How Service-Centric Businesses Can Leverage Digital Marketing

Hollywood Branded | October 7, 2021 at 2:00 PM

Buzz To The Rescue!

Digital marketing is a powerful tool, but it's important that you do it right! That means recognizing the importance of authenticity, building a website that is tailored to your customers' needs, recognizing your competitive advantage, and leveraging call-to-actions—but that's not all. In fact, there is a lot you need to keep in mind.

So, we chatted with an expert to get the deets, and if you're running a service-centric business, this is definitely the episode for you. In this blog, Hollywood Branded shares how service-centric businesses can best leverage digital marketing, from the expertise of Michael Buzinski, who is the CEO of Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing.

EP272 How Service-Centric Businesses Can Leverage Digital Marketing

A Little More About Michael

Michael is the CEO of Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing, and the best-selling author of the Rule Of 26, a book where he shares insights on how to double a website’s revenue for service-centric businesses. Through his company, he has helped 750 businesses increase their online presence, whether that be through website design, Google ads, or SEO. He has been dubbed by the American Marketing Association as a "visionary marketer."

Interview Transcript Highlights

Question: Before we dive in, I always like having our listeners learn a little bit more about our special guests. So can you share with us how you got to where you are today, where you have now written a best-selling book...And your digital marketing expertise has something to do with that, which I'm sure we'll dive into...but you've created an opportunity to help hundreds and hundreds of businesses better find their own perfection in this world of marketing so that they could grow.

Answer: I was actually an Air Force brat as a child and moved around a lot. I got into sales and marketing in California where I did most of my growing up, and worked for some very large corporations, ran up a couple of corporate ladders, found out that wasn't for me, but I needed to get out of California and then discovered the rest of the world. So I became the third of my family to join the Air Force. During that, I got more exposure to the world and also failed at becoming a famous rockstar, which was actually my childhood dream. So not getting there, I got out of the service and I started my own recording studio. And that's how Buzz Biz started, that was my first public company.

Then within a year I realized that surviving off of starving musicians was a horrible business plan, and so I pivoted quickly into media production for small to medium-sized businesses. Over the years we became a full creative agency and we're actually a multi seven figure creative agency with a big staff, big facility, the whole nine yards. But I found myself getting pushed further and further away from the people I was trying to help, where I was actually wanting to go. So, just a few years ago, I created Buzzworthy Integrated Marketing and now I have a media production house that still does that award-winning media production for people who need video and audio and graphics and all of that other stuff, but really I focus now on the digital marketing for service centric businesses. So if somebody's selling themselves to somebody else or their services, people serving people, that's where my sweet spot is, that's where the most passion is from our business owners and it's where I get the most rewards from their successes.

Question: I want us to dive into what is the difference between a service-based and a service centric business?

Answer: So I have recently learned that service based businesses are usually the service base as in like home services. So mainly HVAC, heating, and plumbing as the main service based. Some will put in electricians, but that's about it, right there. And so I was actually on another podcast and they were for service-based business. So I got all excited. I'm like, oh cool, we have people talking about people, serving people. So it was this whole synergy going on, and all this stuff, and then this guy gets on and he's like, "Yeah. So these HVAC guys and blah, blah, blah, blah." And I'm like, okay, I've worked with a lot of heating and cooling companies, this is fine, yeah, we can roll with this. And both of the hosts come from HVAC, heating and plumbing. And so after the show, he's like, "Yeah, we use that term in our industry. That's our industry." I'm like, I'm going to have to re-word the subtitle to my book.

Question: And so when we're dialing in to the fact that you are a bestselling author, Rule of 26, right?...What are the rules that support that? What is the approach that you need to actually do, to keep in mind, as you're figuring this out of who your perfect customer is, how to get rid of the crappy ones, and who you are actually as a business?

Answer: There are three objectives within the Rule of 26. So let me start with what the Rule of 26 is first, and then we can go from there. So the Rule of 26 is a 15 second website marketing strategy. I found that a lot of creative agencies and ad agencies and digital agencies, agencies in general, like to spend a lot of time because they get paid by time, creating strategies. And they're very strategy centric instead of objective centric. Objectives feed results, strategies feed ideas, right? And within those you create tactics. So the Rule of 26 states that if you increase your unique traffic, your conversion rate, and the average value per client you get from your website by 26% each, you get a compounded output of 100% more revenue, or doubling the revenue from your website.

And I created this because I wanted to show service centric businesses who usually tell me, "I don't get any business from my website. We survive on word of mouth and referrals." I'm like, ouch.

I equate it to farming, right?...A great farmer can lay an awesome crop and have a bad season with one flood, with one drought, with too many hot days, harvesting...whatever it is. Right? So it's like you are now not in control of your destiny. You cannot scale at will. Websites allow you to do that and so I needed to find it very easy and digestible way of showing business owners who don't need to learn marketing, but just understand how simple it can be to get there.

And so that what we were talking about before feeds into that average value per client, average revenue per client. Because if you're serving your niche where you're getting the most profit and most rewards from serving your perfect client, you're going to be able to charge more and you're going to be able to retain your clients longer, right? And so that's one of them. And in conversions, we look at the website, do they have a website now? Are they even tracking conversions? Right? A lot of people don't even know what they're getting from their website, except for, "Well, I think we get a couple of emails every once in awhile." No, how many people does it take to get somebody to reach out to you? That's a conversion rate, right? And then once we understand that, we can push traffic in. And in that traffic, we need to make sure it's good traffic, not garbage traffic. We don't need to waste our time with bad leads, because it's just going to bring your conversion rate down. It's going to burn your resources, time, energy, and money. And so, that's where I come in and make sure that all of those cylinders are hitting all in sync.

Question: So how are you helping your clients understand what actually gets some sticking power and how to actually channel that marketing messaging to impact their brand?

Answer: So the first thing is, when we look at our analytics is that nine times out of 10, you haven't filtered your analytics down to actual human beings. There are these things called bots that come and crawl our websites every day, thousands of them a month. they can add a couple thousand unique visitors to your site. And they can also add a lot of sessions and page views to your site. What these bots are doing is they're aggregating information from your website for their search or whatever they're collecting data for. So that when somebody is looking for things that your website talks about, you are going to be more opt to show up in those searches, right? Well, you've got to filter those out. In my book we actually talk about it and I actually do that for people, it's free.

So if you don't understand how to create or connect analytics, or even set up what your conversion is, then well, we don't know what the numbers are saying. The numbers are saying we're not converting. Well, did you even set up your conversions correctly? Did you identify what a valuable conversion is, right? What action on your website does a user take that you consider a pro, a step into a profitable relationship with that user, right? So between those two right there, just identifying good traffic and clean data and identifying what actually needs to happen to be considered a conversion, then we can start looking at well, why aren't people doing what we've identified, if you're in fact not getting conversions, right? So in that, that's another Pandora's box of why your visitors are not converting.

But if you gave me an example, we could probably go into it, but there's so many reasons why people don't. But the biggest reason I would probably say is that you try to say too much too fast, or you ask too many times too soon. So you have a website that comes up and it says, "Hey, we are an orthopedic physician center, call for an appointment." Why? Why would I call you? Yeah, I need an ortho, I get that. But I'm looking for the one who is going to make my knee better. And I need to understand why you are that person or your team is that team that I'm going to trust my mobility with, right? So asking too soon.

And then you have the other way where people will rant on and on and on and on and on about themselves and then never ask for a call to action, right? And there's two things wrong with that. One, you didn't give them an end point to where you tell them what you want them to do next, right? And two, you talked about yourself. The Fastest way to drive people away from your website is continue to talk about yourself. Those are the two big ones.

Question: So what you're trying to say here is that when someone comes to your website, that they care not about themselves and the end result, they only care about whatever you're trying to shove down their throat, they're not looking for solutions? They're not looking for ideas?

Answer: Right, exactly. People are selfish that the reason that they're searching is because they have an issue or they have a desire. So they're defining out whether you are going to solve their problem or deliver what they desire, right? And so if you make it about them and you can see it right on my website, I practice what I preach, right? The first thing I talk about is that most businesses are frustrated that they can't get a predictable revenue from their website. And we have a process of creating that predictable website for them. And the next thing we talk about is how we can help you. And right across the top is a needs-based menu. I need help with a website, I need help with search engine optimization, I need help with social media, I need help with reputation management. All of the tactics that go into the Rule of 26 and in doubling our revenue. But make it about them.

Check Out The Podcast!

Michael has so much great information from his experience in integrated marketing, and working with service-centric businesses. Check out the podcast below to learn more about all things marketing!

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