This week's episode of Automation Unpluggedwe’re bringing you a webinar we recorded in June 2024 called “Revamp Your Online Presence: Unlock New Growth With SEO & Marketing.”

About this episode:

During this webinar, we talk about changes in web traffic due to AI and Google algorithm updates, how you can get in front of customers with marketing, and why it might be time to revamp your website. This webinar was presented to Crestron dealers, but there’s a lot of great tips here for any integrator with questions about how to connect with customers online.

In this presentation I was joined by Kendall Clark, One Firefly’s Director of Marketing & Sales, and Georgio Galaris, a Residential Marketing Associate at Crestron.

During this webinar, we will cover:

• The importance of a strong brand presence online, given that referrals often lead prospects to research your company before making contact.
• Changes in online search this year, and why Google wants to see your business demonstrate EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust) across the internet.
• Why a tailored marketing plan, based on your specific growth goals, budget, and current digital presence, is essential for maximizing effectiveness and achieving success.

SEE ALSO: Show #277: Racing, Resilience, and Smart Homes: Insights from Dan Woody

Transcript

Kendall:

Hey everybody. Like Ron said, we appreciate you spending an hour with us. I know things are busy, especially this time of year. People moving, people going on vacation in and out. So we really appreciate your time. We've got an hour here today and we're really going to focus in on SEO and marketing. There's a lot of rapid changes happening across the internet. And we really want to make you aware and see how you can leverage those to grow your business. So Georgio, I don't know if you want to say anything to kind of kick us off here, and then I'll get into some introductions.

Georgio:

Let's jump in the introductions. Everyone will hear my pieces.

Kendall:

All right. Sounds good. All right. So hello, everyone. My name is Kendall Clark. I am the Director of Sales and Marketing here at One Firefly. I've been with One Firefly for just under 10 years. And in my start here, I actually was building websites. So I built websites for many years. May have built a couple of your websites on this call. And so I have a passion for SEO, passion for marketing, and I'm excited to share some great content. My wonderful co-host today is Ron.

Ron:

Hello, everybody. Been in the space for many moons now, going on 25 or 26 years. And actually got my start earlier in my career at Crestron back in way back in 2003. I was a regional manager. We'll get into a little bit of that Crestron history. But on, I think one of our opening slides here, here at One Firefly, I'm the founder and the CEO.

Ron:

You know, I love what I do. I love the people that we help every day. And I love the team that I work with. So very excited to bring some of this content with you. Teaching and education is one of our passions here at One Firefly. We like to teach you all what's going on out there and what you need to be mindful and aware of. And some of these things, ideally, you can go do yourself or maybe someone in your organization can assist you with these action items.

Ron:

And if you need help beyond that, we're always just a phone call away. So happy to be here.

Kendall:

Awesome. And on One Firefly's end, we also have Rebecca. Rebecca, I don't know if you want to pop on and say hello. She will be our MC, our facilitator keeping us going. And so if you have any questions, just a little housekeeping, feel free to drop those questions in on the Q&A. Rebecca will be collecting those, and we're going to try and leave about 10, 15 minutes at the end to answer any of those questions. So Georgio, over to you.

Georgio:

Hello, everyone. This is a rather new audience for me. But my name is Georgio Galaris. I've been at Crestron over two years now. But back when I was a wee lad, I was 18 years old, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I actually worked for a dealer. And here in North Jersey, we did a lot of jobs in Manhattan, Long Island, Hamptons, all over the place. I was in install tech deep in the drywall, cutting speaker holes, hanging up the projectors and the screens and doing precarious things on ladders. But that's part of the fun.

Georgio:

And after that, I actually went into sales for the same dealer as well, did that for a couple of years and had a lot of fun. But I was looking for a new challenge. And I was familiar with Crestron and the brand because I used to sell them, along with all the other suite of solutions on the market. And so I have a very tuned in idea of what actually your customers are looking for, what are those conversations you're having with your end users, how the troubles of managing a team and getting the word out on your company and ensuring that you have those projects flowing to keep everyone happy.

Georgio:

So I have a lot of perspective and I bring that to Crestron as well in this role. So super happy to be here and super happy to chat with everyone here today.

Kendall:

Awesome.

Ron:

Awesome.

Kendall:

All right, a quick agenda. We're going to do some introductions. Who is One Firefly, we'll launch a little poll. Then we're going to talk about the new digital landscape. So as I mentioned, some of these rapid changes that are occurring. We'll do a little bit of education there.

Kendall:

Once we get that foundation settled, then we will take a look at how to craft a marketing plan and what combination of solutions might be best for you and your business. And we'll end with that Q&A. So I'm going to try and keep us moving to an hour here.

Kendall:

So who is One Firefly? We are a full service digital marketing agency. We've been in business since 2007 and we solely serve the CI space.

Kendall:

So over our years, we have grown to a team of over 75 marketing experts and we manage on a month-to-month basis over 650 accounts that we're doing marketing for each month. So it's a wild number. That's my favorite number to say because it just goes to show we love helping businesses meet their growth goals and continue to help their businesses flourish.

Kendall:

We also are founded on a legacy of innovation. For years, we've been working with dealers, understanding the problems, seeing the trends in our industry, and crafting solutions and services that can help resolve those problems, help businesses grow. And with that, we've been awarded some different awards for all of those. And we're also very proud to be four-time Inc. 5000 members.

Ron:

Kendall, maybe soon to be five-time.

Kendall:

I know. We're waiting on our year five, so patiently waiting for 2024 here.

Ron:

Stay tuned. Maybe there'll be exciting news.

Kendall:

Awesome. Go ahead, Ron. I know we have a long partnership and history with Crestron, so I'll have you touch on this.

Ron:

Yeah, sure. So I joined Crestron back in '03. I worked under John Gutekunst out of Florida, out of the Orlando office and worked in Southeast Florida.

Ron:

And then for those of you that were around, do you remember in the early to mid 2000s, there was a big boom of MDU and that was kind of the first wave of high rise projects and Crestron putting some Crestron unique solutions in some of those early projects. And I was kind of right in the middle or the epicenter of a lot of that activity up and down the East Coast, which was kind of fun.

Ron:

And then when I ended up founding what initially was Firefly Design Group, later branded One Firefly, we were pretty early on. We became Crestron CSPs. This was just after that transition from Cape to CSP. And actually later in 2014, I was voted in and to the Board of Advisors for the CSPs. And so I enjoyed that status back in '14 and '15.

Ron:

And here you can see we also, as One Firefly, and there was a period in our past where we were also doing system design. And back in 2010, we were awarded the lead design role in at the time, which was the most expensive home sold in the United States. It was about $150 million residential home in Southeast Florida. And I was proud to be the lead design consultant on that.

Ron:

So in terms of Crestron technology and architecture, I understand you, I understand where you're coming from. And if you really look at One Firefly as a business, we pivoted into marketing as a way to help the integrators we were serving better position their business and their brand to win these projects and to really raise the trust and authority of your businesses in the eyes of those homeowners and decision makers.

Ron:

And, you know, so One Firefly has been helping integrators, as Kendall said for many years, back in 2020, we did take a trip, took the entire team up to New York, hung out with John Clancy at HQ. And we sat through trainings and seminars and it was a lot of fun. Again, we got to tour some of the factories and that was really awesome. And it was really around, if you understand that, how many marketing agencies are touring Crestron's corporate headquarters?

Ron:

And the reason we were doing it and investing in that way was to make sure that our team truly understands not only the dealers and your customers, but also the manufacturers that you represent. Because there's a partnership in collaboration and really getting that message out to your end customers. And I wanted to make sure my team really understood the brand.

Ron:

And then since 2021 to the present, we've been launching different creative partnerships with Crestron, all focused around helping each and every one of you grow your business and raise your own brand and your status and your visibility in your marketplace. And where applicable, tying and collaborating with some of the brands, in this case, Crestron, one of your significant partners in business.

Ron:

And they have amazing solutions. They have a world-class brand and really finding ways to put that brand, that collaborative approach into your marketing and messaging. So I've had a lot of fun. I think Kendall, towards the end of this presentation, we'll show them a couple of things that are new and exciting that we'll be able to share in that regard.

Georgio:

If I may, Ron, just to interject for a moment, the One Firefly, I remember working with you guys way, way back when I was working for a dealer here in North Jersey.

Georgio:

And the support that you guys were able to give us at that time, we truly appreciated and acknowledged it. And that's why when I came to Crestron, I wanted to ensure that we worked with you guys to deliver some awesome marketing content because dealers are busy. You guys got a lot of things on your mind. And this is just one thing that we can do to help. And this, our partnership with One Firefly is just one thing that Crestron is doing to support our dealers.

Georgio:

We have a whole suite of things that we do to support our dealers, support your business and grow, make sure the rollouts are smooth, make sure the clients are happy, make sure that software is constantly being updated, free of charge, that it's new innovative products coming to market to solve those modern problems. This is just one part of that. And that's why I'm here and that's why Crestron works with One Firefly. Ultimately, our success is your success and your success is our success.

Ron:

Appreciate that, Giorgio. I love that. Thank you for sharing. Kendall, I'm going to hand it back to you.

Kendall:

Awesome. All right, so let's go ahead and launch a poll here. Let me go ahead and there we go. So hopefully everyone can see that now. We want to know what percentage of your new business comes from referrals.

Ron:

All right, we know if you have answered. We will call your name if we do not see you cooperating and participating.

Kendall:

So far, so good. I think we...

Ron:

Just look at that surge in responses.

Kendall:

Let me go ahead and end the poll here and let's take a look at the results. So 50, this is 52% say that you get more than 75% of your new business from referrals. Tying that in another 26%, say they get at least 50, somewhere between that 50 to 75%. So you add those together, 78% of you get at least 50% of your business from referrals. That's a pretty large number. And then we've got a handful that fall lower than that. So yeah, Ron, I mean, I know that's something we hear all of the time. Let's talk through what happens when you get that referral.

Ron:

That is the million dollar question. So what some of you might think happened is, by the way, your customer that knows you, likes you and trusts you, talks about you and says you guys are amazing. And their neighbors or their friends ultimately learn about your business through that sharing.

Ron:

And thus the referral is born. But the question is, what exactly does that referral then do once they learn about your business? They hear your business name, insert your name, Acme Integration. Do they immediately call you and say, hey, I've got a project, please take my money. Or do they go out and maybe start asking a few questions?

Ron:

And do they use this thing called the internet? Maybe when they go to the internet, they say maybe they type your exact name. Maybe they they've they've heard your name. Maybe they type the salesperson's name that they were referred. Maybe that it's a Crestron system that your neighbor has. And so maybe they are curious who else in my town could install my Crestron system?

Ron:

I know they told me company A is great, but who's company B, C and D that maybe I should also consider? Do they go onto LinkedIn and check you out? Do they go onto Facebook or Instagram and check you out? And the reality is the different paths that the the referrals navigate to vary.

Ron:

And my question and Kendall's question for all of you is what are your businesses doing to make sure that they easily find you? And when they find you, you're controlling the message that they're consuming? And so it's not that marketing, some I know is a dirty word in some circles. It's not that marketing is the way that you're suddenly going to get all of these brand new leads and business opportunities from the internet.

Ron:

That could happen. But I know that you're skeptical that that will happen. And I'm going to admit that I would tell no one that's exclusively the only way to grow your business. That's just not our position here at One Firefly. We don't believe that. But what we do believe is that there is this thing called the buyer journey. And the buyer, which is the customer that is building, again, I'm speaking residential, but the reality is there are decision makers in commercial. It's a little bit different, but it's mostly the same.

Ron:

And that is that there are people at varying degrees of within their buying process and that there ultimately could be information that this audience is consuming in various locations. So let me be specific. So you have the initial phase of the buyer journeys called the awareness phase. In this phase, for example, maybe they are only now deciding to build a home and they are simply trying to decide what are the available technologies that I should consider in that home.

Ron:

All right. Next, maybe they've done their research and now they really know they want a cool media room. Maybe they know they want an audio system out by the pool. But now they're saying, all right, well, what type of audio systems by the pool are an option? Or what type of control systems should I consider? What are the manufacturers that make technologies that I should consider?

Ron:

And then as you go further down, they're doing more research. That buyer is more advanced. Now, ultimately, they are trying to decide which installing company do I hire to put in my Crestron system? That's the question that they are asking themselves. That is now you could think about it. It could be the customer.

Ron:

It could be their sphere of influence around them, members of the architect community, the interior design community, homeowners, members of the builder community, or the homeowner themselves, or a family member of the homeowner. But what I want you to think about is these people, these individuals are going to the thing called the internet. Now, maybe today they are also going to ChatGPT, or maybe they are going to Perplexity, right?

Ron:

I promise I'll rein it back in. I'm not going to get too crazy. But they're going out to the internet and they are conducting searches. And what we want you to think about are what are all of the different places that they could be doing that research, right? Yes, they could ultimately land on your website. So guess what? You probably should make sure all the service solutions and brands, including Crestron, all of that content should be very easily communicated and conveyed on your website, right?

Ron:

If you think about the buyer journey and all of the varying types of questions from very beginner level questions to more advanced questions, specifically differentiated messaging about why they should hire your business versus the competitors in town. The answers to those questions should be on your website. But they also might be looking in the local builder magazine. They might be... maybe they're on your e-mail list and ultimately they're consuming newsletter content.

Ron:

You know, all of your different social platforms. Maybe they're going online and they're reading the reviews on the Google Business Profile. Very, very important on page one these days, right? So they're consuming and being exposed to all this messaging. And both consciously and subconsciously, that is weighing in on the ultimate decision they make. Whether that decision is to simply now be comfortable enough and confident to reach out to you, to engage in a conversation.

Ron:

And when they do engage with you, if you've been nicely branded and you've made it easy for them to conduct research and to learn a lot, well, now you're going to find that they're able to move through your sales process more quickly. You're going to find that when you do engage them in a sales process, you're likely going to be able to close that project for a higher scope and a higher dollar value. And you're likely going to be able to convert that project into a sale much more quickly.

Ron:

Now, your salesperson is going to think it's because of them. The reality is, and yes, you can have lovely, wonderful salespeople. We have them here at One Firefly and they're all amazing. Cat, Steven, and Josh, all amazing. But you know what? One Firefly also does a bunch of marketing. Kendall and I are here teaching and educating. This is a form of marketing.

Ron:

When you and your business are communicating on the channels that you see on the screen, that is a form of marketing and messaging that will influence the customer in their buying behavior. Kendall, tell us about traffic on a website.

Kendall:

What I do want to do is focus in. You saw that giant wheel that Ron just showed, but. I want to hone in on website because we can agree that your referrals are likely, likely going onto Google, likely maybe typing in your company name, maybe their neighbor, their architect gave them your website. They are checking your website somehow. And what this is showing is we're taking a look at all of the different, what we're calling channels that lead people to your website. So I want to talk through a couple of these.

Kendall:

Direct, maybe somebody is actually typing in your URL. They know your URL and they're typing it in. Organic, this is going to be anything that's filtered through a search engine. Google, Bing, yes, Bing is still relevant. They're typing something in, whether it be a search phrase, whether it be even your company name, you are popping up and they're clicking into your website. And there's various other different avenues, maybe through a social post or a referral.

Kendall:

Somebody clicks on a link in a newsletter or a website or on your URL on your email signature. Lots of different ways that people can enter your website. But I want to even dial deeper into organic search and why organic search is so valuable. The thing that I like to think about is I want everybody to take a moment and think about their ideal project size. What is that project size that you would be thrilled to have a referral from? And then think about that customer.

Kendall:

Who is that customer that's bringing you that ideal project who's reaching out to you with that project that they have? Now I want to take one step back. Think about what that ideal customer, what that ideal project says. What are they typing into Google to find an answer to that problem that they're having? And are you showing up for that phrase? Are you the number one person right then and there able to solve that problem? We want to be able for you to have more of that right type of traffic.

Kendall:

That's a great piece of traffic being pushed to your website, a great visitor. And a trend that we are seeing across our industry that we want to make you aware of is that organic traffic is threatened. We are seeing across the industry a trend that organic traffic has been decreasing. We look at hundreds of websites month to month and we're seeing this across lots of different markets.

Kendall:

It's not always universal. Many markets are being hit more than others, but across the industry, this is the theme. And we want to make you aware of it. And this is not something that's just within our industry. I'll take you to the next slide here. This is an article written by the BBC a couple of weeks ago, and it talks about the changes that many businesses in many different industries are seeing with these algorithm updates. And they included this, what I found a really interesting chart about the winners and the losers of Google's algorithm changes.

Kendall:

So you can see here, some online, different online retailers, Oprah Daily, for example, has lost close to 60% of their organic traffic. Imagine if you had 60% less foot traffic into your showroom or 60%. I mean, that's a massive number to be looking at. But on the other hand, sites like Reddit, which is a forum, they're up 125%. They posted record earnings in Q1.

Kendall:

So why is this hitting some websites super hard and other websites are gaining from it? Why, Ron?

Ron:

Why? And by the way, so Kendall was showing you your she was showing you Google Analytics data. I'm going to challenge all of you. I'm curious. Are you in fact looking at your Google Analytics data, right?

Ron:

You know, in business, you can only change what you watch. If you aren't watching something, it's hard to change it. You've probably realized that in different aspects of your business. And for many of you, I just want you to think through, if you're getting the majority of your business through referral, and is it logical and reasonable that those referrals are likely going to the internet and conducting search about your brand? Remember, they don't know you yet. And when they're doing that search, are they easily finding you? And are you controlling the message?

Ron:

And what is happening right now, objective truth across planet Earth, but we'll focus on North America for the sake of this conversation and this audience. Organic traffic across the internet is plummeting. And if you are watching your data, it is likely, it's not entirely guaranteed. There are some clients that have been flat or stable. And if you're doing some certain things that we'll talk about, there's a chance it's actually inverted and going up. And we have many clients that are climbing and growing in this season. But for the vast majority of you, if you're doing nothing or you're doing status quo, you're doing what you've always been doing, it's probably going down.

Ron:

And if you think about the ramifications of that, it means less people are finding you when they're conducting searches. And if they aren't finding you, are they finding your competitors? And could that be one of the reasons, you know, I've been talking to lots of people in the last forever. I've been talking to lots of people, but in the last 12 months. Business has been tougher, right? We were all on this sugar high of 20, 21, 22, lots of money moving around the economy, lots of home construction projects happening. And now what we believe to be true is a lot of that middle market, that middle size job and smaller projects, they are in smaller abundance.

Ron:

And even some of the larger projects are going to happen, but sometimes they're getting delayed now a little more than they were. Well, if there's fewer projects and fewer customers, and you're harder to be found on the internet, I'm going to suppose that's a problem. And so I want you to understand, first of all, why is it happening? And then I want you to understand what to do about it.

Ron:

Because the really good news is there's absolutely action you can take right now. There will be in the next 30 minutes. I hope you have your notepad out. There'll be things that you can do that will make a difference. But the reason that these changes are happening is because in November of 22, okay, November of 2022, this thing called ChatGPT came out and ChatGPT, a large language model, natural language processing. It's not that AI was brand new.

Ron:

AI has been around since the 1950s. But ChatGPT gave you and me and every person on planet Earth an interesting superpower. And that was that we could now with simple prompts produce content. I'm not saying whether the content is good or bad. The quality of the content is dictated by how much quality and time you take to produce the prompt and the output, garbage in, garbage out, quality in, quality out.

Ron:

But across the internet, a lot more content is being produced. And because that content is being produced, it means that Google is now going to have a harder job to filter through that content. So just to prove this point, kind of this date and time, there's a free service. You guys can all go check it out. It's called Google Trends. Open up a new tab. Don't close this webinar.

Ron:

Open up a new tab and you can google Google Trends. It's a cool little site and you can type in words and you can see what's trending in Google Search around the world. Well, when you type in the term AI tools, it went essentially from being flatlined. To on November 2022, it started to shoot up. So this graph here is that search conducted over the last five years.

Ron:

And you can see how it went from not being a part of our life to now it is a dramatic part of our life because there now have been tens of thousands of new AI tools released into society. And by the way, this is just the beginning. This is the beginning of the beginning. All right. So there'll be the, I believe November 2022 will go down in history as a very important date. Our lives are now forever different.

Ron:

But because of people using these tools, and here's the name of a handful of the tools on the right hand side of your screen, is there's all this stuff that's getting produced. Some of it's really good in quality. A lot of it is garbage. And that information is going onto the internet.

Ron:

So now think of woe is me. Think of poor Google. They're the largest search company in the world. Certainly they own and dominate the marketplace, about 92% of the marketplace in the United States and Canada. And so what are they going to do? Well, they are now working really diligently to maintain their purpose in life. And that is to deliver you and me when we are going to go buy a new toaster. And we want to go and find out what's the best toaster and what are the reviews in 2024. You expect immediate answers.

Ron:

And if you don't get immediate answers, you theoretically, as a consumer of the Google product, you might go try to find another way to get those answers. And so Google's onus is to be efficient at delivering answers to people doing search. Well, now what if they are your referral and they are trying to find who's the best Crestron home automation company in my town? Will you want your company to show up at the top of page one? And not disappear.

Ron:

Because if you're at the top of page one, it is more likely you're going to ultimately get that phone call. That person's going to make contact. You'll have built that trust. So Google has fought back. Google has made significant algorithm changes, particularly in the second half of last year. All the way to the present. Major algorithm updates have been happening as recent as the past few months.

Ron:

This was news that broke on a major update that came out in March. And on the right hand side here, you can see notes that are referring to they are now being much more strict at de-indexing and de-ranking content that is, quote, deemed low quality. By the way, you note that I did not say AI content. AI content is not by default low quality. Low quality is low quality.

Ron:

If you use AI and you conduct thorough research, you can produce incredibly valuable, new, unique, original content for the internet. But low quality content, I want you all to reflect. Look in the mirror. OK, don't get up from your desk and go to a mirror. This is like philosophically. Look in the mirror. Do it in your mind's eye. And ask yourself, have you been updating your website? Have you been putting attention into how you show up online?

Ron:

Have you been updating your Google business profile? Have you been making sure that all of your services, all your solutions, all of your brands, all of the SEO configuration on your website is being actively managed to optimize the way that you show up in search? For the majority of you, the answer is going to be no. Because it didn't matter as much in the past.

Ron:

Kendall and I are here to tell you that is no longer true. It absolutely matters. There are more dramatic changes happening in search right now in the last six months than in the last 20 years. It is very dramatic and you have an opportunity to make sure that you are staying in the place that you want to be, which is easily found in search.

Ron:

So in December of 22, one of those major algorithm updates, Google released or updated their their acronym in terms of giving you guidance or direction, right? Google is advising you what to do to make sure your brand and your website, we say your web presence because it's more than just your website. The way that your brand is showing up online in searches. And it's with this acronym.

Ron:

And underneath of the acronym, the art and messaging here on your screen, we've given you examples of the type of effort or tasks and content that you could be architecting diligently, actively, and placing into your online presence. Your online presence is your website. It's your Google Business profile. It's your online directories, including your social platforms.

Ron:

If this content is going into your online presence, then you are giving Google a lot more of an ability to place you at the top of search. You're making it easy for them to know that you are legitimate and businesses that are not doing this are probably less legitimate. So this is your wake up call. If there's one slide that you remember from this presentation, I'd love for it to be this one.

Ron:

If you look at the image on, in this case, what is the middle of the screen, we're calling this the way page one of Search looked and acted in 2023. At the top, you notice in red there was your Google Ads. Now, what's pretty cool is over on the right, Google ads are still at the top of page one. So by the way, you want to still make sure that you're visible, you can pay to play. You can do Google Ads and you can make sure, at least at the moment, the way it's working, you're still at the top of page one.

Ron:

But if you now look at green on the left compared to the right, which is right now, you notice there's a lot less green. There's a lot less organic placement on Google page one of Search today than there has been in the past. That means that real estate is much harder to earn today, just as in life in real estate, when there's less of a prime piece of real estate on the golf course or on the lake, that property is worth more. This organic real estate is now worth more. And so you need to do more to earn that placement.

Ron:

And then look at this yellow. This is the big change. Yellow is what's called zero click. This is Google's effort to deliver answers on page one. That would theoretically not require you, the person doing research to even visit a webpage. So it went from being a few elements, primarily your Google Business Profile, which is that big vertical block on the before graphic, to now multiple modules that are zero click. And a couple of these examples are people also ask fields, your Google Business Profile, your Google Map snack pack, your generative search results. This is Google's AI trying to answer the question. By the way, it's not very good yet, but they did just turn it on and it's likely going to get very good over time.

Ron:

So I need you to ask yourself, do you have a marketing and an online strategy to make sure your business is showing up in these answers in this zero click area? The answer is if you're doing the status quo, you are not prepared and you are going to be less visible, which means if your competitors are being active in managing this, they will be more visible and they will earn more business.

Ron:

This is the new normal as of right now, June 2024. Hope that's your wake up call. The game is now different. And so here's a list of some of the types of activities that you could be actively doing in order to manage the way that you're showing up right now. You could be doing a Google Ad strategy, pay to play, optimizing your Google Business profile, actively driving reviews into your Google Business profile, actively ramping up.

Ron:

Guess what, guys? I know guys and gals, I know it's fun and popular to hate social media. I want to hate Facebook right there beside you. The importance of Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram. I don't know about Twitter, maybe Twitter. We'll figure that out. Maybe TikTok. I don't know. I'm a little skeptical. But these platforms, their relevance today is accelerating.

Ron:

I mean, all of the articles on online presence and marketing, it is accelerating because of this very dramatic change that's happening with AI and the questioning of content that is now filling the internet. Whereas the authenticity of content that is in Reddit, Kendall was telling you, Reddit is surging. I didn't even know. There's a whole scene where people do internet searches in Google and they then type forward slash Reddit so they can get the Reddit response, right? As well as Facebook and Instagram. Those are now being right now in this new 2024 era being considered more valuable.

Ron:

So you have to be doing types of content and effort to make sure that you're visible and you need a marketing partner in your life to help you figure that out. So we're going to take us through. Kendall, are you taking over here?

Kendall:

I had you for the next couple slides, but I did want to just chime in and say it's really interesting. As Google is trying to decipher all of this content in a way what's better and worse, they're looking for these human elements. And rather than just taking a snapshot of your website, which is what life used to look like, that lots of green, lots of organic. They're really taking a snapshot of your entire online presence.

Kendall:

So whereas before, maybe Instagram or Facebook wasn't as you know needed, I shouldn't say necessarily needed, but maybe as important in your visibility. Now they're taking all of the things into consideration because when you do all of these things, it's kind of giving you that clout in Google's eyes that's putting you above the rest.

Ron:

Yeah, amen. So I want you to think about when you're talking about potentially implementing or ramping up, quote, being active to show up on the internet, because that's a really good idea. That's our position here at One Firefly. It's a good idea to be highly visible in search, particularly for those referrals. Then you really need to think about a couple of factors, and I'm going to call this current state.

Ron:

And the current state is what is the current state of your website, of your social platforms? There's a technical term. I won't get too technical, but what's the current state of your domain authority? What's the current state of your ranking, phrase ranking performance? What is the baseline? And then when we look about you going to a future state where you're more visible, I want you to think about how do you want to be visible?

Ron:

Not only where, but how? And I'll give it a simple and straightforward answer. Lighting, lighting control, lighting fixtures, tunable lighting. That is a very hot topic in our industry. It has been for the last several years. A lot of businesses getting in to the lighting business, not just lighting control, but also the fixture side, and in some cases, design.

Ron:

Let's say a future state is you are highly visible when people are conducting search online for those types of services. Well, if you're going from your current state where you are not visible to a future state where you are visible, what are some of the tools that you have at your disposal? And some of the most obvious, so we have a boat here. This is the boat. That's going from the current state to the future state. And you have some different boat. Now, do not ask me what type of boat this is.

Ron:

This is AI generated. It is an amalgamation boat. That's what that is. But it is a boat nonetheless. And this boat has a sail. And this sail is to catch the wind. That is your online visibility through SEO. I can also row. I can row my vote to the future state. I can place my posts on social media. I can send out emails to my customers. I have paid. I can motor. I can turn the engine on and I can get there maybe a little bit faster.

Ron:

So I can run paid advertising through Google. I could run paid visibility in advertising through Meta, through Facebook, through Instagram, through LinkedIn, right? Pay to play. I also have my brand. My brand is the current. If my brand is strong and I've been investing in my brand for many years, in some ways, that's going to carry me and I'm going to earn some business just because of who I am, right?

Ron:

So are you investing in your brand? Are you doing brand building activities? So when you're investing, when you're developing a marketing plan, what you're ultimately deciding is, well, how much of this and how much of that do I ultimately need to activate to help me get to that future state? And Kendall's going to walk us through how to construct that.

Kendall:

Awesome. So yeah, that's always a common challenge when we're talking with customers. What is the right mix for me? And we're here to tell you there is no, just like your business is unique, the custom mix of how we get you from your current state to your future state is also going to be unique. There is no one-size-fits-all when you're looking at this. We want to take into consideration how fast you're willing to grow. Again, that current state, what your investment is and your ongoing commitment. So I'm going to give a couple of examples here because what I want you to see is on the right is this circle and that circle is going to be considered your investment.

Kendall:

So part of the conversation when you're thinking about marketing is what is a reasonable amount of investment that you are willing to make that you feel is sustainable throughout the entire year. We want something that feels comfortable. And then within that fixed investment, that fixed circle, we want to figure out what is the most bang for your buck and what combination of different solutions can we offer you to meet those goals that you have or that you've shared with us. So I'll give you an example right here.

Kendall:

Let's say your current state is your business is relatively new, maybe three years in business, doing about $2 million in revenue with very aggressive growth goals. So looking to grow 30% this year in 2024, you have a minimal web presence, just something to kind of get you going when you started the business and a limited email list because you have three years worth of emails. So these are all different levers that we want to take into consideration when we're building that investment.

Kendall:

You'll see here, this person is growing 30%. So our planned investment, that conversation around investment, we recommend that when you're thinking about your marketing budget, that you invest, if you are in growth mode, somewhere between 2% and 5% of your projected revenue. When Firefly, we've been growing at a clip of anywhere from 20 to 30% over the last how many years now?

Ron:

Nine years in a row.

Kendall:

Nine years in a row. We invest seven and a half percent in marketing. It is that important. We practice what we preach.

Kendall:

So here a business looking to grow 30% at that size, we would recommend closer to 5% of projected revenue. And the recommendations we would make, so think about that engine on that boat, paid ads. When you're looking to grow aggressively, we want to get you into pay-to-play, paid advertising because your web presence is minimal. While we're doing that paid ads, we'd also recommend we want to start bolstering and growing your web presence and your online presence.

Kendall:

So when you do a little revamping to your website, we want to work in SEO so you're starting to build that good foundation online and then also give you some social media presence. Also in our process, we like to plan for the future. What's current? But then when we get to that future state, what's the next island, that next future state we're going to? And what other things could you take to get to the next level as your business continues to grow? When you win, we win.

Kendall:

Example number two, I'll run quickly through here. Let's say it's on the opposite end. Maybe you've been in business 12 years, doing 10 million in revenue. You have very respectable 10% growth goals in 2024. But you've just opened a lighting division. I know Ron touched on that earlier. You have 12 years worth of an email list, but maybe you're not leveraging it and reaching out to those existing customers. And you have an established website.

Kendall:

So there, the first thing that sticks out to me is this brand new lighting division. Google is not a mind reader. If you are doing lighting and it is not listed in your online presence, Google does not know that you are doing lighting. We need to tell the world that you're doing lighting. So in that case, we would put a lot of investment towards SEO. And just about equally, I'd recommend a lot of email marketing. When you're looking to grow your business, your number one person, those people that are going to buy again or give you a referrals are your existing customers.

Kendall:

So in this case, we'd recommend an email marketing strategy and then mix that in with some media, maybe photographing your projects, really just trying to kind of bolster the great impression that you already have. Again, in the future, could always look at advertising if you're continuing to grow that growth. So Ron, tell us about this slide.

Ron:

Yeah, so the general principle, let's say with your marketing team internal or through a partner such as an agency, you have come up with an integrated marketing approach based on where you're at and where you're trying to go.

Ron:

Well, there's a role that is, at least within our business models. This is a bit of how we operate, how we think. But if you work with other agencies, I would challenge you to have this conversation. And that is that there's likely a lot of different activities happening below the surface. There's social media work, there's project management, there's copywriting, there's web design. There could be paid advertising.

Ron:

A lot of times in paid advertising, there's platform specialists, meaning there's a Google Ad specialist, which is separate than a Meta Ad specialist. Very common in agencies. It's certainly how we operate. And so if you had to ultimately interact and operate with all of those different individuals, I promise you it would be very overwhelming.

Ron:

So what we recommend is a person that is your primary liaison. They're not a salesperson. So you can rest assured they are sitting there as the person that's an active listener to where your current state is and where you're going and how things are operating day-to-day. And at the same time, managing the execution of all of the workflow that is underway. You might call it your campaigns, your active campaigns.

Ron:

And so at One Firefly, that person's called an account manager. These are actually some of the smiling faces of some of our account manager, not some. These are our account managers here as of June 2024. And it really is just a rock star team. And their goal is really your success. And I just, I know marketing can be overwhelming, and I know all the different stuff happening could be a bit mind-bending. This role and these people, their job is to make a lot of that pain go away and to make sure the work's happening. Now, we, One Firefly, have been developing brand-specific content, Crestron specific content.

Ron:

Giorgio, do you want to say a few words about some of the content and messaging here and kind of what your thoughts are around a dealer putting content like this on their website?

Georgio:

Absolutely. So I don't know about anyone else, but I don't make a purchase without doing some research in it. At least I need to see what it looks like, what's the potential it could look like and kind of paint that picture for me of what a solution could look like in my home. It's a touchscreen, it's a keypad, it's a speaker, whatever it may be. It helps me see this in my home. And by providing this visual to your possible customers, you can paint that picture for them of like, look, this is what a keypad can look like. This is how this is how much space it'll take up in your utility closet, et cetera.

Georgio:

You can paint this picture of, wow, this is what my home can be. As far as these assets, I myself work who my job is to produce marketing content for Crestron. I worked very closely with the One Firefly team to produce all of this content to ensure that it has all of our latest solutions, the latest OS for update, and it's beautiful.

Georgio:

Little facelift, I like to call it, of how awesome it just looks, how easy it is to use, and ultimately how it gets your end user to do what they want with a couple clicks of a button, usually one. So it was this the websites like this is hugely helpful in painting that picture and gives your client the number one the opportunity to self serve. You're not going to constantly be on the phone with them. Oh, well, we offer this. Well, we offer this. They can take their own time and really go with this at their own pace to understand what solutions are available to them.

Ron:

Love it. And so for everyone, just to put in perspective, what you're looking at, we have a web product at One Firefly called Mercury Pro. This is one page of what could be a five or 10 or 25 page website. And this is a page dedicated to Crestron, which is pretty cool. This now becomes a container for SEO configuration.

Ron:

So when you think about consumers conducting research, the content on this page, meaning the words actually then get customized and SEO configured for your individual website. And that just becomes one additional traffic source into your website, which is pretty cool.

Ron:

And so I'm going to close it with that. This is the One Firefly sales team. It's Josh, Stephen and Kat. Steven's actually out at InfoComm this week representing One Firefly with a few other team members. And certainly you can e-mail us or give us a call.

Ron:

And I know we are at the time, but maybe for those that are curious or want to receive the video afterwards, maybe we can continue. Rebecca, if you want to jump in and and let us know. I do see a bunch of questions that have been typed in here. So if you want to help MC us through this. Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. We have gotten several questions. You guys can keep submitting them. We will stay on and answer them. And even if you have to jump, we will send everybody a copy of this recording tomorrow. Rebecca: So let's get started. So first question. This is from Brian. Brian is saying, one of our biggest challenges is aggregating and curating content for distribution. In a previous role, I aimed at an audience based on day and time and engagement via social media slash email scheduling. What is too much for this industry? And second part, how do you deal with NDA or confidentiality agreements and showing work with platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook Reels?

Ron:

Kendall, do you want to give that a, you want to start with that question and I'll add any commentary?

Kendall:

Sure. Yeah, I think curating content is obviously a challenge that everybody faces in our industry. You have to be very mindful of creating content and be thinking about capturing content in anything that you do. I would argue, not everything has to be professional content either.

Kendall:

People love to see, listen, an iPhone photo serves just as well because people love people and people like seeing things that make you people look unique and all of the different phases throughout a project that you go through. In terms of what is too much for this industry, never too much. Obviously, you want to have as much as you can. But if you do have challenges with that, I know Crestron offers a wonderful library of marketing assets imagery.

Kendall:

We work with all major manufacturers to kind of curate some of that imagery that we make available to our customers. And then Ron previewed, we previewed some of our video content. We actually have hundreds of different video shots and clips that we've captured over the years at lots of different locations, featuring different types of end users as well. I know we just saw one glimpse, but we have different houses, different ages, different races. I think I saw another question on that. So just wanted to make, we'd be happy to demo all of that. So Ron, anything there? Maybe on the NDA and confidentiality side of things?

Ron:

Yeah. How do you deal with NDA confidentiality agreements? Yeah. I think the general premise is that if you were to say show a behind the scenes shot at a job site, you'd want to be pretty tight on your shot to where no one could tell where you are. Like if you're cutting in a speaker or you're pulling a wire or you're building the back of a rack, you could be in Maui or you could be in Fort Lauderdale. No one would know.

Ron:

And so I think you're pretty safe, even if you're under an NDA with, say, a client that's protective about their privacy. I would not do any big panning shots showing, establishing where that location is on a street or where someone could identify it. You're just you're setting yourself up to be in trouble. It's not worth it. And it's not necessary. Because all of your clients aren't going to lock you down. At least if you do the ask right, all your clients are not going to lock you down.

Ron:

Somebody's going to let you shoot some cool content. You know, a rule of thumb is that you would put it in your agreement upfront that you will shoot content. And then you'd allow them to ultimately redline it out of the agreement. That's a strategy. I'm not a lawyer. Don't play one on TV, but that's a strategy that I've seen a lot of people practice. And I would say they easily are allowed to shoot in half their jobs or more.

Kendall:

I'll also add, at a minimum, have your smiling team on there. Have you know your team and their polos on your about us page. People love to see the face behind the business. So at a minimum, make sure you're getting that kind of content in there.

Ron:

Awesome. Rebecca? Rebecca: We have a great question about social media. Do we have any kind of stats on demographic viewing for social media? We work with a lot of high net worth individuals and have found in our research that the uber wealthy aren't scanning, nor do they care about a lot of these common social platforms and aren't finding contractors this way.

Ron:

Yeah, I would, I would respectfully disagree with that individual and love to have a discussion with them. I think it depends on what platform you're on. I think that there's a lot of people in the luxury space doing a lot of research on Instagram. And there's a lot of people looking for ideas using Instagram for ideation and research, both on ways to lay out their projects and the vendors or contractors to hire or engage in their projects.

Ron:

I would also challenge that LinkedIn, specifically within the architect, designer and builder space, is an awesome platform. Some of the best professional demographic profiling for promoting your brand and your message. And there's a lot of a number of different tool sets within LinkedIn that could allow you to be very precise at both organic contact and paid approaches to get in front of prospects and target customer types.

Ron:

I would just go a little bit deeper and engage with your marketing provider about what's possible. I mean, we at One Firefly, we are specifically doing this exclusively with integrators. And we're doing that. I'd love to say seven days a week, but we do only work five days a week. So we're doing that five days a week with hundreds of different businesses around North America.

Kendall:

Guys, that's all the questions we have. If you think of a question later that you forgot to ask on this webinar, please reach out to us. You can email us at sales at onefirefly.com. We're happy to offer you any answers and support that you're looking for.

Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

Resources and links from the interview:

• 5-Minute Marketing: SEO Video Series
• One Firefly Professional SEO Services