Avoiding Marketing ‘GOTCHAS’!

F e b r u a r y, 2 0 1 5

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MARKETING ASSESSMENTS

We looked at…

• Branding• Website design, usability, functionality• Visibility in local search• Reputation (ratings)• Local competition• Current marketing strategies

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

1. Don’t agree to restrictive, unfavorable contracts with heavy penalties for cancelation and/or ones that don’t include you owning/controlling your virtual assets.

The worst offender: Local Search for Dentists. They control all the online assets they create (Google business listings, e.g). Their reports are, at best, misleading.

EKWA was also problematic in that you don’t own/control all the “SEO” content on your website. Their reports were also misleading.

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

2. Beware Questionable Link Building for SEO

Example: an EKWA-managed internet marketing campaign was using linking from a website known as an online pharmacy-themed website. Being associated with a “bad neighborhood” like this makes you guilty by association.

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

3. Check your website!

We found…

• Websites that weren’t mobile-friendly• Broken video• Broken links

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

4. Check your social media and business listings

We found…• Unclaimed profiles, including the biggie: Google+

Local (aka Google Maps) • Unprofessional YouTube video author’s name

on the practice’s YT channel• Misrepresented title (MD instead of DDS) on

HealthGrades (social review site)• All manner of errors with local business listings• Too few positive ratings

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

TIP: Have you claimed your business listings?

Go to knowem.com and type in your business name and find out.

*Important to do to avoid brand hijacking by someone else.

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

5. Branding & Design Problems

We found…• Too much visual clutter• Multiple/competing fonts, colors• Outdated logos• Walls of text (hard to read)• URL doesn’t reflect/support name or focus of practice• Dated website appearance• Unclear ‘calls to action’

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AVOID THESE ‘GOTCHAS’!

6. Marketing Challenges

We found…• The competition was winning the visibility wars in local

Search• No one we looked at had an effective SEM campaign.

No retargeting.• Weak SEO in some cases• Little being done to market consistently to existing and

inactive patients• Analytics/Data emphasis was inconsistent

Text SEO to 706-408-6220 to get Resources and this presentation.