mphdcparker – MPH Digital Consulting

Small business owners typically are scrappers, doing what needs to be done to keep building a growing business.

Being enmeshed in that day-to-day grind can direct the attention of a business owner away from keeping at least one eye on the future.

Especially in our new pandemic world when some industries are overwhelmed and uncertain while others are shedding work that certainly isn’t returning.

Investing time or dollars into keeping the future of a business above the horizon now needs to burrow into the day-to-day grind of a small business owner.

Leveraging digital solutions to find prospects and get new business is the best way to keep above the horizon.

Solo business owners, such as owner-operated truckers, especially — need to be able to generate their own business and not entirely depend on relationships with others.

Being Visible 24/7/365 Is How You Start

What you publish on the Internet is available for prospects to find anytime anywhere 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

That is what separates a website from a highway billboard.

Prospects glimpse a billboard as they drive by at high speed, but they actively find your website for a reason and linger as long as they want.

Isn’t that what you do online? Have a need or a question and ‘go online’ to find the answer?

Be available to the next prospect searching online for what you offer.

Owner-Operator Truckers Especially Need A Digital Presence

Owner-Operator trucking businesses are unlike brick-and-mortar businesses — which want customers looking to come to them and buy something.

Same with manufacturers and distributors, but this is because they want prospects to find them and place an order.

What owner-operator trucking companies need is to have prospects find them based on where they work and what they do.

Prospects may be searching for a solution to how to have a load picked up somewhere and delivered somewhere else.

Or, maybe they are doing a routine search for new trucking companies to partner with any of a myriad of reasons.

One thing that is known for certain, pandemic or no pandemic, if you are not online with an optimized digital presence neither of them will find you.

For local, physician-owned medical practices emerging from the pandemic, correctly navigating how to acquire and grow a patient base is top of list.

Yes, traditional marketing methods remain, including physician referral networking, affiliations with organizations and word of mouth from comfortable patients.

But one element that has changed is digital.

Ensuring your practice is maximizing its online potential for finding new patients is more than important, it’s a must.

Know Your Audience, Because It Is Bigger Than You Think

Think about your own behavior during social isolation. On Valentine’s Day, could you have navigated Zoom? Confidently ordered groceries for delivery or restaurant takeout for pickup?

Even more important is volume … more Minnesotans are doing far more online far more often than even at the start of 2020.

Think of your own behavior. How many pageviews do you generate a day simply by checking your phone? How about on your tablet? Your laptop? More than you were in January, right?

Savvier digital consumers like you are spending more time online. These are your prospective patients.

You just need to get in front of them multiple times in multiple ways and you’re more likely to be top of mind when their ailment needs attention.

Pick Your Targets And Don’t Overshoot Them

That expanding digital activity generated by savvier Minnesota consumers every day means it’s never been easier to get in front of your likeliest prospects; nearby folks who don’t know who you are but need the service you offer.

In fact, digital advertising allows affordably targeting the handful of zip codes around your clinic, or further if the specialty or procedure warrants.

Beyond that zip code targeting, we are able to use Google ‘machine learning’ and artificial intelligence to find prospects in your zip code as they research their health condition online or shared characteristics with your existing patients.

Digital As It Has Never Been As Affordable

More Minnesotans doing more online more often has a two-pronged outcome beneficial to local business.

First, the greater inventory generated feeds the supply side of ad inventory supply-and-demand. The cost of a click, an impression or a video view has never been cheaper. Compared to traditional marketing methods, digital advertising is a bargain.

Second, the more Minnesotans search, the more pages they view, the keener understanding Google has of them. This feeds ‘machine learning’ and makes it easier for businesses to target them by what they are searching or by their behavior.

ROI Has Never Been Easier To Measure

The last point to understand is that tracking what site visitors do on your site is fully measured.

We know when a Paid Ad visitor clicks a phone number, e-mail, ‘make an appointment’ or any other key element identified on your site.

Doing the simple math of the number of site conversions against the ad spend generates an ROI for an ad campaign.

You will know if your advertising is working and is profitable. If it isn’t we simply stop the ad.

Your Best Traffic Is SEO Visitors Finding You On Their Own

A known element of digital marketing is that Organic and Direct traffic converts at a 4x to 6x rate compared to Paid traffic.

It makes sense. People intentionally finding their way to your site are more motivated than someone who clicked on an ad we paid to put in front of them.

There are a variety of proven methods to grow SEO visits, particularly in health care. Creating new site content and adding specialty content from medical organizations play a role alongside side design and technical site refinements.

Here’s the best part: Once SEO traffic starts to grow it doesn’t stop unless we want it to.

Consider that conversion rates are relatively stable over time … same for the first 1,000 visitors as it is for the second 1,000.

The more SEO traffic we generate the more conversions you receive.

It’s simple math.