New Business Digital Marketing and Must Do's
Make It Loud Studios presents improving your digital marketing with John and Cliff.
John:Cliffy, it's good to see you again.
Cliff:It's good to be seen.
John:You too. I'm glad I'm glad you're seen.
Cliff:I am too. It's Yeah.
John:Very good. Not bad. Yeah. By people. By people and things?
John:Yeah. No. So don't see. They do. They do.
John:Things see
Cliff:people. Cameras?
John:Cameras? Yeah. Cameras are things.
Cliff:You are being seen right now.
John:A camera. I'm buying I'm by a thing.
Cliff:Big brother is watching you.
John:Yeah. They really are. Whoever that might be. Google. Yeah.
John:They really do. Don't wanna mention names, but Google.
Cliff:Google. Yes. Google.
John:So so, Cliffy, we got people that reach out to us a lot of times who have new businesses.
Cliff:Yep. And
John:there are there's stuff and things for those people to go do that perhaps other businesses who've already kind of set up their things and stuff
Cliff:Yep.
John:Don't have to go do.
Cliff:And it's overwhelming. The choices are It
John:can be very overwhelming. And a lot of the lot of businesses that come through the door of our offices, they they are new businesses. Not as many now as when we first got started, I think. But a lot of those people were kinda new to web marketing. And now that web marketing's been around, we're doing redos on websites, probably a lot more than we're doing fresh site kind of things.
John:We still
Cliff:get them. We do. Yeah. We had a guy walk in the other day and wanted a Yeah.
John:A new show.
Cliff:New idea.
John:Really nice site we gave him too. We did. Yep. That was a auto film site. Right?
John:Yep. Very good. So what are the kinds of things that that need to be taken care of? Like, if you're a new business owner, there are things that need to be taken care of that that perhaps somebody else doesn't need to go do. So what what are those things that, like, is it from a digital marketing perspective, from a business perspective?
John:And this probably crosses some into into business consulting and not just digital marketing. But what are those things that the new business owner needs to go do to really begin to take care of business?
Cliff:Well, I mean, of course, it depends on what kind of business they are, but I'm gonna tell you something that you would tell me.
John:Okay.
Cliff:Which is you gotta invest in a good website.
John:Oh, I thought that wasn't what I thought you were gonna say I was gonna tell you. Oh, really?
Cliff:I don't know what you thought I would you would tell me, but but what I thought you would it gets too confusing.
John:Go yourself.
Cliff:Well, that's all.
John:That'll get bleeped out.
Cliff:That's off camera, but yeah. No. You gotta start with a you gotta invest in a good website. So many people wanna just check that off the mark. You know, just their list of things to do is check off a website, and they go off and they go to the, you know, start designing something.
Cliff:In fact, the guy that we just did the website for, you just mentioned, he did that too. He had a a a DIY website, and even he came to us. And and I didn't have to say a word when we met with him. He just went, my website sucks. It sucks hard.
John:It's always good when a client knows their website sucks because sometimes they come in here and they've spent all this time on Wix or Weebly or whatever other DIY platform it is. And they're not web people, they're plumbers
Cliff:or whatever
John:it might be. And it looks like a plumber designed a website.
Cliff:You're right. It looks like a bag of hell right there.
John:Yeah. It's not it's not a lack of ability to go. It's not it's not the platform is generally not the liability in those particular cases. It's it's it takes a graphic artist and somebody who knows what they're doing in website design to actually go create a decent website that people will pay attention to.
Cliff:Yeah. I mean and and he totally knew it. But so that's the first step is is invest in a in website, a strong website because, obviously, that's your digital front door. And if you don't have a good digital front door, fewer people are gonna wanna come through it. And I will say this, and I've said this before, I'll say it until somebody, you know, shoots me in the face or whatever, is that with a good website, you have six seconds to answer three questions.
Cliff:What can you do for me, the visitor? Can I trust you? And what do I do next? If you don't answer those three questions very, very effectively, your chances of getting that customer are gonna drop dramatically.
John:I I don't know whether this is still still holds true or not, but it used to be, and perhaps it is, perhaps it's not. But it used to be you have to you have to tell somebody what what to kinda go do. People operate on basically an an eighth grade reading level. And
Cliff:Eighth grade.
John:Yeah. Is that is that right? High. Is it?
Cliff:Yeah. I think we're getting dumber.
John:Oh, what's in that? Is that too high? Yeah. Sorry. Too high.
John:Sorry. But you used to have to put if you put call now for a free quote or a free consultation along with your phone number, you were 40% more likely to get a call.
Cliff:Yeah.
John:Yeah. So those kinds of things can really help. I would tell you that it's it'd be you'd be you'd be shocked to know how many websites don't have their phone number.
Cliff:Who needs calls? Come on. You know, when 63% of all searches are done on the phone, who needs calls?
John:Well, and it it's funny. You know, some people just have contact us, and somehow it doesn't do the same thing as a phone number. People are are their eyes are just looking for a telephone number in, you know, modern day start smartphones. You just click the number and it'll auto automatically give them the options to call.
Cliff:Well and and also calls to action, like like you're talking about. Also, there's a a whole trend to make them more, you know, friendly and more descriptive, which can be very difficult because how do you tell people, hey, call us for a free consultation on your digital marketing in a button because that's essentially a book on a button and and it gets overwhelming.
John:Yeah. You don't want you don't want the book. And and on some of the websites we've done also where clients would like to interact with text and some Gen Zers would prefer text. And and some of those people are now in buying situations and, they'd rather kinda text than talk. There's it's good to have a text button on your website as well to give people options on communication.
John:Sometimes, I think with the contact forms, people wonder where they go. Yeah. You know? Right. Did did it get there?
John:Did it not? Sometimes sometimes business owners owners are good at responding to them. Sometimes they're not.
Cliff:Yeah. Largely not. Largely
John:not, unfortunately. Yeah.
Cliff:We have a solution for that, but that's a whole another thought.
John:Be check your email.
Cliff:Well, that and recognize when the leads come in and there are other systems.
John:There's AI systems. There are AI systems that kind of help That's people with not the topic.
Cliff:But you're right. I mean, it is interesting to think about putting as many different ways to contact you and your business as the the visitor wants. And it's we're finding more and more generational separation like you're talking about. Yep. Because like you said, Gen Z and and younger talk to people.
Cliff:Oh, gross.
John:Yeah. And and even some of the millennial generation, you know, I mean, some of these guys. I I literally, with a client last week, had to show them how to write a check.
Cliff:Yeah. You
John:did. And it's not the first. So Right. Like, they've never used they've never used checks.
Cliff:It's a bonus consultation.
John:Right? We're gonna give you a good business that to our business consulting, which I do, by the
Cliff:way. Teach you some life skills too. Yeah. But You know what? How you write a check.
Cliff:Don't remember the last time I wrote a check, honestly. Yeah. I do. Never mind. It was to the IRS.
John:Yeah. That's mine too. Oh, god. For for a year at least. Right?
John:Right. The most painful check is that.
Cliff:It's been years since I've actually written a check.
John:I was writing them checks, they kept sending them back. They literally sent the I had the address right. They sent it back twice.
Cliff:Really? Yep. They don't typically send my
John:money back. No.
Cliff:Yeah. They keep asking you.
John:Unopened, by the way, also. Really?
Cliff:Yeah. Okay.
John:Return to sender.
Cliff:You're on a list.
John:Yes. They probably saw
Cliff:watching me.
John:How I got on that list.
Cliff:Yeah. They're watching you and you're on a list.
John:And nice list. I'm probably on the naughty list.
Cliff:And the soon you'll
John:be broke loose. On the nice list. You're on the naughty list.
Cliff:Mhmm. I've always been on the naughty list. I'm a naughty boy. Anyway, so website, that's the main thing. Start with that.
Cliff:The next thing I would tell you is your Google business profile without a doubt.
John:I think you gotta take a step back before we go there.
Cliff:You think? Why?
John:You do. I think there's some other things that people need to take care of even before the website. Really? First thing you need to take care of is getting a good name Oh, that. Okay.
John:Right?
Cliff:I I was I thought they gave
John:you good name for your business, and it's not easy to choose a name. Yeah. So so first thing you what? Not a dumb name.
Cliff:Not a dumb one.
John:Right? We've named some businesses actually at Make It Loud.
Cliff:Quite a few. Yeah. Quite a few. Sure.
John:Yeah. But but what you wanna do is you wanna you wanna check some things to make sure that you have a good name. A lot of people come up with a name and then when we go kinda do these things, they go, oh, yeah. That's not a good
Cliff:name. Right.
John:First thing you want to go do is to check that the name is not taken already, particularly in your state. So here in Georgia, we have a Georgia Secretary of State Corporation search. You can go to Georgia Secretary of State, type it in Yep. And type the name you have in there. And if it's not there, you can legally use it.
Cliff:Yeah.
John:Okay. So that's that's generally the first step to incorporation, and we would recommend that everybody get incorporated.
Cliff:Seconds well spent.
John:It really is. So for so you can you can actually and and, again, each state would be different. But in Georgia, you go and you sign up for the name. I think it costs you 25 or $30 to save the name. But before you go do that, you need to do some other checking.
John:Just because it's not in your state doesn't mean somebody doesn't have it. So once you check your state and it's cleared in the state, then you want to go to to GoDaddy or or another domain company.
Cliff:Right.
John:And you want to look up the domain name there.
Cliff:I had a rumor about that. Really? And and I'm gonna bounce this off you.
John:Okay.
Cliff:The rumor I've heard is if you do a lot of name searches, domain searches in GoDaddy, they're monitoring that or people monitoring that and
John:So they can upcharge you and
Cliff:Upcharge you and or steal you the domain. Alright. Do you do you
John:think that's true? I've I've never had that happen necessarily, but I think it's a absolutely. I think they're You do do think that? Because I I think it's possible that I kinda feel like I'm drinking
Cliff:conspiracy theory Kool Aid there.
John:We don't know, man. It I mean
Cliff:Which I do.
John:If you go check the name in in a place or something like that, it pays for them instead of, you know, charging you $30 a year to charge you $1,500 to go buy the domain for the first year. So I I you know, and there are lots of what we call domain extortion companies out there. If you're oh, yeah. If your domain expires, they buy it up and
Cliff:Mind boggling.
John:Yeah.
Cliff:It's a ghost bag.
John:Really are. In fact, we we true story. We didn't own makeitloud.com until two years ago.
Cliff:Right.
John:So when I first started the company, I I wanted to get the .com and the .net. I had the name already. The .com was taken by some audio company out in the Midwest and I paid GoDaddy to do this camp on thing. They'd let me know if it expired. Okay.
John:And they didn't. Shocker. Yeah. So then by the time I checked in again and, you know, I got other things to do with my time. When I went back, it was already, it was already purchased by the domain extortionist, and they wanted a minimum of $5,000 to talk to me.
Cliff:And a child or just the money?
John:Just the child. Okay. And a little blood and the $5. They wouldn't even they wouldn't even entertain the conversation for under $5 and wound up buying it through a domain broker who reached out on an email campaign. Did a great job too, by the way.
John:Wow. And I wound up paying a couple grand for it. And Still. So we got it. But it was it was it was worth having.
John:But but you do wanna go to you wanna go to a domain company and check, look for the name and see if it's there. You wanna own the .com and the.net, preferably without hyphens.
Cliff:You don't like hyphens?
John:No. Not in a domain name.
Cliff:Oh, come on. Why? It's weird. Is it? It's just weird.
Cliff:Okay. I I don't feel that strongly about hyphens.
John:Strongly about hyphens? No. Not really. Hyphens. Okay.
John:Fair enough. So try to do without hyphens.
Cliff:I don't love them.
John:I don't but I don't hate them. If you if you you if you come up with a name and it's you gotta put a hyphen in it, go go back and punt and put a different go go look for a different I feel stronger about
Cliff:people with hyphenated names than I do with domains.
John:That doesn't surprise me.
Cliff:Maybe it's just me.
John:Don't know. Cliff Jackson Tillery. Why do you feel why do you feel so bad about that?
Cliff:Think it's Tillery Jackson.
John:Might be.
Cliff:Oh, it's Jack artillery. So
John:so you do wanna check second check, once you got your state and your your and your your domain name, get those two boxes checked, then you wanna go to the the national trademark website and make sure the name isn't trademarked.
Cliff:Yeah. That would be good because you don't like to talk to lawyers
John:on No. No. No. No. We've had clients who've picked up names before, and then later somebody finds that they've they've got the name and you get a cease and desist letter.
John:By the way, you're using your name. It's trademarked. You can't use it.
Cliff:Rutt row.
John:Rutt row. I don't even think you can use the domain name even. Really? Yep. Yeah.
John:That would be kinda legally have to surrender it.
Cliff:One step forward and two steps back on that
John:one. It would because then you got business cards and websites and marketing materials. Nightmare. And for SEO, if you're doing search engine optimization, you have to change your domain name starting from scratch. Yep.
Cliff:Start over.
John:So these things are not good. Yeah. And and if if you can, you wanna avoid them. So you wanna check three boxes, and you wanna check the the trademark search, you wanna check check the domain name, and you want to to check the the the your state corporation companies or your state corporation organization and see if if the company name is taken there.
Cliff:Yes. No.
John:Solid advice. Once you got that altogether and you choose your domain name and by the way, people are still using .coms and .nets primarily. Mhmm. So there there are some industries that have kinda gravitated towards different extensions, like podcasting companies are often dot f m now. Oh, they?
John:Okay.
Cliff:Yeah. It's kinda cool.
John:AI companies are are like .io. I've seen that as
Cliff:..ai.
John:Dotorgs are reserved pretty specifically for nonprofit organizations. So if you are not one, don't use .org.
Cliff:Okay.
John:Other than that, in twenty years worth of business, I think we've one dot done one dot biz, 1.tv, and 1.co.
Cliff:Okay.
John:And everything else has been .com and .net. So you really do wanna try and and find a a domain name that's a .com or a .net that is not 10 miles long.
Cliff:Yeah. And I I'm still I'm old school. I mean, I've been doing SEO for sixteen years. I still like a keyword in the domain. Would that's smart.
Cliff:I do like it. I don't know if it matters as much as it used
John:to, but If you're cliffy's plumbing, cliffy's plumbing. Right? You know?
Cliff:That's fine.
John:Yeah. Shorter, the better. You know? Yeah. Also, you're more memorable.
John:So, you know, it's, it's better if you can do it that way.
Cliff:I like it. Makes it a lot easier in my life
John:for Totally.
Cliff:Yeah. As an SEO nerd.
John:Yeah. I mean, it's a it's a ranking factor. You know? God knows.
Cliff:Know that it still is. You know? I really don't know. Yeah. I think it's ranking factors change all the time, obviously, because Google's always changing everything.
John:But It's not as weighted
Cliff:for sure. There you go.
John:Right? Exactly. At one at one point in time in the early days of SEO, you kinda buy a domain name with the word plumbing in it Yeah. And get ranked.
Cliff:You were dumb if you didn't.
John:You were really dumb if you didn't.
Cliff:And now I don't know that it's as bad a mistake. It's just, you know SEO is about putting 10,000 pieces to of the puzzle together, and that's one of the pieces. Piece. Yeah. It's a piece.
Cliff:Is it weighted? You know, is it gonna make or break your business? No. But it's, I think, just one step closer.
John:Yeah. I I would agree. Yeah. I would totally agree. So so you you get your you get your name first.
John:Right? And and you check through all that stuff. Go go go hire an an accountant to set up your corporation for you, by the way. Yeah. I made that mistake once.
John:I did it myself. And for the first six six months, for make it loud, I got nasty grams from all these other federal and state agencies.
Cliff:Did you? Why?
John:By the way, you got an EIN number for this. Yeah. And you didn't sign up for this. Oh, by the way, you got an EIN number for this, and you didn't sign up for this. Really?
Cliff:Yes. When I incorporated, I didn't get any of that. I did. I must have done it.
John:No. Wonder you could write checks to the IRS.
Cliff:That wasn't why. I had a bad accountant.
John:Yeah. You really did.
Cliff:I had a butthead for an accountant. Anyway, no. But I think I think that's good advice is to go have a an accountant do it or I guess lawyers can do
John:it too. Yeah. Because they'll they'll set up all these things like in Georgia. You got Georgia sales tax and Mhmm. Know, if you if you're the what you sell requires sales tax, you gotta pay tax of that.
John:And then there's FUDA and federal unemployment and Georgia unemployment and all this other stuff. Right. So you wanna make sure that all that stuff is taken care of so you don't get nasty grams and miss something because if you miss something, they will find you.
Cliff:They will find you because you're always being watched. Now the other thing is what kind of corporation to to think about, and
John:that's, you know people are in the LLC or
Cliff:s corp.
John:Make it loud as an an s corp. Yeah. And, you know, kinda depending upon I think it has a lot to do with employees and distributions and things like that. So S Corp wound up being the best option for us, but I own an LLC for something else as well. So Right.
John:You know?
Cliff:But it gives you protection.
John:Gives you protection so that if somebody does come after you, they they they sue the corporation and not you personally. Right. So that it gives you legal liability or it it removes legal liability for you personally so somebody can't, you know, take your house. Yeah. Something like that.
John:I would do that. That's important.
Cliff:Yeah. Good.
John:That's a thing.
Cliff:I feel like living in your house.
John:So I wanna give
Cliff:it to people.
John:No. It's true. I like living in my house. Yeah.
Cliff:Yeah. It's a
John:good edge. So once you've got your name picked out, you got your domain names purchased and buy them, by the way, for at least a couple of years.
Cliff:At least two. Yeah. Right.
John:Two. Yeah. Yeah. Two. That's a couple.
John:Right. It is two.
Cliff:Right. Right.
John:Yep. But why is that? Well, Google's also checking that sort of thing as well to see how long you have your domain for. So if you if you wanna go check, you can type in the the letters I c a n n search, I c a n search, it'll
Cliff:I can.
John:You can. And it will give you a search window that will it's on GoDaddy or many sites have these I c a n searches. You can put a domain name in there, and it will tell you when the domain name was purchased. And it will also tell you whether the domain name, when it expires. So all that stuff is public information and it's findable for any given domain name.
John:The other recommendation I would make when purchasing a domain is that you buy privacy on your domain as well.
Cliff:Yep.
John:Otherwise, it could you know, whatever address is registered to your domain name is findable. So Sure. If you happen to have a home based business, they can find your house. And there's also an email address attached to it and whoever's whoever's the admin on the account. And all you're doing is asking to be spammed.
John:And by the way, also also also an admin telephone number on there.
Cliff:Yeah.
John:So so these extortionists and things like that, digital extortionists will even call you. We had a client get called. We we launched their website, and then the next day they got called. Yeah. Because there's a pro there are programs out there that go scrape this stuff off of the Internet.
John:Sure. And it will tell you, oh, by the way, they made a change to their website. And and they go, hey. Guess what? Your website is broken.
John:And they go the client goes, well, I just got it yesterday. Like, I've had that happen.
Cliff:Sure.
John:So if if you get privacy, these kinds of things don't happen, and it will limit your spam calls. It will limit your your information being leaked out to people that you would rather not have it. So those kinds of things you wanna think about also when you register The a domain and get a
Cliff:other thing about the two year thing, is Google looks at that as you're all in versus if you get it
John:for They one
Cliff:kinda look at you like, you're not really committed to the company or the business for long, which is one more mark towards you being labeled as a spammer. Right. You know? Right. It's another piece of the ranking.
John:And five years even better, probably. So, you know It's commitment for sure. $30 a year. So and actually, if you buy the more years you buy upfront, the more money you're saving. Because domain names do go up in price, privacy goes up in price, all this stuff Right.
John:Increases in price. You used be able to get a domain name for just a couple of bucks and
Cliff:Yeah.
John:Now you're, you know, and with $10, now it's, $30 a year.
Cliff:Now some 50 sometimes depending on the domain.
John:Yeah. Yeah. So so after that, and I think also still before the the Google Business Profile is you want to spend money on a logo Okay. On a good one. Right?
John:So you got
Cliff:your Cracker Barrel?
John:We're not gonna go there.
Cliff:No. We're not? Aw. Come on. I don't
John:think their new logo looks much different from their old one. They just got rid that guy.
Cliff:Yeah. They got rid and I I didn't realize that guy was
John:the same guy. I mean, I didn't either.
Cliff:If you'd put a gun to my head and said, what is the guy on the Cracker Barrel logo? I would've you would've had to pull the trigger. I could not have told you.
John:It was funny. I saw I was driving 85 yesterday and saw two billboards. One had the new one and one had the old one.
Cliff:Yeah. Okay.
John:And, I was like Yeah.
Cliff:Then got to that one.
John:Yeah. It it's not like I saw the new one and we go, oh, that's not Cracker Barrel. It feels feels just like the old one.
Cliff:Well, it feels like a more modernized version of the old one, but I I you know, it wasn't to me like Aunt Jemima. You know, they weren't getting rid of somebody, but it turns out they were. They were getting rid of an uncle of the guy that started Cracker Barrel. Oh, really? I didn't realize either until recently.
John:No. Because I
Cliff:was like, what is the hub
John:Who cares? They have they have a new store design also, which Do they? Yeah. I've seen one. It was in Tennessee and saw it in the spring.
John:It's actually
Cliff:go to Tennessee?
John:I know. Okay. Lots. Oh. My I've been there myself.
John:We should try it. You should. Alright. Yep. But I saw this one, and it was it was actually relatively nice.
John:Was it? Was it modern? It was more modern.
Cliff:They didn't get rid the store, did they?
John:No. No. No. No. Uh-uh.
Cliff:I'll cut somebody if
John:they No. They didn't they didn't get rid the store. They you know, the most of them kinda have a partition down the middle. They got rid of those partitions, lighter colors.
Cliff:Okay.
John:So it it looks like it's more of a kinda country young person store.
Cliff:Country young person?
John:Is it a young redneck? Some of this stuff we're gonna have to edit out clearly.
Cliff:Are we? I
John:don't know. Maybe not.
Cliff:Maybe not.
John:But we're gonna get cease and desist letter from Cracker Barrel. Actually, I love your food. Just talk you do hard.
Cliff:Love your bad about Cracker Barrel.
John:No. And the new I think the new store design is great too. Lighter colors, not quite as much old stuff on the walls, but there's still old stuff on the walls. It feels like it feels like a modern Cracker Barrel as it should. So I think Well, that Me personally, I think they've done a good job.
Cliff:The argument is they're getting rid of the Americana aspect of it, and and I don't some people were arguing about it being a woke move, and I
John:just didn't see it that way. I I didn't I didn't even get that feel when I I'm
Cliff:in the store. I mean, maybe it is. I just don't get it. I don't know.
John:Well, I think I think their logo looked old. You got an old guy sitting in front of a barrel, and, you know, I I I I'd want a more modern logo. And this is I mean, this this conversation sounds kind of ridiculous, but it is exactly what we're talking about. It's branding. Right?
Cliff:That's exactly right.
John:So you have to you have to create a brand that people like and is memorable. McDonald's, I think a lot of the McDonald's stores don't even put the whole name out. They just got the m.
Cliff:Well, that that m is the most recognized logo
John:of the My year my my year one and a half year old, we're driving down the street and she sees the just the m. And she goes, McDonald's.
Cliff:Right.
John:Right. That's that's how important a logo is and the identification process that that that takes place. So you don't want to start off with a logo that sucks. Right. You'd be shocked with how many new business owners or people just entering the market or for heaven's sake, people who've been in business for a long time don't really have a logo.
Cliff:No. No. And the logo should base basically help people not only connect what your business is, but also what your business does. I mean, as quickly as possible.
John:Absolutely. There we we've probably said this before on prior podcasts, but when somebody goes to your website, they're making decisions about whether they're not gonna whether they're gonna stay or not in six seconds or so. Six to ten seconds. Yeah.
Cliff:We did. Yeah. We did.
John:Yeah. Just now.
Cliff:Yeah. We did. We said it before, though.
John:We did.
Cliff:On this one.
John:Okay. Yeah. Alright. So so you got that kind of time. You don't want people guessing what you do.
John:Right. So, you know, make it loud. If I if I went back in time, make it loud would probably not be the name of the company. Yeah. Because it doesn't say what we do.
John:You gotta make it loud. People go, oh, you're a car audio company.
Cliff:Right.
John:And it doesn't help that our storefront was in a car audio shop for there used to be a car audio shop here in this space. Was there? Oh, yeah.
Cliff:I don't thought it was an accountant.
John:Mm-mm. No. Alright. That was an insurance company, but the the the business that had been in here the longest was a car audio shop. And for the first ten years, no joke.
John:We we get people walk in and goes, is this car audio? Still still every now and then.
Cliff:Yeah.
John:So so I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily have chosen it. That's why under our business name, there's a tagline that says very quickly what we do. Otherwise, it leaves it kind of up to grabs and what people think make it loud means.
Cliff:Right.
John:So if you like back to Cliff's point, if you use the name plumbing in your website, there's there's no no mystery here. But if you can, you know, when you create your logo, you want to make sure that it has an icon or something that's related to your business. So so think about those things. We recommend wide logos instead of logos that are tall. Also, they display better on the web and on vehicles and things like that too.
John:So so keep that in mind. But but again, business name first, get incorporated, any insurance and those kinds of things you gotta go do. Do all your corporation filings and hire an accountant to go do that stuff for you. Check a domain name and check the trademark and then get a logo that that kind of matches for your business as well with also an appropriate color scheme. Right.
John:You to make sure you've got an appropriate
Cliff:color scheme is going to set the color palette for the website.
John:That's exactly correct. Yeah. That's exactly correct. That's why you go kinda go do that's the first thing. Go to website and then on to what you were talking about before.
Cliff:Google Business Profile. GB.
John:Did I
Cliff:did I mention that?
John:You did.
Cliff:Oh, yeah. Why why is that important? Because it's free real estate. I love free.
John:You do. Free is good. Free is good. And and business owners who are starting a business are generally on a budget.
Cliff:Yep. And that's one where, honestly, you just get a Gmail account, which you probably already have one, open it up, go Google Google business profile, and start filling it out.
John:If your business name is available, your business name@Gmail.com. And and and and ultimately, what Cliff is talking about or gonna talk about here in a minute with Google Business Profile, there are other things that that other Google properties that that you'll have or may have. We'd we'd certainly recommend that you set up a YouTube channel as well. And guess what? You're gonna use that same Google business profile, that same login information for Gmail
Cliff:Correct.
John:Across all of Google's platforms, webmaster tools, Google Google Analytics, and those kinds of things.
Cliff:What are you talking about?
John:I know.
Cliff:Webmaster tools. That's just nuts. No. I mean and but that's where you start. And and the the good news is Google Business Profile gives you free real estate where you can just fill it out about your business.
Cliff:That's also you know, people talk about the that putting you literally on the digital map because that's what it does. It's also a place for you to begin to collect reviews. And I'm gonna say this publicly, get reviews a lot. Get every client you deal with. Get reviews and respond to the reviews.
John:Google swears that that's a ranking factor in their maps as well. They've always said that.
Cliff:Yeah. That is. It is. It is that and and also frequent contact with that profile, meaning you're adding posts. They changed it recently.
Cliff:It used to be updates. Now it's just flat out. And and what I always describe the the updates as is mini blog posts. You have 1,500 characters to update with what's going on with your business, whether you have a a sale going on or a special or, you know, the you wanna advertise or highlight a a service that you deliver. Those are the things that you wanna post about, and you can develop a strategy for that, and you should consistently.
Cliff:I did an experiment where we, had a new Google Business profile. I posted on it every day for two weeks, and I made the map pack consistently, the three
John:pack on
Cliff:page one.
John:Which is free money to you, by the way.
Cliff:Free money. You're getting calls. And it has analytics on it attached, which aren't that great, but it gives you a sense of what people are doing. People can find directions on your Google Business profile if you have a storefront location or bricks and mortar.
John:Not 10% of the clicks go there on the page if
Cliff:I Yeah. Roughly.
John:Yeah. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but that's one in 10 people who see it with a potential to call.
Cliff:Correct. And, you have a a place to add frequently asked questions, which feels a little weird because you're posting the questions and you're answering them promptly, which is fine, but that's something else. And you list your services comprehensively. If you have a restaurant, put your menu on your Google Business profile. That's a a no brainer in that sense.
Cliff:So that's one of those properties that you can really do a lot with. You have to get it verified, which can be a pain, particularly when Google does weird
John:things. Easy anymore.
Cliff:They don't. They make you do a video, and it's about a two minute video that helps you essentially convince them that you're a legitimate business. So if you have a business license, letterhead, business card, even the website, want a video you know, logos on your truck or signage on your building, you want a video, all of that Mhmm. In order to help get verified
John:for that. Google's looking at those things with real people or do you think that's That's computer
Cliff:a good question. I don't know the answer to that. I think they certainly started with real people and I think they're branching out to using some AI tools for that. But who knows? Because for months there, I had clients that, just were struggling to get the video even seen by Google.
John:So Mhmm.
Cliff:It's not a perfect system by any stretch.
John:There's not that there's only one person that works there anyways.
Cliff:Yeah. And that's all. There's a of people. Five?
John:Yeah. That many. In the whole world.
Cliff:Okay. Work there. No. Doing that, I think there's only five verifying Google business profiles. But, yeah.
Cliff:Well, there was a couple months there where they you couldn't even get the the video verified. It was frustrating. So but work through it, you know, as much as you can.
John:Agitating to work with. So if you go and do this, just expect a little agitation Right. Honestly.
Cliff:And then if it goes smoothly, you'll be thrilled.
John:Yeah. It's really
Cliff:true. Yeah. But what about social media?
John:Well, I think you need to you need to have social media channels. Yeah. I think you should have channels everywhere. Now whether which ones you use more regularly or not, it's another another thing. So, you know, go get yourself an x channel even though you're probably it's not so business focused.
Cliff:Why? Yeah.
John:Just to have one. Why? You want somebody else to take one.
Cliff:Oh, okay. Right?
John:Yeah. So you would do it and, you know, and you have it.
Cliff:Did you, like, throw a couple things on there and call it? Call it. Yeah. Yep. Okay.
John:Post monthly or yearly to the thing, you know.
Cliff:I literally don't remember the last time I saw
John:with Pinterest. You know, you should
Cliff:have a
John:Pinterest account.
Cliff:Well, okay. If I'm gonna count it, should I have a Pinterest?
John:Numbers are pretty. Numbers are imaginary. Not.
Cliff:Maybe that's why.
John:I don't know. I mean, again, I think it's last I saw the data was 60% women, and they're making buying decisions, and there are tons of small business owners out there that are women. So I think the perception of Pinterest is that it's a primarily female dominated No. I channel.
Cliff:Maybe yeah. I think you're right about that, but my perception of Pinterest is just pretty pictures.
John:Well, I think you could say the same thing really for Instagram too. Well, mean,
Cliff:it's why I'm on it. Pictures. Yeah.
John:I like my I'd much rather be, you know, on that. And that's
Cliff:why I'm BJJ moves I've learned on Instagram?
John:I'm glad you inserted that extra j. Yeah.
Cliff:Brazilian jiu jitsu. Yes. BJJ. I've learned a lot
John:of that stuff Sure you have.
Cliff:Into Instagram and, you know, a lot of weight training, kettlebells. It's very again, that's what I you're talking.
John:I'm preaching to the choir here, man. I spend most of my time on Instagram as well. Yeah. So, so you wanna have you wanna have you wanna have an account on all of them. Okay.
John:LinkedIn as well. Go get a LinkedIn account. I know. I know you made you're more of a fan than I am. I just I just can't stand the thing.
John:I think it's clunky. I think it's never worked well. And all you're doing is fighting people politically out there. Well, when you get on my hobbies. It is my hobby.
John:So, you know We do other stuff. And things.
Cliff:Yeah. On LinkedIn, I post about stuff we're doing.
John:And things. Yeah. You know? But, you know, I I just I I don't love Instagram or or I don't love I love Instagram. I don't love LinkedIn.
Cliff:You don't love Facebook, but you're on that.
John:Well, it's bet I've I'm I'm on it more now than I was, say, two years ago. I thought Why? I thought a couple years ago, it was just super toxic during all the It is. Election stuff. I've not seen a whole lot of that stuff, and maybe it's because I've used my block button a little bit more lately, but I don't I don't see those kinds of political posts that I I once saw, not in the same kind of not not the same quantity.
John:Even with this last election, I think they they kinda toned it down a
Cliff:bit. Think with with Facebook, you certainly have to be on it for 90% of businesses.
John:Well, I I would I I I don't think it's just Facebook. I think Facebook, Instagram, or your are are the primary channels for most businesses.
Cliff:Yeah. I would say so. LinkedIn would be up there too.
John:Would be would be number three. Yeah. So if your if your if your business to consumer, you absolutely want to be on on on Facebook and Instagram. To generalize, the 40 over crowd 40 years and and over crowd is on on Facebook. The the 40 crowd is on Instagram.
John:Does the 40 crowd have Facebook accounts? Yes. Do they use them? No. And and there are some others.
John:There's, you know, people our age also on Instagram as well. I think there's been some movement towards that in the last couple of years.
Cliff:I love Instagram and I'm
John:Meta owns both of them. So, yay. You know, it is what it is.
Cliff:Think TikTok, you gotta think about that.
John:Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. You gotta think TikTok too.
Cliff:Depending on what you do. Yep. Again. I mean, and you said you mentioned YouTube earlier. Of course, YouTube's the second most most searched platform online owned by the first.
Cliff:Absolutely. So you you have to think about a YouTube strategy in that regard for your business.
John:Yep. And if you're b to c, your business to consumer, LinkedIn is probably a place where you should play more often because that's it's really more for businesses, and it's it's that kind of channel. Are those same people on Facebook and Instagram? Yes. Can you reach them there?
John:Yes. But but LinkedIn really is a channel that's designed more for for business. And I I don't know about the small business side of it. There are a lot of small business owners around there. My guess my my perception is they've they've got time for only so much, and they do more Facebook, Instagram than they do LinkedIn.
John:But
Cliff:Well, I've I've been on for all the groups that I've posted to. There's a lot of small business groups. So there are specific niches that you can find for that.
John:Very good.
Cliff:And they can, you know, of course, as a small business owner, you can, you know, develop a website to make you look like a medium to a larger sized business. Sure.
John:Perception is everything.
Cliff:Correct. So that that can happen. So I think that's a potential right there. Now, the the gotta also watch out for spending an enormous amount amount of time on posting versus advertising. Yeah.
Cliff:That can really yeah. It can be lot more
John:in our last podcast, you know, way to kinda lose money. You don't wanna that's and that's that's when you set up your business profile, particularly in Facebook, Instagram. You know, Instagram, you can kinda set up a profile for anything in Facebook. That business profile is managed by a personal profile. So so when you set up the business profile, it's posting is not so valuable.
John:Not unless you've got thousands and thousands and thousands of followers, which most people don't have.
Cliff:Right. Tens.
John:Tens. 10. Yeah. Most clients that walk in have under a 100.
Cliff:Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.
John:So if you had you had, you know, a 1,500.
Cliff:Do you follow your plumber on Facebook?
John:I think so. Yeah.
Cliff:Do you? Yeah. Do most people follow their plumber on Facebook?
John:I don't know.
Cliff:I doubt it.
John:I don't think most plumbers are plumber. Yeah. I do know my plumber. You do. So it's a little different.
Cliff:It is. Yeah. You're in a networking group with them. Yeah. So it's different.
John:So good guy. Yeah. Anything else you you do for for because I've got another one if you don't.
Cliff:Go ahead.
John:New business owners. The one thing I would tell you to do, you know, there there's certainly a dollar value attached to setting up a new business. And most people forget digital marketing. Yeah. They just don't they they might set up even a budget perhaps for a website, but they don't they don't set up a budget to go any further.
John:And if you're if you're gonna set up a business and you want business, it helps to go again, was eighty percent of businesses fail within the first five years. Right?
Cliff:Then ninety percent of statistics are made up on the spot.
John:I knew that to be true. Yeah. I didn't make that one up, though.
Cliff:No, you didn't.
John:That one is kind of That's
Cliff:fairly true.
John:That is reasonably true. Like eighty percent of all businesses that start fail within the first five years. Right. And I'll tell you about a conversation I had with a guy who's starting up a tire shop.
Cliff:Yeah. Yeah.
John:And young guy and and he said, yeah, you know, we're going to do the website and and and I started talking to him about search engine optimization and what what it could do for him. And I said, look, if you got the money, go be smart about this. You could you could go and make your SEO job back easily in one sale. He has some some sales, you know, a suspension or something like that in the 2 to $3,000 range.
Cliff:Are they really?
John:Yeah. Even higher. I'm just tires are a grand, you know. Okay. Wheels are can be a grand.
John:Mean, you know, so when you're selling that kind of money and you're making some profit on those kinds of things, you you have to figure out your ROI. And I'm like, dude, start smart. You you you're either gonna be depending on your sign and how many business cards you hand out. And by the way, you should have business cards too. It's the only printed
Cliff:material. Yeah.
John:I would still recommend business cards. Yeah. So the one piece of printed material, I think, that's valuable still so much. I know that brochures and things like that are not. They have their place, but it's just not we're not in 1990 anymore.
John:So so business cards, you still you still wanna have. But as I was talking to you, I'm like, you know, you let's start right. Start with business. Make this thing successful.
Cliff:Right.
John:And and your your competition isn't all that high. There aren't a ton of people doing what you do. So you're right off the interstate. Let's get you some business and let's start right. He goes, you know what?
John:You're absolutely right. And he kinda had a little money set aside for that. He's and he's doing it. We launched the website next month and wish him the best in that, you know. So so you want to set some cash aside to go market yourself so that when you start the new business, you you got clients coming in.
Cliff:Right. Yeah. That's a good thought. For sure. Building building a site with SEO in mind is a smart play.
John:Absolutely. Or or Google Ads or Facebook meta advertising, what whatever your digital marketing you choose and is best for you and go consult with somebody like us to go figure out which is best. But ultimately, you you wanna start with that in mind.
Cliff:And one of the things I was thinking about is I I think people think about this, but they don't understand how to do it, is you want to develop a marketing or a business plan, not just a marketing plan. A marketing plan is a subset of your business plan. With tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity and those kinds of things now, developing a business plan is easier than it's ever been. And essentially, you just start with a prompt of, I'm thinking about developing X business, whatever that is, whatever blank business it is, What would you recommend I do in terms of a business plan? And can you help me develop a business plan?
Cliff:AI will spout out 99% of what you need to think about in terms of budgeting and marketing and all of the things that we're talking about in a way that is succinct and and, you know, kind of horseshoe ducky moo cow to plan it out in order for you to be successful.
John:Yeah. And every business consultant just turned us off.
Cliff:Probably. Probably. But but at the same time, people need to to plan.
John:No. They really do.
Cliff:And and most of them what is this stupid saying that I hate is if you don't, fail if you fail to plan what what is that one?
John:I don't know. You know, if you 90% of of of memes or phrases are made up on the spot.
Cliff:Yeah. That's it. No. There's Lample used to say it all the time.
John:If you don't know.
Cliff:If you don't have a plan
John:If you don't if you don't if you don't have a plan to keep you from failing, you
Cliff:failing to If
John:you you fail to plan, your plan will fail.
Cliff:Okay. Let's go with that. That sounds good enough. God. I feel like I just took a big dump.
Cliff:Yeah, that was the
John:that was the that was in the 90 percentile
Cliff:right That's excellent. Most of that. No, but I mean, I think that's the whole point is most people don't do enough planning in order for them to in order to be successful, and that helps.
John:And there's, you know, again, AI and there are other tools that you can use, for these kinds of things. I would I would tell you if you can afford it instead of going to Canva or ChatGPT for a logo, you wanna you wanna go hire somebody who who has a better feel for those kinds of things. I've seen some of the stuff that those AI platforms have done logo wise, and I'm not so impressed. Yeah. So it's not there yet.
John:Go hire go hire a go hire a real human being and let them extend their their amazing creativity to it and Yeah. See see see what they come up with.
Cliff:Tap into some real experts.
John:Also, should be said, the those two platforms do not generate vector art, which is also necessary.
Cliff:Correct.
John:So that you'd you'd be better off, going and hiring somebody for that. This way, it can be used on signage. It can be used on something as small as a business card, large as a Yeah. A sign, whatever you want, and that would be, helpful.
Cliff:Right. Gotta think about how it looks on a shirt and a hat.
John:Absolutely.
Cliff:Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe not so much the last.
John:No. I don't think so. Put a make it loud tattoo on your ankle.
Cliff:No. No. No tattoos on my ankle. No. No.
Cliff:I have no tattoos yet.
John:No tramp stamp?
Cliff:Nope. Not yet. Never know. That's You have more tattoos than I do.
John:I do. Yeah. I do have zero. You have one?
Cliff:I thought you had two.
John:No. Oh, alright. Well, actually, they're separate words. So technically, they're three, but I count it all. I count them
Cliff:all together. That's all. That's okay.
John:That's good. Anything else we need to tell new business owners?
Cliff:No. Not that I think I think that covers the basics of to get people started. People talk about AdWords. I when you set up a Google business profile, you have a free, like, what is it? A thousand dollars worth of AdWords, something like I've $500 seen those.
Cliff:$100 or a thousand, which, you know, honestly, I'm inclined to tell people try it, try to get some business, but don't bet the farm on it. And it's a little bit of a racket because $500 on Google Ads can last about
John:ten minutes.
Cliff:Think so. Something like that, depending on how much people search, but and and then you gonna be on the whole. So just be careful with those kind of things. And not that Google AdWords can't be a good platform for you because it can be. People make a lot of money on it.
Cliff:That's where Google makes a ton of cash every year. So, and other people do as well. So Yeah. That's something to think about. And like I said, you said it earlier, I I wanna reiterate it.
Cliff:Talk to somebody that does this stuff for a living and can walk you through the numbers. Because if it has a strong ROI, then it's worth experimenting with. All marketing is a trip to the casino to begin with. It's all a gamble, but you wanna gamble in the best way to where you have the odds in your favor versus the house. So Yep.
Cliff:That's what marketing agencies, digital marketing agencies are supposed to do for you.
John:And the things that we've told you to go do today are really the basics. Don't have people coming to us and going, I'm sorry. I created that website.
Cliff:Right.
John:Right. You know, even even websites where people don't do SEO get occasional hits and people get occasional business off of them for a specific search. Somebody type something in and it it comes up. Generally speaking, they get they get something out of it. Certainly better if if we're doing optimization or they're doing some kind of digital marketing.
John:But but these are the basics for setting up a business. I I will tell you this and just to adjust your expectations, do not go and and set up a business card and put a sign on your shop and go create a website and expect to generate a lot of results.
Cliff:We used to get a lot more of that that concern than we do now. People would come in and they would say, well, I want to build a website. Okay. Let's build a website. And we get to the final stage and get ready to launch.
Cliff:Well, I don't know if I can launch it yet because I don't know if I can handle all the business. And it was one
John:those work.
Cliff:Yeah. It just doesn't. Never has. Yeah. Once I mean, how many trillion websites are out there now?
Cliff:No.
John:I have no idea.
Cliff:But, yeah, yours I think there are. I think I did look that up recently. It's over a trillion. And, I mean so your your website will now be one in a trillion. And okay.
Cliff:I don't think they're gonna be beaten down the doors as soon as it goes live. So that's something to to like you said, adjust your expectations.
John:Yeah. Don't don't expect you're gonna get all these calls. I think there was a day long time ago where you could kinda put your name in the yellow pages, particularly if you started with A and hang a sign out front and people would just kind of come. Yeah, they'd find you. That day is just is just long gone.
John:And even the digital day of that where you just kind of go create a website and people show up in droves. It just doesn't work that way. Do you have to have Yes. A Should you have a website? Yes.
John:Should you have it professionally developed? Yes. Because these things are the front door to your house. They talk about your business. It will help get you results.
John:But you you can't expect that you're just gonna go do these things without any marketing attached and to get a ton of money coming in. Right. Just it just doesn't work that way. So Yeah. Good conversation.
Cliff:I think that's about enough for today.
John:Yeah. All right. This is I'm John and I'm Cliff. And this has been the improving your No, is it? Yeah, it is.
John:This has been the improving your digital marketing prop broadcast. Broadcast? This has been the
Cliff:Take three.
John:Take three. This has been the Improving Your Market.
Cliff:Not even.
John:We don't know what to do when
Cliff:you get launched when you start.
John:We were. This has been the Improving Your Digital Marketing by John and Cliff podcast. That's long.
Cliff:That was a tough one.
John:It is. Maybe we need a short nap. We probably do.
Cliff:It's just something we can actually say.
John:We'll just give it an acronym. IYDMP by John and Cliff. Oh my god. That sounds worse. Yeah.
John:We need we need a different business name. Should have thought about that upfront. Right. We all have a wonderful day. Don't tell me how to live my life.
Voiceover:Thank you for listening to the Improving Your Digital Marketing podcast by Make It Loud. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and download wherever you get your podcasts. To hear other episodes, visit www.makeitloud.net, and be sure to follow us on your favorite social media platform. The views, thoughts, and opinions of the guest on this podcast are their own. The information contained in this podcast is for general information purposes only and is not intended to be legal advice.
Voiceover:The Improving Your Digital Marketing podcast is produced in studios in Atlanta, Georgia.
