It’s important to identify keywords that drive quality users to your site. This can be measured by time on site and conversion rate.

2. Once keywords are identified - utilize phrase matching and related keywords for additional traffic

3. Make sure to identify and remove negative keywords that have negative roi and zero conversions.

Marketing 101 : Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Definition - SEM is the combination of organic search results based on a websites content and paid search via a search engine (i.e. google.com)

Marketing - SEM is becoming less effective with Social Media but it’s still important to utilize SEM as the key factor in introducing user to your brand and working the top of the marketing funnel.

Optimization -

1. Organic search is critical to getting on the 1st page search results

2. Paid Search although the cost is high is still an effective marketing channel for driving users to a website.

3. Utilizing strong content on related media sites like Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, etc is another way to get 1st page results.

Marketing 101: Define Your Audience

1. Definition - An audience is a group of individuals or users that you (or your business) are targeting to further your relationship with them based on mutual interest(s) in your products, services or knowledge

2. Marketing - Having a defined audience allows your business to better allocate resources (time & money) geared towards deepening relationships with those individuals or businesses

3. Optimization

   1. Looking internally at your current customer base and finding the similarities among them. The defining characteristics could be geography, demography, circumstance. Where is there overlap and what marketing tools can you deploy against your marketing efforts to maximize that return?

   2. Website analytics like Google Analytics and customer surveys (depending on your business) are two examples of ways to get data on the makeup of your audience.