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The 2020 Tree Service Internet Marketing Plan

Growing a tree service business is not easy. It may require a substantial marketing investment to get a head start in establishing a foothold in the market. However, with the advancement in technology, many tree care businesses have in Internet marketing to promote their services online to potential clients. Read more

Online Marketing Trends to Grow Your Tree Care Business

Online Marketing Trends to Grow Your Tree Care Business

The online marketplace continues to rise in recent years. Competing with other local businesses can be tough. That is why as an arborist running his own tree care business, taking a 360-degree view on how to successfully grow and differentiate your business. At the end of the day, it is all about ensuring a positive and memorable customer service in the world of fierce business competition.

A strong online presence, building a stable team of trustworthy professionals, and fine-tuning your digital marketing are not new in online marketing strategies but just mere table stakes or minimum requirements for a business arrangement. Read more

How Digital Marketing Strategies Work Together to Create a Solid Online Marketing Campaign

To someone who has limited experience, digital marketing can be overwhelming.  Digital marketing campaigns generally consist of multiple strategies, and if you are not familiar with how these strategies work together, you may not know where to begin.

Successful digital marketing campaigns may include strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, email marketing, and social media marketing that work together to help achieve the desired marketing goals.

It is important to know how each of these strategies can benefit your digital marketing campaign on their own, as well as how they complement each other to increase your brand awareness and visibility online, drive more traffic, and ultimately increase conversions.

With so many strategies that comprise a successful internet marketing campaign, it is common for businesses to be overwhelmed and confused about which strategies they should use and how these different strategies complement each other.

In this guide, we will cover the main strategies that make up a successful digital marketing campaign and explain how these different strategies can work together to achieve your marketing goals.

Why is Digital Marketing Important?

Digital marketing is extremely important because much of the buyer’s journey takes place online.  People begin searching for a product or service on search engines and video sites like YouTube, and eventually move to deeper research that includes reading blogs, reviews, and what people are saying on social media.

The following graph from Vendasta shows the steps of the customer journey as well as the actions that consumers take online in each step:

Graph from: https://www.vendasta.com/blog/following-modern-customer-journey

This graph is an excellent representation of how the different facets of your digital marketing program can work together to increase leads and conversions.  As the potential buyer moves through the decision-making process, they will encounter different aspects of your digital marketing presence.

In the early steps, a consumer may become aware of your product or service through social media, email marketing, or YouTube videos.  As they become more interested, they will search for the product or service and come across your paid ads, Google listings, blogs, social media posts, and reviews.

If your business does not have a strong online presence, then consumers are more likely to come across your competitors on the buyer’s journey.  A solid digital marketing campaign will help ensure that consumers encounter your business through each step of the decision-making process.

Digital Marketing Strategies

It is important for businesses to understand the following digital marketing strategies and how they work together to drive traffic, leads, and conversions:

  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Content marketing
  • Online advertising (PPC)
  • Email marketing
  • Social media marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

An effective digital marketing plan starts with good search engine optimization.  A study by Forrester found that 71 percent of consumers start their customer journey by searching for products and services on search engines like Google. 

This makes it very important to ensure that your website is properly optimized to rank well in Google for the keywords related to your products or services.  SEO itself consists of many facets to ensure your website is properly optimized, including:

  • Title tags and meta descriptions with relevant keywords
  • Alt text for images
  • Landing pages for each product or service you offer
  • Quality content, including product/ service pages and blogs
  • On site and off site links
  • Fast loading time and full functionality for mobile users

All of these factors will help boost the rankings of your website in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and establish authority with Google.  This will help generate high quality organic leads through Google search.

Businesses that are not sure how to properly optimize their website can work with a digital marketing agency that provides SEO services.

Content Marketing

Quality content has always been at the heart of good online marketing and this is not going to change any time soon.  Every facet of digital marketing, including SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, and online ads rely on quality content to be successful.

Google algorithms have become sophisticated enough to recognize quality content that provides value to your audience.  The days of keyword stuffing are long gone, you must create well-written content that is useful and original.

When creating content, you must consider what type of information your audience values as well as which stage of the buyer’s journey that your audience will encounter this content. The content in your emails, social media posts, and blogs should look different to reflect the stage of the buyer’s journey.

Online Advertising: PPC and Social Media Ads

This may seem counterintuitive but paid online advertising with pay-per-click (PPC) ads and ads on social media can complement your SEO.  SEO strategies, while effective, take some time to start producing results.  Online ads help speed up the process and give you instant online presence.

PPC ads created through Google Ads appear on top of all search results when users search for the targeted keywords. Usually users encounter PPC ads early in the buyer’s journey and while they don’t often result in a sale, they do drive traffic to your website.

This video from StrategyBeam contains a more thorough explanation of how PPC ads can complement your SEO marketing strategies.

Social media advertising is another form of online advertising to consider.  Your social media ads may not result in an immediate sale, but they can help get more followers who will then see your social media posts.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an effective way for businesses to increase their brand awareness online and attract more online traffic and quality sales leads.  Social media also provides a platform in which your customers can interact with your business directly.

There are many social media platforms that your business can engage with including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.  It helps to know which social media platforms your audience prefers so you can find them and engage with them.

Facebook is an important platform for increasing your brand awareness as according to statistics from the Pew Research Center, 68 percent of adults in the U.S. have Facebook profiles.  A good presence on Facebook can help you reach a wider audience.

You can use social media platforms to engage with your audience through posts and paid ads, and social media can also be used to promote other aspects of your digital marketing campaign.  Using social share buttons on your product web pages, blogs, YouTube videos, and more helps visitors promote your content and brings more traffic to your website.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an important aspect of successful digital marketing campaigns because it allows you to send exclusive offers and promotional content directly to your audience.  However, you need to build a list of email addresses for this tactic to be effective.

The previously discussed digital marketing tactics play a major role in helping your business build a list of email addresses.  Effective SEO, content marketing, PPC ads, and social media presence will bring more people to your website who are likely to subscribe and provide you with their email addresses.

You can also upload your email list to Facebook to build a custom audience and make Facebook ads specifically for this group.

Email marketing will not generate new leads, but rather help you retain the customers who are already interested in your business.   In March 2016, 80 percent of retail professionals surveyed by eMarketer responded that email marketing is excellent for customer retention. 

According to Colin Nederkoorn, the founder of Customer.io, “If you’re running a real business, email is still the most effective way to universally reach people who have expressed interest in your product or site.  For that, it really can’t be beaten.”

There are several types of marketing emails you can send your email list to help retain customers and generate leads:

  • Welcome emails for new subscribers
  • Newsletters to keep subscribers updated on your business
  • Promotional content for new products, services, sales, or discounts
  • Information about special events
  • Promotion for social media campaigns

Digital Marketing: Putting it All Together

When forming a digital marketing campaign, it helps to think of each strategy as a different component of the same campaign instead of thinking of them as separate stand-alone strategies.  There are many opportunities for the different facets of a digital marketing campaign to work together and complement each other.

The importance of a good digital marketing campaign cannot be overstated.  The majority of consumers start their buyer’s journey with a Google search, and as they continue this journey, they will encounter your blogs, social media posts, videos, and paid ads.

If your company is not visible online in the most crucial stages of the customer journey, you will lose quality leads to your competitors.

Putting together an effective digital marketing campaign can be difficult for some businesses to handle on their own.  If your business does not have the resources or expertise to create and implement an online marketing campaign, you can work with a digital marketing agency.

Digital marketing experts will take the time to understand your business, as well as your marketing goals, and form an online marketing plan that will help increase traffic, brand awareness, and quality leads. 

It’s Time to Remove That Tree: Signs to Spot

Trees provide massive benefits to any property in Toronto. We can count on the lush foliage to provide a colourful backdrop for our homes, for shelter and natural shade from the harsh sun, privacy from neighbors, and for clean air for our lungs. Summing up all these benefits, planting trees all over the neighborhood is a wise step towards living green and healthy.

However, trees become less a refuge when they start becoming weak and unhealthy. Leading factors that cause a tree to become sick are typhoons and pest infestation. In extreme (and very likely) cases, these factors can damage a tree’s branches or split the trunk of a tree, which can endanger properties, vehicles, and people.

These instances can be avoided by spotting the warning signs of an unhealthy tree. Call the nearest arborist when your tree has the following symptoms:

1. Presence of deep cracks in the trunk – Trunk health reveals a lot about the well-being of a tree. To know if a tree is unhealthy by looking at the trunk, check for deep fissures and cavities that may develop at the trunk over time. Cracks are a manifestation of a deeper problem that may impact the stability of the tree.

2. Root damage – Heavily damaged roots are also a telltale sign that it’s time to remove a tree. Weak and decayed roots indicate that a tree is not firmly attached to the ground and might fall over if not removed right away. If you see spaces between the tree and the ground or if the tree is leaning to one side, it can mean that the roots are not strong enough to hold the tree in place.

3. New branches growing at the base of the tree – New branches growing at base of a tree may seem to indicate that the tree is growing healthy, but don’t be tricked. This could actually be a sign that the tree is distressed and, as a response, has produced tiny sprouts in random places. Excavation, soil compaction, and excessive sun exposure are some of the factors that can put a tree under stress.

4. The tree is growing in close proximity to man-made structures – If the tree is already encroaching on man-made structures (e.g. a tree planted beneath power lines is already growing into them), then you need to get an arborist to remove the tree before it gets meshed in the lines. Failure to remove the tree immediately might turn your property into a fire hazard. In the same manner, trees that encroach on homes also need to be removed. A large branch might snap off and may damage your property or worse, injure somebody inside.

If you’ve spotted these signs on a tree in your property, contact an arborist near you right away to prevent any accidents or disasters from happening early on. There are various companies that offer tree removal services in Toronto that you can contact as soon as possible. Rely on the professionals to deal with the unhealthy tree in a safe manner.