The internet and AI have brought about the biggest changes, and now I find myself talking about the likes of ChatGPT with my clients.  I’ve been overwhelmed by how many headlines this topic has dominated in the last couple of months.  It’s an exciting development and I can see how useful this is in some parts of marketing, so I wanted to offer some tips around usage.

In marketing terms, AI is often used to carry out a particular task – such as identifying where to place advertising to maximise efficiency or how to personalise an email or ad campaign to increase the likelihood of getting a desired reaction or sale. In this way, AI can help build more effective marketing strategies, improve the customer journey by meeting customers’ expectations throughout their experience, and change the way businesses attract, nurture, and convert prospects to increase conversions and sales across a wide range of channels.

New AI language tools such as ChatGPT introduce a new dimension. This is where AI can be used to assist in writing content – which in marketing terms could include emails, blog posts, FAQs for websites, etc.

For instance, here’s some AI-generated content that came from typing in the question, “What are the advantages of using AI for writing content?”:

“AI-assisted writing is becoming increasingly popular in the field of content creation. By leveraging AI technology, copywriters can save time and effort while creating content that is of higher quality than ever before. AI-powered writing tools can help to automate mundane tasks such as research and data collection, enabling writers to focus on crafting compelling stories with powerful messaging. Additionally, AI technology can provide insights into the performance of content pieces, allowing copywriters to optimize their work for maximum impact. Ultimately, using AI for writing content provides numerous advantages that can help to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of any copywriting project.”

Not bad, at least to get things started – and while content still requires a human editor to tweak and improve it, AI is good at answering factual questions and providing ‘base’ information.

Why and when are AI language tools useful?

Tools like ChatGPT and Rytr are giving a helping hand to marketing content writers with things like:

• Generating content ideas for social media platforms, blogs, marketing campaigns, and even recreating existing content to increase its chances of going viral
• Creating base content for FAQ pages or product descriptions, or for summarising long content passages
• Personalising content geared to particular target markets
• Handling repetitive tasks – not just writing email responses and things like social media posts, but for scheduling meetings, creating reminders, etc.
• Research into SEO-focused blog posts or articles.

When AI language tools need some caution

Just like humans, AI language tools have their limitations, and there are numerous things to be aware of, such as:

• The quality of the output depends on the quality of the input, so better directions (or questions or prompts fed into the tool) result in better-quality answers
• When you feed a question into the system, the answers you get aren’t always correct. ChatGPT is designed to provide answers that ‘feel’ right to humans, and can provide results that SEEM plausible, but are in fact wrong. Many users have discovered incorrect answers and errors as a result – so editing and proofreading are definitely still required!
• At least as of this writing, ChatGPT has only been ‘trained’ on information up to 2021, which means that it doesn’t have access to data after that time. Therefore, if you ask a question about more recent events (or software, phone models, the latest technology, etc.), you’re likely to get outdated information
• It can’t fetch real-time information or answer multiple rapid queries (like a search engine).

As we know, it’s the stories and human connections that get people to take notice and engage with our brands. So whilst not to sound biased (!), I still think that AI-generated content still needs human input, despite being a useful tool – so maybe there’s a few more years in this particular marketing consultant after all.  Maybe not another 50, though … !

Curious about incorporating AI into more of your marketing efforts? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

The presentation topic was definitely of interest to me. It was about bringing up teenagers (I have a 14-year-old son, thankfully showing no major teenage behaviour traits . . . yet, other than a propensity to leave everything to the last minute, which he’s had all his life!). But I couldn’t believe how fast the time went or how captivated I was by the speaker’s fantastic storytelling ability.  And for someone who doesn’t always remember things without writing them down, I really believe his stories will stick with me.

It made me think about the role of storytelling in marketing. Today’s digital marketing channels are completely overloaded with stories; Instagram and Facebook have completely adopted this concept with “Facebook Stories” and “Instagram Stories”.

Stories resonate with people and are something we typically respond well to, because everyone likes a good story – and in fact, we are actually hardwired to listen and pay attention to stories. Individual ads, emails or promotions are great for short-term action, but stories can reinforce your brand and resonate more over a longer period of time.

As a marketer, I urge clients to create stories and write engaging content all the time. But every company is trying to tell a story and get customers to pay attention to their websites, their email campaigns, text messages and Google ads.  I’m doing it now with this article!  There’s endless competition. Apparently, people now see between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day . . . and that’s just ads.

So how do we cut through all the noise, get people to stop scrolling and hear us? Do our stories need to be more shocking?  Media outlets and tabloids have tried this for years with ‘propaganda’ headlines and ‘fake news’, etc., but especially after COVID, we’re all really tired of shouty headlines designed to reel you in when there’s really no substance behind the magic curtain.

We want good stories.

Here are three things that engaging stories provide:

1. Emotion

“Shock” may grab people for a few seconds, but much more often, people want to feel something real, such as inspiration, hope, fear, excitement, comfort or joy. Using genuine emotion in your marketing gives you a way to connect with customers on a meaningful level. In the best cases, it boosts engagements AND leads to improved sales and customer loyalty. For example, Budweiser beer is known for making people laugh or pulling on their heartstrings through the use of animal stories in its TV ads.  Almost every year for the Super Bowl football game in the U.S., the company releases an ad that viewers vote for as one of the best.  One of my favourites was from 2014 – what’s not to love about horses making friends with puppies, to get across the ‘Best Buds’ tagline?More recently, the company has switched over to human subjects in their ads but has continued to tell stories that people could connect with, while successfully promoting their brand. The ads make people feel good, and customers (consciously or unconsciously) connect that feeling with Budweiser.

2. Information or instruction

Marketing software giant Hubspot recently conducted a survey to find out why people read the blog posts that they do. The top answer? “To learn something new.” This was especially true during COVID (with people searching for help with things like, “How do I cook my favourite Asian dish while that restaurant is closed?” “My pipe is broken in lockdown! How can I fix it?”), but video and written tutorials will always remain popular. Whether it’s watching a video showing them how to plant and care for the perennials they bought at your gardening shop or tips from an accounting firm on how to better prepare for tax time, customers like to be provided with solid information that helps them and offers value.

3.  Relevance and/or personalisation

One of the great benefits of storytelling is that it helps humanise your brand. When customers can recognise where they fit into or connect with the story, you’ve got a winner. When you send a personalised email message that shares a story relevant to that person, instead of a generic message to the whole world, you’re much more likely to grab attention. And with all the clever marketing automation software around at the moment to help you tailor your messages, it should be even easier to make a connection.

Need help creating your stories and cutting through the noise? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

There’s no charge for the service, and many businesses sign up for Alerts in order to monitor and respond to what’s being written about their company or products in reviews, articles and blogs across the web.

However, you can use Alerts to track all kinds of things, including competitor names (great for keeping an eye on what your rivals are up to) and common industry terms, so that you can stay up-to-date on changes and developments in your market. You can also adjust your settings to limit how often you receive emails, focus on a particular region, or restrict Alerts to a particular type of content, such as blog posts or videos.

And since the only thing better than getting free online tools is getting the most you can out of those tools, here are three additional ways your business can use Google Alerts to their full advantage:

1. Check for plagiarism

If you’ve been spending the time and effort necessary to create great content for your website, you’ll want to make sure no one else is ‘borrowing’ it and using it as their own. To make sure your content isn’t showing up anywhere you haven’t approved, insert a line of unique text from any of your online works (within double quotes) in the Search query Google should recognise if the text appears anywhere besides your site and will show you results. Then you can explore further and take action, if needed.

2. Find new customers

When a prospect begins doing online research before making a purchase, they’re likely to review and post questions online. For instance, Q&A sites and forums like Reddit and Quora often include questions like “Where can I buy ‘green gizmos’?” If you sell green gizmos and have an alert set up, you can immediately follow up, provide an answer and offer details on how to reach your store or website. Also, if you have Alerts set up for the names of competitors, you can find out what prospects are asking and saying about the Customers who have a problem with a product or are unhappy about a purchase are likely to vent their frustration online. Keeping track of this allows you to identify new opportunities (and possibly new customers) and learn from your competitors’ mistakes.

3. Get content ideas

By keeping an eye on questions that customers have about your company and/or the products you offer, you can get relevant answers on your website. For instance, if you see questions pop up about how to use a particular item you sell, put that question and an answer on your product or FAQ page. You can also respond in a blog or social media post. By keeping an eye on what your competitors are writing about, you can get new ideas, too – monitor their posts and discussions using Alerts to see what issues you could address in your own content.

One last tip: If you’re not getting what you’re looking for in your Alert results, you can update them at any time to exclude websites that are low-quality or refine your keywords.

Need help tracking or improving your business’ online reputation? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

Chatbots, or online virtual assistants, have seen explosive growth as customer communication tools this year, especially as more people stayed home and looked for “safe” ways to get answers and communicate with businesses. But what exactly do chatbots do and how do they work?

Let’s take a look at what chatbots are, what they can do for you and explore some popular chatbot options available for businesses and marketing teams.

What exactly is a chatbot?

Chatbot technology uses language processing and artificial intelligence to understand what a human is looking for and then adjusts its response to help users get answers. Two of the best-known chatbots today are iPhone’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.

All online chat services – whether live or not – are designed to improve customer service, provide information and answer common questions. They can also provide website or mobile app visitors with a quick way to reach out for answers on more complex questions.

Live online chat services use a person from your team or from a call centre who communicates online with customers by typing. These systems use a chatbot to get a conversation going, but in live chat, the bot “pings” a human user after taking some very basic information from the customer and then the rest of the conversation is live.

With a system that doesn’t include live interaction with a human, a chatbot often collects information so that a human can follow up. The chatbot also may be able to provide answers to basic questions it can recognise.

There are currently two main types of chatbots being used by businesses:

• Rule-based chatbots are the most common. After an initial greeting and “question” by the bot, prospects select an answer and the bot responds based on their answers and guides them in the right direction (using additional questions, if needed). Ultimately, users enter their contact information so that a human can follow up.
• AI-based chatbots use artificial intelligence to recognise patterns and “learn” as they go. They’re built by developers and add to their existing base of information to become “smarter” the more they interact with people.

How companies are using chatbots

Chatbots are useful for all kinds of businesses, but retail and healthcare are two industries that have taken great advantage of them during COVID.

Hospitals, clinics and healthcare teams have been stretched to their limits, so have used chatbots to help “screen” patients for COVID symptoms, offer help and advice, steer patients to the right departments online and provide information on how to stay safe. In the future, chatbots may be used as a standard part of the triage process in hospitals.

In March, the WHO created a WhatsApp chatbot with the help of partner organisations to answer questions about the coronavirus and send updates to followers. Over time, questions have been added in more than 12 languages and the bot has allowed users to get updated case numbers, travel advice and news about the outbreak.

On the food front, international grocery chain Lidl – which operates over 10,000 stores across Europe and the United States – has a chatbot (named Margot) on Facebook to help customers learn about wines. It can provide guidance on which wine to buy, help users learn about how wine is made (there’s a quiz), recommend food pairings and answer questions on 640 different types of grapes.

Popular chatbot options for businesses

Can’t afford live chat services at your company? If you’re thinking about installing a chatbot but don’t have the money to develop one from scratch, there are a number of free or low-cost options that are also pretty easy to set up and install. Here are a few popular choices:

• ManyChat uses Facebook Messenger, a starting template and a basic drag-and-drop interface to help you create a bot for your company quickly and easily. It can also connect to software systems you already use, like Shopify and MailChimp, to improve your marketing and customer relations.
• ArtiBot is a chatbot that can help you capture leads, take payments and book appointments. It’s fast and easy to set up on platforms including Weebly, Squarespace and WordPress. All the basic tools are included free, but you can get extras like SMS notifications with a Pro plan. You can also pay the ArtiBot team to install the bot on your site for you.
• Flow XO is very easy to use (no coding required) and there’s a free version which gives you access to all of the features, but you’re limited to 500 interactions. The bot can answer questions, take payments and help capture leads – for instance, it can collect a visitor’s email address and add it to your MailChimp database. There are also paid versions starting at $19/month.

Think a chatbot might be right for your business? Need help with improving your customer communications and marketing? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

Based on my test – and knowing that clients can benefit from this new tool, too – here’s information on how to set up a poll for your LinkedIn connections (as well as a few other polling options you might want to try), some notes on what I learned from mine and a few recommendations based on the poll results.

How to set up and run a quick poll in LinkedIn

Setting up a LinkedIn poll is pretty straightforward – and you can set up a poll from either your desktop or mobile device – but LinkedIn also has a helpful FAQ page with answers about poll creation, voting and editing.

Once you’re logged into your account, you can create a poll from your LinkedIn home page, or if you’re an admin for a LinkedIn Page or a LinkedIn Group you can create a poll for those, too.

To create a poll from your home page:

1. Click on Start a post, then click on Create a poll at the bottom of the pop-up box:
2. A Create a poll window will pop up.  Here, you can type a question and fill in answer options. Note that there’s a minimum of two options and a maximum of four options per poll. You’ll also need to choose the Poll duration from the dropdown (default is set at one week).

Once this is done, you have the option to select who you want to share your poll with. I chose to ask my own connections, but there are other options too.

When you’re ready to launch, click Post. You’ll be notified (in the app) about the first and subsequent votes. If you prefer, notifications can be turned off via the Responses to your posts, comments and polls setting.

My LinkedIn poll results

For my own poll, I asked my connections to answer the question, “What is your biggest challenge in getting quality leads for your business?” and provided three answer choices. Here were the results:

Clearly, the majority of those who responded feel that reaching their target market is the biggest challenge in getting leads, so we’ll take another look at this below.

Other polling places

By the way, LinkedIn isn’t the only place where you can take a poll or quick survey. In fact, you can take polls now in Zoom meetings, during Facebook Live events (as well as run polls on brand awareness if you’re running Facebook Ads), and in MailChimp, just to name a few. All of these platforms help provide options for learning more about your team, customers and prospects.

A few tips on reaching your target market

I learned something from my poll (and that’s the goal after all, right?): My connections were concerned about reaching their target market. So, on that note, here are a few tips and recommendations:

• Know who your target market is (and is not) – Even though in my poll, people said that identifying their target market wasn’t their biggest concern, it’s critical to know. Many businesses make the mistake of thinking that their products or services are for everyone, but this is rarely the case. You need to define your target audience(s) very carefully and specifically in terms of age, location, income, role, etc. Knowing your target market is key to creating and delivering communications and marketing campaigns that speak to them directly.
• Know their needs – What are the problems and pain points of your target group(s)? How does your product or service solve their problems? You may need to ask them directly (or, how about taking a poll?). Once you know their struggles, you’ll know where to direct your focus and communicate with them, showing that you understand them, their needs and concerns and want to help them find a solution.
• Know where they ‘hang out’ – What media do they use? Television? Radio? Newspapers? Facebook? Online search? What events do they go to?  What trade associations might they belong to? Once you know where your target market is most likely to go for information (where they ‘hang out’) you can better select advertising and communication methods and use these accordingly.

Need help creating a poll, learning more about or reaching your target marketing? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

I meet with business owners like you regularly, and everyone wants to know about the latest website design trends or Facebook algorithm or SEO hacks.

But there’s something way more important than any of this — and that’s getting the basics right.

I recently met with a restaurant owner who didn’t understand why his lunchtime trade was so slow. I looked him up online and, according to both his website and Google listing, the restaurant was closed for lunch. Luckily, this is an easy fix but it left me wondering how something this basic had gone below their radar.

Keeping your information up-to-date is vital. This is especially true for opening hours and contact details — how will people get in touch otherwise? How will customers know you’re open? Especially when so many people are using their mobile phone to get directions and make calls to businesses – information needs to be to hand, and accurate.

Here are five more marketing basics to prioritise right now:

1. Mobile-Friendly Website

How does your website look when you browse it on your mobile? With 71% of Australian smartphone users browsing the Internet on their phones daily, this is so important.

Not compatible with mobile? Website visitors are unlikely to stick around — which means you’re losing potential customers.

2. Basic SEO

Search Engine Optimisation sometimes seems like another buzzword, but it is important.

The good news is, the basics are straightforward to implement. Make sure your website is set up correctly and contains engaging and unique content. High-quality content that recognises and helps solve the problems of your target market is key.

If you can find time to blog (like I’m doing now), that’s a bonus!

3. Google My Business

Google My Business is a service offered by Google to help you engage potential customers.

The best part is it’s free (at the moment), so make sure you claim and make the most out of your listing — start by adding your correct opening hours!

4. Know Your Customers

Any good marketing strategy starts with an understanding of the target customers. This will impact everything else you do, so it’s worth spending some time getting it right.

Write it down, print it out and stick it on your wall. Make sure everything you do is focused on them – don’t get distracted.

5. Start an Email List

An email list is one of the most valuable marketing assets any business can have.

Use it to stay in touch with your customers, focusing on providing value over the hard sell. Remember — people don’t like to be sold to, so you need to think about the kind of content and messages your target market want to read.

Are you struggling to find time to do it all yourself? Get in touch to find out how we can help.

Google initially launched voice search in 2012, but it’s really taken off in the past couple of years, especially with the release of personal assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa and Echo, and Google Home. In fact, ComScore suggests that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. (This sounds a little high to me.)

For local businesses, voice search has grown exponentially. Google has reported a 900% increase in “near me / today” searches in the past two years – and they also found that searchers are three times more likely to use voice than text searches to find local businesses and ask for local directions.

Why the increase? For one, it’s easier and faster to ask for help out loud rather than typing a search term or request, especially when you’re on the go with mobile devices. You can ask your smartphone a question or get help no matter where you are.

So how does the rise in voice search affect marketing?

In short, if you’re offering products or services for sale directly to consumers (B2C), you need to consider how potential customers will use voice search to find you. While ALL businesses need to think about voice search, it’s critical for local retailers in particular because Google tracks users’ locations and offers results near them when they’re looking for lunch, a haircut, coffee, etc.

Tips on optimising for voice search 

With all that in mind, here are four tips for optimising your website content for voice search:

1. Answer questions in your keyword phrases – Unlike text searches, when people type in a few words like ‘buy garden gloves,’ voice searchers tend to use complete, long-tail phrases and questions such as, “Where can I buy gardening gloves near me?” or “How much do gardening gloves cost?” Therefore, when deciding which keywords or phrases you want to include, think about what questions your potential customers have and how you can answer questions and solve problems within this context.
2. Location, location, location – If you’re a local business, think about what major landmarks you’re near and which neighbourhood or district you’re in. These may be useful in helping people find you. Got a salon right near the University of Adelaide campus? Own a café near Victoria Square or in Parkside? Consider adding these terms to your meta descriptions or on your home page, contact page or FAQ page in order to help Google and local searchers find you.
3. Check your Analytics and Ads results – Another good tip is to check your Google Analytics and Google Ads results. See which keywords or phrases searchers are using to find you. Unfortunately, Google Analytics won’t show you all the keywords used by searchers, but you can still get an idea of what’s bringing people to your site. Look at the search terms for help in crafting your content.
4. Claim your Google My Business (GMB) listing – If you haven’t already set up a Google My Business listing, now is the time. In voice searches for local businesses, Google shows GMB listings first in response to enquiries. In fact, searchers may never get to your website at all, but if they see your phone number, hours, and address on a Google map (as well as some positive Google reviews), they’re much more likely to call or stop by.
   

Need help optimising your website or improving your content? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

Not surprisingly, the 2018 Yellow Social Media Report, notes that the number of Australian businesses with a social media presence has hit an all-time high. Facebook remains the most popular platform (about 90% of businesses surveyed are using it), with LinkedIn and Instagram following (second- and third-most popular, depending on business size).

The most popular reasons for social activity? Advertising and promotion were listed as the most popular, followed by customer interaction and contact.  However, remember that customers look at it the opposite way. They want to communicate and interact with just a touch of selling so it’s really important to get the right mix.

If you’re not already getting social with your customers, it’s time.

Which platform?

The golden rule when deciding what social media platform(s) to be on is to think about your target markets: what social media platforms are they on?  To help you work this out, the 2018 Yellow Social Media Report on consumers may be useful.  It provides insights into consumer social media behaviour, the technology and platforms people are using, and when and why they’re connecting.

Tools to help you plan and organise

Social media does take time and planning. One of the best ways to ensure that you’re posting on a regular basis is to include social media as part of your overall marketing plan. That way, you can ensure that you’re posting about events and sales before they happen and don’t forget to share news with your audience in a timely manner.

To help with planning, I’ve put together a free marketing calendar template that you can download and use to schedule all your promotional events for the year, including all social posts. You can customise the template in Excel and adjust it to your needs.

You may also want to consider something like Hootsuite to help you stay on track. Hootsuite is an online social media planning tool that lets you organise and report on all your social media activity, as well as calculate ROI. You can also schedule posts in advance and create assignments for teams.

With Hootsuite, you can try any plan for free for 30 days, and there’s a basic free plan that allows you to manage up to 3 social accounts; more robust plans are available for a monthly fee.

But what about content?

Worried about what to post? Many businesses struggle to come up with enough things to share. Plus, with so many businesses out there angling for the attention of their followers, how do you make sure your efforts aren’t wasted?

Here are a few tips for creating engaging content and working posts into your overall strategy:

1. Add photos, videos & images — Including an image with your text post catches the eye of your followers and helps them engage with and remember your post. Photos and videos are common, but infographics are also great to include because they combine visual interest with information. In fact, infographics are liked and shared on social media 3X more than other any other type of content.
2. Use live video (wisely) — If you read our post on Facebook Live, you know that it can be a great tool – IF used appropriately. You need to practice with this tool, have a good reason to use it and notify followers in advance about the event so you’ll get as much engagement as possible.Think about a way to use Facebook Live that will provide something of value to your viewers so it’s worth their time to tune in. Use it as a chance to answer questions, promote a new product or service, or get feedback from customers.  Don’t forget about YouTube Live, too.
3. Repurpose and link to content — Social media posts are a great way to take people to your website, as well as repurpose other content you’re creating. Remember, social media is about engaging with audiences, so it’s a great way to provide additional information they may be looking for.When you build your strategic plan, look for ways to create social posts that tie into your other marketing efforts. You can also edit text you write or use photos you take for your website, news releases or sales promotions and use them to create quick posts.

The B2Me Experience

Now we’re in the Age of the Individual and customer-led experience, social media has become even more important. It’s the only medium that enables one-to-one communication at scale.  B2Me personalisation is about creating unique experiences that are interesting and timely for the individual.  In social media terms this means that messaging is gaining increasing popularity.  This year, the number of users on messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp grew twice as fast as users on Facebook.  These apps offer fantastic opportunities for brands to establish meaningful conversations and should also be considered as part of your social media strategy.

Need help setting up your accounts or putting together a social media strategy? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

Download Template

Marketing calendars: Why and how

Creating a marketing calendar is one of the best ways to visualise everything that needs to be done. A good marketing calendar serves as a blueprint for the year, helping identify what messaging you will create, what channels you will use and what your biggest priorities are.

While it takes some time to fill out everything in the beginning, it’s an incredibly valuable tool that ensures nothing is forgotten, all the important tasks are included and assigned, and that you’ve budgeted appropriately for each item.

Marketing calendars also help you plan backwards from important events so you get better turnout and response from customers. For instance, if you have major sales around the holidays, you can schedule pre-sale social media posts that are coordinated with email campaigns, website updates, postcards (with plenty of time to design, print and mail) so that customers keep your offers top-of-mind during the busy buying season.

Free download to get you started

To eliminate some of the pain of getting started, I’ve created an Excel file template for 2018-19 that you can access for free.  It runs from July 2018 to June 2019 and includes rows for every week of the year, along with columns for all major marketing areas such as social media posts, email campaigns, press releases, events and much more.  You can reuse it each year too (just change the date in the top row).

Please note that this template is meant to be a starting point for you and your team. Your needs may be different, so you can add or remove columns as you go.

Download Template

Remember, too, that priorities and activities sometimes change during the year, and that’s fine. You may decide that you’re doing too much, need to eliminate some things or get some help and outsource some of your marketing. You can always adjust your plan as you start to see what’s working and what’s not.

Need help putting together your marketing calendar or reaching your goals? Contact Breathe Marketing today.

In addition to building an easy-to-find and easy-to-use website, one great way to make sure Google knows about your company is to get a free listing on Google My Business.  It’s a no-brainer method to get in front of your customers – and you don’t even need to earn your way there with SEO or buy your way with Google Ads – you just need to own a business that has some face-to-face interaction with customers (eg. you can’t operate 100% online).  No online strategy is complete without Google My Business (GMB) and there are new features you need to know about.

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free tool you can use to help manage your business’ online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. In short, it’s Google’s local business listing management system.  If you don’t have a free listing for your business yet, you can get started at google.com/business. You can also download Google’s free mobile app, which allows you to update your listing from any mobile device.

Once you create a listing, you’ll need to verify it to prove that your business really exists in the location you say it does. You have a few options – including email, phone or using your Google Search Console listing – but most companies choose to verify by mail.

Why is Google My Business so important?

If you’ve created a GMB listing and people search for your business name, Google will provide that information immediately on the first page, as you can see from my example below:

Aside from the benefits this can bring (people can call you, get directions, see your opening hours, etc.) it also means they can leave your business a review, which is great for your digital footprint (more on this here).  Also, if you don’t fill out all your business information, someone else could, because anyone can suggest an edit to your business listing . . . including unhappy customers or your competitors. So make sure you take the time to complete all the information you can.

What’s new: Posts, Booking Buttons & More

Just as Google regularly updates their algorithm to improve the search experience for users, they also make regular changes and improvements to business listings. Some of the most recent changes they’ve made to GMB have to do with their desire to optimise search results and answer as many questions as possible within those results.  Here are some of the new features to consider:

1. Posts – posts are a new feature that you can use to write text, add an image or video clip and a call-to-action to your GMB listing. These can be used for events, sales, promotions, products, blog posts, or any type of announcement. Posts ‘go dark’ after seven days but give you a chance to change things up regularly so your customers have the latest information about what’s going on at your business (and old posts are still there, they just get moved down).
2. Photos and videos – you can now add more photos and even video to your GMB listing. Google reports that businesses with photos receive 42% more requests for driving directions and 35% more click-throughs to their websites. Create high-quality, engaging images to help draw customers in and refresh them regularly. Name, tag and describe your images and videos as well as geotag them to help with your SEO.
3. Make a booking – bookings are another new feature that’s now available. If your business relies on customers making appointments – such as a hair salon or massage therapist – and you use connected scheduling software, clients can book appointments directly from your GMB listing. This feature makes it really easy to get new customers, because they don’t even have to leave Google search to book an appointment!
4. Owner identity attributes – Google has added new owner identity attributes that allow you to let people know immediately if you are a female-led or veteran-led local business. The information gets added next to other details about your business such as if you have wi-fi, accessible seating, take reservations, etc. This could be meaningful to some potential customers and one to keep an eye on as Google says that it will be adding more over time.

There are many ways to optimise your Google My Business listing and best of all, they’re all free!  If you need any help, contact Breathe Marketing today.