How To Shine Online!

In this episode of BrandKramp™, Aileen Casey talks with David Joslin, owner of WebLight Media, about how to Shine Online. They discuss the importance of having a strong online presence and provide tips for local businesses to market themselves effectively on a budget. 

They emphasize the need for a well-designed website, reputation management, and ongoing marketing efforts. They also highlight the power of targeted advertising and the importance of customer reviews. 

Overall, the conversation emphasizes the importance of having a comprehensive online marketing strategy to stand out in the digital age.

Thanks for listening. To learn more about BrandKramp™ and for additional resources visit us at BrandKramp.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: The Importance of Shining Online
• 0:00 Introduction: The Importance of Shining Online
• 2:27 Step 1: Building a Strong Website
• 2:27 Step 1: Building a Strong Website
• 3:53 Step 2: Reputation Management and Social Media
• 3:53 Step 2: Reputation Management and Social Media
• 6:12 Creating High Conversion Landing Pages
• 6:12 Creating High Conversion Landing Pages
• 10:57 Maximizing Your Advertising Budget
• 10:57 Maximizing Your Advertising Budget
• 15:14 Competing with National Companies on a Budget
• 15:14 Competing with National Companies on a Budget
• 16:39 The Power of Targeted Advertising
• 16:39 The Power of Targeted Advertising
• 21:16 Platforms that Provide the Biggest Bang for Your Buck
• 21:16 Platforms that Provide the Biggest Bang for Your Buck
• 23:41 Tips for Local Businesses to Shine Online
• 23:41 Tips for Local Businesses to Shine Online
• 26:10 Conclusion: Consistency and Persistence in Online Marketing
• 26:10 Conclusion: Consistency and Persistence in Online Marketing

Transcript

Aileen Casey (00:26.744)

The digital age has transformed how we interact with the world, offering unprecedented access to information and reshaping industries with the rise of the internet, social media, and advanced technologies like artificial intelligence. In this episode of BrandKramp™ I talk with David Joslin, owner of WebLight Media, an online advertising agency, about how to shine online. And while I might sound like I'm in a tin can, this episode is one of my favorites. We cover a lot of ground. So, are you ready to shine online? Here we go.

Aileen Casey (01:00.462)

David and welcome to the BrandKramp™ podcast. Tell us first, tell us a little bit about yourself and your business. Hi, Eileen. Thanks for having me here. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk on BrandKramp™ I've listened to all your episodes, and I think they're awesome. Yeah. So WebLight Media is a local business marketing agency. We basically take care of online branding. We've been around since 2011.

We've got a great team of people. You can see the group up on our website. especially, you know, basically we like helping local companies grow. We like lead generation, you know, brand enforcement online, and we manage websites through social media, through ongoing advertising. Yes. And just to let everybody know how you and I know each other; we know each other because we work together, and we met each other in a networking group.

So, thank you for, for being here today. What we're going to talk about. And it's interesting. You didn't mention your tagline for your business, because it is. Exactly. So, our theme today is really how to shine online. And I know we're just scratching the surface because there are many things you can do, but today we're really going to basic on basically focus on two or three things that folks can do to help them shine online. So.

You shared a statistic with me that as of July of this year, there's about 200 million active websites. That's a lot. How can a local company be seen or shine online? Yeah, that's a great question because it is like a sea of websites on the web. And it's actually billions of websites, but only two million active websites. So, there's been a lot of iterations and people are always pumping content.

out there all the time. How do you cut through that message? And there's three basic steps for online marketing. And a lot of people look at marketing and they say, my God, it's just too complicated. There are so many different channels. It's like a 30 -leg stool you have to understand. But if you break it down on the online marketplace to three basic things, your website, your reputation management,

Aileen Casey (03:24.214)

And then ongoing marketing, then you can really kind of understand. And what I mean by that is like picture, picture it's the planet, right? That the internet is the world, right? And your website is your business in the world, right? It's kind of your business is home. So, it's your building and that building and all the content in it, talk about your brand and who you are and what you do. And that's step one is to get that basic.

website with branded boom, that's done. And then step two is your reputation. So, you walk out your door and you go to dinner or you, you know, you go to a concert, or you see people on the street, and you want them to recognize you know what you're doing, know what you're about and have a great reputation with reviews, things like that. Right. So that's your listings, your, your business listings and your social media sites. And then on the third step, and we're kind of condensing this to really simple here, right.

The third step is paid ads and ongoing marketing. So, once you've done that, you've got your website all set up. People understand your brand through your social media. They know that you've got a lot of quality and things like that. Now it's worth maybe paying some money to send some people there to your site to understand a little bit more about what you do. And when you think about the sales funnel, you want to get that awareness. people...

People are aware of you through the ads, or they stumble across you on the internet. They see interest and then consideration intent and then some kind of purchase or collecting information from that customer. Yeah. So, one of the things or the main thing that I tell any one of my clients before they work with me is I ask them if they have a website. Because I think that's the number one investment a business owner.

should make when they're starting to promote their business. You and I have a distinction. You do online marketing. I do print marketing. Although we do have some crossover. You know, from my perspective, the very first, if anybody is starting a business or has a business, their website is the most important aspect of their brand and of their business. So, everybody has their website. They designed it maybe 20 years ago.

Aileen Casey (05:43.038)

And then what folks will say to me is, I have this really nice website, but you know what? It doesn't really bring in customers. So, let's talk a little bit about that. You have this website; you've invested in it. It's out there. You're promoting it on your collateral and your material, but you're telling me, hey, it's not doing anything for me. So why does that happen? Or what needs to be done? Yeah. you know, the thing with the internet is, it's the, know, MTV generation is going,

you know, a long, long time ago. Now it's the quick, quick, quick internet generation where you basically have three seconds to tell your pitch, to let them know who you are, what you do. And you really got to grab them. You got to grab them, and you got to keep them. So, you need some kind of interactive website. You need motion. You need, you know, before you even start to tell your story, you need to catch them to let you know they're in the right place. You know, your main menu has to have information. The main menu items.

what people first look at. come to a site, they see the logo, the tagline right underneath that is that main menu. That main menu has to have things that they want there or they're going to leave. Okay. So, you want to grab them, you want to keep them and that's your brand story, right? Your logo and your tagline, your menu and then basically the paragraphs as you go down the website. Now you're scrolling down the website, and you want to think about that story, and you want, you know,

Is it a long website where you ask them to pitch at the bottom to have a contact? Or is it a quick one? Like an emergency website where that's right up on top. It's like, hey, contact us. Don't even look at the website. Just call us right now. If it's a plumber's with a busted pipe or something like that. So, you need to think about that, and you have to think about your audience. The other thing is that.

Every page on the website needs to be that high conversion landing page. Just like I kind of outlined the homepage, every page needs to be like that because you're going to be ranked on Google for content on your site. And hopefully you've got, you know, a good scores of web pages on your site with content. And when you do, people are going to land on that specific page. So, you need to make sure that call to action is on, or if it's, I don't know if it's a call to action or giveaway.

Aileen Casey (08:01.15)

or some kind of intelligent lead generation form, all of those need to be on all pages of the site. is that, would they be the elements of what you would consider a high conversion landing page? So just explain that a little bit because our listeners might think it's a specific kind of page or they will want to look at their website to understand if their pages are high conversion landing pages. So, can you talk a little bit about that? What makes them high conversion? Right, so high conversion landing page means

that when a potential customer lands on the page, you've done everything you can to keep them on that page, get them to complete the call to action, whatever that is. The elements that break down there are, know, get that phone number and the email address and your social media right up on top. So, they can contact you even if, you know, they just land, they're like, yep, that's my company. And then you just pick up and call. Cause a lot of people like to call, right?

Keep that form. You don't want to do a hard sale necessarily, but at least some kind of contact us right below the fold so they can say, okay, maybe I don't want to call, but maybe I like filling out forms. And then as you go down, consider a giveaway, something that they need to give you their email address to take. And then

Intelligent lead generation forms are simple questions that people like to answer, but then move to another form that then moves to another form. All of a sudden, they've vested time into your website. Now they're like, you know, I spent three minutes filling out this form already. This is really good stuff. It sounds like they really want to hear what I have to say. Maybe I'll continue, you know, and contact them. But it started with just a simple question, you know? That's really cool. Yeah, like that. That's really cool. forms are neat.

And then, yeah, so that's really a way you can get your website to first get more attention, get people to stop, right? The goldfish. Goldfish have an attention span of three seconds, and internet browsers users are less than that, right? So, you have to appeal to that three second crowd. And then once they're there, get them to flow down the page and get that call to action to convert that.

Aileen Casey (10:27.712)

landing page. now that someone has their beautiful website with their high conversion landing pages and things, how can a local business who you and I support, and we know that budgeting is very important for them. How can they market themselves on a budget online? How would they even begin that? Yeah. Yeah. And those online marketing strategies and search engine optimization strategies,

with an ad spend are incredibly frustrating, you know, because I'll go to the, I'll watch the Superbowl and GoDaddy giving away free websites with free email and free hosting. And, you know, it's all free. And they're telling the entire, you know, the entire state, United States that their stuff is free and there it is. And how do you compete against that? Right. And that's a marketing budget. That's like a national marketing budget. And

you know, hopefully people understand that free website really means a free website builder. And you guess basically are getting a tool that you can build a website yourself. So, it's kind of like getting a free hammer from Home Depot and building houses. You know, it's like, they're not, you know, and you can listen, and you can learn all about it. You know, you can, they'll give you a blogs and tutorials and how to do this and that. And absolutely you can do that.

And, you know, I encourage people that are getting started to do something like that, you know, if they have the time and they're creative, but how do you, how do you compete against that when people just, you know, it's their default. and the thing you want to do is you want to have an online marketing strategy and Aileen, this is, you know, one of the things you're particularly good at is that it's not just one item that you do, right? It's a, it's a group of items. So, there's not just one silver bullet for marketing, but

that you need to, you need to go through and try different things and work on different things until you find your own personal silver bullet for marketing. So, all the different times we've worked together, we found that. And I remember one client we worked together with, we ended up being, we tried everything. We tried ads, we tried websites and all sorts of things. In the end, it was their reviews. you know, generated a hundred reviews for them within a year and a half.

Aileen Casey (12:52.102)

and they were rocketing. Their industry was, you know, it was an insurance industry, and they didn't even, and access benefits industry. And they just even have competitors that were even trying for reviews. So, you come across the site, and it was like, wow, this, you know, this company is doing really good. It's a reputation as somebody we can trust. Well, well, let's be real about that client and let's just provide a little bit of detail because.

They were recently sucked up by a larger national entity and all of the businesses that were brought in underneath the national entity had to migrate to the national entity's website and online marketing. But because you and I, with the direction of their general manager, because we did such a good job with not only the website, but the content that is on the website, the blog.

the review process, social media, email marketing and those types of things, they were allowed to keep their brand and their website and all of the online marketing that we do for them because it performed so well. And to me, like, that's the optimal way to market yourself. And know, we're talking about Shining Online in a very simple way, but know, maybe in our next session together, we can really talk about

like the comprehensive plan, how you can really do it to be online and have a presence that is engaging and works because they are one of the few clients that I have that actually get leads from their website. Yeah. Well, you know, it's always great when you have a client, a meeting with a client and they say, hey, you know, the entire country is merging into one big website, but we get to keep ours because of the work done. was a, that was a great little Christmas dinner we had.

I know, right? It's like, OK, let's pour another glass of wine and celebrate. I know. And again, one of the things that I always talk about too is that collaboration is key. And it just so happens that the client is spectacular. And she is just so smart and allows us to do what we do and provides fantastic direction and everything, like a dream client kind of thing. So, let's talk a little bit about advertising.

Aileen Casey (15:14.462)

And you go and you drive your car, and you see billboards on the major highways. As you mentioned, you're watching cable television and you see ads that pop in, you know, that tell you, should be buying your widget from X, Y, and Z. If you're a local business and don't have an advertising budget like that, like, let's talk a little bit about how can you compete with them? Like what tools can they use? What strategies can they use to get in the game?

Yeah, I think I just saw Mike Tyson is out on a billboard promoting a local company. I'm like, don't know if we can get Mike, or maybe we can get, you know, maybe I'm Not just a company, an attorney. Maybe we have some connections, right? Right. Right. But no, you can't do that. A local business isn't going to be able to get that kind of a national budget.

And, and know, a lot of startup companies, small businesses are small business. The word small is in there for a reason. And, but there is the, the internet has really provided this wonderful tool to be able to compete that and compete on a local scale with within a budget. that's effective targeted marketing. Okay. When you target your demographic for marketing. So, billboards are shown to everyone, right?

and they pay for everybody to see that billboard. But most businesses have a targeted demographic. Now, you could say, say you're a plumber, like, hey, I don't have a targeted demographic. Everybody needs a plumber, anybody that owns a home or has a building. Yeah, that's true. But are they actually looking for the service? So, you don't want to pay to put an advertisement in front of someone unless they're looking for a service, right? So how do you do that?

So, the easiest, the most effective way is through targeting that marketing. And you can target through right down to the zip code, right? So, you want people in a certain zip code. You can say any demographic, male, female, the cost of their home, their interests, all those different targeting marketing things. But then the interesting thing is with search marketing, and it seems like a really basic thing, but it actually saves companies tons and tons and tons of cash is that unless you say,

Aileen Casey (17:39.04)

water damage cleanup, you don't see the ad, right? So, unless your keyword is, hey, I need water damage cleanup in my area, you're not going to see that ad. So, you're not serving it to everybody. You're only serving it to that. You've narrowed the target demographic down, and then it's just to the people that are looking for that service. And that's the real leveler. That's the one that balances the scales with the big companies and the little companies.

Aileen Casey (18:19.106)

I do print advertising with clients and that's relatively easy to understand. You're developing an ad; it's running in a publication that has a specific distribution and you're sort of buying that. know, online marketing is a completely different animal. And is it something that you feel a business owner can do themselves or do they really need to find someone who knows what they're doing to help? Because I can tell you, like I did a Google ad campaign and it freaked me out because it is, you really need to know.

what you're doing or it could be expensive. Right. So, you know, there's the set it and forget it platforms. Yeah. And what they want you to do is set it and forget it. And they don't want that monthly meeting or that bi -monthly meeting where you're getting down and you're, you're looking at what, you know, what happened on the ground? Did you get any leads? How's the business doing? You know that you really want to pick a company that's going to give you a monthly meeting and then actually say,

How would things go? And ask you that question. Now, I don't want you to sell yourself short, Aileen, because we have a company that's trying to appeal on a national level for healthcare marketing services. And it's a really high level, and they're going for a very, very specific demographic. And you have been working with them on a LinkedIn campaign. that's true. That's true. Where the targeting is insane.

picking through LinkedIn, just through what people put on LinkedIn, we are getting down into individual companies, right, with individual titles and individual businesses in these industries that are just impossible to reach through any other. Facebook can't do it. Facebook and Instagram can't do it. Bing ads certainly can't do it. Google ads can't do it. We found the specific platform that works for this specific client.

and you've just been shining on that job. And you know, that's a really good point because I think about, it's hysterical because I think anything that I do is easy. I'm like, anyone can do it. And this stuff I can't do is very complicated because I can't do it. But you bring up a very good point. You know, it's platform oriented. So, you have Google, you have SEO, you have Facebook, you have LinkedIn, you have various platforms. And I think as a business owner,

Aileen Casey (20:46.186)

And we sort of touched on a little bit, know, social media is very important. It's important to be on social media for many reasons. But if you want to advertise, you can advertise on all of those platforms and it's relatively inexpensive. I think where it becomes more expensive is when you have that comprehensive marketing plan that includes an ad spend across all of those platforms and with Google and with Google ads and SEO and that kind of stuff. So yeah, and so

You're a local business. Where do you think that business should be? Where's the biggest bang for the buck in your mind? You know, the biggest bang for the buck first is you have to be proud of what you're doing, right? You have to, you have to be proud of your brand because if you're not proud of your brand, you're going to shy away from all sorts of marketing opportunities. You know, you're going to say, but I don't really want to put $5 a week into Facebook because I don't want anyone to go to my website and see.

I'd rather just work word of mouth, you know, okay. Word of mouth is not online marketing. It's not print marketing. Word of mouth is networking. And there are companies, don't get me wrong, that have spent their entire business without an online presence. Heck, you know, the internet wasn't around much in 1987, right? There weren't a lot of websites. so, you know, yes, businesses can get along, but if you want that kind of

rocket growth, you want to really grow your business, then that online space is important. And not just from the advertising, but what you want to think about is say you were referred by somebody and they went to check out your online brand. Say they're on Facebook, say they're on LinkedIn, right? They have a cell phone, they can click on a website, they go and look at those things. You want to be proud of that. These days, you're more often than not going to have someone that gets a referral and says, let me check them out online first.

Right? They type in the company's name. You hope that you come up because you want to come up. So, you want to have that base search engine optimization on your site. When you do come up, you don't want to be eclipsed by other sites that come up along with you that have, know, flashier and nicer things. Not that flashy is the way to go, but at least it grabs their attention. Right. So, then what you want to think about is, okay, so bang for your buck. I think.

Aileen Casey (23:12.898)

having that basic brand message spelled out and doesn't have to be a complicated website could just be a really good business card online, right? Kind of thing. That's quote business card online is a simple website that shows your brand, shows your messaging without getting into all sorts of subpages and blogs and case studies and portfolios and all that kind of thing. Just a simple, basic website. You know, a lot of companies are already out. That's what they want. And then

bank for your buck is the free stuff. Okay. Now you might not know social media, so you wouldn't want to call it free because you do need some guidance, and someone sets the page up for you. But it actually is free to take pictures and put them up on Facebook. Yes. You've just finished your light, the latest, you know, post and beam construction job that you did. Correct. And film doesn't cost anything anymore. Right? Right. Right. Exactly. And know, same with Instagram and Instagram.

Tick tock too. mean, you can record a video on your phone and post it right up into Tick Tock. Yup. And you can request a review from someone, right? One of the best ways to get search engine optimization. One of the best ways to climb your way onto first page is to get tons and tons of reviews on your Google business profile page and your Facebook page. That's awesome. It's amazing how many, how many times I've seen, right? Maybe the site hasn't even touched.

And they've just got tons of reviews and all of a sudden, they're ranking on the first page. Well, it's true because if you Google something, you know, the, the, you'd find people and then to the right, can look at reviews before without even having to go to the website. So, it is. it's funny cause that was my latest, I'm introducing a new kind of podcast, just really short ones. So, you don't have to invest like a half an hour of your time and listening. They're like five under six minutes. And I did talk a little bit about reviews and,

based on some stuff that I've learned from you, then I've seen my clients with reviews and how, know, reviews are very important, and folks hesitate to ask for them, but you really need to ask for them because they're important. It helps you keep your finger on the pulse. If you have an issue going on in your company, you need to address it, let folks, you know, thank people for their feedback and it just helps you do a much better job and gets you where you need to be, which is, which is great. Yeah. So, that's free, right? So,

Aileen Casey (25:40.712)

That's a lot. if you look at its reputation management, social media, it's review generation. All of that is real bang for your buck stuff. And I encourage any business to move forward in those directions. And if you don't know how to do it, figure it out. Because it's not that hard. I like to. So, let's, as we sort of wrap up this episode, let's leave our listeners with.

Three tips to help them shine online and avoid the cramp of not shining online. I put that in there. So, you know, I love the title of this brand cramp because I feel like there's a couple of things that happen with people when they're trying to move forward and they cramp and they can't, and they may hear just a little bit of advice that gets them to it.

Thank for understanding that. Yeah, I just love the title. it's like any project that you're starting, you're probably late or awake at night thinking about, Jesus, I hear all these online stories about companies that are doing great. And I want to get on this bandwagon. I want an online presence. And I want to shine online. I want to do well.

Just getting that plan. And this is what, you again, what you're really good at, Aileen, which is laying out a marketing plan, but that plan, all that plan has to be do is say, okay, I'm going to spend 15 minutes when I wake up in the morning every day, I'm going to spend 15 minutes working on my marketing, just getting a start on it. And I feel that that's the best thing you can do is then that becomes a habit and then you can continually work on it. Okay. It's not this big thing that's going to dump and then it's going to be done.

You need to see this as kind of a long run. Now, a lot of companies just need the business card online and they're done with that. And that's great. And they move on with their referral marketing, but you're always going to need new clients, you know, fines come and go. So, I consider it to kind of get that habit. it's the habit. And I know that this isn't a really kind of industry tip. It's more like a, one, you know, hey, you, you run a business too. So, you've got to have an atomic habit.

Aileen Casey (28:02.122)

of a little bit of marketing. Now, one of the things that keeps people from marketing is they say, you know what, I don't know if I can get all that work done. I don't want to market and then get buried with work and then not be able to handle it. And that's a real fear, especially for companies that need licensed professionals. But just think sales drives growth. And you can always pick and choose the jobs you want. And wouldn't it be great if you?

you know, did the 10x method where you take 80 % of your clients and say, okay, I'm not going to do that work anymore. And you only do the 20 % of the clients that actually give you great money, you know, great, give you great satisfaction for your work. So that's the pick and choose thing. So, try not to worry about bringing in too much business. Cause that's a really good problem to have. So, then the other is.

Find a company that's going to spend individual time with you, with your marketing. think most companies need some consulting, need some work, can't do it on their own because they're too busy running their company. And although the national companies have cheaper prices and slicker pitches, they do tend to push you towards templates and canned copy. And what that does is that ends up making you, it forces you to come up with a copy and the concepts. And you have a different project manager.

every month and it's a little more cumbersome. So local businesses work well with local businesses. Yeah. Yeah. Especially for marketing and right size businesses. want to pick businesses that are the right size for you. WebLight Media, we don't go after national accounts. We go after local businesses. You know, we don't want to work with national accounts. Those are really kind of the headache for us. I worked in the, I worked in the industry for, you know,

for a score of years with national and Fortune 500 companies. And I love local businesses. There's so much, it's so much better and there's so much nicer. You don't have this really crazy director of marketing yelling down, you we want this, I'm giving it to you Friday night, we want it Monday morning. Well, sometimes it does happen with local businesses, you know.

Aileen Casey (30:25.23)

Not anywhere near as much. Yeah. Exactly. Back in the CD -ROM gaming, I had a bet in the office. So, he tells you a little bit. geez. The lack of stress I have now compared to. Wow. Totally. know. Totally. So, and the last thing I just leave people with is the time to plant the trees yesterday. So, get those review requests out there. Collect emails from your customers. Make a list of emails, customers first and last name.

So, you can email them, you can communicate with them, and you can start building your tribe around you. your people, the ones that really like your company, and they're going to give you reviews, and other people are going to read those reviews. And because your great customer gave you a review, you'll get another customer. That is absolutely true. And what a beautiful way to end this episode. I love it. Plant the tree.

plant the tree. That is the beginning of it all. Well, thank you very much for your time today, David. And again, you know, we really just touched the surface of how to shine online. So, we'll have to do this again. That sounds great. I had a great time, Elaine. Love your podcast. Listen to it all the time. Woohoo. Thank you. Thank you.