The marketing industry is constantly evolving and changing. What you did 6 months ago will not work exactly the same today because software changes. New tools come onto the market and platforms that you use to generate awareness change as well.
In this Monthly Marketing Update December 2022, I am talking with you about
Google My Business is now Google Business Profile and what is changing other than just the name. What Google Guaranteed is and how it can help your local service business and What is coming up in 2023 for Mailchimp.
Links Mentioned In This Episode
Products We Recommend
Episodes Mentioned in the Podcast
Episode 28 – A/B Testing To Convert More Leads Into Customers
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What we discussed
- Update to Google My Business
- Google Guaranteed Badge
- Mailchimp 2023 Updates
Monthly Marketing Update December 2022 Transcript
*Not ready to give this episode a listen or watch just yet? Below is a rough transcript of today’s episode.*
It’s December of 2022. And for the Marketing Strategies Podcast, we are doing another marketing update. so if you’re listening to this in audio format, welcome. And we’re also on YouTube. I got a couple slides that I share, might be a little more entertaining if you have some time to watch. definitely, head on over to income’s, YouTube channel to, watch all of this.
So the first update I have for you is, not new, but I think it’s, starting to gain more awareness is that Google My Business, the service that we all use for our businesses is now being called, Google Business Profile. Google loves to rename their stuff, but they didn’t just rename it. they started making changes to it, and that’s why I’m doing this update.
So the big change is how we access editing and updating the information on the Google business. Profile listening, I’m still getting used to the name. so it used to be we would go into our backend and we would, update everything in this, system that they gave us. now, as you can see on the screen, I just typed in the company name and all of the editing and access points are right on the search homepage.
kinda messed me up a little bit when. Saw it, but I’ve gotten used to it and actually it’s quite brilliant. If you only manage. One business profile. This is super easy, to find. You just put your name in and as long as you’re logged in as a manager of the account, this is what you’re gonna see. If you’re not a manager of an account, you’re not gonna see this.
if you’re like me, where you manage multiple business profile listenings, you click on those three dots on the page, and then you can actually toggle between different listings without having to go through the search process. And here’s just an, up close look at all the different things you can edit.
So if you remember that side panel where you would go through your menu navigation, they’re all listed here. And then there’s additional things that you can update, through those three dots to the right of your name. So pretty cool. Next thing, it’s a Google con month. Google guaranteed recently launched in my area, and so I figured I would start talking about it because then I can actually share screens on what it looks like in context.
So what Google guaranteed is if you don’t know, it’s a local service. support that Google has introduced. And so what Google says is that the Google guaranteed badge is available for businesses that pass a Google screening and verification process through local service ads or its partners. So you have to, screened, verified.
I took a look at it. They’re really verifying that your license and insured, if that’s required for your business. A lot of the trades guys have to be, and then you get this, Green check mark designation next to your name when people are doing searches. And here is what it looks like. So I did a, search for plumbers near me and you’ll see that the Google guaranteed ads, for those particular companies are much more prominent than the traditional just search ads that, anybody can run.
First and foremost, they’re sitting at the very top and then they’re squared off. Giving them, a little more prominence cuz they look and feel like. And then when you click through more plumbers, you’re gonna get the full list, and then you get to see other ads, and then you get to the organic.
So if you are a local service company, looking to run ads, wanting to see, if this is for you, definitely go and just search for, Google guaranteed and how to sign up. And. Participate if it’s available in your area. It’s super easy. And then my last update for you for today is that, we are a MailChimp partner.
And so as a partner we get invited to, partner only, update sessions with the MailChimp team. Get to ask questions. We get to learn about what’s coming up, and so from the most recent one we had in November, the first thing I can tell you is that MailChimp is gonna be doing a lot of cool, neat updates in 2023.
I think they’re gonna keep our team at Marketing Masterminds very busy with things that have changed on the platform and how to use them and how to interpret them. one of the things that I’m very excited about is they’ve been radiating a new email builder for quite some time and how it’s used, its functionality is really nice.
All the features aren’t there just yet, right? So it’s very limited on what you can do with it. So we, and for all of our clients have stuck with the classic builder, but they’re telling us that they’re gonna be adding more to it and then after they’ve added more to it, they’re going to roll it out as the primary email builder and start sunset setting the classic builder.
Don’t know when that’s gonna be, but I’m keeping an eye on it cuz. I’m looking forward to the new way to use all the different tools. The thing that is out now that, they talked about, I think it was just like released very, very soon after, or right before we had the call, was percentage splits inside of automation.
So if you’ve used the automation tool, you’ll know that it’s separate from campaign building, right? and it doesn’t have all the same feature sets as, when you’re scheduling and sending campaigns. So you can ab test an email. But there wasn’t any type of way to test inside of automation.
But there is now, and that’s how I’m thinking of percentage splits. I’m sure there’s different ways we can use them, but this is the one that’s first and foremost to my mind as this tool rolls out. What it is, is that when you place it in the automation, you can say percentage split. My people that come into the automation and whatever you want the percentage to be, 10, 90, 50, 50.
When people come in, give 50% this particular next step. Email, and then give the others this one. And this is where you can AP test. So you can have two different versions of your welcome message to see what resonates better to get people to start engaging quickly, when they’re new to your, email list, which I think is great.
And then you can keep tweaking them as you go. And then finally, at some point, if you want to, you can feel like it’s ready. And then you can take the, percentage split. Where I think this particular feature is gonna be really helpful is an abandoned cart email series, right?
if you’re sending abandoned cart emails, you should start ab and split testing those through the automation to see which one, which version, what things, get people to finish that. Cart process. so for our e-commerce clients, we have already started implementing this to see how it’s gonna work so that we can, you know, get those sales back Into the business for sure. And then the last thing that I’m gonna share, not share, is that they are gonna be offering text messaging sometime in 2023. we don’t know exactly what it’s gonna look like yet. but I’m excited. I love the idea of being able to give people that are existing customers options of receiving text messages versus emails on different types of updates, and things like that.
It’s a feature that I have wanted inside of MailChimp for a very long time. they will, integrate with other text messaging services like, Like they are today and they’re gonna make it a little easier to do that, but then they’re also gonna add it natively. so I will update you when I can and when I know more on that.
So that is it for December. just a couple of interesting things, for you to go check out, try yourself. And if you’re looking for more information on how tos, sign up for the Marketing Masterminds newsletter, not only do we share. Our marketing mastermind videos, but we share past episodes, from the income of Marketing podcast as well that are relevant to whatever we’re talking about in that particular, newsletter.
So until next month, I hope you have an amazing month. Thanks so much. Bye.
