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Articles On What's Working Now For Local Business Marketing

We work with 100's of Local businesses across Canada and use this blog to share the best of what's working now for them and to answer frequently asked questions.

A few of our most popular articles to start off with are:

How To Get And Use Testimonials On Your Website To Win Customers

May222018 By , , , ,

Testimonials help website conversion

It’s nice when there’s something easy that you can do that gives you an immediate advantage. Chances are that you and your competitors don’t have testimonials on your websites. Or, if you do have, they haven’t been optimized for competitive advantage. (If you’re in the undesirable situation where you don’t have testimonials on your website and your competition does then you’re at a distinct disadvantage and need to remedy it without delay).

People like to buy from people and businesses that they feel good about, that they can trust. This is especially true on your website where you don’t have the opportunity to personally interact with them. There are several “trust signals” that we like to weave into our web designs that have a significant and positive impact on conversion rates.

One of the most important trust signals is the correct use of testimonials on your website.

Read More

Merry Christmas 2017

December212017 By

 

As we get ready to wind down for a nice Christmas break, I wanted to give you this quick video message. Read More

How A Website Review Resulted In A 620% Boost In Traffic

August022017 By , , ,

Split test case study

The results are in…

This January we launched a new and improved website. In June, we threw out our home page and redid it from scratch.

Sometimes, we get it wrong.

OK, maybe not “wrong” but not “good enough”. We regularly review the results from our website in our quest to keep improving web performance. In this article, I’m sharing with you our process for doing data-driven website reviews and a bit of a case study on how we used it to significantly increase results for us.Read More

Combine Print Ads with Your Website for Better Results

May022017 By , , ,

combine print ads with direct response websites

Is the print ad dead?

With all the talk about websites, Pay-Per-Click and social media marketing, it’s easy to think that the day of advertising in newspapers, magazines and the like has passed. Certainly, Online Marketing is a strong and worthy competitor for your advertising dollars and often squeezes out display advertising.

However, if print ads make sense for your business, then by combining your offline advertising with your online marketing, you can make your ads far more effective. Here’s how to use your website to turn regular display ads into powerful “direct response ads”.

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Engineer Your Differentiation To Increase Magnetic Attraction

January312017 By , ,

Strategy of Differentiation USP

Why is it that some businesses seem to attract new Clients so much easier?

Without the benefit of reputation, referral or more clever ad, some businesses are able to attract their unfair portion of business. They have an “it” factor working for them. Show me one of these businesses and I’ll show you their “it”; they’ve put the Client-pulling power of Differentiation to work.

The Strategy of Differentiation is one of the load-bearing pillars of the Professional of Choice Strategy and is

one of the easiest and most profound marketing strategies you can deploy.Click To TweetRead More

RIP Mr. Bob

January232017 By ,

Mr. Bob Cassels

A very good man, Mr. Bob, has passed away.

I just mentioned Mr. Bob in my article a couple of days ago and had a picture of our first trade show exhibit at one of his Mr. Bob’s Let’s Get Connected trade show.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, Mr. Bob Cassells was a force of nature and a founding staple of Barrie’s small business community. He wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea and could come on a bit strong at times but I got to know his true heart of gold and his love for the small business entrepreneur first hand.

I have many stories of Mr. Bob but here’s my first…

I remember moving to Barrie some 11 years or so ago. We didn’t know anybody and we were launching a brand new business venture.

Just before our move to Barrie, we thought it a good idea to go to a Chamber Business After 5 networking meeting. We went. And feeling very self-conscious and unconnected, there we stood trying to look cool and at ease.

And then something miraculous happened…Read More

How We Survived the Enchanting But Deadly “Sirens of Success”

January182017 By , ,

Original Piggybank Marketing business card

Looking back at the humble beginnings of Piggybank Marketing back in 2006, I feel a bit embarrassed. Not because of how “cheesy” and unpolished our image was back then but because it reminds me of an important business lesson we learned the hard way: “Beware the Sirens of Success”.

And, despite knowing better (at least intellectually), I fell into a common problem that faces many Professionals as they grow their practice and become successful. The good news is that I came to my senses before it was too late and doubled-down on correcting it.

Our Cheesy, Humble Beginnings

It was a local small business trade-show called “Mr. Bob’s Trade-show” where we publicly hung out our shingle for the first time.Read More

Why We Made the Switch From Joomla To WordPress

December022016 By , ,

WordPress VS Joomla!

I’ve worked with both WordPress and Joomla since their very first releases (2003 and 2005 respectively and with Joomla’s predecessor Mambo since 2003). For a long time, WordPress was our go-to for simple blogging websites and Joomla was our bigger-brother solution for more complex sites.

Both remain solid Content Management Systems (CMS) however, as far as we’re concerned, WordPress has clearly won the race and we no longer actively develop in Joomla. We’ve made the switch from Joomla to WordPress.

Starting a few years ago, I noticed WordPress was really coming into its own. The little brother was growing up and giving its older Brother Joomla a run for its money. WordPress shed its reputation as being “just” a blogging platform and has become a very nice platform for creating powerful marketing websites.Read More

Piggybank Supports Furry Friends

October092015 By

Piggybank Website supports local charity

Last year, the team at Piggybank Marketing wanted to do more than just “pass the turkey” at Thanksgiving; we wanted to #passthethanks.

We all got together and thought of a small thing we could do, because if everyone does something small, it all adds up to a lot! Last year we all picked up garbage in Queens Park, and we each did another #passthethanks for someone in need.

This year we are working together to collect donations for Furry Friends Cat Shelter in Barrie. They are a private shelter who relies entirely on donations to save hundreds of cats. We are requesting donations for these items most in need:

  • paper towels
  • white vinegar
  • Mr. Clean
  • liquid laundry soap
  • clumping cat litter
  • wet cat food

Donations can be dropped off at Piggybank Marketing for all of October.

How To Get Google Analytics To Reveal Your Local Traffic

August042015 By ,

Google Analytics for Direct Response Websites

A common mistake I see local businesses making when they look at their Google Analytics is that they look at their overall stats (number of visitors to their site, their bounce rate, how many pages were visited, etc.). While those numbers do have their place, the more relevant Analytic numbers to look at for a small business would be the stats for their local market.

Consider this actual example from a local business in Barrie, ON:

Read More