What To Do When You Change Business Locations
by William Lulow
I just recently went through a big change. I moved from my location of thirty years, to a new town. I moved to a place that has a much greater mix of residential and commercial properties than where I was. So, the first thing I concentrated on was changing my website to reflect my move. One of the things I have learned about search engines over the years, is that they take some time to adjust to new information. So I began changing things even before I actually moved. I have also found out that Google, for instance, changes the placement of a site partially depending on how many times it receives a “request” to visit it. So, it figures that the more requests a site gets, the higher its Google ranking. I have noticed that this seems to be how most search engines work, but perhaps not all of them.
Now I talk about Google as a “search engine” because, these days, when people are looking to buy something or a service, first place they look is on line. And, the name that first comes to mind is GOOGLE. It is a brand so well known that it has become a verb in our lexicon.
Then, I began to search for my own site under several of the search engines, Google, Yelp, Yahoo as examples. I have concentrated my efforts more on Google I have to admit, because I have received many reviews and my business has a 5-star rating on that platform. When I first moved to Livingston, New Jersey, I noticed that Google actually recognized my site, but it came up on page seven. Someone actually bothered to look that far down the listings and actually booked me for a job. This is usually not the case, but it does happen. Every day since, I have been “Googling” my own business and in about two weeks, I moved up the rankings to page two! Progress! As of the date of this post (December 4, 2020, my business is now listed on page ONE of Google searches for photographers in Livingston, NJ. So, I have also discovered, without spending any additional money, that you need to mention your new location several times on your HOME page in order to get Google to recognize your new location. I think I have the word “Livingston” mentioned about four times on my home page. This is necessary to optimize your listing on the search engines.
The next thing I did was to research advertising and marketing companies in close proximity to where my studio is. (By the way, it is a home studio, but I have plenty of room to shoot the portraits I do most). I came across about 150 advertising and design firms and made a list. I had several promotional pieces printed that I would mail out as 5×7″ postcards, about one every month for the first six months. Advertising, any kind, is usually a cumulative thing. My first go round with this direct mail piece resulted in about 30 returned “undeliverable” out of the roughly 150 I sent out. So, the information I got off the internet was not up do date. But, sometimes this is the only way to find out if it is really current. Most of the time it is not. Even lists you can purchase are not always up to date. The best way to get a list whittled down to good addresses is by doing it yourself, over a period of time. Do it yourself and put in the homework necessary to get a good list. People have to get used to seeing your name and business MANY times before they begin to think of you and associate you with whatever it is that you happen to be selling. Just think of how many commercials for McDonald’s you have seen. Or how many times you see ads for Coca Cola or any of its other products. Then you get some idea of what it takes to become a “household name” in whatever business you are.
On any mailing list you create, you have to allow for a certain number of returns. Businesses come and go over a period of years and even months, and it’s often hard to get a reliable list that is up to date. Most are not. Even ones you create yourself from just using the local library or the internet are not always current. So, by trial and error, you can most often whittle down your list to a few hundred that may be interested in what you are selling. Then, the trick is for them to be able to contact you when they actually need your product. Many potential customers may not need the product when you actually do the advertising, but they may need it sometime later. That’s why keeping up a campaign is the best way to try to stay foremost in their minds.
In addition to this, I also do an email campaign that I send out twice-a-month. I have been doing this for a couple of years now. Each email has the same template and therefore the same “look” to it. That is called “branding.” You want to be able to position yourself as a CONSTANT SOURCE for the particular product or service you offer. This usually takes a while to build up as well. But it is something you need to do on a regular basis. One shot deals never really amount to much.
The other thing I try to do is to tell people I meet that I have changed locations and moved to another town. That is very hard to do given the pandemic we are living through as I am writing this, but it is important to keep in mind whenever you can do it. As I might have mentioned in an earlier article, word-of-mouth is still the best advertising.
So, these are some of the initial steps I took just recently, and ones which I have done in the past as well.
