Local Marketing Strategies for Today’s Dynamic Business Landscape

You know, marketing keeps changing all the time and yet it doesn't change at all. Hey, my name is Jeff Harris. I own a company called Swing Point Media. We are digital marketing agency here in the Coachella Valley. If you're not familiar with that area, it is in Palm Springs and it is a spectacular area. Yes, even in the summer when it gets to be kind of toasty, it's still spectacular. And today I want to talk to you about something that I think it was something very common. A long time ago it died out and we're making it have a comeback. What does that mean? Well, I don't know if you remember, there are things called soap operas now. If you have a little gray hair or, you know, you're still in college, you're probably watching some soap operas on tv. Well, I don't know if you realize this, but soap operas were called soap operas for one reason. They were designed and promoted by soap companies so they could advertise to the housewives who were at home during the day. They would watch the soap. They would watch these soap operas, these episodes that were spots, excuse me, sponsored by Tide, sponsored by whatever, whatever the, the, the, the cleaning products of the day were. And so what happened is there would be an association of, hey, it's the Days of our lives or the rich. What?

I can't remember the names of them, but the Days of our Lives and it's sponsored by. And then we would associate that. So the idea was it was a way for them to sell their soap. Well, I think there's a modern day version of it and it's called podcasting. And here's the thing, more and more of us are getting our entertainment outside traditional tv. Myself, I watch a lot of, watch a lot of streaming. I do a lot of research on YouTube, I listen to a lot of podcasts and many occasions those have influenced me to take action and buy something. Just recently it was something that I needed for my computer and it was kind of a cool thing. It helped me and it's something I'm going to start implementing into my podcast or my live streams because it allows me to do some kind of some tricked up stuff. But I saw it originally during someone else's podcast and then they talked about how that helped them and I thought, wow, that's really good. And because I follow this person, what they have trust and authority with me. And so if they recommend something, guess what, I might peek at it and take a look. Even if I know it's being, if they're sponsoring the show. So how does this work? Well, let me give an example. We have a new program and it's called the Fairway Executive. Now when I say new program, it's something that I did several years ago, like eight or nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago with a dear friend of mine. And at that point she was my business partner and dear, but she's now passed. And a dear friend of mine, I used to be a golf professional. Pga, golf professional. And we said, hey, we want to put together.

A golf podcast called the Fairway Executive. Now when we started, we had no idea what the name was going to be. We live, as I say, in Palm Springs. There just happened to be the PGA show going on in Vegas. And we said, hey, let's get in the car, let's drive to Vegas. We'll get our cameras, our microphone and we'll head to Vegas. And when we get there, we'll start interviewing all these high, I'm going to say well known celebrities in the golf world. Now when I say celebrities, I'm talking about, okay, they're the president of pga, they're the vice president, pga, they're the executive director, they're the, the best instructor, you know, you name it. Also, we talked to product manufacturers back then. And so whatever they, whether it was a golf cart, I remember the one there was a surfboard that was turned into a golf cart and it was the idea of a single use. So we interviewed these people and we did like 41 interviews in two days. We did a lot and it was a lot of fun and it was called the Fairway Executive. Well, now roll it out here. Eight, ten years later, we're going to do, we're going to reintroduce this. And, and what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be interviewing golf professionals, directors of golf, general managers, director of his instruction of nice high end clubs and give them a platform to talk on and to share. Hey, what makes their club different? What makes what they do different? And to showcase them. In the meantime, what I'm going to do is I'm then going to get a sponsor. I have a sponsor who will then sponsor the program. And so again, there's that soap opera connection. I only have one and they're sponsoring the whole show. And so now what happens? The idea, the hope is, is now what'll happen is their product could be a perfect fit for every one of our guests. Ideal audience that is back at their club. I think it's, I, I think it's A potential for a win. And it goes into a very niche environment. Country club, golf professionals, members of higher end clubs and they're looking for specific types of.

Products or services and that will be those are the sponsor, the sponsor of my show. I think there's a lot of opportunity for that. As an example, I have another show that we do with a client is called Mortgage Minute. Well, ideally what should happen is, is we should reach out to someone who, whether it's a title company, it's a, it's a lender, it's a home inspection service that would sponsor that whole show. And what would happen is for my client, if we did it right, the cost of me producing their weekly show would be eliminated because the sponsors would be in there. And so what would happen is, hey, throughout the show there might be one or two commercials where we say hey, let's take a break for our sponsor. We roll some tape or we read some copy and then we come back to the show. Now some of you might be saying, hey, you know, I don't know if I really want a sponsor. Then sell your own product. So let's take this another way. Let's say for instance on my show, the local voice, which you're watching right now, you come on or I am actually just promoting it and I have something I want to sell. As an example, I have a product called the Content Accelerator. And this is a fully automated content generation program that we built about, gosh, it's now been about 18 months ago and we continue to, you know, as it says in an ever changing world, we continue to optimize it for things like if you watched, you know, one of my other shows on search engine and geo, generative engine optimization, then understand we're constantly changing it. But that's a product that we, we offer that I say, hey, let's put one, let's put a commercial on there. And every time I do a local voice I should have that running as my piece that I offer for sale. Because the people who are watching this are typically business owners. They're my ideal customers are looking for solutions. They're looking for ideas to help them build their business and using a or marketing to do so. Well, the Content Accelerator is a perfect tool for them. It will once a week it generates a blog post that's optimized. It has the images that goes to it, it has all the meta tags and everything that goes through that. And it's soon to be maybe by the time you're watching this, it also have the generative Engine Optimization as well. It'll create a video for them every week. Create the thumbnail, write the copy, it'll write the title, it'll actually put out. Create five social media posts. That's Monday through Friday. And it'll go on to four different platforms. So there's 20 posts. So you're omnipresent. In other words, you're in many different places at one time. Wherever your customer be, they'll see you there. And then it actually creates an email at the end of the day or at the end of the week, and that is to help promote your video and your article. And so that email is written from the original blog content. The blog content is actually created from a challenge or problem that your ideal customer is seeking a solution on. I often will say this as, hey, you know someone who, let's say I'm an H Vac company and they say, you know, I'm looking for the reason why my air conditioner is blowing warm air. So they'll type that into the search engine. Well, that might be the article that has, that's been created for them. And so it will do that for every one of our customers. It'll do it for you. So if you're interested in that, all you have to do is reach out to me at Jeff Swingpoint Media and I can tell you more about it. You can just go to my website@swingpointmedia.com and it'll. There's a page on there for the content accelerator and it'll show you all. It'll tell you all about that. So that's another way that you can create content and within that, you're the sponsor of your own show. Now, I heard this, I heard this a while back, and it was by a guy named Russell Brunson. Now, if you don't know who Russell Brunson is, he created a program called Click Funnels. And he said, if you'll do one podcast a week or you'll do one live show like this a week, a year from now, you'll never have to worry about money. Why? Because your competitors won't. And you'll be as well known as any other business that you compete with in your area. And now when they think of, hey, who should I call for this? You're going to be on the tip of their tongue. You'll be on the top of the mind because you have consistently shown up and you're on everyone's platform. I see on Facebook, I got to see your video on YouTube, I got these shorts on Instagram and TikTok and LinkedIn there. And so why would I go someplace else? You know, there's a, there's a fellow and I won't name him by name, but he is a. He's an injury attorney. And about a year ago I started seeing him show up on my pre roll on my YouTubes. And like, that's interesting. This guy's local, he's doing this and he's, he's kind of have some, there's a little bit of humor in his, in his commercials, so it's kind of fun. Well, then I started seeing him.

In my Facebook and my Instagram. I started seeing him on LinkedIn just recently and I've even received texts from him. And the cool thing about it is he's just everywhere. Now. Let me knock on wood. I don't think I'm going to have any personal injury issues, but if I did, it would be hard not to think of this fellow. Why? Because he is omnipresent. He's out there. You could do exactly the same thing with, with doing a podcast a live and I, and I would highly recommend doing it in video and making it available also in audio. Why? Well, simple reason. If I am driving down the road, I can listen to the podcast. If I've decided I want to watch the rest of. When I get to my destination, let's say I'm traveling and I get to my destination and I say, well, I want to, I want to hear what the end of that podcast was all about. I can flip it on and there you are on, on YouTube. And now I get to see you. And I get to, I get to see your emotions. I see how your eyes are. I get to see your background and the environment you're in. And it, it takes on more senses. So I become what, more connected with the viewer.

Now most people won't do this.

It's just that easy to not do it. I'll be honest with you, it's tough for me at times because again, I have a digital marketing agency and yes, I have a great staff, but I still stay busy. Sometimes I don't get a chance to create the content that I want as often as I want. Ideally for me, with as much new stuff that comes down the pike every day. I know some of you may not have heard that term, but that comes online every day. I could be on here every day making content.

Could I? Absolutely. Should I? Absolutely. Do I? Still a little tough for me yet, but it is a great avenue for me. And then Every time I make a piece of content, what should I do? I should put my commercial in there.

That's right, I should put my commercial in there. So on the other side of this, what I should do is I should create a little commercial that when I say, hey, we're going to have a break for our sponsors or when I turn this over to my editor before they make it live, they put an opening and they put a closing, put a little music on there and whatnot and a call to action at the end. But maybe two times within that video or that message they drop in a 30 second commercial about my Content accelerator could be that simple. And every piece of content I make is doing what? Promoting the Content Accelerator. And it's like content accelerate. Content accelerate. Content accelerator automatically generates my copy for me. Oh by the way, have to say, typically the content accelerator does this for our clients. It's a done with you program. In other words, we do all the work. We would make sure the content is correct, we would optimize it, we'd make sure that there's no if it's recommending links. We would make sure the links really go someplace that they're, they're proper. And then we would give that to our customer and they would, they would post their content. Now we have a done for you method, but this is a done with you method. Well, just recently I said, you know, I'm going to build another piece to my Content accelerator and that's my content accelerator scheduler. So now what will happen is let's say for instance, I have a blog post, I have a video, so I'm going to be on YouTube, I have, I have the social media platforms like, like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.

Let'S see, Google my business and then I have an email. So I'm going to put all that out there. So now as the content comes down, it gets approved when Melissa will, she's my project manager. When she says approved, guess what? It'll then immediately go through that system. It'll post it on all the persons that businesses, platforms, it'll schedule it all out. So if you have five, five posts, it'll schedule them five days in a row on four different platforms. If you say, hey, I want my, my blog to go out every Wednesday, Every Wednesday at 9 o' clock it will put it out there and so it'll do all that for you. Normally that is about a thousand dollars more a month for us to do that for you. But now what I'm doing is anyone who decides, hey, that sounds like that's. For me. I've been struggling to make content and when I do, it's. It's so erratic. I make one blog and then I go for six weeks and don't make another one. And then I write a blog and I go for three weeks. This is getting you out there every week. And that's the key to good marketing. Remember I talked about this, this attorney who's everywhere, he was everywhere, consistently the same thing about you. This allows you every week to get your content in place on multiple different platforms, which for most people that's very tough. You know, if you listen to some of the gurus, who will you choose one platform and get really good at it? Well, this allows you not to have to choose and you get very good at several platforms. So the reason for me talking about this today was saying there's a new avenue that you may have not thought about, but I want you to explore. And it's this medium. It's a podcast, it's a video podcast that you can use as a, an audio podcast. I could literally take this once it's done and transcribe it and turn into a blog post itself. But I'm going to give it to my content accelerator and let it do its thing. Because I could put in the transcription from this blog or from this show, put it in there and it would turn it into a well written blog. So that could happen. We could cut it up into shorts from probably a 20 minute episode. I might get 25 or 30 shorts that come from that, that now my staff will post all over the place. And again, omnipresence is important. So if this sounds like something that you're thinking, why should I do this for my electrical company? Absolutely. Should I do it for my plumbing company? Absolutely. What about my landscaping company? Oh, my gosh, no pun intended, but it would help you grow your business. If I'm a dentist, 100%, it'll make you smile because it will work so well. I see chiropractors all the time on there and I challenge you to say, okay, whatever my industry is, I want you to go to YouTube and I want you to see if they're making videos. I tried to get a former client and I say former because it just didn't work out. He was a plastic surgeon, or, excuse me, cosmetic surgeon, and I was begging him to make some content like this, actually having content like this that we're talking about, and he refused to do it. And it made it very, very difficult to continue to market him. And so we parted ways. He has a beautiful business. He's a nice man. It just didn't work out. He didn't have the time, didn't have the des. He still, quite frankly, I think there's. He's still thinking this is the way people make decisions and just run ads and those people will be my best customers. I disagree. I think there's a time for ads, but most of the time it's one of those things if, if I get you leaning in to thinking, wow, you know what? I hadn't thought about making a podcast. The guy makes it look pretty easy. He just puts his headphones on, looks at the camera and talks about things he already knows. Well, if you're an electrician, do you not know what you, what you do at a very high level? And then all you do is peel back and say, what if? What if? All you did is you made a five to seven minute video. And in that five to seven minutes, you actually just talked about one of your challenges you had when you went on a service call. Hey, my customer couldn't. I'll give you a perfect example. We have a gentleman that's in our BNI group. It's called Desert Professionals. And if you want to know more about that, let me know in the comments. But he said he went to this person's home that he was going to do some remodeling for. And when he opened up the walls, it was an older home, that the wiring was. Now, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was almost like he's lucky the house hadn't burned down because it wasn't properly insulated and it was touching things like it shouldn't have been touching. And it was just. He had to end up rewiring the entire house. He had to re plumb the entire house for something of. I think they were putting galvanized pipe and, and, and copper lines together. And apparently that creates some kind of a chemical reaction that again, can cause issues. So these are cool examples. Like, hey, are you buying an older home? Before you do, here's some things I want you to think about. Let me give you a story of what really happened when I did X, Y. And if you're creative, put it so you can put some pictures on screen and talk about that. I think people would like that if they're thinking about, hey, wait, before you buy that older home, these are some things you should consider. Just because the lights turned on and the plugs work does not mean what we cannot see. Behind the wall that there's not some problems. So how do you figure this out? Well, that's what I'm here to show with. You know, talk to you about today. There's so many ways to do this and it could be a lot of fun. Recently, one of our clients, Fraser Pest Control, sent us a little video where one of their clients, at the top of their roof, well, actually is the overhang above their. Where you walk into their front door. It was full of bees, honeybees. And when they opened it up, turns out there's all this honey in there. Well, they were able to excavate the bees and everybody's happy. But who sees that? It was so cool. That particular video was very, very popular and I'm sure they got a few calls for that particular video. These are things this is very authentic. People love to see. So I challenge you to think, can I do something like this? Now, before I leave, I'm going to give you one quick tip. I'm going to say, learn how to do batch videos. Now somebody's going to say, well, what the heck is a batch video? That means you say, how to block out two hours. And I'm going to create three or four of these. These shows and do this once a month. I would ask you, I challenge you to block out three hours once a month and three hours, probably more than enough.

To create this kind of a program.

That would help grow your business and set you apart. Because you'll be surprised. You'll walk into some place and says, hey, hey, you look familiar. Aren't you Jeff Harrison? Don't you do some kind of. Aren't you on TV? No, no, I'm on. I'm not on TV. I'm on streaming services like YouTube and. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you do that show called the Local Voice. That's exactly right. That's how this whole thing works. But I would challenge you to say, block out that time and shoot three or four do a month's worth of content at one time. And in between shooting and doing it again, what are you doing? You're collecting the ideas. Oh, here's a cool idea. I'm going to write that down. Oh, here's a cool idea. I'm going to write that down. And next thing you know, you've got three or four. Three or four topics that, what? That you can speak on, that you're so fluent at. You don't need to. You don't need to practice. You don't need to have a teleprompter. Not saying you shouldn't, but you don't need to have a teleprompter because it's something you do on a na on a daily basis and it's what you're an expert at. All right, more information, contact me@swingingpointmedia.com you can go there and check out the Content Accelerator. I'd love to have to be part of that program. That's where we create all your content. One click. Every Monday morning at 9 o' clock. It creates your blog post somewhere between 750 and 1000 to 1200 words. It's already optimized for SEO and we're, we're now doing it for Geo as well. That's images, the title, the, the, the keywords, the, the questions that are being asked by your audio customer on that topic. That's all done. Then we, we have a video, we make a video on that same topic and we put it out on several different platforms like YouTube, Google Business Profile, Instagram, Facebook. So it's showing on those programs. Then we take that, that.

Article and we create five different five days worth of social media posts and we put on four different platforms here on 20 spots basically for five days promoting that. And if you have a database, why not send them an email promoting the article promoting the video and using the video within the email to increase your open rate by as much as 19%. And it's just a nice cycle. Just a nice cycle. And if you sign up now, guess what you're going to get at no extra charge. Our new a newly developed automatic scheduler, the Content Accelerator Scheduler, which basically takes all your content once it's approved. And it says, okay, Jeff has approved it, now let's schedule. Put it on your website, all your platforms, everything's done for you. And it's just 7.99amonth. You know you're going to lose that much in your couch, so consider doing that. And here's the cool thing about content. And I heard this just today on a podcast by a guy named Omar out of Las Vegas. Omar Takari El Tacare. And he was talking to a fellow who said a video that he produced four years earlier is still creating new business for him today. That is the beauty of this type of platform. All right, my name is Jeff Harrison, I'm with Swing Point Media. This is the local voice. I really appreciate you being with me today. I hope you consider this. If you need more information on this, I drop a comment into the, into the, obviously in the comments section and I'll be more than happy to talk to you about it more. Thank you. Take care.