Discover The Latest Best Practices and "What's Working Now" for Marketing Your Local Business Online

Combine Print Ads with Your Website for Better Results

May022017Online Marketing By Scott Gingrich direct response, marketing

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”.

Scott Gingrich

is not your typical Web Geek! Scott’s passion is around helping the local small business owner leverage Internet Marketing and Direct Response tactics that create wildly successful online results.

Engineer Your Differentiation To Increase Magnetic Attraction

January312017Online Marketing By Scott Gingrich Dan Kennedy, marketing, networking, strategy

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 Tweet Read More

Scott Gingrich

RIP Mr. Bob

January232017Entrepreneurship By Scott Gingrich barrie, mr. bob

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…Read More

Scott Gingrich

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

January182017Entrepreneurship By Scott Gingrich marketing, mr. bob, strategy, trade show

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

Scott Gingrich

Why We Made the Switch From Joomla To WordPress

December022016Online Marketing By Scott Gingrich joomla, wordpress

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

Scott Gingrich

Piggybank Supports Furry Friends

October092015News By Piggybank Marketing

Last year, the team at Piggybank Technology 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 Technology for all of October.

How To Get Google Analytics To Reveal Your Local Traffic

August042015Online Marketing By Scott Gingrich Google Analytics, SEO

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:

Scott Gingrich

7 Steps to Get Your Phone to Ring With Inbound Marketing

July272015Online Marketing By Scott Gingrich Blogging, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, marketing, SEO

(Here is a primer on the single most important marketing tactic available to local businesses today)

The topic of “Inbound marketing” is a big topic right now in the world of Internet Marketing. And for good reason. It’s a powerful strategy that can be a low-cost way to reliably and predictably bring your business new qualified leads and Customers.

Scott Gingrich

Piggybank Pitches In for Earth Day

April222015News By Piggybank Marketing Small Business

The team at Piggybank is delighted to be doing its small part this year to support the Earth on Earth Day. Imagine if all the small businesses made just a few simple, inexpensive contributions to helping our environment.

Here’s what we’re doing this Earth Day:

Implementing an organics collection in the office, diverting the majority of our garbage away from the Barrie landfill.
Turning off the lights for the day.
The whole team will be doing a 1-hour clean-up of Queen’s Park and area in downtown Barrie.
Making a donation to Scout Trees.

Google Penalizing Websites That Aren’t Mobile…Not The Real Reason Your Website Should Work on a Smart Phone

March302015Online Marketing By Scott Gingrich marketing, Mobile Website, Responsive Website, SEO

According to a recent Google blog post, if your site isn’t mobile responsive, it’s going to get shoved down the search results starting in a few weeks:

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

If your site doesn’t pass their “mobile responsive” test, then starting April 21 expect your site to drop significantly in Google’s Search Engine results.

The Real Reason to Have a Mobile Responsive Site…it Isn’t SEO

Scott Gingrich