Having all of the right parts in your marketing process set up in
advance is the key to marketing as a Private Investigator, and if built
correctly, can help you become quite successful.
The first part of the marketing process is the content on your website. When contemplating what to put on your website, the first thing you need to be thinking about is what your clients need. You need to be listening to them and doing some research into what they are saying. Understanding your markets completely is very critical.
When someone comes to your page, if you have too many things that distract them, they can't find what they are looking for, so it is important to spend some time creating a landing page that is informative and doesn't leave your potential clients confused.
Creating content for your website is also very important because this will help your website rank higher in search engines. Just remember, when you first set up a PI website, you don't get much traffic. It takes a long time for any traffic to be generated and a lot of that comes from having more and more content.
The second part of the marketing process has to do with organic Search Engine Optimization which is how your website ranks in search engines due to content and backlinks. Backlinks from trusted sites can help your own website start rising in search results. The higher the "page rank" of the webpage that's linking to your website, the more authority your site receives. Be careful though, because untrusted websites that have links to your site can actually hurt your search engine rankings.
If you are trying to serve a local area it is important for you to have local names of towns in your copy on your website, the address, and driving directions. If you have town names in your page then you are going to get a much higher ranking search result.
The third part of the marketing process is email marketing which is probably one of the most cost effective ways to do marketing today. When potential prospects go to your website, you have to attract then capture leads by giving them an irresistible offer. In exchange for their name and email you give them free information via email. They have to start to begin to trust your expertise and you build that trust by sending them free educational material.
You also should keep in touch with former clients through email campaigns so that they can keep you in the forefront of their mind. Not only is marketing to your existing customers a lot cheaper, they already trust you so they are the most likely people to give you referrals to other clients.
The forth part of the marketing process is social media. Social media marketing, for many private investigators, is probably one of the most overrated and poorly used aspect. Although Twitter and Facebook are popular choices when reaching out to some prospects, it seems that LinkedIn and Google+ are much more professional and tend to attract clients such as attorneys or corporations. Being involved with LinkedIn and Google+ can help you to establish great businesses relationships and at the same time increase your online presence all while maintaining a professional PI image.
The fifth part of the marketing process is online advertising such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when doing PPC is that they will hire a firm to do PPC for them and they will have a general website that is poorly designed.
In order to avoid falling into this trap, you will need to form lead capture pages that work to specifically send highly targeted visitors to that particular page. For instance, if you're trying to help people find a missing person, then you would have a PPC campaign running that's designed to only be seen by people who might be searching for a loved one that is missing. These prospects would see your advertising, click on it, and be taken to your lead capture page, where they will have the highest chance of submitting their email to you in order to learn more information.
The sixth part of the marketing process is mobile and local. Over 25% of searches now are on phones and tablets and so you need to have a website that is mobile friendly. Assuming you're building your website for a platform like WordPress, there are several plugins that will allow mobile viewers to see your website from their phone or tablet without any issue.
The seventh and possibly one of the most important parts of the marketing process is analytics and conversion. One of the great things about having a website is that this can be a tool for measuring results and helping you to improve. Without proper measuring, it is next to impossible to determine what is working and what is not in terms of advertising.
Analytics is used for tracking and helps you identify where your most successful customers came from, how many are using a mobile device, how many are local, how many pages each person visits on your site, plus much more. The other thing that it is useful for is that it can help you with knowing what your conversion rate is. Google Analytics is a free tool that can give you this important information and is easy to use.
When a lead takes an action you want them to, this is considered a "conversion". The higher your conversions the better, so you want to only go with advertising that converts, and you'll only know what converts if you have analytics.
At each stage in your process you can measure the conversion rate and can precisely measure what works and what doesn't work in terms of advertising and can adjust your system accordingly and figure out where you can get the most bang for your buck.
By Paul Beauchemin
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The first part of the marketing process is the content on your website. When contemplating what to put on your website, the first thing you need to be thinking about is what your clients need. You need to be listening to them and doing some research into what they are saying. Understanding your markets completely is very critical.
When someone comes to your page, if you have too many things that distract them, they can't find what they are looking for, so it is important to spend some time creating a landing page that is informative and doesn't leave your potential clients confused.
Creating content for your website is also very important because this will help your website rank higher in search engines. Just remember, when you first set up a PI website, you don't get much traffic. It takes a long time for any traffic to be generated and a lot of that comes from having more and more content.
The second part of the marketing process has to do with organic Search Engine Optimization which is how your website ranks in search engines due to content and backlinks. Backlinks from trusted sites can help your own website start rising in search results. The higher the "page rank" of the webpage that's linking to your website, the more authority your site receives. Be careful though, because untrusted websites that have links to your site can actually hurt your search engine rankings.
If you are trying to serve a local area it is important for you to have local names of towns in your copy on your website, the address, and driving directions. If you have town names in your page then you are going to get a much higher ranking search result.
The third part of the marketing process is email marketing which is probably one of the most cost effective ways to do marketing today. When potential prospects go to your website, you have to attract then capture leads by giving them an irresistible offer. In exchange for their name and email you give them free information via email. They have to start to begin to trust your expertise and you build that trust by sending them free educational material.
You also should keep in touch with former clients through email campaigns so that they can keep you in the forefront of their mind. Not only is marketing to your existing customers a lot cheaper, they already trust you so they are the most likely people to give you referrals to other clients.
The forth part of the marketing process is social media. Social media marketing, for many private investigators, is probably one of the most overrated and poorly used aspect. Although Twitter and Facebook are popular choices when reaching out to some prospects, it seems that LinkedIn and Google+ are much more professional and tend to attract clients such as attorneys or corporations. Being involved with LinkedIn and Google+ can help you to establish great businesses relationships and at the same time increase your online presence all while maintaining a professional PI image.
The fifth part of the marketing process is online advertising such as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when doing PPC is that they will hire a firm to do PPC for them and they will have a general website that is poorly designed.
In order to avoid falling into this trap, you will need to form lead capture pages that work to specifically send highly targeted visitors to that particular page. For instance, if you're trying to help people find a missing person, then you would have a PPC campaign running that's designed to only be seen by people who might be searching for a loved one that is missing. These prospects would see your advertising, click on it, and be taken to your lead capture page, where they will have the highest chance of submitting their email to you in order to learn more information.
The sixth part of the marketing process is mobile and local. Over 25% of searches now are on phones and tablets and so you need to have a website that is mobile friendly. Assuming you're building your website for a platform like WordPress, there are several plugins that will allow mobile viewers to see your website from their phone or tablet without any issue.
The seventh and possibly one of the most important parts of the marketing process is analytics and conversion. One of the great things about having a website is that this can be a tool for measuring results and helping you to improve. Without proper measuring, it is next to impossible to determine what is working and what is not in terms of advertising.
Analytics is used for tracking and helps you identify where your most successful customers came from, how many are using a mobile device, how many are local, how many pages each person visits on your site, plus much more. The other thing that it is useful for is that it can help you with knowing what your conversion rate is. Google Analytics is a free tool that can give you this important information and is easy to use.
When a lead takes an action you want them to, this is considered a "conversion". The higher your conversions the better, so you want to only go with advertising that converts, and you'll only know what converts if you have analytics.
At each stage in your process you can measure the conversion rate and can precisely measure what works and what doesn't work in terms of advertising and can adjust your system accordingly and figure out where you can get the most bang for your buck.
By Paul Beauchemin
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