If my six year old godson has a YouTube channel and Instagram account, surely acquiring Digital Marketing skills for Fire and Security promotion can’t be that hard?
In the good old days, the Fire and Security industry didn’t need any digital marketing skills. Everyone relied on sign-written vans, bellboxes with the company phone number and the good old Yellow Pages. Fast forward to 2018 and things are very different.
In a poll of US-based security companies, Webstrategies discovered that the average marketing budget was 10% of revenue and that 75% of the respondents were achieving a positive ROI.
Here’s what types of marketing they were doing:
- Currently advertising on Google or Facebook – 75% of respondents
- Currently advertising on LinkedIn – 31% of respondents
- Currently advertising on Google, FB & LI – 13% of respondents
- Using content – blogs or social media (Blogs 44%, Social Media 81%)
- Using Email Marketing to reach customers & prospects (Customers-94%, Prospects-44%)
It follows that, if UK Fire and Security companies want to get similar success, they need to invest in digital marketing across a number of channels. And that requires access to a range of digital marketing skills. YOUR company will need to be well equipped to do things like:
- Web design and development
- UX – user experience
- SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
- Writing and editing page content and blog posts
- Social Media Marketing to promote your website
- Marketing campaigns and automation
- Email Marketing, Lead Nurturing and Marketing Automation
- Online advertising with Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising
You need to decide who will provide those skills. Let’s run through each of these eight skills in turn. It’ll shed some light on this digital marketing lark.
Web Design & Development
Are you one of the many Fire & Security business owners who think they can save money and use a DIY click, drag and drop web design platform for their website?
Oh-oh!
Whilst those platforms may look like a simple shortcut, they can produce a whole host of problems later.
Alternatively, you may have invested in a simple WordPress cookie-cutter design – one that looks like every other fire & security systems website.
Stock photos of happy families and burglar alarms won’t do much to make you stand out…
UX – User Experience
Worse, are you a managing director who is maintaining the company website in your spare time?
Is that really the best use of your time?
Have you considered an alternative? How about investing in an agency and spending the time saved with your family?
The right agency has the expertise to create the carefully planned sales funnel you need to help your visitors to find you. Further, they will develop a UX designed to answer your visitor’s questions and move them along their buyers journey until they trust you and finally choose you?
SEO – Drive More Traffic To Your Security Company Website
To help your ideal clients to find your beautiful website, you need Google to start showing your pages and posts when people search. Have you employed an SEO person to create back links for search phrases like cctv systems in [town]?
How’s that working out for you?
Optimising is no longer about trying to hoodwink the search engines’ bots and spiders into showing your pages. Rather, it’s about working with Google to provide the best, most specific and most up to date answers to the questions she is being asked by her users! Which brings us to…
Writing & Editing
Do you have an agency putting up pages called things like burglar alarms in [town]. These are often vague, generic articles with that phrase awkwardly stuffed in wherever possible. Confusing to read and boring these do you no favours.
Or, is your admin person publishing PR-style notifications about your latest award or charity fun run? Are you wondering why you’re not getting the results you expected?
If you’re not getting more traffic, leads and customers, you need a rethink!
Content is the lynchpin of successful inbound marketing campaigns. Whether it’s blog posts, ebooks or case studies, the goal is to educate your prospects. It should be all about them. Not you.
And certainly not about impressing your industry peers with your in-depth technical knowledge about the sliding mechanism of an automated gate. Ask yourself, when was the last time a genuine customer asked you something like that?
Try answering the questions of your potential customers in language they can understand so they trust you enough to choose you as their supplier. Great, but who is going to see all this fantastic new copy if you’re not…
Social Media Savvy
Social Media is the single most misunderstood digital marketing skill. Fire and Security companies up and down the UK are getting it wrong. Does the following sound familiar?
A younger family member or employee handling your business Twitter and Facebook accounts but you’re not sure these efforts are bringing in the additional traffic you expected.
Just because Millennials can use social media for their personal lives doesn’t mean they understand the importance of distributing your blog post highlighting burglaries in your area. Pouting into the camera might work for a twenty-something on Facebook, but it won’t bring you the right attention from the home or business owners you’re looking to attract. There needs to be a plan…
Online Marketing Campaigns
Have you ever employed a specialist marketing company to handle your social media output and been unhappy with the results?
A survey of US local businesses says you’re not alone.
Social media status updates need to be part of an ongoing and carefully planned marketing campaign. The goal is to build an audience of engaged viewers so you can reach the right audience with the right message at the right time.
Succeed there and you will be rewarded with interest in your free site survey or enquiries about an upgrade or takeover. It’s not enough to build brand awareness… you need people to engage with your content and you need to record those interactions so you can follow up.
But it goes beyond Social Media. Your plan needs to encompass your entire digital marketing approach. Each campaign must form part of a cogent strategy, otherwise you’re pissing in the wind.
Marketing Automation
Is your website just an online brochure about the different types of burglar alarm and CCTV cameras you offer? Or is it part of a full service tool that tracks and nurtures your visitors from their first touch through to the sale of a system and ongoing retention with a maintenance contract?
That is what marketing automation can do for you!
Back when we first started, Lolly embraced new technology as often as possible but it left us with a whole host of disparate tools that had to be managed separately. There are now thousands of marketing automation tools but we have found that the simplest way forward is to use one that integrates with everything we could possibly need to help visitors to become customers. That’s why we do a lot of…
Email Lead Nurturing
Are you still investing all your eggs in one generic monthly newsletter that ‘reminds people you are there’? Have you found that existing customers are more likely to refer you to their friends or family members after receiving one of those?
Personalisation is the new buzz word for email marketing. Our customers have found that they get the best results when we help them to segment lists based on whether they are prospects, new customers or long term advocates. That way everyone can receive the content best suited to their needs – system upgrades, the integration of CCTV or access control, or extending an existing system into a new conservatory.
Google AdWords and Facebook Ads
These two platforms seem to change their advertising layout and functionality every couple of weeks – are you still trying to keep up or would you prefer to leave this technical stuff to the experts? That would leave you time for working ON your business?
Are you looking for serious growth and need some back up?
We’re assuming you’re not working in a lifestyle business but have the ambition to compete in a crowded marketplace. If that’s the case, your Fire and Security company is going to need some advanced digital marketing skills to make it work. The chances are that you have a serious digital marketing gap because you don’t have those skills in house.
If you’re ready to talk about how Lollipop’s 8 years of experience in the Fire & Security industry can help your business, CLICK HERE
Still weighing up your options?
Here’s our helpful guide on the fast track to filling your digital marketing gap. It compares the merits of DIY, hiring someone to do it for you in-house or using an agency. Download the eBook in a few clicks to help you make the right choice for your business. It could stop you making an expensive mistake..!
