How Investing in the Right Media Strategy from the Beginning Creates Scalable, Long-Term Growth

Small businesses have a unique set of challenges. Compared to many corporate clients, there are lower budgets and much higher stakes. There’s rarely a marketing team and no experimental budget or brand standards. The wins feel bigger, but the lows can feel devastating. A 10% drop in call volume one month might be an entire customer and mean missing that month’s revenue goals. On the flip side, a 10% increase in customers could mean they can hire an associate or just take a day off.

I’m fortunate to have found a great balance with my long-term client. Seven years ago, I met Steph socially as she was launching her own mobile vet practice. She knew she needed marketing, but wasn’t sure where to start. I explained what I did (paid search and paid social campaign management at the time) and we decided to work together.

As a small business, I knew efficient budget utilization was crucial. As a new business, I also knew we’d need to invest more initially in demand generation and brand awareness than demand capture. Accomplishing both on a small budget would mean strategic use of upper funnel channels and tight audience targeting.

As a member of the equine community, Steph knew her target audience well. She knew the demographics, what was important to them and common pain points. She’d already built up some good engagement on the business’s Facebook page. She also knew her competitors and her point of differentiation. I was able to lean on her expertise to create personas and help inform keyword selection.

For brand awareness, I focused on Facebook. She already had a good following on her company’s Facebook page and her posts were informative and highly relevant to the local community. Boosted posts targeting a relevant audience provided better user experience than traditional ads. They were less disruptive to the user and encouraged more natural engagement. Instead of a generic ad, they were being shown a real post and seeing the comments and likes - maybe even from their friends or acquaintances. Not only did boosted posts increase brand awareness, they improved credibility in the community. They were also relatively inexpensive compared to ads because we could target smaller audiences and run for shorter periods of time with good results.

Google search comprised the rest of the strategy - with a mix of demand capture, solution and service-oriented keywords. Though limited, I of course added brand keywords. This campaign would serve as a yardstick to measure the effectiveness of the upper and mid-funnel efforts.

In a matter of weeks, we were able to consistently drive dozens of phone calls directly from ads. She was able to give me specific feedback on good and bad quality calls to inform my campaign optimizations and I’d use search terms and campaign performance on my end to suggest potential expansion opportunities. She credits our ad campaigns almost entirely for high volume months and will even ask to pause campaigns if she doesn’t have availability or taking time off.

Hearing “it’s been a good month” from the one who manages the marketing campaign, works with most of the customers, handles the vendors and sees the bank balance means so much more than the same phrase from a brand manager who’s only looking at MQL’s. It’s more than a client/vendor relationship. I’m genuinely invested in the success of this business and am working in a partnership to help it grow.

Are you looking for a partner invested in your business’s success? Contact me to see if an account audit or media strategy is right for you.