7 Ways You know Your Inbound Marketing Campaign Is A Success

Let’s face it. There is a very limited appeal for a blog that tells the story of a property damage restoration company. There’s really only so much you can say about fire, water and mold damage remediation without it being boring.

And, on the Schaefer Sexy Scale© (Thank You Mark Schaefer and {grow} for this concept!), cleaning up after a homicide or suicide is probably about as un-sexy as you can get. Unless of course you’re talking about sewage clean up.
Eeuww! That’s got to be at the very bottom of the sexy scale…

The fact of the matter is, no one really wants to know us, or what we do, unless they need us.
We’re not a classy restaurant. We don’t make cute widgets.
It’s kind of like the lawyer profession that way. No one really wants to know us – until they need us.

So, here we are after many years of patiently and persistently blogging about property damage restoration for an audience who will only read it if they have an emergency – finally getting to enjoy the benefits of our Social Media Marketing campaign and Search Engine Optimization efforts.

The Google Hummingbird Algorithm update has benefited our business

And in large part, it’s due to Google’s recent algorithm update “Hummingbird.”

You see, without even knowing it, we were putting into practice the “right stuff” for our company to be picked up by the Google spiders. We’ve been talking about what we do in a conversational tone – in everyday terms that helps to answer questions.

And, we’ve been providing online resources for homeowners, realtors, insurance agents, property managers and business owners on steps to take if they have mold damage, fire damage, a puff back, or a flooded basement.

And, just as important, we provide information for people to use to prevent, all sorts of property damage to their homes and businesses. Because the fact of the matter is, many property damage incidents can be avoided. Except of course the kinds of damage caused by storms . . .

But before we even noticed the increase in our call volume and our bottom line, there were seven other indications that verified that our Inbound Marketing Program – which includes our Blog, Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Optimization strategy – was working.

So here are 7 ways you know your Property Damage Restoration Inbound Marketing Campaign is a Success

1. After each blog post, site audit, and update you receive several calls a day from out of state and foreign SEO vendors telling you they can’t find you on Google and offering to sell you their services. Obviously, they already found you on the web or they wouldn’t have called! (Of all the anonymous calls we’ve received this was my personal favorite – when we asked who we were speaking with he replied “this is Bob Marley” and when we asked how the “Whalers” were doing, he didn’t know what we were talking about. Gotta have some fun with this!)

2. You notice that since the Google Hummingbird update, even old blog posts like “4 Steps to take if your hot water heater bursts” bring in calls from outside your service area. Thanks to Google Hummingbird, customers as far as California, Utah, and Florida find us and ask for our water damage remediation services. Of course being part of a larger franchise system means that we’re able to refer this work out to other PuroClean offices more local to the customer.

3. You know your blog posts are a success when spam bots start posting in the comments section for things like penis enlargement or medications for erectile dysfunction, or the ones written in Chinese. Obviously, these folks are trying to create backlinks to their sites. But really. I thought this type of “black hat SEO” went out a few years ago. (By the way, you guys can stop this now. We will never approve those links!) But I guess this is as high as we’re ever going to rate on Mark’s Schaefer Sexy Scale©

4. You know your Inbound Marketing is effective when after almost every blog post, you receive calls from other marketers asking you to pay for advertising space on their sites when you already have a listing. Really, why should you pay if your marketing campaign is already effective?

5. You know your Inbound Marketing Campaign is successful when your blog posts are getting picked up by other restoration companies in other states (Arizona, Montana, California, Ohio) who post information on your site to create backlinks to theirs, or when they copy your information! – I guess that means we’re an example of “thought leadership” now. Or is it just proof of the old saying “imitation is the best form of flattery?”

6. You know your Inbound Marketing efforts are effective when you post a blog, send it out on all the social media channels and you get invitations from other companies to guest blog and requests to use your pictures. This is cool!

7. And last, but not least, you know your Inbound Marketing Campaign is successful when you get comments from newly acquired customers who found you on the web and who say things like “We want you to do the work because we trust you. I like what I read about you online.” That’s music to our ears!

So, thank you Google for helping out small businesses everywhere who have been playing by the rules and have been patient with the process!
And thank you to all our followers and customers for taking the time to stay engaged!