Case Study – Birthday Party Booking System

Case Study – Birthday Party Booking System

Feb 28, 2017 | Clients, General

How Cardinal Lanes Shipyard in Wilmington, NC generates an average of nearly 1100% ROI every month using our 4 step “Birthday Party Booking System”.

Watch the video below and then contact us immediately to put this system in place for your business.

The Birthday Party Booking System

Background

Goals

Last year, we decided to improve one of Cardinal’s greatest assets, www.wilmingtonbirthdayparties.com.

The plan was to generate traffic to this landing page for pennies on the dollar to convert parents into birthday party customers for their kids next birthday.

What we are doing

Here is the simple 4 step process that continues to be duplicated with astounding results right through today and will continue on.

If you are looking to increase the number of parties your facility can hold, with high quality, targeted leads in your geographic area, this system is one to take advantage of.

  • First, we run a highly targeted Facebook ad to parents of school-aged children within the local area. In this case, it is 25 miles from Wilmington, NC.
  • People who click on the ad are taken to a customized landing page, www.wilmingtonbirthdayparties.com
  • Parent fills out a quick basic form to request a party.
  • Cardinal Staff receives the request and calls the parents to book the party. The party coordinators are booking 90% of all requests!

The Results?

Let’s take a look at each of the last 5 months:

September (2016):

Parties: 10-Requested  /  9-Booked
Total number of people: 135
Gross Revenue: $1,755
Net gain: $1,620
ROI: 1,200%

October (2016):

Parties: 12-Requested  / 11-Booked
Total number of people: 148
Gross Revenue: $1,924
Net gain: $1,789
ROI: 1,325.18%

November (2016):

Parties: 9-Requested  / 8-Booked
Total number of people: 95
Gross Revenue: $1,235
Net gain: $1,100
ROI: 814.81%

December (2016):

Parties: 7-Requested / 5-Booked
Total number of people: 71
Gross Revenue: $923
Net gain: $788
ROI: 583.7%

January (2017):

Parties: 12-Requested  / 11-Booked
Total number of people: 164
Gross Revenue: $2,132
Net gain: $1,997
ROI: 1,479.25%

Total:  1,080.59%

Birthday Party Booking System

Profits worth celebrating!

 

How is all of this calculated?

 

Cardinal Lanes monthly ad spend with Facebook: $60

Monthly marketing investment with JVI Mobile for this particular service: $75

Note: There is a one-time setup charge for us to build out the system.

Contact us today to get started!

 

Birthday Party Booking System

Google My Business – Quick Start Guide

Google My Business – Quick Start Guide

Feb 14, 2017 | General, Uncategorized

Google May Business Quick Start Guide

Google My Business

As a small business owner, you understand the importance of establishing an online presence. Without a well-built website and a presence on social media, your potential customers are driven to your competitors. But how can you be sure that you are reaching a local audience? That’s where Google My Business comes into play.

So What Is It?

Google My Business is a new tool for small business owners. All of Google’s tools are located in one, easy to use location. Even better, the service is free. This means that you now have a way to control your business in the virtual world at absolutely no cost to you. Here’s what you can do with Google My Business:

  • Google + – Maintain your presence on social media site Google +. You can update your status, share messages, link to other sites, and post media all from your business page.
  • Reviews – You can manage your page ranking and reviews from one main page.
  • Maps – Take control of your business’s location and contact information as it appears to your customers on Google Maps.
  • Hangouts – If you choose, you can hold video chats with colleagues or customers.

These are just a handful of the things that you can do with Google My Business. But more than what you can do, what is important is how it helps you.

What It Does For You

With Google My Business, you can respond to negative reviews about your company. You can use Hangouts to provide customer service and resolve issues. You can even see how what effect these negative reviews have on web traffic.

You can combine your brand page, social media marketing campaigns, reviews, information, and maps on one platform. This allows you to be sure you aren’t forgetting to keep up with any aspect of your virtual presence.

As a small business owner on Google My Business, you can see where your customers are located and what their needs are. You can use this information to design a better ad campaign. You can control your ad campaign on Google or from your mobile device.

Learning Curve

The nice thing about Google My Business is that you probably already use many of its individual components. This means that there is virtually no learning curve. You can get started with the platform almost immediately. As a small business owner, you will find

the platform to be not only a benefit to your business, but you will find it to be an extreme time saver.

To sign up with Google My Business, simply navigate to the platform and click Get on Google. The site will take you through the registration process. Follow all of the prompts, enter the required information, and your Google My Business account is up and running. It really is that simple.

If you want to increase your company’s presence online, signing up with Google My Business is a no brainer. Get started today for free. It will be the best money you’ve never spent!

Tips for Using Google My Business Right Now

As you have read, Google My Business is not a difficult platform to use. The key is this: You’ve got to use it! So what four things can you do right now, right from the comfort of your desk? These:

1. Set Up Your Profile

Take the time right now, while you are thinking about it, to set up your small business profile. Claim your space on Google by simply clicking on the “Get On Google” tab on the https://www.googlemybusiness.com site.

2. Add Images

Add images to your profile. The images you choose should showcase your business. Be sure to include keyword-optimized filenames to boost search results. Not sure what to include? Try any of these images: the inside of your store, you and your team, before-and-after photos, or your staff on the job.

3. Manage Reviews

You can monitor and manage your reviews right from your Google My Business dashboard. One of the coolest things about this platform is the ability it gives the small business owner to manage reviews found across the web. You can see how many reviews you have, and you can respond to any that you choose.

4. Leverage Insights

Take a look at the insights section. You will discover how people are finding you on the web and how often they are clicking on your site’s link from a Google search. You will also see the amount of activity on your Google + page and the demographic details of your audience.

What Local Search Experts Have to Say – Do You Agree?

As with anything, everyone has an opinion. Now that Google My Business has had time to sink in to the minds of the masses, local search experts are offering their opinions. Here’s how some of the experts are weighing in:

Street Fight: According to Street Fight, GMB is a step forward, but more dedication to simplicity is necessary.

SIM Partners: Google has shown that it is committed to local business space. A bulk upload process would be helpful, but Google has shown its interest in serving the needs of the small business owner. https://www.simpartners.com/google-my-business

Mike Blumenthal: While Google My Business is a strong step forward in the service of the SMB, users may be left wishing for specific upgrades.

The Benefits of Google My Business Are Too Good to Ignore

Think that you can’t carve out 10 minutes a day to keep your GMB account updated? Think again. The benefits of utilizing the platform are too good to ignore:

There are more than 500 million users registered with Google +. If you choose to ignore Google My Business, consider how many potential customers are being driven to your competition that has chose to utilize the platform. With its ease of use and incredibly flexibility, Google My Business is a platform that every small business owner should be making the most of.

The 7 Best Social Media Tools of 2017

The 7 Best Social Media Tools of 2017

Feb 14, 2017 | General, Social Media Management and Optimization (SMM, SMO)

Social Media Tools for Small Businesses

Social Media Tools for Small Business

Owning a small business can be the most exciting thing that any person can possibly do. The challenges of reaching out to customers, successfully identifying and entering markets, and keeping a competitive edge over the competition can easily take over every waking moment. In order to help you keep this edge, we decided to give you some of the best social media tools we have found.

However, the stress can easily become too much over the long haul. That is due to the never-ending need to engage with clients while also handling the administrative tasks for your business. Who has the time to handle everything?

Thankfully, we live in a time where technology has advanced enough to provide us the tools to automate most communication tasks, while simultaneously allowing your company to reach new clients without adding any additional cost.

Here are seven social media tools that are taking the small business world by storm in 2017.

MySoPro (My Social Pro)

You already know that social media is a very effective way for you and your business to generate new leads.

Using the right tools makes reaching your social media goals possible and we’ve provided you with one of the best for free! It also happens to be free for unlimited social accounts. This may change in the future, but this is one of the reasons we have ranked it the best!

I’m sure it will become an invaluable part of your business. It finds relevant and engaging content including videos & news, all of which can be posted with the click of a button. It also creates incredible image posts without any photo editing experience.

You will save loads of time by having all your social media in one place with the ability to schedule posts across multiple platforms. You can also measure your social media performance, which helps you get more traffic and generate new leads.

It’s amazing and it’s free so signup here and give it a try. Sign up free at  social.mysopro.com

Disclaimer: We own MySoPro, so we may be a bit partial. (When you click on it, it will take you to social.mysopro.com).

AdEspresso

Not going to lie. We cannot live without this tool. 90% of all of the Facebook/Instagram ad campaigns we run are built with this amazing piece of software. They were recently acquired by Hootsuite and this will only allow them to grow and get much better.

AdEspresso saves us so much time. Not only do we love the beautiful and easy interface for creating ads and subsequently analyzing campaign performance, they have a built-in automatic optimization feature. What is this? Let’s say your ad is being clicked on by mostly 35-44-year-old women and not nearly as much by 35-44-year-old men. AdEspresso will automatically optimize and show it more often to the group of women and less to that group of men.
There are so many features such as synchronization of data with CRM, Hootsuite integration and more than we can list. Their team is also very responsive and the founder is always innovating and improving.

SproutSocial

SproutSocial is designed to make managing your social media presence easier by congregating all of your messages into one seamless interface. The goal of this service is to reduce the amount of time you have to use collecting feedback from users, thus allowing you to maximize the time spent helping improve your company’s products and reputation.

SproutSocial breaks down messages on a demographical basis, enabling you to see with a single glance which particular group is responding more. For instance, when deciding on a new gender-specific product, it is a good idea to know who is more enthused by your company.

Information is power, and by understanding who is saying what, you can get ahead of any trends and profit accordingly. What separates this from Hootsuite is that it is designed for companies with just a few employees. One person can manage everything with this service.

Argyle Social

Argyle Social is one of the larger, and more successful, companies in the social media tool industry. It is designed to automate publication of material put together by you or your marketing team.

The company prides itself on being at the forefront of data collection, identifying new and powerful ways to give its clients the information needed to reach out to consumers without having to worry about wasting time and precious company resources.

It is one of the more expensive social media tools on this list, starting at around $300 per month, but the experience and dedication found in this company is guaranteed to make the investment worth it at the end of the fiscal year.

Post Planner

Post Planner is a Facebook management tool that helps automate the sharing of content to your Facebook page. Like others, Post Planner will handle everything in the queue and automatically post out based on pre-configured times.

In addition to having all the normal page management features, such as scheduling, insights, it also comes with a secret weapon. What separates Post Planner from other management and posting tools is their content discovery engine. This feature finds you the most popular, most shared content in your industry and then you can add that content to your queue to post later on.

By finding the best content to share, you will increase your engagement level, shares and social mentions with your audience and save time doing it.

Buffer

Buffer is really cool, but a bit on the pricey side if you have several accounts. Our favorite feature is the app and browser extension, allowing you to click on something(article, image, video), and have it add it to your queue to automatically be posted.

It works with all major social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. You can selectively choose which ones you want to have your content posted to if you don’t want it to go to all of them.

Onlypult

Onlypult is the only site we know of that will schedule and actually post to Instagram. We have been using it for close to 2 years and have determined we cannot live without it.

Not only can you schedule and post, but you can add hashtags, perform hashtag research, use emojis, make the first comment for more hashtags and manage multiple accounts

Pricing starts at $12/month to manage 3 Instagram accounts.

NOTE: We have been told that while Instagram states this as a violation of TOS, Onlypult seemingly has a legitimate way to continue their service and they have not had a problem with Instagram about this service to our knowledge.

Recap

Social Media does not need to be a chore for the small business owner. By taking advantage of the social media tools available, it is possible to leverage the Internet and create a new stream of customers for your company.

Take the time to look over and look over our reputation, and imagine the possibilities. Reach out to these teams, and learn what can be done to improve your company’s image on the web, and see what new profits and opportunities can be had for those willing to take the plunge.

You do not even need to be fully digitized to benefit, numerous companies utilize social media instead of traditional websites due to costs and convenience issues. Seize the day!

What are your favorite social media tools to use? Feel free to share them in the comments section below.