Understanding Your Marketing Needs in the Digital Age.
In 2018, Timothy and I started Brocksfield Design Company because we identified a specific problem plaguing the business community in this area and felt like we could offer a viable solution. After working in the marketing industry in the Albany area for several years, what we discovered is that, in many cases, when business owners assume they need marketing services (like ad campaigns and sales strategies), what they actually need is marketing content (like graphics and well-written copy).
Southwest Georgia is home to a business community with lots of history. Part of what makes this area great is the fact that it’s filled with companies who have successfully been doing business here for decades. Someone who’s been in business for half a century doesn’t need us to tell them how to run their business. It’s pretty obvious that they’ve got that covered. What they need from us is what they can’t do: create beautifully designed visuals that represent their core values, like a sleek and responsive website, or clean and consistent social media graphics, or a timeless logo (and sorry, the name of your business printed on a sign is NOT a logo). And oftentimes, what they need more than anything is someone to simply help get them acclimated to all the ways the digital age is changing how we all do business.
We were recently approached by one such company who had been in business in this area for over 40 years and were having trouble reaching new customers, the main reason being that they didn’t have a website or social media presence. The other thing that prompted them to reach out to us was that they were having trouble finding their business on Google. Whenever they would search for their business on Google by name, address, or industry, they weren’t finding much; which, in 2019, is *not* good. We immediately set out to diagnose why this was happening and quickly found the source of the problem. Once we realized what was going on, my phone call to them went pretty much like this: (see text message reenactment)
That’s right, their competitor had basically stolen our client’s Google listing by claiming it as their own. This is a sneaky maneuver that can be done if a business owner hasn’t verified their business and their business location by going through Google’s verification process. The worst part about this situation is that the competitor had basically been rerouting potential customers away from our client. The second worst part is that our client had absolutely no idea about it or how long it had been going on. This means that our client had no way of knowing how much new business they had missed out on! Infuriating, right?!
Fortunately, we were able to quickly walk them through the verification process and ensure that their listing could never be tampered with again, and do you know what happened as soon as we got them verified? Their phone started ringing!
Unfortunately, there are so many more business owners in this area who could be falling victim to this same tactic and have no way of knowing it.
In the short amount of time that we’ve been helping businesses in our area find solutions to problems like these, we’ve found that a big part of that is simply educating business owners on the importance of keeping up with how technology is shaping the business landscape.
To those unfamiliar, the world of graphic design, responsive websites, and social media pages can be extremely overwhelming, frightening, and downright frustrating, and the temptation for those who have been successfully doing business here for several years is to take on the, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” mentality and ignore the need to evolve. Sadly enough, the first step to being obsolete is to be stagnant, and for those who’ve been doing business for decades, continuing to do “business as usual” just isn’t going to work in 2019.
The good news is that if you’re already aware of that, you’re moving in the right direction.
If you’re unsure about whether or not your business or organization’s Google listing has been tampered with, or if you find yourself needing a helping hand to guide you through the process of getting your visuals to reflect your values, we’d love to speak with you. Call or text us at 229.329.8779 or fill out our contact form at brocksfield.com/contact-us.
