Editor’s note: CO2, a pest control industry conference presented by Coalmarch that focuses on marketing, sales, and customer service topics, was held virtually last week. Attendees heard from a speaker lineup that included Tim Pollard (Arrow Exterminators); Mike Romney (Fox Pest Control); Ian Robinson (Massey Services); Bobby Jenkins (ABC Home & Commercial Services) and more. Another highlight was a presentation from Coalmarch’s Rachel Betterbid, who also played a big role in the creation of Coalmarch’s 2020 Pest Industry Marketing Benchmark Report.
To emphasize just how drastically digital is changing the marketing landscape, Coalmarch Vice President of Digital Marketing Rachel Betterbid reminded CO2 attendees that in 2019 smartphone traffic pulled even with desktop traffic.
“People are consuming digital content on an hourly basis,” Betterbid said as part of her opening remarks during her presentation titled State of the Industry — Marketing in 2021. “So it's no surprise that digital marketing has become the main way that businesses are advertising themselves the last five to ten years, with more traditional means of advertising like billboards and print ads and TV ads essentially dying out.”
These smartphone usage numbers are only expected to increase, creating “a situation where people are using their phones more and more to find really fast solutions and to engage with businesses just like yours every single day,” Betterbid said.
DIGITAL MARKETING AS A NECESSITY. Coalmarch’s owner is Donnie Shelton, who also owns and operates fast-growing Triangle Pest Control (TPC), Raleigh, N.C. Betterbid used TPC as an example of a company whose steady, consistent growth has been driven exclusively through digital marketing. Specifically, Triangle has focused its resources on search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) efforts in order to dominate search engine results pages (SERPs).
“Coalmarch’s main marketing strategy [with Triangle] has been gaining what I would call search engine repetition and dominance,” said Betterbid, who then showed a Google screen capture where the words “Pest Control and Raleigh” were searched. At the top of the first page, in the paid section, Triangle Pest Control showed up twice: once in the Google local service ad and again in the traditional pay-per-click ad. In the organic section of the results page, in the map section, Triangle shows up first, and it is also the No. 1 organic result. “This shows that Triangle is showing up four times on one page, which also happens to be the very first page. That's a lot of real estate to take up on search engine results,” Betterbid said.
How did Triangle attain such dominance, and how can other companies improve in these areas? It starts with Google Services ads. “It is the very first thing people see on a pag when they search, and they get about 14 percent of all clicks,” she said.
Another area of importance is the Google Map Pack, which is important because this section includes reviews. Lastly, organic search results (driven by SEO). “This portion gets majority of the clicks (45%) and continues to be one of the best investments for your marketing dollars.”
2021 AND BEYOND. While Betterbid stressed that Google still dominates the landscape and that performing well on Google is critical to home services businesses, she said Coalmarch and Triangle Pest Control are investing in and investigating other areas.
The goal is to have an omni-channel marketing strategy, “which aims to provide customers with a seamless experience no matter where they are or what device that they're using. And the operative words here are multi-channel and seamless experience,” Betterbid said.
Digital marketing channels Betterbid said PCOs should keep an eye out for in 2021 include:
Amazon — Amazon has rolled out numerous new advertising features the last couple of years, including traditional display ads. “You don't necessarily need to be selling a product in order to be advertising here. You can be a brand that just wants to direct traffic to your website,” Betterbid said. Right now, Betterbid said this is very expensive and cost prohibitive for most pest control companies, but she said, “I think in the upcoming years, Amazon is going to continue to try and compete with Google.”
Instagram story ads — Since Instagram began selling story ads, they have become extremely popular as marketers want to reach the half-billion people who visit Instagram daily. “I personally look at Instagram stories more than I do my actual feed,” said Betterbid, who added, “it’s a great way to get your brand in front of people in several different areas throughout Instagram.”
Influencers — Influencers are people on social media who have a sizable following and are able to influence or affect the purchasing decisions of whomever is following them. Although not common in the pest control industry now, Betterbid encouraged PCOs to look into influencer marketing. “I think it can help boost general brand awareness, trustworthiness and brand advocacy.”
Facebook Messenger — It's becoming even more popular for consumers to talk directly with businesses via Facebook Messenger, Betterbid noted. In addition, Facebook Messenger has added new features like auto responders, chat boards, etc., that businesses can utilize to provide real-time information to several customers at once. “In addition, I think that simply monitoring Facebook Messenger and making it part of your daily process and your CSRs' daily responsibilities is going to be really key.