Social media is not just a place to share your photos and videos. It’s also a powerful tool to grow your business and reach your target audience. But with over 1.1 billion fresh pieces of content being published daily across social networks like Facebook, X, Tiktok, YouTube
how do you stand out from the crowd and get your followers to engage with you?
Engagement is the key to success on social media. It means that your audience is seeing your content and interacting with it. They are liking, commenting, sharing, and clicking on your posts. They are also sending you messages, asking questions, and giving feedback.
Why is engagement so important? Because it shows that your audience is interested in your brand and what you offer. It also helps you build trust and loyalty with your customers and increase your visibility and reach on the platforms. The more engagement you have, the more likely you are to convert your followers into leads and sales.
But how do you increase your engagement on social media? How do you create content that attracts and retains your audience’s attention? That’s where social media marketing comes in. Social media digital marketing can help you achieve various goals, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads, boosting conversions, and improving customer satisfaction.
While trends can offer a significant boost in social traction, it’s crucial to align them with your industry niche. Avoid discussing topics unrelated to your product or service, as relevance is paramount for engaging your target audience effectively. Focus on creating content that resonates with your expertise, has the potential to go viral, and ultimately drives revenue. Platforms like Answer the Public and Exploding Topics can help you identify industry-specific trends to capitalize on.
Collaborating with other professionals in your field can amplify your reach and visibility, even if they don’t have a massive following. By partnering with industry peers through podcasts, live sessions, or content collaborations, you can tap into each other’s audiences and leverage collective expertise. Don’t hesitate to reach out to potential collaborators via direct messages on social platforms. Remember to target individuals with a similar follower count to maximize the mutual benefits of collaboration.
Sharing personal experiences and insights sets you apart from the competition and creates authentic and relatable content that resonates with your audience. By sharing unique perspectives, lessons learned, or challenges overcome, you can establish a deeper connection with your followers and showcase your authenticity. Personal stories are difficult to replicate, making them valuable assets in your content strategy.
Each social media platform has its preferences and guidelines for content creation. By tailoring your posts to suit the audience expectations of each network, you can optimize engagement and visibility. Understanding the type of content that performs well on each platform is essential for maximizing your reach and impact. For example, LinkedIn is where you showcase your professional skills, achievements, and network. So, you should post only relevant, engaging, and valuable content for your target audience.
It’s not as effective as you might think to just copy what others post that’s popular and post something similar. It will not work mainly because you’re sharing something that’s not fresh. Moreover, others have already come across it as it gained popularity on someone else’s profile. It’s important to offer something fresh and different to effectively engage your audience.
When creating posts, focus on topics that haven’t been discussed much in your industry. Consider what your audience might be interested in but hasn’t been covered extensively by others.
One way to get new ideas is by spending a few minutes reading industry websites daily. This can help inspire you and keep you up-to-date with what’s happening in your field.
Another helpful tactic is to brainstorm with your friends or team members. You can develop unique and interesting content concepts by bouncing ideas off each other.
Social media is not a one-way street. It’s a two-way conversation between you and your audience. If you want to increase your engagement, you must show your followers that you care about them and value their opinions. You need to respond to all comments and messages from your followers as soon as possible.
By responding to your followers, you show them that you are listening to them, appreciate their feedback, and are willing to help them. You are also building relationships with them, which can lead to more trust and loyalty. You can also use this opportunity to ask questions, share more information, or invite them to take action.
Responding to your followers can also help you boost your visibility and reach on the platforms. According to Neil Patel, when you respond to comments, you increase the chances of your post being seen by more people. This is because the algorithms favor posts that have more engagement and show your post to the friends of the people who commented on it. This can help you attract more followers and potential customers.
Most pest control owners think that they don’t need to worry about branding. Or they will slap some slick decals on their trucks and vans and call it good. But that type of thinking will lead to losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. For pest control, branding starts after the sale.
Let me say that again because it is that important — pest control branding starts after the sale.
Here is why branding a pest control business is so unique
The motivation to solve rid their home of pests is high and the consequences of picking the wrong pest management company are not that great. They simply will just hire another one if the problem doesn't go away.
It is more profitable to run advertisements on campaigns that get you, customers, than it is to run campaigns on branding and then wait and see if they were successful.
Unlike Nike or Under Armour who can show incredible ads of all-star athletes wearing their brand to captivate their audience pest management companies can't get people excited about bugs or even the removal of bugs.
You might be asking “So what is the solution? Everyone says that branding is important and I am proud of my company, I want people to know about it.”
You’re right! You should be proud of your company and branding is extremely important. It is just that branding comes after the sale has been made and not before.
In our pest control marketing guide we break down how to attract customers to your business. Using sound marketing psychology, conversion rate optimization tactics, or working with a marketing agency like GrowthBound you will be able to get customers at a very good CAC or customer acquisition cost.
But as you know, pest control is a subscription business. You don’t make money off of one-time services. You make money when you keep a home or property pest-free by signing them up on quarterly services.
This is where branding becomes extremely important.
From the moment your office assistants answer the phone and your potential customer hears “____ pest control, how can I help you?” your branding campaign has started.
This is because interactions with people are so much more powerful than any advertisement. You want to train your office staff to understand your brand. You want them to know when the customer is right and when the customer is wrong. You want them to have a playbook of things they can say or do when a problem arises. You want them to know and use sayings that will strengthen your brand with the customer.
Can you imagine being terrified of spiders and calling a pest control company and paying extra to a same-day service just to find out that the spiders aren’t actually gone?
It wouldn’t matter what the office assistant said or what the pest exterminator promised to do — the trust would be broken.
But on the other hand, what if the spiders disappeared that same day?
Additionally, what if the tech found other pests in their home as well and was able to take care of them at the same time? You can quickly see how this is a customer that wouldn’t go to another pest control company but would stick with you because of something called legacy switching costs. Or a little voice inside the customer’s mind that says “the next company won’t be as good. I better call my trusted pest control company.”
In the digital marketing world, there is a saying “content is king” but digital marketers often forget what brings in 80% of a service-based business’s revenue and that is word of mouth. Your customers talk and they talk often.
The trick is making word-of-mouth marketing consistent and reliable. You can do this in a couple of ways but the important thing to remember is to give your customer talking points and a direction to lead the conversation.
Referral programs are one way to do this. Another is to create yard signs that do the talking for the customers. Or you create a PR campaign such as a scavenger hunt that takes people all throughout the town that will have everyone talking about how cool of a company you are.
The important thing to note is that advertising your brand to create an affinity for it is expensive but if you can create a PR campaign that creates a lot of buzz and positions you in a positive light, there isn’t enough money in the world that can buy that type of brand building — Bloomberg will back us up on this one.
Often the first thought of, pest control trucks and vans are excellent branding tools. As your techs zip around town to complete their routes bystanders will see your brand. They’ll see you hard at work and know that you are the trusted pest control company in the area.
However, there are some things to be careful about. If your techs cut people off or tailgate other drivers then that road rage is going to carry over to your brand. It sounds like a crazy “what if” but one time my wife and I were filling up gas at a crowded gas station and a service truck for a lawn company started to yell at and harass my wife because we were at a diesel pump with a regular car. The only thing is there were no other pumps open.
That anger carried with the brand and all of the bystanders got to see what type of company they were.
If you want to be aggressive with your branding then retargeting ads are almost always a better spend than regular branding ads. The reason is that retargeting ads are going to show up to potential customers that are in-market or are actively looking for your services.
You should have the Facebook Pixel installed on your website as well as the Google Analytics tag. These pieces of code will track visitors to your website and you will be able to show them ads in hopes to capture them as a customer before they pick another company or decide on a DIY option.
If you have the budget and you want to make a real splash in the market then we suggest radio ads. But remember, that you won’t be able to measure the success of these ads with new customers like you would be able to do with digital ads. These ads are ‘top of funnel’ ads or designed to bring awareness to your brand and not customers who are ready to book appointments.
When running radio ads for your pest control business you should think of one message that you want your service area to understand really well.
This could be that you are funny, efficient, or have the best customer service.
Once you have your message, then you should design a story around that and blast out your message over the radio waves. My favorite example of this is a local Volkswagon ad that has been blasted out for years.
To ensure that your marketing dollars are contributing to your pest control company’s growth, You have to ensure profitability. There are a lot of ways to ensure profitability but in this blog post we will tackle just three of them and if you implement them early, you are a lot more likely to fill your routes with ideal customers that love to live pest free.
Growing a pest control business involves online strategies. Partnering with a pest control digital marketing agency can enhance your online visibility further.
Marketing automation is a digital marketing strategy that uses technology to automate repetitive marketing tasks and workflows.
Customer journey is often visualized through a concept known as the digital marketing funnel. This visually represents a potential customer’s stages before purchasing or taking a desired action.
Most of the time, the company won’t have to pay for anything in email marketing. They can easily build their contact lists on their website when their visitors subscribe to them. They can also buy contact lists from other businesses, which can only cost a few bucks for thousands of emails. So if you’re considering doing email marketing for your pest control business, below are 10 tips you can apply to your campaign.
A/B testing is one of the best ways to optimize the user experience and increase conversions, but businesses like pest control often overlook it. In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into why A/B testing is so important — from understanding what it means and how it works to utilizing its capabilities and improving conversion rates.
Schedule a 15-minute discovery call to discuss how GrowthBound Marketing can help your business grow.
Grab your free copy of our Ultimate Pest Control Marketing Guide and uncover 10+ years of pest control marketing secrets.
Our Promise
We love working with and growing local businesses. If we can’t help, we’ll send you to someone who can.