EPISODE 66 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: SEO FOR SERVICE-BASED BUSINESSES
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I had the pleasure of sitting down with a service-based business owner to discuss search engine optimization. We go through the pros, the cons, and when you should consider it versus avoiding it at all costs. As you know, in marketing, there is no one size fits all solution, and in this interview, I break it all down for you to demystify the search engine industry. Now, I must let you know that this interview was conducted via Zoom and I was the one being interviewed, so the all audio quality is not going to be as high as our usual standard, but please tune in anyway. There's some fantastic information in here. Welcome to the Boom Your Biz podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate, empower, and inspire business owners and myself along the way.
Speaker 2:
If I'm spending $900 a month to an SEO agency, how can I measure my return on investment and whether this is worth my money being spent?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. Okay. Really good question. I think whenever you're outsourcing an element of your marketing, you need to be tracking their ROI, whether that be in silos or inquiries or increased brand awareness, but when it comes to SEO and outsourcing that, look, I will be really, really upfront and honest and transparent with how it works in this agency world for you guys today. SEO really is a long-term strategy. So, it's going to take about six months for it fully to kick into gear, right? When you're paying someone for SEO, essentially, you are paying for them to be ranking your website on Google or Bing or whatever it might be, usually Google because that's used by 90% of people.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
The aim of that is obviously to get more traffic to your website and then off the back of that, more leads and inquiries. The hard part with that is that your SEO agency could be performing and providing you with those rankings. But if they aren't for relevant search terms, you're not going to see an increase in inquiries, and if your website wasn't converting in the first place, then you're also not going to see an increase in inquiries. So, to come from the agency point of view, you're paying them for website rankings on Google. What you really want is more sales and inquiries. Sometimes, there can be a bit of a disconnect there. Their obligation to you is those rankings, and I would expect they're providing you with a monthly report on your rankings and the movements that are happening, and then you can actually hook up in Google analytics. You should always have Google analytics running.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Make sure you're having a look at your amount of organic traffic. If that is increasing, then they're doing their job right. You can also see the search terms that people are coming to your website from with that organic traffic too. But, again, unless your website is converting, you can have all the traffic in the world and it might not make any difference to your leads and your sales.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Well, do you think would... I know you probably would, but from what you know in the business, would an agency come to the business owner and say, "Look, we could do this SEO traffic for you, but your website really is not sort of good enough," I suppose, "To be able to potentially convert that traffic into clientele."
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. Look, a good agency will, and a good agency will ask you for access to your Google analytics and data on the inquiries and sales that are coming through your website before taking you one.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So, if they can see that, yes, your website is converting, it's going to be a lower end contract for you because they're not going to have to do a ton of work optimizing your website and potentially redeveloping components of it to make sure it converts. Okay? But it all depends on the kind of agency they are. If they just specialize in SEO and offer that one service, they're not going to be a web developer as well. So, really, I mean, it's a kind of a chicken or the egg scenario. Do you increase your traffic to see whether it converts, your website converts, or do you make sure it converts before you go and outsource and spend money on your marketing? My advice would probably be make sure it converts before putting any money into marketing, and do you have some form of offer, and I know that we've talked a lot about that low barrier to entry offer. You really need to be driving them to something like that as well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Okay. What's the difference between... so, the client, Candice, said I'm spending $900 a month, and I spoke to a client today who was spending $2,000 a month on SEO. What's the difference between, is that just a branding thing, or does that mean that potentially the person that's spending $2,000 on SEO is getting a whole lot more for their money? How would they make decisions on the pricing?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, really, really, really good question. There are a million different [inaudible 00:05:18] to this, but what I would say is if someone is offering you $900 a month for SEO they're probably not addressing all three factors that really play into your Google search rankings. It's become a lot more complicated than what it used to be. There are three components that play into it. You've got your onsite optimizations, so looking at things like your site speed, how long someone spends on the page, the amount of pages they go to, even your social media now can play into it, so making sure your social accounts are actually linked. Then another kind of sub component that is the content on your website. A good SEO agency should also be producing content to add to your sites, whether that be blog posts, whether that be adding new pages, looking at how those pages are structured and connecting to each other.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Then the third component, which is not really something that you can see so much, but it's the off site. That involves back linking to other websites, having your listings optimized, which is your Google business listing. Then the price is also going to be determined by the competition in your space. So, for example, I'm currently in Albury, Wodonga. If I'm wanting to rank a client for the search term plumber Albury, that is going to be very, very different to me ranking for plumber Melbourne. Or, for example, the building industry, builder Melbourne is going to be very, very hard to rank for. So, the amount of work required to get that happening is going to be huge compared to doing it in a regional area.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
My advice is if you are going to look at working with an SEO agent, I would ask them about clients they've worked with. That might not even be the same industry. That could be similar business sizes, similar locations, or even similar search volume competition. I would ask them exactly what they're doing as part of their contract, and asking them, "What are you doing for onsite, what are you doing for content, and what are you doing for offsite?" Something else to make you aware of as well that I know there are some big agencies that do this, and it's a really, really dodgy tactic. Essentially, for the offsite component, they will go and rent a whole heap of these back links, so Google will look at your website and go, "All right, how many other sites are talking about this website?"
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It has an authority ranking for this. So, they will rent websites that they can back link to your website, and as soon as you end your contract with them, if you go, "Nah, not happy with this," or, "We've done this for 12 months, I don't need this anymore," they will pull those back links and you'll automatically see a big decline in the rank in your site. That is a very dodgy tactic, and it's a very common tactic. Just be aware of it, and I would ask that question as well. If I end my contract with you, are you going to pull my back links?
Speaker 2:
Okay. So, if someone was spending, say, $2,000 a month, would you expect that those three different areas as a result of that investment would be met for that amount of money?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely, I would. But, again, it depends on the competition. But in some form I would expect they're addressed for $2,000 a month.
Speaker 2:
Okay, cool. Now, this is probably just more of a question that might... in terms of some of the businesses in our industry, I could imagine that as a business owner, and this is just understanding my coaching clients' experience, when they go to spend money on something like SEO, there's often a battle in their mind about they obviously want to invest in things that are going to bring them a financial return. All right? Sometimes, for business owners, it's like, "Do I do this or do I do that?" In terms of there's not a lot of spare cash floating around, and they just need to make a decision on what... and if it's all important, let's say if they needed to increase the revenue in their business, all right? And they were thinking about doing, say, investing some money in Facebook ad marketing, for example, to get some clients through the door, or they were looking at SEO, thinking, "I really need to possibly..." because both of them could potentially contribute to clients, conversion, revenue, all of that sort of stuff, but they're just different sort of, to me, possibly the Facebook ad might be a quicker return on investment than, say, SEO, which takes a little bit more time. For somebody that was cash strapped and trying to work out, "Well, what's the priority here?" What do you think you would invest in first?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
100% Facebook ads.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely. It's going to take, like I said, around six months for SEO to work, and, again, your website might not even convert even if you are getting that traffic. With the Facebook ads, there are so many different ad types that you can use, and you don't even necessarily have to send them away to your website from their platform. So, yeah, hands down. To be honest with you, we've got an agency, right? It's very rare that we will ever offer SEO as a standalone service because of the long-term game plan. Honestly, 9 times out of 10, if the client has the budget and they're going, "Right, we need to be on Google," I'd be saying to them, "Well, you need to be investing in Google ads at the same time, because they're going to get you that instant return on Google." Straight away, we can control them, and then we'll wait for that organic listing to kick in. But for the beauty industry, no doubt about it, Facebook ads are the way to go.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Awesome.
Vanessa:
May I ask a question? Sorry to interrupt. So then what is the difference between a Facebook ad and a Google ad? Because from a business owner's perspective, you look at it and you say, "Okay, well, I'm going to set up an ad." So, they both are ads. They're both being paid. They're both done by clicks. Does that make sense?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
No. No. Excellent question. I'm going to get into a little bit of marketing jargon on you for a second and bring it back to the concept of push and pull marketing. Pull marketing is where you're really drawing people in, right? Push marketing is when you're pushing a message onto them. It comes down to the different user behaviors. So, in Google, someone is actively in hunt mode. They might be looking for skin needling in your suburb, for example. So, they're going to be quite an easy sell if you can drive them to the website and you have a converting site, because they know they want or need this product or service right now, and they're looking for it.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
The problem with that a lot of the time is that the search volume for specific services in certain suburbs is going to be quite low, so your market size of people actively looking for that product or service at this point in time might be very, very small. So, it's capped just to the results that you can get. However, with Facebook marketing, especially if you're using the low barrier to entry method and having a really great, say, facial special happening to get someone in the door where you know that your team can upsell them or cross sell them into different products and services, then you have an unlimited audience, essentially, that you can reach. That is why I would go down the Facebook path. It's also a lot more visual as well. In terms of the business owner being able to set it up themselves and see a clear result, I find that people do find the concept of Facebook ads a lot easier to understand.
Speaker 2:
Awesome. Okay. Thank you. We've got your list of questions, Vanessa. We might start working through those, if that's okay, unless you've got something else on there. Cool. All right. Sonya, have you got... actually, I can bring it up.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. I've got them here next to me.
Speaker 2:
What is SEO specifically?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. Something I probably should have clarified as we started talking about this was the difference between Google ads and SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization. In a nutshell, it is all about how you ranked in the search engines. So, when I talk about this, I'm mainly going to be talking about Google, because it is the most common search engine out there. Its goal is to drive traffic to your website. So, people that go and have a search, you know when you search on Google on your desktop, for example, you're going to see the first three that pop up are usually ads, and they've got a little blue ads button next to them, and then the rest of them in the middle of the section are organic, so that's where you're trying to rank.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
In terms of the click through rate on the ads versus organic, what we find is that your organic listings actually have a lot more trust with people. So, you're going to get a higher click through rate than you will on ads, unless your ad copy is very compelling. People are just getting savvier and savvier, which is why the organic rankings have that appeal.
Speaker 2:
All right, cool. Sorry. Now someone's trying to ring me on my phone. I can't access the questions. Have you got the questions there, Sonya?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, no, I do. The question here is why is SEO imperative to ensure you are seen on the worldwide web? Look, I can interpret this question in two ways. If you want to be seen on the internet, you don't need to be ranking on Google. You want to be seen on Google. You don't need to be ranking organically. You can use ads. It all comes down to, I think, working out what your priorities and your KPIs are as the business owner. Again, as we touched on before, if you were wanting just to get people through the door, really increase those client numbers quickly, Facebook ads are probably the best way to go, as our Google ads. Organic SEO is fantastic if you find that there is a high volume of search, and it's actually a tool you can use to see what the volumes of searches each month on certain search terms.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So, I think if you just type into Google Google keyword planner or keyword search tool, that will be able to provide you with some numbers. The reason that people would turn to SEO is that if they're in a very competitive industry, such as, again, the building industry, the cost per click can be really, really, really high on Google ads. They can be paying up to $50 just to get one person through to their website. So, again, it's not the be-all and end-all solution for everyone. It really has to be tailored to your market. I would have this conversation with the agency and ask these questions if you are considering it. That's probably the benefit as well of going to an agency that offers more than one service, because if you go to an agency that just does SEO, of course they're going to sell you into SEO because they don't have any other solutions for you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Yep. I think that sort of refers back to my questions before about the business owners go to spend money, what do they spend money on service? Because it's not like... sometimes it can be tough to have that disposable cash, and what do you spend it on? You know? So, I think it is helpful that when you're going through this process... I actually just spoke to somebody before who was... I was doing an analysis on their business, and they're spending a lot of money on SEO, but they don't have enough clients. So, I just sort of said to them, "Look, I'm not dismissing the need for the SEO, but the reality is that money, it's not time for that yet in your business journey. The time is actually to get the clients through the door, invest that in marketing that will bring the clients through a little bit more efficiently than, say, six months of waiting for SEO to start to land Then we'll spend that when you start to make more money, then you won't fret so much about spending that $2,000 every single month that you don't have at the moment."
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's definitely not a strategy if you're needing clients through the door right now.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It takes some time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Awesome.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Okay. The next question we had was what words should be used in your website to ensure you're ranked on the first page? This is going to depend entirely on your business and where you're located and what you're trying to sell. So, for example, my website, I'd want to be ranking for social media marketing or social ads agency. If you are a business in Albury Wodonga that wants to really focus on lash extensions, that then it would be lash extensions, Albury, lash extensions, Wodonga. So, it's not that we can craft our copy on the home page in a way that we'll put some words up and it's just going to magically appear on Google, unfortunately. It does come down to those three elements of the onsite, the offsite, and then the content that I mentioned before. Your agency, once you actually sign a contract with them, the first thing they should be doing is presenting you with keyword research.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
They might say to you in you're onboarding form, "All right, if you could rank the top 10 terms, what would you want to be ranking for?" You might come back and just have all specific services based. A good agency will sort of guide you to have some around location, some around services as well. If you've got products, you can rank for certain products as well if you're an e-commerce site. So, yeah, they should be presenting you with some research and answering the questions around what words should be used, and they should be helping you with that side of things.
Vanessa:
Sorry to interrupt. The reason why I asked that question was my very first website, which was seven years ago, I know that it was a contract. They pulled it from me. My contract finished, it was a 12 month contract, I was paying $5,000 a month, and I didn't want to renew, and I'd had no idea that the whole thing would collapse. So, then I had to rebuild the website from scratch, which was fine, so we did that, and the gentleman who did it was super wonderful, lovely, got it done, and we were constantly ranked front page organically top three. No ads. Right?
Vanessa:
Then I decided to, during COVID last year, refresh my website. So, my new designer redid the whole website, but now I'm noticing on certain keywords searches I'm not on the page at all. If I am, I'm all the way at the bottom. Then I went back looking at the content when we were having a conversation in the group about SEO, and realized that some of the content had been removed. When I went to compare the content, there was repetitive words like Sydney, North Sydney, beauty, beauty. I thought, "I wonder if," hence why I asked that question.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, look, that could be a component in it. What I think would probably be more of a factor is the fact that Google has had a really big update lately. So, it's the most major update they've done in the last couple of years, and they are taking into account far more things like your site speed and how people are interacting with the website. So, it could be a combination of the plugins and how the website was actually structured, could be the content, but also, it's likely that it is this Google update as well, but it's taking different factors into account. So, I'd probably say it's a combo of all three for you at the moment.
Vanessa:
Okay.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Cool.
Speaker 2:
I've actually got a question I'll just thought of, right? Google business listings, obviously these are touchpoints that you claim as a business owner. You can pimp them out in terms of put images and make sure it's all optimized, and you can obviously do things to make sure that your Google business listing is optimized to appear in the Google search. Now, we did a lot of work on our ratings. Now, I'm just wondering like as a hack, and I don't know, because now anytime you search facial, Sunbury, anything facial or beauty related, Sunbury, we are number one, because we have like 126 five star ratings. Now, when I think about maybe investing more money in my website, right? I think, "Well, when people are searching these things, my Google business listing is just dominating every single time because it's optimized and I've worked on my five star ratings," and I haven't really had to spend a cent to be honest, to do that. So, is that a good hacker or a strategy in terms of-
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Oh my god, 100% look, that is what I would say, yes.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I would say to everyone before they go and spend money on SEO, really push those reviews hard on Google, because Google take that into account so much. It's really funny, I'll send you guys an article after this that you can put in the group, but a few years back, and maybe you saw it pop up in the news, there was a guy in London that started a fake restaurant, and he had-
Speaker 2:
Oh, I've read about that.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah, right? He had like 2000 reviews or something on this restaurant that was his garden shed. He started having people rock up to his house. It got a rave review in Timeout Magazine for London or something, and it never even existed. This was all based on the Google business listing. So, it is incredibly powerful. Anyone watching this, one thing to take away from this, get your reviews happening, and not just on Google, Facebook as well, because Facebook now feeds through those rankings or those ratings through to your Google business listing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Also, one of the reasons why we were able to do that is because our point of sale software has automation set up where it prompts clients to provide those star ratings. I know we use Forest, so we know Forest do that. I think if you're shopping around for a point of sale, and I'm not affiliated with Forest or anything like that, but if you're shopping in the market for a point of sale or you don't know whether that point of sale has that functionality, ask, get it set up and sorted, because that has really been the game changer for us in terms of... yeah. I remember just scratching my head way back thinking, and I'd done little courses and stuff and I'd optimized all my images and done all my bits and pieces, and I thought, "Why? Why isn't it showing up?" Then we hooked Forest up, got all of these five star ratings, and then whammo. I just thought, "Well, that's where the traction was, clearly."
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Definitely. I think it comes down to working smarter, not harder. So, rather than trying to jump into the backend of your website and do all this code and stuff and adding image to a header and all of that, just get some reviews. If you don't have a booking system or point of sale system that will do what Forest does, there are manual ways to do it. I've got a client that will run a competition once a month. That not only goes across her social media, it also is in her salon as well. So, anytime anyone finishes, they come up to pay, they'll say to them, "Hey, would you mind giving us a Google review? You can go into the draw to win this amazing prize." They make it really juicy so people will actually want to do it. It's really hard to say no to someone when you're asking them in person as well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Yep. Yep. I had a coaching session with someone the other day, too, about running an SMS campaign with the link to go and provide a Google review. There's lots of different ways that you can funnel traffic if your point of sale doesn't have that functionality. So, get your five stars, guys.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Absolutely. What is the average cost for SEO? Look, as I touched on before, there are a million factors at play. If I had to pick out an average cost, I'd say around $1,500 a month for a good SEO agency that's touching on those three points, which is the onsite, the offsite, and the content. Once you do take into consideration the copywriting involved, the link building, the labor hours, it is a pricey service, just because it is something that takes a lot of time and research on the agency's behalf. It's not sort of set and forget. Although, I have known some agencies do a lot of work upfront for the first two or three months, and then not do much after that. So, make sure you do your research. When it comes to hiring an agency, don't just take their Google reviews into account, because in the last two weeks, I've heard stories of some agencies who have been left bad reviews, paying their ex clients that left their bad reviews $5,000 to take them off. I kid you not.
Speaker 2:
I want to go and [inaudible 00:27:15] some money. I think I'll make more money doing bad Google reviews.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah. That's after they've gone after you with the legal letters though, unless you want that stress. The next question you've asked me is why can't my web designer do this? Look, your web designer, and again, if you're having a website built, there's a few things that you think that you need to take into account is probably not going in having a graphic designer go and make your website, because they're going to design it to look really [inaudible 00:27:47]. You need to be taking into account things such as your user experience. What is the funnel going to look like? So, how are you going to be moving people through the website?
Vanessa:
Have a graphic designer redo my website.
Speaker 2:
Look, I think everyone has. You know what? Even the client that I spoke to just before, they're actually having a big fight with their designer at the moment who aesthetically put the website together and the SEO people that are saying, "Listen, we understand that you want to have this really pretty scenario going on, however, we need to get in there and get certain copy written in a certain way. We need to get this structure set." So, it's the battle of the priorities here. Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It really is. Look, my advice with this, if you are a small business, you are not going to be able to afford a great web designer or great web developer that has the ability to put together a website that's built with the current SEO standards, plus an understanding of funneling people through a site, plus the ability to design well. Okay? So, you need those three kinds of components, which you're only going to find if you go to an agency that not only builds websites, but then offers the ad and SEO services as well, because they understand how to build a site that can then be used to market the products and services with, right? But it does come down to, I think, you working out your business model, you working out what's going to generate leads for you.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So, if you are a business that goes, "Right, I want to have a really beautiful website and pay my designer to do this. I'm not going to look at SEO. I'm not going to look at Google ads. I'm just going to focus on generating leads through Facebook," then that is completely fine. There are a million ways to build a business. Just because... I mean, you don't need to go out and spend all of the money to have this great unicorn of a web developer to do it for you. You just need to work out how you're going to generate leads and what's important for your business.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. Well said. That's a really, really good point, Sonya. What are you trying to achieve? What's the priority, I reckon.
Vanessa:
Well, I think we're all just trying to achieve making more bloody money.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. We want more people-
Vanessa:
You know what I mean? We want more bums on beds, because when we can get people through the door, then we have the ability to interact, upsell, retail, and increase revenue. The problem that we have from a small business owner's perspective is that we're natural nurturers in the beauty industry. We're shit at business, hence why you get business coaches and marketing people and graphic designers and web developers, because you know that you need help. You know that you need to outsource. So, you're going to invest money on equipment because you need certain devices to perform treatments, but then if you're not marketing to the world to say, "Hey, this is what I offer," nobody's going to know what you do. So, it's trying to find that happy medium where everything sort of fits, and it's like, you think you've got one sorted, and then somebody else comes in and goes, "Shoot, this isn't going to work, sweetheart." I'll just put my hand in my pocket and shell out another two-and-a-half grand, dollars in my business account. Do you get what I mean?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
I see what you mean, and I see it all the time. My advice would be, is find someone that has a knowledge across a number of different areas, whether that be an agency or a small team, and talk to them about your goals and form a long-term relationship with them, because what you don't want is you handing your two-and-a-half thousand dollars over to someone who, say, might, I don't know, do your SEO or something, but then have no accountability on the other end. They might get you locked in for a six month contract and then go, "Right, see you later. Adios. I don't care." That's where I think it really comes down to finding the right people and building a relationship with them and making sure that you feel, and really, I hate to say this, but it comes down to a gut feeling. Like, do you trust this person? What are your goals? You've got to get clear on that before you go and approach anyone. "Why do you want a new website?" "Right. Well, I want more leads." "Well, do you actually need a new website or do you need to be investing money in Facebook ads?" So, what is the end goal, and then having a strategic plan around that.
Vanessa:
We don't necessarily think that far. No, I'm being honest here.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
But you need to. You're spending all this money.
Vanessa:
I know that, but the point I'm trying to make is it ends up being where you shit a brick wall. You've come so far thinking everything's rosy, the minute you drop the ball, shit hits the fan. Do you know what I mean? Then you're trying to grasp at straws to hold on for dear life. For me, with my website, the reason why I want somebody else to do it, because my original website developer, whilst I was getting traction, he wasn't doing my shop. I'd send him pictures, shit wasn't getting uploaded, images weren't being changed, newsletter wasn't being created, so here's my graphic designer creating my website, uploading the shops, and I thought, "You know what? Just finish it." So, when she's gone to finish it, she's done everything that I've asked for, it's a beautiful site, but now I'm not... so, one gave me the traction and the other one gave me the aesthetic. Do you get what I mean?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So I think with you then, don't rely just on your website to generate leads for you. Be driving them there from Facebook.
Vanessa:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
Yep.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Any other questions, Vanessa?
Vanessa:
Done.
Speaker 2:
Anything else, Sonya, in terms of... you've done a really good job. I think we've covered stuff that I think was super important that I just sort of thought of in the moment, which is really cool. But anything else that you'd want to sort of add to the community that you think is important?
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Look, I think when it comes to any form of marketing you're doing, you really need to sit down and look at it on a 12 month basis. So, what are your priorities? Then I like to say to people, have something seasonally. So, don't try and do everything at once. Sit down and go, "Okay, for the next 12 weeks, what is my priority? What are my low barriers to entry going to be?" And making sure that you're communicating those across all check points. So, say, you're doing a great special, I don't know, $47 facial I think we used the other day. Make sure that's on your website. Make sure that's on your social media. Make sure that's across your emails. Make sure that's in your salon. Every single touch point, send out an SMS about it as well. So, I think a lot of the time people will focus on, "All right, well, I've just got a Facebook ad out."
Speaker 2:
That's one thing, yeah.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Do it everywhere. Don't sit down and put the effort into creating this low barrier to entry or some sort of promotion or announcement and just have it in one spot. It's kind of like how people talk about re-purposing content. You need to be re-purposing this sales message as well. I think every single business I see, myself included when I'm trying to get a new product or service off the ground, you forget to put it everywhere. That's my biggest piece of advice.
Speaker 2:
That's awesome. All right. Thank you so much for that, Sonya. If anyone wants to get in touch with Sonya, please let me know. She is an absolute wealth of knowledge, particularly in areas like Google and SEO and stuff that we just got, "Ahh," about. So, I really appreciate your time and coming in today and sharing all of your knowledge, so thank you very much for that.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
No, thank you for having me. Bye.
Vanessa:
Thanks.
Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Thank you.
Speaker 2:
Thanks, everyone.