How a 70 Year Old Small Business Leverages Digital Marketing to Generate New Business

This case study is a look at Center Street Digital’s integrated marketing approach for storefront small businesses. It consistently generates new business leads and revenue.

Keeping up with changing demographics and technology is demanding. Most small business owners don’t have time to invest in learning and executing digital strategies to generate new leads. They also don’t have the budget to hire an expensive advertising agency.

Business was good but stagnant at Johnson’s Auto Glass in Yakima, Washington.

Johnson’s is 70 year old family company that loves the community they’re planted in. They knew they had a great product and the best service around, but they wanted a holistic approach to their digital marketing and someone they could trust.

Johnson’s also recognized that the days of customers using the phone book to find their service we’re long past. They had used various services over the past years including an expensive retargeting service for Google Adwords, but the ROI wasn’t great.

Our Pro Package was a perfect fit for them and they hired us to audit their digital presence, build a new website, leverage key strategies to target a younger demographic and generate more phone calls to their front desk.

So we took action and build out a roadmap for them that would generate ongoing business.  The bedrocks of that plan included:

  • A website that helps browsers take action to call them.
  • Grow their online reputation as a trusted resource.
  • Generate more and more localized search engine traffic.

A New Website

Johnson’s desperately needed a mobile friendly website that would make it easy for potential customers to call their front desk. If Johnson’s gets people on the phone about 80% of them turned into customers.

We rebuilt Johnson’s website with simple clearing messaging, new branding and of course a clear call to action…”call us!”.

A Trustworthy Reputation

A website that converts browsers to buyers is important but it isn’t everything. Building a solid trustworthy reputation is an important piece of the puzzle. So we set out to establish and grow Johnson’s online footprint.

What we found was that people were talking about them and they didn’t even know it. We just needed to take what people where saying about them and amplify it!

We took time to gather all of Johnson’s online profiles but began to focus in on Yelp, Facebook and Google My business. We knew that in Johnson’s niche the focus on tools that local customers are using to search for information would be critical.

We’re working with Johnson’s to build in a system of gathering online reviews and it’s starting to pay off.

Local Search Visibility

For a storefront, service type business like Johnson’s we had to get a handle on local search results and get them ranking better for some specific keywords and search terms. We also wanted to make sure their showing up on Google Maps well.

We did a deep dive into their niche and activated our Search Engine Optimization checklist which includes Search Console optimization, on-page SEO, technical SEO and link-building efforts.

It’s paying off as last month as Johnson’s profile showed up on search listing 1,320 times and on Google Map listings an additional 567 times!

Integration

All three of those things are the foundation of Johnson’s online identity and when they’re working together it’s magic!

We’ve certainly done some more work for them. Social Media management, coupon creation, email list building, but those things are secondary. The bedrock of their online presence is a website that converts, a trustworthy reputation and search visibility.

The Results

At this date we’re four months into their service and we received this comment the other day.

The only thing different we’ve done is hire you guys and we’re the most booked out we’ve ever been” – Gabe Runge (Owner)

Google search statistics to back it up…

Not bad when Johnson’s converts about 80% of the calls for an average customer value of $300-$500.

Because of their industry niche Johnson’s website traffic is a secondary metric to the search engine marketing numbers but it’s also trending in the right direction.

Johnson’s is now ranking in either first or second place on Yelp now for all of the right search terms (auto glass, rock chip, etc.).  This is huge for targeting a younger demographic.

We’re not done with Johnson’s yet. We’ve got big plans to expand their social strategy, email and content marketing, but now they’re set up with a solid, foundation that will accelerate everything else.

If you’re ready to start generating new leads for your small business, contact us today!

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