Project Overview
From the Client
Project Overview
This multiple-location property restoration firm is one of the biggest property damage restoration service providers, serving more than 180 locations across the United States. The company offers a breadth of residential, commercial and industrial damage restoration services, including storm recovery, sewage cleanup, mold removal, fire damage restoration and refinery and factory cleanup.
The client reached out to Thrive Internet Marketing Agency to increase its monthly leads and phone calls and expand its commercial services for both corporate and franchise accounts. Since taking over the company’s digital marketing campaign, we’ve facilitated the online growth of its corporate and franchise accounts and increased its phone calls month-over-month (MoM).
In 2020 alone, Thrive has generated a total of 89,422 leads across 180 locations, including 1,345 calls and 2,064 conversions for its paid advertising campaign. Additionally, in February 2021, Thrive helped generate a one-month record for the client with 12,884 leads.
The Highlights
Thrive has been working with this multiple-location property restoration company since 2019 to improve its digital presence and search rankings across all service locations. Our search engine optimization (SEO) efforts have resulted in:
- Monthly Traffic: +28,992
- Pageviews: +447,043
- Average Time on Page: 2 minutes and 5 seconds
- Clicks: +88,500
- Contact Form Submissions: +2,356
- Sessions: +437,911
Since taking over the client’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign for some of its 180 locations, we’ve also delivered significant lead and conversion growth:
- Total Calls: +1,345
- Total Conversions: +2,064
- Cost-per-Click (CPC): $27.06
- Average Conversion Rate: +13.48%
Overall, Thrive’s digital marketing campaigns have helped the client generate an average of 497 leads per location and increase its organic traffic by approximately 57 percent.
Executing the Strategy
THE CHALLENGE
This multiple-location property restoration company needed help in customizing its digital marketing strategy for each service location. Each target location had different restoration needs and every franchisee had distinct goals they wanted to achieve, so the client wanted to ensure these would be reflected in the local pages.
Additionally, we needed to make sure all franchise accounts would be given the necessary attention while keeping the pricing affordable and offering the value needed to fulfill their goals.
Many franchisees also do not have time to dive deep into reports to understand the technical aspects of their online marketing strategy. As such, it was important that we gave them more high-level information that directly impacts their business objectives and revenue.
Thrive’s main goal was to eliminate duplicate tactics and create a personalized optimization strategy for each franchise’s local page. The client needed an improved online marketing plan that caters to the needs and demands of each franchisee’s local market and delivers a high return on investment (ROI).
THE SOLUTION
The initial phase of the campaign management was focused on SEO and website support. To gain a complete understanding of the client’s digital marketing needs and implement appropriate website optimization tactics, Thrive’s SEO specialists performed an in-depth analysis of its competition, website performance, backlink quality and local search performance.
We used several tools to:
- Determine the client’s main competitors from an online perspective
- Evaluate existing backlink profiles
- Identify and remove spammy links
- Determine areas of opportunity for local citations and name, address and phone number (NAP) consistency
Making improvements in all of these areas helped the client’s domain rating increase from a 51 in January 2020 (per Ahrefs) to a 68, a substantial increase over a 14-month period.
The local search audit was done for each location, and we found that some franchises were sold to another franchise owner and details on some listings were changed. To keep these listings as accurate as possible, Thrive’s SEO experts worked closely with the new franchisee.
Search Engine Optimization
Our SEO specialists used cutting-edge SEO tools and crawling software to identify and analyze technical SEO factors that needed to be addressed. The analytics results showed several factors, such as site speed, broken links and schema, that needed attention.
Using this data, we made a list of action items and, every month, slowly worked through each one of the factors that we did have control over:
ROI Tracker
Thrive set up an ROI tracker and provided resources, such as recorded training and flowcharts, to help franchisees understand the value of their closed leads and the impact on their ROI. The ROI tracker pulls in all phone calls into a spreadsheet and allows the franchisee to assign a score and a dollar amount to the leads coming in. This enables the client to view its ROI per channel in real-time.
We continue to refine this process and update our reports based on franchisee involvement and feedback.
Content Optimization
Our SEO specialists reviewed the client’s current keyword targeting strategy and made adjustments to ensure we capture high-value keywords that fit each franchisee’s local market, specific goals and preference. Additionally, we performed a thorough content audit to identify and remove duplicate content across location pages.
Google My Business (GMB) Listings Updates
We optimized each franchisee’s GMB listings to improve their local rankings and increase sales opportunities. Our SEO experts ensured all listings have accurate NAP details and reflect all services offered, some of which had not been highlighted previously. This reinforced to Google that these restoration services are offered 24/7 and are an important part of the business.
We also came across other elements, such as server options, which we do not have control over. In such cases, we provided additional recommendations to the client.
Web Design and Development
Thrive also took on website support for 85 existing local franchise websites. Our web design and development service covered:
- Complete redesign for the corporate website and 180 location pages
- Service page content development and optimization
- Custom content creation for 180 locations, which links out to individual social media pages and local franchise websites
- Call tracking integration, enabling reporting across SEO/PPC/GMB/Direct
Our web developers also integrated custom mapping software to the client’s website to allow page visitors and prospects to search for their closest franchise by ZIP code or state.
We’ve also added a “sticky” franchise functionality, which enables the localization of service content and contact details across the website. Once a user selects a franchise, the website will show customized content about the specific location, such as the franchisee’s location and phone number. This information remains on the website across all pages and will only change when the user selects a new franchise or clears the location. Franchisees can update their own service offerings to ensure only the services they provide are shown across their local website.
PPC Management
Following the success of the SEO campaign and website redesign, the client extended its partnership with Thrive and acquired PPC advertising solutions. Our team reviewed the company’s existing PPC strategy to determine opportunities for improvement.
We put together ad spend recommendations, which focused on:
- Targeting specific locations and services
- Landing page redesigns/optimizations
- Best performing services and learnings historically
- Goal tracking analysis and setup
Once ad spend is confirmed, PPC campaigns are built out and launched to improve visibility on the Google SERP. Over time, we take the data driven from PPC and optimize to help improve performance through:
- Targeting specific keywords and search terms
- Update and optimize copy to improve CTR and CPC
- Landing page optimizations to improve CVR
- Test new strategies optimized based on performance & goals
Another important focus for the Thrive team was revamping the landing pages to reflect more calls-to-action (CTAs) directly related to local phone numbers. We’ve found that most customers in need of these restoration services are experiencing a traumatic loss and need help right away. As such, we adjusted the CTA to ensure it hones in on “emergency, 24/7 service” or similar verbiage. The goal was to make it easier for customers to contact the local franchisee office and make the CTA button more visible to page visitors.
Online Reputation Management (ORM)
Thrive also partnered with Rize Reviews to manage the client’s review generation for select locations. Our reputation managers installed a custom review widget on the client’s website to facilitate faster review acquisition. The review widget allows the client to display and aggregate customer feedback from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Facebook and Google. Depending on the region, we’ve also aggregated reviews from other sources, including Nextdoor, Yelp, Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor.
Additionally, we’ve provided QR codes to every location to allow employees in the field to generate reviews from clients face-to-face. Our Thrive team now manages 180 active accounts and additional locations waiting on listings to be verified.
We also offer free, regular online seminars to share review generation and marketing strategies. Each location is given access to the Rize dashboard and has the option to manage its review acquisition campaign or entrust the whole process to our reputation management company.
Thrive continues to manage the client’s digital marketing campaigns across 180 locations. To continue the success of early efforts, we plan to add more functionalities to the client’s corporate website, which will allow each franchisee to host their own blogs. We will also redesign franchisee microsite templates and provide additional marketing recommendations to improve the client’s digital presence.
“What Thrive does is they bring a depth of knowledge to our account. They have a team that is very deep in each of the digital services. When you have some concerns or an issue you need to address, there are multiple people who can come to the table to address the concerns from their knowledge base versus another agency that would just give you one or two people. The level of knowledge of the account management team is superior. Their ability to bring innovative ideas to use, they think outside of the box and they are always planning ahead. They fit their talent perfectly with our account.
“They have also done a very good job of working with a fixed budget. These franchise owners come in paying a fixed amount, but Thrive knows how to manage their time and get the most efficient results of that money. You guys got us 46,000 qualified calls in 2020 and that was huge. Our previous agency would only get about 10,000 qualified calls in a year. You can’t have just one marketing plan for this account. You have to be able to be very flexible and have a very agile plan for these franchise owners, and Thrive has done that well.”