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Digital Marketing Expected to Increase in 2020

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Digital Marketing Expected to Increase in 2020

There has been a lot of uncertainty surrounding consumer shopping behaviors in the US since the Coronavirus pandemic began to take its toll non-essential businesses that closed in an effort to curb the spread of the virus. Those that were forced to close their brick and mortar locations had to adapt in order to stay afloat. Other businesses were not as lucky and were forced to close permanently. Many were forced to cut costs, especially in their marketing efforts, which caused a bit of a panic for advertising professionals. Marketing research performed over the past few months has not only shown increases in digital shopping behavior, but media buys are expected to increase as well.

One study from eMarketer claims that a large shift has occurred in the world of ecommerce, especially with people over the age of 45. Even as stores begin to slowly reopen, shoppers from the older demographic continue to increasingly purchase products online. A logical reason behind this trend is that even though the virus does not age discriminate, health officials are reporting more severe symptoms in the older population. This is likely why those ages 45 and older might choose to play it safe and do their shopping from the safety of their own homes. The study also shows that a large percentage of people of all ages are likely to continue shopping online rather than in stores.

These statistics should open the door for more digital marketing tactics moving forward. Targeting specific demographic audiences via their interests and behavior is a tactic long used by digital marketers. With this new data on consumer behavior, media buyers should look at this as an opportunity to capitalize on these trends, especially with age demographics as a strong indicator. However, there is still a big concern among media buyers that digital ad spending is not increasing as rapidly as these studies indicate. Another study shows that almost 80% of respondents do not think that digital ad spending will start to pick up until the end of Q3. Perhaps this is a very pessimistic viewpoint. As stated in our previous article, “Houston Sees Uptick Trends in Home Services Despite COVID-19”, we are seeing many clients actually increasing digital ad spend with exponentially better performance than in the first few months of business closures due to the pandemic.

Every industry is different, and each client is unique, so it is important to advise clients on practical media spending based on what makes the most sense for their unique situation and business goals. Business aside, we are all human and hope that we can soon put this pandemic behind us.

We love helping our clients grow while offering sound advice. To discuss your business goals, please call us at 713-309-6380 or contact us.

 

Sources: https://www.emarketer.com/content/expect-7-4-million-new-digital-buyers-2020-pandemic-alters-behaviors?ecid=NL1001

https://www.businessinsider.com/media-buyers-dont-expect-ad-spend-return-normal-in-2020-2020-6?IR=T

Houston Sees Uptick Trends in Home Services Despite COVID-19

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Houston Sees Uptick Trends in Home Services Despite COVID-19

The COVID19 pandemic has not only jeopardized the health of millions of Americans but has also taken its toll on the economy as well. With many businesses temporarily closed (and in some cases permanently) the unemployment rate rose to levels higher than the Great Depression in the 1920s. In our hometown of Houston, the same occurred. Many people lost their jobs in different sectors of the economy including restaurant, oil and gas, airlines, tourism, and automotive. There were even layoffs in the healthcare industry as hospitals were not allowed to perform elective surgeries. As businesses can now slowly open and people begin to go back to work, we have seen large increases in demand for local services despite the continued increases in new coronavirus cases. Local services include any goods or services provided by a local supplier. They include services such as HVAC, repairs, plumbers, or any type of home service provider.

The proof is in the numbers. All non-essential businesses were ordered to keep their doors shut in Houston on March 24 when there was a “stay home, work safe” order issued. Previously, on March 16, bars and restaurants were ordered to close. These orders continued through the month of April but orders for certain businesses began to be lifted by Governor Abbott on May 1. In the months that included the closures (March, April, and May) the high temperatures were above average in Houston for about 70% of the days. However, in March and April, HVAC service providers reported much lower revenue numbers than in previous years. This was chalked up to a change in consumer behavior: with more people either out of work or concerned about the virus, the demand for HVAC repairs or replacements was lower even though the temperatures were higher than average. May saw a dramatic increase. In fact, we saw an increase in purchasing indicators such as phone calls and form fills anywhere from 66% to 133% from the previous month!

If you are a home services provider and would like to learn how we can increase your leads and revenue for a lower average cost please contact us or give us a call at 713-309-6380.

 

Weather Resource: https://www.weather.gov/hgx/climate_graphs_iah#2020

Medical Advertising Part I – Overcoming Google Search Roadblocks

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Medical Advertising Part I – Overcoming Google Search Roadblocks

In September 2019, Google announced that they were going to make changes to their advertising policy and would no longer allow ads for speculative and experimental medical treatments. Treatments included in this policy include, but are not limited to, stem cell therapy, cellular (non-stem) therapy, gene therapy, certain types of regenerative medicine, and gene therapy kits. Due to the COVID19 health crisis, Google updated their medical ad policy once again to allow for telemedicine doctors to promote their pharmacy services as long as they were accredited by an internet pharmacy certification partner such as LegitScript. With so many complexities and updates, it can be difficult to navigate what is and is not allowed in Google advertising for medical practices. Let us review some of these pain points to clarify.

Healthcare Products and Services Certification

There are certain types of healthcare products and service providers that Google requires to hold a certification. These include pharmaceutical manufacturers, online pharmacies, telemedicine providers, and addiction services. To obtain the certification, the provider will need to submit an application with an approved healthcare merchant certification and monitoring program. These certification companies provide a vetting service to ensure that providers’ products and services comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Each website domain must be certified individually and both an application fee and an annual fee is charged per website. Once certified, the provider will need to then apply to be certified with Google by providing the license details from the merchant certification and monitoring program company. Then, the provider will be eligible to advertise their services permitting they comply Google’s other ad policies.

Restrictions on Drug Terms

In the United States, utilizing prescription drug terms in ad text, on landing pages, or as keywords is prohibited unless the provider obtains the certification. In some cases, an ad can be approved but will only be shown on a limited basis because of the use of a restricted drug term. This occurs because of the review process in place. Google’s ad platform will automatically check for ad copy, landing page copy, and keywords that triggers either a disapproval or limited delivery. In these cases, the advertiser can request an appeal to be reviewed by Google’s Appeal Team. If you plan on using any type of drug term, it is strongly advised to obtain the proper certifications.

Restrictions on Unapproved Substances

In addition to the restrictions of experimental medical treatments, Google also does not allow for the advertisement of certain prohibited pharmaceuticals and supplements relating to weight loss, ephedra, and anabolic steroids. They also prohibit dietary supplements that are known to contain any dangerous ingredients. One rule of thumb is that if the products have not been government-approved, chances are that you cannot advertise for it on Google. Making false or misleading medical claims in the ad copy or landing page copy can cause an ad disapproval. It is advisable to place a disclaimer in the footer of the landing page if you claim that the product is as effective as prescription drugs.

Navigating through the certification processes and restrictions is a major factor with medical advertising. If you are a medical provider and wish to start an advertising campaign, it is good to have an expert that can help guide you towards success. To speak with a Google medical advertising expert, please contact us or give us a call at 713-309-6380.

Local SEO for HVAC

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Local SEO for HVAC

In part 4 of our series on marketing for HVAC companies we are going to look in to how an effective local search strategy can vastly improve the online visibility against competitors. Local SEO, also known as Local Search, is simply defined as a way to optimize your website to rank better for a local audience. This is very important for HVAC companies that operate within a local service area. There are a few ways that you can boost local search rankings. Let’s take a look!

Google My Business

In a previous article, we talked about Google My Business listing optimization. If you are not aware, Google My Business is an application where users can create a business listing on Google that helps manage their online presence.  Your business profile lets you connect with customers across both Google Search and Google Maps. Your Google My Business listing represents 25% of Google Map ranking factors meaning if you don’t have a strong listing, you are less likely to appear on Google Maps during searches. Your Google My Business listing has also become the new “home page” of your website in that when a user searches for your business by name, your Google My Business listing SHOULD appear in the search results page and take up the majority of the page real estate showing multiple points of company information including location, phone number, and email address. This means that a potential customer won’t even need to click the organic link to your website in order to find the most important thing about your business: how to contact you. 

Reviews

A positive review is one of the most important factors when potential customers are trying to make a purchasing decision, so much so that Google and other search engines utilize online reviews as ranking factors. If you search for “hvac company near me” the top results almost always include those with the greatest number of 5-star reviews. It will also help a business appear in the top of Google Map results. The reason that search engines use reviews as a ranking factor is that they want to provide people with the best quality results, so they take good and bad reviews very seriously. Read our past article if you want to learn more about how to get great Google reviews.

Website Content Signals

Any local SEO plan should include website work as there are certain content signals that are important for local search rankings. Content signals should include the location that you are trying to rank for. For example, if your business services the Houston, Texas area, content on your website should include “Houston, Texas”. Location signals should be placed not only within the copy of the site but in various meta data such as page titles and descriptions, image alt tags, and structured snippets. You should also consider writing location-based blog entries and promote through social media.

There are other aspects to local search to consider when deciding to move forward with a full campaign. If you or someone you know needs help with local SEO, contact us or give us a call at 713-309-6380. Brand Ranch Media is a full-service advertising agency. We would love to help you achieve all marketing goals!

PPC Marketing for HVAC

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In Part 1 of our blog series on HVAC marketing, we discussed some of the basic foundations of running successful marketing campaigns in the A/C and heating industry. Today we will go a bit further into detail and talk about some of the key elements of a pay-per-click marketing campaign on search engines such as Google. Utilizing the Google Ads marketing platform is a great way to reach potential customers while they are actively searching for A/C and heating services. Capturing their attention at the exact time they are searching is more likely to lead to a conversion such as a phone call or form fill.

How Does it Work?

Pay-per-click (or PPC) campaigns are an excellent way to reach customers that normally might not find you on the internet based on targeting specific keywords during searches as well as utilizing geo-targeting to attract more customers located in specific areas. For example, a consumer located in Houston, Texas is looking for a company that can fix their broken air conditioner in their home. They go online to Google and search “AC repair” hoping to find a company that can send a technician to fix the broken unit. Utilizing Google Ads as well as a good targeting strategy, an advertisement for ABC Air and Heating Company appears. The customer clicks the ad and then calls ABC Air to schedule a service appointment. ABC Air is charged a fee from Google when the customer clicked their ad, but that cost is minimal compared to the return on their investment to obtain a new customer.

Specifics on Targeting

PPC marketing provides multiple tools to help narrow down the audience for ads that will help drive business. Consumers can be targeted based on age, gender, income, location, and online shopping behavior just to name a few. Consumers can also be retargeted so that they are served your specific ad multiple times to further encourage them to become a customer. If the conversion goal is a phone call or a form fill, you are able to target those consumers who are more likely to convert.

What is a Healthy Budget?

If you have decided that a pay-per-click campaign might be something you want to explore, it is important to understand the costs associated with it. The cost for a click depends on a few factors such as the amount you are willing to pay for a click for the keyword, the number of companies bidding on the specific keyword, the relevancy of the ad copy to the keyword, and the relevancy of the landing page content on your website to the keyword. Back to the example: since ABC Air is located in Houston, it is safe to say that there are many other AC companies in town bidding on the keyword “AC repair”. Houston is a hot climate and therefore many other companies are trying to gain the competitive advantage. Since the competition is so high, average cost-per-clicks are more expensive. If your budget is too low, you won’t be able to compete. During non-peak season months, a healthy budget is anywhere between $4000 and $5000 per month. When the hotter months arrive, doubling that monthly budget is very realistic. The return on the investment is well worth it. In some cases, we have seen almost 100% growth in revenue after the first year of implementing a PPC marketing strategy!

Keep up with us for Part 3 of this blog series when we discuss Facebook marketing. For more information on our HVAC marketing services, contact us or give us a call at 713-309-6380. Brand Ranch Media is a full-service advertising agency. We would love to help you achieve all your marketing goals!

Proven HVAC Marketing Strategies

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Calling all Heating and Air Conditioning providers! If you’re an HVAC company, you likely do some form of advertising. In such a competitive market, if you are not doing some form of traditional or digital advertising, you are likely losing business to your competitors. Whether it be television or radio, PPC, Social Media (such as Facebook), or Local SEO, Brand Ranch Media has proven HVAC marketing strategies that we’d like to share in a multi-part blog series.

HVAC Marketing Competition

If you perform a simple Google search for “ac repair”, you may see up to 8 ads from various HVAC providers on the first page alone depending on your location. If you click to the second page, you might see another 8 ads from completely different HVAC companies. During the hotter months of the year, you will probably begin to see television commercials or hear radio advertisements for HVAC services and new unit offers. The competition is heavy year-round and especially during the Summer months. In order to increase sales numbers year over year, an HVAC company can’t afford NOT to advertise!

Traditional vs. Digital Marketing

Can’t decide whether to run traditional campaigns such as TV and radio or digital campaigns such as PPC or Social Media? The answer depends on a few different factors. The first is conversion tracking. It is very difficult to track the number of leads received from television and radio campaigns. The most effective way of doing this is by utilizing a tracking phone number or custom landing page URL in the commercials. Other than those tracking methods, it is difficult to establish ROI. On the other hand, it is much easier to track performance and prove ROI with digital campaigns. The second factor to consider is budget. For HVAC companies with smaller budgets, we typically recommend the digital route. Digital campaigns are much more cost effective as you can reach more people with less budget and you can track the results. With larger budgets, we recommend a more robust and rounded strategy that includes digital, video, television, OTT/CTV and radio.

When Do I Start?

To answer the question of when to start HVAC campaigns consider the climate, your budget, and the calendar. In a warmer climate, if it’s approaching the start of a new calendar year and the budget is more robust, we recommend starting at the first of the year with a smaller monthly budget and slowly increase the monthly spend so that during the hottest months, you are maximizing the total reach of the campaigns. Once the weather starts to cool, we then recommend a lower monthly spend until the end of the year. If the budget is a bit lower, we might recommend spending all of it during the hottest months of the year in order to compete in the market. No matter the company’s service area or budget, every recommendation is customized in order to ensure optimal performance.

Stay tuned for upcoming articles where we discuss topics specifically related to the HVAC industry for Pay-Per-Click marketing, Social Media and Facebook marketing, Local SEO, and Television and Radio advertising.

For more information on our HVAC marketing services, contact us or give us a call at 713-309-6380. Brand Ranch Media is a full-service advertising agency. We would love to help you achieve all your marketing goals!

Holiday Marketing Trends

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We are in the heat of the holiday season (pun intended) and as shoppers frantically run to the stores or shop online, retailers hope that their holiday marketing plans will be a success. If you happen to be a retailer and feel as though your efforts fell short in 2019, we have some tips and trends to consider for next year’s holiday shopping season.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

Taking a look at Google Trends, searches for holiday gift ideas started to spike as early as late October. One assumption could be made that as soon as the Fall holiday events begin (starting with Halloween), consumers get bit by the holiday bug and start thinking about gifts for their family and friends. Setting up holiday ad campaigns early can help you stand out above your competitors. It’s also a good idea to create a sense of urgency utilizing limited time offers as well as flash sales that offer large discounts over a short amount of time.

I Didn’t Come All This Way for a Bad Time

If you are driving customers to your website, you want to be sure that when they get there, they have a good user experience. With more and more web traffic coming from mobile devices, users are much less patient with sites that don’t load quickly and are hard to navigate. You cannot afford to have a poor user experience on either desktop or mobile devices. A bad experience can lead to less customers driving down holiday earnings for your business.

Don’t Just Sit Back and Relax

It’s relatively simple to choose ad copy/creative and drive traffic to a website utilizing proper audience targeting, but how can you stand out above the competition in the modern day? Facebook provides messaging ads that help bridge the gap between ad, website, and purchase. Utilizing the Facebook Messenger platform, customers can click an ad that will open a dialogue directly with the business. This is a very strong form of lead nurturing and can be exponentially beneficial for retailers that take advantage of this platform.

Pile into the Car, We’re Going Shopping

Nothing beats the good, old fashioned holiday shopping grind. Businesses are finding that customers still love going to the store to pick out their items. Whether it be for items that people want to physically touch (such as clothing) or experience for themselves (such as furniture), shopping in-store is still relevant. Digital marketing platforms can help to drive more engagement by capturing consumers during the decision-making process. When it comes to making a final decision, many consumers will make the trip to the brick-and-mortar location to make that purchase and have the gift already in hand.

Brand Ranch Media helps retail clients design and implement successful marketing campaigns. We know this holiday season is coming to and end, but if you need help with your marketing plans for 2020 please feel free to contact us or call 713-309-6380.

Digital Marketing Forecasts for 2020

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In our last post, we pointed out some Digital Marketing trends that we saw in 2019. We continued to see increases in overall digital spending and with digital platforms changing the way companies advertise, we should expect to see new innovations (as well as continued old strategies) in digital marketing in 2020 and beyond. So, let’s get right into it!

SERP Position Zero

Remember when everyone was trying to get to position one in search engine results? There’s a new ranking that everyone will be vying for coming out of Google headquarters and it’s called “position zero”. You have probably already seen examples of position zero on SERPs (hint: it’s the one with an automated snippet that shows an exact answer to your query). According to new data, 61.8 percent of search results in Google are zero-search results. These will appear above any paid ads as well. You can be certain that this will be the ultimate goal for SEO moving forward.

Voice Search Optimization

Do you ever ask Siri, Alexa, or Google Home a question? You’re not alone. Google says that 20 percent of their search queries take place through voice search. Another report points out that 71 percent of mobile users ages 18 through 29 use voice assistants on their smartphones. Large enterprise companies have already started in the voice optimization game but it’s not time for smaller companies to make their content conversational.

Video Content

We are still waiting on the numbers from 2019 but in 2018, YouTube ad revenue increased by 11 percent. This has become an ever-increasingly popular way to deliver ad content and should continue to do so through 2020. Another way that brands can reach their followers is through Facebook Live or Instagram Live. On average, live videos keep the audience watching 3 times longer than recorded videos. Live video should definitely be considered by brands moving into 2020.

Social: Shoppable Posts

If you have a social media account such as Facebook or Instagram, chances are that you have seen ads that allow you to shop for products. You may be surprised to know that 72% of Instagram users have purchased a product through the app. Facebook (who also owns Instagram) has changed their ads platform tremendously in favor of e-commerce stores offering them more ways to sell their products directly from ads. Do not expect to see this trend die out anytime soon. If fact, it will probably increase.

Even More Chatbots

In an effort to interact with online shoppers while they are actively looking at products, brands have looked to chatbots. As chatbots become more sophisticated, it is expected that retailers will cut costs by $439 billion a year and increase sales by $112 billion by 2023. Smaller businesses can utilize automated chatbots as well to help turn an average website visitor into a potential lead.

If you or someone you know would like to discuss your digital ad strategy, please feel free to contact us or call us at 713-309-6380.  

Digital Media Trends in 2019

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Well folks, 2019 is slowly winding down and we saw some interesting trends unfold in the world of digital media. Digital ads spending reached an important milestone, social media users shifted the way they view content, and video ad spend continued to favor specific device types. So, let’s dive right in and break down what really happened!

Digital Ads for the Win!

This year marked the first time when digital ad spends surpassed traditional ad spending in the US with an estimated 54.2% of total spending going towards digital. Though revenues continued to grow for digital monsters Google and Facebook, 2019 is the first time digital spends decreased for both. Taking a leap in digital spend was Amazon which was estimated to grow more than 50% this past year in the US market. In traditional ad spend, the biggest two losers were directories (like Yellow Pages) with a 19% decline and print (including newspapers and magazines) with a 17.8% decline in spend.   

Social Network Device Preference

Another trend we saw in 2019 was the device type that social media users accessed their accounts which continued to shift towards mobile devices and away form desktops and laptops. This shift comes as social platforms continued to develop more mobile-friendly features to their apps and as more users tended to use desktops/laptops for school or work purposes. With this trending throughout the years, it’s easy to see why Facebook advertisers spend 94% of their ad budgets on mobile.

Video Ads Making Moves

In 2019, 45.6% of all digital video ads will be placed on mobile devices. This increasing trend continued from past years as advertisers are trying to capitalize on the shift towards mobile usage. Advertisers in the US were expected to spend two-thirds of their digital budgets on mobile ad placements. However, video ads are still the only format where more marketing dollars are spent on channels other than mobile. This is partly due to the OTT ad spend on streaming services such as Hulu and other connected TV sources.

I hope we haven’t weighed you down with too many statistical insights, but it is important for businesses and advertisers to know emerging trends in order to best utilize marketing budgets. Stay tuned for part two of this article when we discuss some forecasts in digital media for 2020!

If you or someone you know would like to discuss your digital ad strategy, please feel free to contact us or call us at 713-309-6380.  

Source: eMarketer

Google Bans Elective Medical Ads

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Google recently announced that they will no longer show ads promoting speculative and experimental medical treatments starting on October 1, 2019. The list of treatments banned include stem cell therapy, cellular therapy, gene therapy, platelet rich plasma, bio-hacking, and gene therapy kits. This list appears to encompass any non-FDA approved treatments. Google explains that the main reason for disallowing these types of ads is because these types of treatments are “unproven” and lack significant and formal clinical trials to justify widespread use. They also cite that the use of these treatments can “lead to dangerous outcomes”.

So, what can one do now that they are not able to promote these types of treatments on Google Ads?

First off, we hope that your marketing provider has not recommended a one-sided marketing strategy. You should never rely on just one marketing method. It is important to use a diverse marketing strategy that includes multiple avenues for advertising your services – not just in the medical field, but for all industries. In the digital world, it starts with a great website. This is the foundation. Your website should be visually pleasing, mobile friendly, provide great content, and have specific calls-to-action.

The next step in your digital strategy is how to bring potential patients to your site. If you are solely relying on Google Ads, you may want to rethink your strategy especially if you are only advertising these newly banned treatments. Think about all treatments and procedures your clinic provides. You should consider choosing a few different ones and create Google ads for each type of service. Just like you can’t rely on Google Ads as your sole marketing platform, you shouldn’t rely on just one type of medical treatment to advertise.

Another type of marketing strategy to employ is an organic approach. By writing two to three blog articles per month and adding to your website, you can really improve your search engine optimization (SEO) which helps users to help find your website organically through non-paid methods. Other types of initiatives to consider are Facebook Ads, Display Advertising, Email marketing, or even your own Podcast.

Google’s banning of these specific types of ads doesn’t mean the end of the world for a clinic that practices these specialties. There are many other digital marketing options available. If you or someone you know has a health clinic and need expert advice, please feel free to contact us or call us at 713-309-6380.