In this segment, Cloud Wise Joe and Chauncey help businesses become found the way they want to be found. Joe prompts these businesses to ask themselves if they are being found by consumers the way they need to be or if they even know where to start.
Joe: Welcome back to The Being Found Show. This is the best two hours of radio for business. You know what I want to go over some of the technical stuff and you know I want to go into some of the tactics. But also I see a lot of trouble for business around strategy and around prioritization. I can’t tell you, I’ve probably lost count how many businesses are spending money on online marketing or marketing in general and they haven’t stopped to prioritize. At what stage are they having to prioritize really what path this customer is going to take to buy from them.
And they haven’t prioritized where the problem spot is or where the opportunity is to be found by a customer. So it’s kind of all over the map. “I need a website, I need ad words on Facebook, I need this and I need Pinterest, I need whatever.” But what I almost never see is, “Do my customers know who I am. Can my customers find me right? What are customers looking for.” So what I thought we’d do is, basically as a business before you waste any more money on marketing what I want you to do is figure out where you’re at and who you are in being found. And so I’ve got a series of questions here and the questions are almost in priority levels so.
So if I want the business to ask themselves questions and we’ll ask ourselves these questions to Chauncey. And if you find that you’ve answered one of the questions and you’re not being found for that then stop there and work on that part because. So here’s one, are you being found when someone knows your company name? And you know I hear this a lot where businesses say, “well I get my customers from word of mouth or because I do such a good job,” which is all true. I mean I think that’s probably the best place to be. But when somebody knows you and loves you and wants to tell their friend about you, can they go online and find your business hours? Can they go online and find you online? So that they can say, “This company right here is my carpet cleaner. This is the contractor I use.” Right, Let’s be realistic. How big of fans do you think these guys are of you that they know your address and phone number off the top of their head and they’re going to call and follow up with everybody to make sure that they call the right carpet cleaner.
Chauncey: Now they’re going to tell them the name and that person is going to go google it. I mean that’s just the reality. Right. So you know when I’m talking about, this sure it would be great if you’re found on Pinterest, and sure it would be great if you’re found on Facebook. But what I wanted to do is I want you to think the opposite way. I want you to think about intimacy because the more intimate someone is with you, as a business., the more specific they are about who you are and how they’re going to talk about you, how they’re going to look for you or share you and you want those people who are most intimate with you to find you.
Joe: So one of the things you want to do is ask, are you being found when someone knows your name? Let’s go over there a little bit. So first off one of the ways you can figure this out obviously is to Google yourself. I want to talk about three places that you can do this. When you Google yourself, you want to see hopefully you show up in two places. You want to show up in organic search. You want to show up on those maps and you want to show up on the right side that you use all the time when you’re looking for a business. Mr. Smith is a business owner that’s got the business hours and the phone. You want to show up in those three places if you’re not, just take a break from spending money on your marketing and let’s get you found right then and there. Right. Do you agree or disagree?
Chauncey: Well absolutely because let’s say we put an ad in the paper and I don’t carry the paper around in my back pocket. But if I thought of somebody, I might remember the name. Let’s say you put it out on the radio. I didn’t write it on my hands so that I can call later but I might remember the name right. You know let’s say I stumbled across the search result and I liked it. And a week later I’m thinking about using it. I didn’t bookmark the website but I might remember the name.
Joe: That’s right. And this can be a challenge you know. As I was preparing for the show I tested myself and you know Being Found Show is a big concept and the name is used in a lot of different places. I don’t come up very well, yet for our show, the website and show are fairly new but I have to go to work at making sure that I am being found for being found. Right. And so it is what it is.
Chauncey: Well what we’re doing is a lot different than a local business. Yeah. You know let’s say your business is called A1 Lawn Maintenance. How many A1 lawn maintenances do you think there are across the country. There’s one in every city. Right. So if I’m searching from Redding I’m going to get the one in Redding. If I’m searching from Nashville I’m going to get the one in Nashville and so locally is a little bit different than what we’re doing here. We’re National, we’re worldwide, we’re blowing it up. Yet we can’t be found for being found.
Joe: Yeah that’s right. We’re getting there but hey that’s the deal, it is what it is. And so that’s what I’m focusing on as a company so you know I’m doing what I say. OK, so that’s the first thing let’s prioritize your marketing so that you’re figuring out if you’re being found. What about when somebody knows they need your products? So let’s use the famous carpet cleaning. Right. All right. So we’ve got A1 carpet cleaning we’re being found for that. But now there’s this next layer of intimacy.
Prioritize and do what you have to do to be found. For people who know the next step down what if they need your product. They know they need carpet cleaning. Right. Are you being found when people in Redding are looking for carpet cleaning?
It is Google. But I want to back out a little further from that. Are you being found? Google yourself, right. Because you’re going to want to look and see if you show up on what you call the Knowledge Graph. You want to show up on the maps, the organic, and you’ll show up at the right side. Ideally, if you won carpet cleaning your business is the one who shows up on the right side. But there are a lot of other places that are going to help you be found like your Facebook profile, like Yelp, like Yellow Pages, online. Listen there’s a lot of directories that are trying to figure out how to display carpet cleaners for users in Google and places like that and so you got to ask yourself if someone looks for those products are those monster websites going to work, helping you be found when people are looking for those products?
Chauncey: Yeah absolutely and what those are really going to do especially for local businesses is they are going to get you into the map pack. So the map pack is when you get a nice little map above the search results and the organic stuff underneath it. If you’re number one in the organic but you’re not in the map pack that might sound great. But your average visitor isn’t registering it that way. What they’re seeing is the three results above you in the map pack in the area.
Joe: People are using their cell phones which means that map pack takes up the whole darn phone. And just think about your own psychology when you go to look for something. That map that pops up you just automatically consider that those are my options. Right. Psychologically you think that somehow the whole world figured out that that must be all my options are my best options and you pick from that map pack.
