How to boost marketing and social media efforts
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In Closets & Organized Storage magazine’s November 2020 marketing webinar, Mike Foti, Innovate Home Org; Wendy Scott, Boutique Closets and Cabinetry, and Kurt Trombetti, PNW Closets offered tips and strategies on blogging, Instagram and reviews and referrals. 

Why should you blog?

Mike Foti: I’m a big believer in blogging. I’ve been doing it for about 11 years. I started with my business called Innovate Building Solutions blogging 11 years ago and have seen tremendous results on it. In my building solutions business, I get about 180,000 unique visitors to the blog alone, and in my home organization business, it’s about 35,000 and that was started four years ago. It’s not necessarily easy, but it can be very effective. Here’s why blogging is very important:
 
One is you can position your expertise. When somebody reads a blog post, if they’re learning from it and they’re being educated [they will] say, “Oh, that person knows something and maybe they can help me on my project.” So, I think it’s much more effective to position expertise. Another reason is pay-per-click and Facebook ads. We are competing against one another when we do pay-per-click ads. With blogging, if somebody gets your article or it’s found on the internet, you are not paying and competing and bidding against other people, so to me, that’s a great reason. 
 
Another reason is most of us are not made of money. If you wanted to put effort in versus money, blogging is a great place to invest your time to get a return without spending money on print ads or pay-per-click. 
 
Building a following. I mentioned the number of people coming to our site. We not only have that, but we have people who are on our email list that we continue to market to. In my one business, Innovate Building Solutions, it’s 31,000 on our email list. In my home organization business, it’s 7,000. Those are people who get correspondence from us and that keeps us top of mind. 

How can you enhance your brand with Instagram?

Wendy Scott: The way I treat Instagram is it’s an extension of your website. You don’t always go on your website and refresh everything, but your Instagram you’re refreshing and putting brand new pictures up. You should be [doing this] almost every single day. A lot of clients, they’ll look at your website, but they go to your Instagram because that’s the most current thing you’re working on. It’s all about keeping consistent with your brand that’s on your Instagram versus on your website versus all your flyers, your trucks, consistent branding throughout the whole thing.

What content should post for engagement and leads?

Wendy Scott: Some of the best things are smaller detailed shots. You want your money picture, the one that looks like it’s very polished. It’s not necessarily your everyday closet, but it’s the closet that people wish they had. Before and after videos. When you want to get good engagement, then post a question or ask someone for their opinion. With more engagement, comes more views, then people start looking at your website. People start saving. So, the money shot, videos, before and after, questions, and then up close and personal.

Why should you be on Instagram?

Wendy Scott: Free return on investment. I do not pay for marketing whatsoever and we get some of our better projects from Instagram. For me, it’s a higher-end market. The number one thing you should do is have a business Instagram [account] because then you can go to your Insights, you can see how many people looked at it. You can see their gender, what time of day they looked. You can see an impression and see how many people looked based on your hashtags, so now you know which hashtags are working. Then you see one that didn’t give visibility - was it the photo or was it the hashtag? So, you can research, and then from there, you kind of get a [better] idea of your followers.

Should you have a defined review and referral program?

Kurt Trombetti: It’s documented fact that you have a 150% better chance of getting clicks on your site if you have reviews than if you don’t. The other piece that’s extremely important is search engine experience. Google wants you to have a really good experience searching their platform.
 
There are two main components that will get you moved up the pages very quickly, and that is relevant content, fresh relevant content, and reviews because reviews are your customer base willing to write on their Google page, on your Google My Business. They’re willing to talk about you. If they’re willing to talk about your brand, Google’s like, we need to pay attention to these people. Who are these people? That will drive you up the page.
 
In two seconds, you can spend a lot of money on pay-per-click and get up there to the top of the page fast, but to drive it in the maps and to drive it in the organic sections of the page, reviews are so, so relevant. You can see who’s relevant and who has stars in your town, and it’s usually going to be two or three companies and that’s it.
[What about negative reviews?] If you continuously have good reviews, and then you have a bad review, the bad review just gets pushed down. But to have one bad review and no good reviews, that’s not good.
 
View on-demand at bit.ly/38c6ZjU.
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About the author
Michaelle Bradford | Editor

Michaelle Bradford, CCI Media, is Editor of Closets & Organized Storage magazine and Woodworking Network editor. She has more than 20 years of experience covering the woodworking and design industry, including visits to custom cabinet shops, closet firms and design studios throughout North America. As Editor of Closets & Organized Storage magazine under the Woodworking Network brand, Michaelle’s responsibilities include writing, editing, and coordinating editorial content as well as managing annual design competitions like the Top Shelf Design Awards. She is also a contributor to FDMC and other Woodworking Network online and print media owned by CCI Media.