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New Guide: How to Choose a Marketing Agency in 2023

New Guide: How to Choose a Marketing Agency

With various marketing agency options, especially in Houston, it can be overwhelming to select whom to work with.

At Brand Ranch Media, our experience as a boutique marketing agency for various types of businesses has given us insight into what topics you should talk about when interviewing marketing consultants to work with.

Let’s jump right into the 5 topics to discuss with your marketing consultants:

  1. Tell your Marketing Agency Your Goals
  2. Discuss Your Budget
  3. Ask about their Services
  4. Find out their Specializations
  5. Get a Feel for their Culture

First thing, what does a marketing agency do? The best marketing agencies analyze data and build the best marketing strategy for superior business growth.  Read more on how the marketing experts at Brand Ranch Media educate business owners and advise on best marketing practices.

01. Tell your Marketing Agency your Goals

When interviewing marketing agencies to hire, it’s important to have a defined goal to share with them. Having a defined goal gives the agency the best view of the vision to implement the best strategy. We talk about setting your goals in this article. Marketing agencies can also assist with streamlining marketing goals to align with your business goals.

If a marketing agency is eager to have you sign a contract before defining and agreeing on a target goal, take it as a red flag. A good marketing agency will not move forward without knowing what they are trying to achieve for its clients.

02. Discuss Your Budget

There’s no question your marketing budget is important not only for you but to your marketing agency. It’s best practice to come prepared to talk to them about your allotted budget range. Your marketing agency will be all up in your business, literally. Being transparent about your budget upfront gives the relationship between you and your marketing agency a solid foundation.

Marketing agencies typically have a minimum marketing budget they require from clients they work with. It’s normal to start with an agency that is within your budget and grow from there. Asking the correct questions when interviewing different marketing agencies, such as budget, can tell you whether a marketing agency is a good fit.

03. Ask About Their Services

Marketing agencies are diverse in the services they provide. Some marketing agencies are heavy in digital media, while others may focus on public relations efforts or media buying, etc. When interviewing marketing agencies to hire, it’s essential to ask what their experience is with the services you are requesting.

The best marketing agencies will also advise and educate company leaders on which services they see as the best fit for the marketing strategy.

04. Find out their Specialization

Many experienced marketing agencies have their own specific specialty. Whether it be the types of businesses they work with, the knowledge of a market, or a certain service they excel in. Open the conversation when interviewing marketing agencies to find out if their superpowers align with the goals you want to achieve.

05. What’s the Culture of the Marketing Company

Another important factor in selecting marketing agencies to work with is getting an insight into their company culture. One way to get a grasp of the culture is to take a visit to their office. While there, take note of how their office looks, feels, and most importantly, how their employees interact with one another.

If your organization is very casual and the marketing agency is an uber-cold-laboratory-of-robots, the two may struggle in communication. A great marketing company will support your vision, mission & goal and seek ways to serve you and your customers with integrity as an extension of your brand.

At Brand Ranch Media, we use the golden rule – “If we wouldn’t do it with our money, we won’t do it with yours.”

Jump back to one of the sections:

  1. Tell your Marketing Consultant Your Goals
  2. Discuss Your Budget
  3. Ask about their Services
  4. Find out their Specializations
  5. Get a Feel for their Culture

Having these types of open discussions with your marketing agency will give you clarity in selecting the right marketing agecny for your business.

At Brand Ranch Media, we have helped our clients scale their businesses to become industry leaders. We have the experience and foresight to help you reach your business goals. Give us a call at 713-309-6380 or use our contact form to start the conversation today!

marketing agency in houston

5 Steps To Set Marketing Goals That Maximize Growth

set marketing goals that maximize growth

  5 STEPS TO SET MARKETING GOALS THAT MAXIMIZE GROWTH

In this article, we give you our 5-step approach to creating a marketing goal that is proven to maximize the growth of your business. Here is a table of contents of the steps we will review:

    1. Establish the Marketing Goal
    2. Write your Marketing Goal Down
    3. Target your Audience
    4. Maximizing with Mix Media
    5. Analyze to Strategize

With over 20 years of experience, our marketing consultants at Brand Ranch Media have led brands to scale into industry leaders using this 5-step approach. In light of the new year, we are sharing our secret with businesses looking to set new marketing goals.

You may find that marketing consultants start with the end goal in mind when setting your marketing goals. Let’s use the comparison of taking a road trip. Would you hop in the car to go somewhere you’ve never been, and just drive? Sure, that may work, but you could have gotten there faster by using GPS.

Your marketing goal is like inputting your destination in the GPS – it saves you time, and money and gets you to your destination the fastest. Without these marketing goals, your business gets stuck driving without any direction.

Let’s start the engine, to the destination of our 5-step approach to creating marketing goals that maximize your business growth.

01: Establish the Marketing Goal

There are various marketing goals you can create. As marketing consultants, we have found that the most effective marketing goals have some common components. The marketing goal should align directly with the business goals. It should also be specific, and typically measurable by a qualitative amount. Another component of a strong marketing goal is placing a timeframe around the goal.

Do you want to grow your email list? By how much? In how much time? Here are some examples of marketing goals:

 

Weak marketing goal                                                 Strong marketing goal

I want to grow my email list I want to grow my email list by 10% in 7 weeks by tracking new website forms, and new social media messages +

Example:

 

By how much? By when?  How will I track progress?  Can this goal be achieved in the timeframe?  Does it relate to my business goal? 
by 10% In 7 weeks New leads in CRM

New social media messages

Website Forms

calls

Yes Yes – Consideration

 

02: Write Marketing Goals Down

I’m not kidding, write your marketing goal down somewhere you have to see it daily. Research shows that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if they are written down and referred to them often.

Share the marketing goal with other business members. Make your colleagues aware of the goal you’re collectively striving for. This not only gives everyone a central focus, but it also instills a sense of teamwork and comradery.

03: Match Audience to Marketing Goals

You have your marketing goal written down; the next step is to identify precisely who you want to see your message.

View this as a road trip: Our destination is our marketing goal, and the route options would be the various audiences you can target. The difference between taking the long or short route is in targeting the correct audience to hear your message.

Targeting the correct people to receive your message is an important piece in reaching your marketing goal with minimum waste of time.

To get you thinking about how your audience thinks, here are some questions to ask about your target audience:

Demographic

  • What are the ages you want to target?
  • Where do they live?
  • What is their culture?
  • What is their typical income?
 

Psychographics

  • What kind of music do they like?
  • Where do they shop
  • What are their hobbies?
  • What do they value?

 

 

04: Maximize Marketing Goals with Mix Media 

The next step in reaching marketing goals is to incorporate a mix of media channels to deliver the messages. After an in-depth analysis of your target audience, narrow down what media channels the audience is present in. This link explains more of Brand Ranch Media’s philosophy on media buying.

On the road trip to the destination of meeting your marketing goals, using mixed media can be compared to pit stops. You can choose to stop at the gas station miles away from the route you are on or choose to stop at the one on the way. Selecting to stop somewhere that is already on the way to your destination saves time, effort, and money.

This could be purchasing keywords for certain words your target audience is already searching for. Or, by buying media on a streaming TV service the target audience uses.

To get you thinking about what media the audience is on, ask:

  • What part of Houston do they live in?
  • What music do they listen to?
  • What websites are they on?
  • What social sites are they on?
  • Do they watch cable TV?
  • Do they stream TV?

Brand Ranch Media are expert in market analysis with over 20 years of experience in media buying in Houston.

 05: Marketing Goals – Always Analyze

Arguably the most important piece of the puzzle to your marketing strategy is to continue to analyze the data, over and over. Reflect on your initial marketing goal and use key performance indicators (KPIs) as a measuring tool to ensure your marketing efforts are getting your results.

Along your road trip, there are a few checks you want to make along the way – such as gas, the air in the tires, oil level, etc. These checkpoints are the KPIs you established when setting your marketing goal. 

Return to a section:

    1. Establish the Marketing Goal
    2. Write your Marketing Goal Down
    3. Target your Audience
    4. Maximizing with Mix Media
    5. Analyze to Strategize

 

Alright folks, there it is. A  5-step approach to creating a marketing goal that is proven to maximize the growth of your business. If you have business goals that scale your business to unfamiliar territory, this is where marketing consultants in Houston can help.

At Brand Ranch Media, we have helped our clients scale their businesses to become industry leaders. We have the experience and foresight to help you reach your business goals. Give us a call at 713-309-6380 or use our contact form to start the conversation today!

 

How to Transition to GA4 in Google Analytics

How to Transition to GA4 in Google Analytics

If you’re not quite sure how to transition to GA4 in Google Analytics, this article is for you! Back in March 2022, Google announced that on July 1, 2023 it will sunset the Universal Analytics (UA) property and all new website analytical data will collect in the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) analytics property only. This means that businesses and marketing teams currently using UA need to devise a transition plan to help ease into GA4. Since UA data will eventually cease to exist within Analytics, waiting until the last minute to make the switch is not an option. In our previous article about GA4, we provided a little insight into the newest analytics property so we’ll keep our recap within this read brief.

What is GA4?

The GA4 analytics property uses event-based tracking to provide user behavior insights for visitors of a website. These insights provide business owners and marketers valuable data metrics indicating performance signals for advertising campaigns both on and offline. Changes surrounding user privacy online and in apps created a need for an alternative analytic tracking method and GA4 was born.

What is the difference between UA and GA4?

The main difference between UA and GA4 is that UA uses session-based metrics while GA4 focuses on event-based metrics. You will no longer see visitor statistics within GA4 that you may have become accustomed to viewing in UA such as bounce rate and average time of website. Instead, you will see event actions that users take such as clicks, scrolls, and other engagement actions. These events are designed to give you a better understanding of user behavior. The verdict is still out on whether the GA4 platform is going to provide marketers with a satisfactory level of quality data once data stops flowing through UA. From the time of writing this article, Google still has about 10 months to get it right.

Creating a Transition Plan

Since historical data will no longer be available from the UA property and the data reported in GA4 slightly varies from what business owners and marketers have become accustomed to over the past 10 years (released in 2012), the need for a transitional plan that will help ease into the use of GA4 is vital. If you have already set up the GA4 property, then you’re off to a good start! However, you want to be sure that the property has been configured properly and that your conversions are properly recording within GA4. If you’re using a 3rd party tracking application that integrates with Analytics, unless there is a GA4 integration update available, conversions will not track in GA4 the same as they did in UA.

Once you configure the GA4 property, you will need to create a timeline including a learning period to become acquainted with the differences in the types of data metrics reported in GA4 versus the metrics in UA. Figure out what data you will no longer have access to, what data is new, and any comparable datasets available. There will be differences in data visualization so it’s important to understand how that might affect the charts and graphs in your reports. If you use Google Data Studio or a 3rd party reporting platform, you will need to ensure that they are configured properly to account for the changes.

The final piece of your plan as you transition to GA4 is to take all of your historical data in Universal Analytics and archive it so that you can access it to compare future advertising performance to past performance. This piece is crucial. Google says it will only keep historical data from UA for 6 months and has not provided a turnkey solution for this type of data storage or integration with GA4 data. You will need to decide what data is important for your business, how much of it you want to keep, and how far back in time you might want to reference in the future.

Data is the most important piece of the marketing puzzle. If you allow yourself enough time to configure GA4, learn the differences between the metrics in UA versus GA4, make updates to visualizations in your reports, and backup all historical data in UA, you will be well-prepared come July 1, 2023 and can avoid any last-minute scrambling to organize your data.

If you are a current or future client partner of Brand Ranch Media and would like us to help you formulate and execute a plan to help with your transition to GA4, don’t delay! Put your mind at ease and let’s start the discussion today! Give us a call at 713-309-6380 or shoot us a message through the website.

Best Advertising Jingles of All Time – Brand Ranch Media Picks

Best Advertising Jingles

If you have ever turned on a radio or TV you’ve heard advertising jingles…  and NO… it wasn’t because you slipped back in time to the 1950s!

Jingles may not seem as prevalent today as they were in the ’50s & ’60s in part because they have become a common caricature of the times for video and TV producer’s flashbacks, time hops, or period pieces.  Just look at the Marvel Series Wanda Vision, for instance…

Did the “ole timers” who used music in their marketing know something we didn’t know about effective marketing and how it cuts through the clutter?  No, it’s just difficult to make a quality jingle that defines what you have to offer with a catchy tune, that speaks to your audience, and represents your company authentically. Many successful brands and marketers still use jingles today to weave music, emotion, and entertainment into their brand and value propositions.  In fact, as our culture continues to accelerate its “on-demand” pull consumption of media, punchy jingles may be just the thing we need more of to capture audience attention in a snap across media platforms.

A jingle has a way of quickly resonating in your mind… it’s the emotional side of the brain connecting the dots with the logical side. Whether it’s got musical instruments or just a few sung syllables, with logic and emotion together, brand recognition and recall rates soar. This recognition and recall can last longer than standard marketing ads and messages.

With that in mind, here are a few of the Jingles we here at BRM love best! A few are relatively new, and a few seem to live on forever and never die!

Disclaimer: Careful now… some of these may get stuck in your head, others may bring back memories, and some will do both!

Let’s start with a local Houston favorite first!

Thunderbolt Transmission

“We put the Yeeee-haw back in your motor and transmission!” – Its upbeat classic western sound has been stuck in my head for decades! Decades! It may have been created when the country music style was in its prime, but when my transmission went out on my truck in the early 2000’s I called Thunderbolt first… even though I hadn’t seen the ad in years!

Toys “R” Us

“I don’t wanna grow up” – It’s a classic melody that appeals to the kid in us all, and it’s one of our favorites! This longstanding jingle became the soundtrack to our childhood for many who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s. This catchy tune is easy to sing, especially for children, and appeals on an emotional level. Adulting is hard, and nobody “wants to grow up.” While the music was refreshed a time or two, the original jingle is what lives on in the hearts and minds of every one of us grown-up kids.

State Farm

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there!” – Clean, simple, to the point… and unforgettable. It’s been used successfully for years now with interchangeable spokespersons and celebrities, and interchangeable Jakes.

JG Wentworth

“877-Cash-Now!” – This one has been loved and hated… and successful! If you’ve ever taken a sick day and been caught up in daytime TV, or stayed up late watching a network TV marathon, JG Wentworth’s Opera Jingle has probably come across your screen. It’s a catchy, totally un-alienating opera melody has us pretending we’re all opera singers too! The show isn’t over until the fat lady sings and we get our cash!

Kit Kat

“Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat Bar!” – I don’t remember exactly when this came out, but I was a kid and it stuck for a loooooong time! Sure, the hard count on the last 3 syllables, sung as “Kit Kat Bar,” could be replaced by anything funny, crude, or downright weird, and my childish family and friends and I replaced the words over in over in good humor through the years. Perhaps that’s part of the fun that created the longevity. It’s even being made fun of in sitcoms like The Office.

Oscar Meyer

“I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner” … It’s so catchy! And its sister Jingle for B-O-L-O-G-N-A taught generations of Americans how to spell the lunch meat’s name correctly! Both versions of this Jingle have been sung by children and adults for years, and the Oscar Meyer brand is forever famous and successfully lives on, selling lunch meats and weiners today.

It’s even been referenced and made fun of by the longest-running TV show in history The Simpsons!

ACE Hardware

“Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folks” – It’s true to who they are!  It defines exactly where their value is for consumers. It’s easy to remember, and when I need help with something “handy,” that’s exactly where I go.

Mentos

This one is a little different… it’s not your standard jingle. The jingle’s lyrics and sung storylines changed from ad to ad, but the optimistic upbeat music always had the same tune playing. There were no scripts for the actors. Hearing the songs now instantly reminds me of sit-coms from the 90’s and takes me back…  It’s like a theme song for overcoming life!

Band-Aid

“I am stuck on Band-Aid cause Band Aid’s stuck on Me.”  – It’s memorable and catchy! Cute kids singing don’t hurt either. This brand became so popular that it’s almost universally used to reference a bandage! Can a jingle work too well?

Huggies

“I’m a big kid now.” – It’s hard not to love a cute kid, especially with an excited look on their face as they achieve something.

Folgers Coffee

“The Best Part of Waking Up” – Although too young to drink coffee, I’ve been craving a cup of joe since I first heard the melody in 1984. Not only is it the best coffee jingle ever created, but the branding is so strong that it’s the only coffee jingle I can think of. I think most people will agree that when it comes to coffee jingles, “the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Honorable mention: Subway

“5, $5, $5 Foot Long” – because it’s been around for a decade now, and I hate it, but still remember it every time I try to figure out what I want for lunch ????

Brand Ranch Media’s Tricks of the Trade and Some of Our Local Favorites

There are a few tricks of the trade to remember when thinking about a new jingle for your brand. Keep the target audience in mind. You want the tone and attitude of the ads and music to appeal to your audience and also reflect your brand accurately. If your voice isn’t authentic, it likely won’t last the test of time.

If you liked those jingles, check out a few of our own BRM created Jingles in the links below!

Nutrition Depot “Vitaman”

https://brandranchmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Nutrition-Depot-Jingle-Health-Fitness-Advertising.mp3 https://brandranchmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Nutrition-Depot-Jingle-2-Health-Fitness-Advertising.mp3 https://brandranchmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Nutrition-Depot-Jingle-3-Health-Fitness-Advertising.mp3 https://brandranchmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Nutrition-Depot-Jingle-4-Health-Fitness-Advertising.mp3

 

Northwind Air Conditioning, Heating & Mechanical Services

Edge Weight Loss & Fatigue: (This campaign may not be a traditional Jingle, but its focus on music is hilarious!)

Houston Trane

For help with your own custom advertising jingle, or marketing guidance in general, the team here at Brand Ranch Media is here to help. Please reach out to us at 713-309-6380 or contact us through our contact form.  

By Dana Banks II, Director of Brand Growth

Facebook Boycott: What Does it Mean for Advertisers

Many people have already heard about the Facebook Boycott. In fact, the search term began to skyrocket according to Google Trends in late June. By early July, more than 750 companies and the advertising agencies they work with joined in with larger advertisers leading the way such as Coca-Cola, Hershey, Walgreens, Best Buy, Ford, and Adidas just to name a few. At one point, over 200 additional firms joined in the boycott in a 24-hour period. The boycott originated from a call out by advocacy group Stop Hate for Profit claiming that social media providers, specifically Facebook which made 98% of its 2019 revenue from ad sales, allows hate speech on their platforms from the accounts of politicians and high-profile influencers. We briefly touched on this subject in a previous article, Medical Advertising Series Part 2: Social Media, Censorship, Fact-Checkers, and Implications. What does this boycott mean for advertisers and the future of advertising?

More Marketing Dollars for Other Platforms

With billion-dollar implications on Facebook ad revenue, where else will advertisers place ads? Some might say that other digital marketing platforms might see an increase in revenue. Facebook made almost $70 billion in advertising revenue in 2019. The Google Ads platform made a whopping $134 billion! Google-owned YouTube brought in a mere $15 billion in ad revenue in 2019 and video advertising grows more popular every year as more users are turning to YouTube to view content. OTT (over-the-top) advertising, which delivers video ad content through streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, Roku and more, could also see an increase. In 2020, OTT revenue was predicted to increase by 31% to $5 billion and with the continued popularity of streaming services versus cable TV and satellite, there is definitely room for growth.

Spending on Infrastructure

It is possible that with these freed-up marketing dollars, large companies like Coca-Cola or Best Buy could use the money within their corporations. Allocating some of these extra funds to pay off corporate debts or improve infrastructure might be fiscally responsible however since these are publicly traded companies, they would need to have some serious internal discussions as to where and how to revise their budgets. In this case, advertising firms would need to try and salvage any decrease in ad spend and convince them to increase advertising on other platforms.

Maybe Nothing

Facebook has spent many resources and time trying to appease their advertisers since the boycott began. They have had a tough go it as advertisers seem to have demands that Facebook has not yet been willing to abide by. Since ad dollars are how Facebook makes its revenue, it is likely that they will be able to come to an agreement with all or some of the advertisers. Facebook does have one advantage in that they are expected to increase to 1.69 billion global users in 2020. And even though there are 6.9 billion Google searches every day, Google search advertising is much more expensive than Facebook ads. As advertisers pause their Facebook advertising during this boycott, they will evaluate the effect it has on their overall bottom line and perhaps decide to come to an agreement moving forward.

If you have any questions about any type of advertising, we are here to help! Please give us a call at 713-309-6380 or contact us online.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/business/dealbook/facebook-boycott-ads.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/03/facebook-advertiser-boycott-hate/

Medical Advertising Series Part 2: Social Media, Censorship, Fact-Checkers, and Implications

To fight the spread of false news, Facebook and Instagram have employed third-party fact-checkers to help review and identify any news that might be considered false. These fact-checkers come certified through the non-partisan Fact-Checking Network. Fact-checkers in the United States come from various media sources such as The Associated Press, Reuters Fact Check, and USA TODAY among others. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, many medical doctors and professionals have taken to various social media platforms with their opinion on different aspects relating to the virus. It is important for medical professionals to understand what is and what is not being allowed to be posted, how censorship plays a role, and what are the possible short-term and long-term implications.

What is the Policy?

Facebook’s policy for fact-checking is very clearly stated: publishers should not post any type of information deemed “false” by the fact-checkers. If the information is deemed false, the distribution of that content will be reduced, lower in the News Feed, and the author will receive a warning notice. Facebook will also act against Pages that repeatedly post or share false information. Pages will see that their content distribution will decrease and they will also lose the ability to advertise. The only way to regain the ability to post content and advertise is to either change the false content and contact the fact-checker or to dispute the claim directly with the fact-checker. Simply removing the content will not remove the strike against an account or page. As always, Facebook does not allow directly advertising content that contains false information. These ads will be disapproved from the onset.

Legal Ramifications

There has been a lot of talk about free speech and the regulation of social media content. In a legal research paper from the Congressional Research Service, the author discusses how the courts have recognized social media sites as venues for users to express their freedom of speech. There comes into question whether these sites are doing enough to combat false speech or if they are “unfairly banning and restricting access to potentially valuable speech.” As stated in the introduction of the research paper, “Currently, federal law does not offer much recourse for social media users who seek to challenge a social media provider’s decision about whether and how to present a user’s content.” One notable piece of legislation is in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, specifically Section 230(c)(2). This “provides immunity for sites that take good faith action to restrict access to content that the provider or users deem obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” Furthermore, it can be argued that if a user posts content on social media, is it not also a violation of the First Amendment if the social media site is required to publish the content? So it seems, as the paper concludes, that “social media platforms may be more likely to receive First Amendment protection when they exercise more editorial discretion” thus not violating freedom of speech for users that post “obscene” or “objectionable” content.

Implications

Moving forward it is important that health providers utilize trusted sources when deciding what content to post. With such a sensitive subject such as COVID19, there are too many opportunities for what Facebook calls “conspiracy theories” that could be potentially dangerous if shared with the public. Posting and sharing of that information adds the risk of being flagged with page quality violations. It is not easy for a page to recover after receiving these violations and it is best to check your sources to make sure they are accurate in the information they share. Fact-checking is the new norm and we might also see similar use of them on other social platforms such as Twitter. It will be important to learn to adapt to them as I believe new restrictions will be put into place moving forward.

 

If you would like to talk to a social media expert regarding fact-checkers and implications, please feel free to contact us or call 713-309-6380.

How Does Your Marketing Recover from COVID19?

How Does Your Marketing Recover from COVID19?

The COVID19 pandemic has not only taken its toll on the health of people worldwide, it has also caused many small businesses to suffer in the wake of partial and mandatory closures. As of March 30, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reported that “92% of small businesses said they have suffered negative effects as a result of the pandemic.” This leaves many business owners questioning “how can my business recover from COVID19?” There are some simple steps that businesses can take when navigating through post-pandemic recovery.  

Assess the Damage

You should run a full assessment of the financial impact that the pandemic had on your business. How much less profit did you make this year when compared to the same period last year? You may find that you will need some extra financial assistance to keep the business running. Also, evaluate your workforce. Were you forced to furlough or lay-off employees? Are you able to bring every employee back that you need? If not, you may need to hire new workers to help with the rebuilding process.

Adjust Your Business Plan

You might find yourself in the situation where you must adjust your business planning for a period before things go back to business as usual. This might cause some new opportunities and new sales channels. For example, doctor offices are turning to telemedicine and virtual appointments for non-emergency situations such as follow-ups. Technology can be applied to expand customer reach. You may also find that there will be an increase in demand for your products or services when businesses can open again. Will you need to hire more employees to help with this increased demand? You may want to increase your marketing efforts in order to stay at the top of mind with your customers.

Account for Funding Assistance

You might find that you will need some extra marketing dollars to help push your message. If you find your business hurt financially from the COVID19 pandemic, there are many financial assistance programs available to small business owners. Some of these services are provided for free such as remote mentoring services provided by SCORE though a partnership with the Small Business Administration (SBA). Other services you might have to pay for like business lines of credit, credit cards, and loans. You should create a repayment plan if this is the case and repay as quickly as possible to avoid high interest.

Rebuild

Once you have a clear picture of the financial damage and the path to recover, then it is time to rebuild. Set into motion all the action items needed to proceed and be successful. You will be happy that you went through all the work of creating a plan. This plan is your roadmap as you navigate through a business world after COVID19. Consider your customers. You may find that you need to adjust your marketing messaging. Many people will be wary and fragile when coming out of quarantine. Taking an overly aggressive tone could deter customers from using your services. Instead, try to relate to them and let them know you are there to help.

Create a Contingency Plan

Living in Houston, we are no stranger to adversity. The entire city went through Hurricane Harvey and had to endure a disruption in their everyday routines. The same is happening around the world with COVID19 with measures to keep as many people safe as possible. These things happen and unfortunately may happen again. That is why it is incredibly important to have a contingency plan in place. You want to be prepared so use knowledge gained during this time to ensure success for the future.

Stay Safe!

 

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/advisor/2020/04/30/6-ways-to-rebuild-your-small-business-after-covid-19/#7bdea4fd16cc

https://www.dexcomm.com/blog/4-ways-to-help-your-business-recover-from-covid-19

Natural Language Processing and SEO

Natural Language Processing and SEO

On October 21, 2019, Google started to roll out the BERT algorithm in its search network. BERT is designed to better understand voice searches by utilizing machine learning and natural language processing (NLP). About a year ago, we published an article about voice search optimization and the future of voice search where we explained what voice search is, how widespread it is used, how to optimize your website for voice search, and where it’s headed in the future. Let’s investigate how natural language processing actually works and then apply it to SEO for a website.

A Great Analogy

Google uses neural matching and natural language processing to help understand conversational English. More specifically, when people talk, what are they talking about. I recently read a great analogy for how Google uses Natural Language Processing, or NLP, for language searches:

“…if someone is experiencing the soap opera effect on their TV. If you’ve ever seen a soap opera, you’ve noticed that they look kind of weird. Someone might be experiencing that, and not knowing what that’s called they can’t Google soap opera effect because they don’t know about it.

They might search something like, “Why does my TV look funny?” Neural matching helps Google understand that when somebody is searching “Why does my TV look funny?” one possible answer might be the soap opera effect. So, they can serve up that result, and people are happy.”

Salience: Core Component of NLP

So, how does NLP relate to websites? In order to understand how, we must introduce the term “salience.” Salience attempts to understand a voice search query, website content, and whether a web page’s content is a good example of the topic of the voice search query.

In our previous analogy the voice search is, “Why does my TV look funny?” The web page is about the soap opera effect. The content on the page might mention that it makes the image on the screen look “funny” or any other related synonym. This is how natural language processes help determine what results to provide in its search results.

NLP and SEO

In our article published last year, we discussed keeping your Google My Business listing updated, utilizing long-tail keywords, and having a mobile-friendly website. There are other important content features to consider when optimizing for voice search. First, understand the audiences needs and wants and provide it. A website should be a valuable audience resource that provides relevant information and answers questions. This will work well with the function of voice search and the BERT algorithm. Second, utilize Schema Markup. Available since 2011, only about 20% of websites use schema markup. It can help Google understand the contextual relevance of a website using microdata by creating a more enhanced description that can appear in search results. These are also known as “rich snippets” and can be used for business name, business type, address, hours, telephone, etc. Search engines are prone to process this type of data faster with the use of schema markup.

It is estimated that in the next couple of years, 75% of households will have some kind of smart speaker and 50% of online searches will be voice searches. For more information, feel free to contact us at 713-309-6380 or send us an email to grow@brandranchmedia.com.

Sources:

https://moz.com/blog/better-content-through-natural-language-processing

https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/10-natural-language-seo-tips-help-gain-edge-examples.html

Facebook Marketing for HVAC

Facebook Marketing for HVAC Companies

We are moving along to Part 3 of our blog series on HVAC marketing where we will discuss advertising on social media, specifically Facebook. You may ask yourself, “Is there any benefit to marketing on Facebook?” The short answer is, “Yes!”

Types of Ads

Facebook Ads is a very diverse marketing platform and can help a company grow their followers, promote engagement with content, boost branding, and drive inquiries and sales. You can promote your business utilizing text, images, and video content. There are multiple ad placement locations including the news feed on desktop and mobile devices, within Facebook Messenger, and on Instagram, just to name a few. It is important to utilize different ad strategies to fill the sales funnel and nurture leads.

Measuring Ad Success

Depending on the goal of each ad, it is best to properly measure ad success. Facebook Ads has built-in success tracking that will help you gauge the effectiveness of the ad. For example, if ABC AC and Heating Co. are running an ad designed to increase the number of leads they receive through online form fills, they would want to set up a custom conversion in Facebook that will tell them exactly how many form fills were received as a result of their campaign. Facebook provides the ability to do this through their marketing platform with a seamless integration.

Targeting Your Audience

Just like Google Ads, Facebook Ads offer many different targeting methods that enable your campaigns to reach the most captivated audience. You can target different demographics such as age, gender, household income, and location. If you upload a list of your customers, you can create campaigns designed to upsell or promote services specifically to your customers. To broaden your ad’s reach, creating a customer lookalike audience is a great practice. You may want to retarget visitors to your website or people who have engaged with your Facebook page and content in order to promote audience-specific services.

What is a Healthy Budget?

Facebook Ads tend to be much less expensive than Google Ads and other types of marketing campaigns. The cost for conversions tends to be up to 75% less than Google. For a healthy budget on Facebook it’s fair to say that spending between $1,000 to $2,000 per month will get solid results – depending on the number of campaigns and your specific goals. This budget also contributes to organic traffic to the website. It is typical to see an increase in organic traffic and well as organic leads with the addition of Facebook ad campaigns. With diligent conversion tracking, it is easy to show a positive return on investment.

Keep up with us for Part 4 of this blog series when we discuss Local SEO. 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!

Mattress For Less & Landmark Furniture Partner With Houston Furniture Bank

#HoustonStrong

Brand Ranch Media is proud to be a part of the partnership between Houston Furniture Bank, Mattresses For Less and Landmark Furniture.

Owner Brad Taylor has made two locations available for furniture drop off, in which every item will go to help those in and around the Houston area who were affected by the destruction from Hurricane Harvey. 

Please scroll down to learn more about the items in particular the Houston Furniture Bank is looking for and what else you can do to help in regards to recovery efforts. Each and every staff member at Mattresses For Less, Landmark Furniture, Brand Ranch Media and Houston Furniture Bank is proud to help the city of Houston during this time and moving forward.

20235 Katy Freeway
Katy, TX 77450

5900 North Freeway
Houston, TX 77076

Houston Furniture Bank

Recovery efforts from Hurricane Harvey are expected to continue for many months as thousands of families in the Houston area are still trying to recover and rebuild from the devastation.

That’s why Landmark Furniture, Houston Furniture Bank and Mattresses For Less have partnered together to help affected families by holding a Houston Strong Furniture Drive all day Saturday, December 2, 2017.

Help us support the Houston community by participating in the Houston Strong Furniture Drive by bringing your undamaged, gently-used furniture that can be placed in a new home to one of the drop-off locations on Saturday, December 2, 2017.

What To Donate

Houston Furniture Bank, Landmark Furniture and Mattresses For Less are very appreciative of your efforts to help support the Houston community. All home furnishings in good condition are welcome, but the following items are a priority for affected families:

  • Beds – mattresses/box springs
  • 4- to 6-person dinettes
  • Small sofas

Please note, Houston Furniture Bank will not take items that have the following conditions:

  • Tears
  • Deep cuts and scratches
  • Stains that are not supposed to be there
  • Holes
  • Missing parts
  • Fire damage
  • Water damage
  • Pet dander or fur
  • Have been subjected to “home repairs”

Drop Off Locations

Mattresses For Less/Landmark Furniture
20235 Katy Freeway
Katy, TX 77450

Mattresses For Less/Landmark Furniture
5900 North Freeway
Houston, TX 77076

Houston Furniture Bank
8220 Mosley Road
Houston, TX 77075

Volunteer

Volunteer at the Houston Strong Furniture Drive to help affected families recovering from the devastation left by Hurricane Harvey. To obtain additional information about volunteer opportunities, please contact us at 713-842-9771 or info@houstonfurniturebank.org.

Have gently used furniture? Want to make a BIG IMPACT? Come by our official drop-off locations at 5900 North Freeway OR 20235 Katy Freeway and let’s help our friends at Houston Furniture Bank make #HoustonStrong! The Furniture Drive is on Saturday, December 2, 2017. For more information please visit: houstonfurniturebank.org/recovery.

For more information, visit https://houstonfurniturebank.org/recovery/ or call (713) 842-9771.

Mattresses for Less and Landmark Furniture Locations

  • North Houston
  • Katy
  • Spring / The Woodlands
  • Webster / Clear Lake
  • Town & Country

Click here for a list of Mattresses For Less locations!

Click here for a list of Landmark Furniture locations!

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