The world of pest control is highly competitive since most pest control companies operate in a relatively tight geographic area filled with a number of competitors with similar services. For this reason, it’s critical to capture and retain the attention of potential customers. One of the most effective ways to accomplish this is through content marketing. In a nutshell, content marketing consists of producing informative and engaging content that your target audience is looking for.
Content marketing provides many benefits to pest control companies. First, providing useful content is a great way to demonstrate to prospective customers that you are an expert in your field. It also allows you to regularly engage with your target audience while you build trust and establish strong brand recognition. For pest control owners looking to grow their business, having a comprehensive content marketing strategy can make a huge difference in giving your company a competitive advantage and generate new sales.
1. Define Your Audience and their Problems
Since each pest control business is different, a good content marketing strategy begins with understanding your target audience. Some pest control companies focus more on residential clients while others may specialize in businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and other commercial real estate. Your goal is to create content that is specifically tailored to the needs of your ideal client.
Once you have established who your target audience is, you need to come up with a list of problems that they are likely facing. By creating content that solves these problems, you will find yourself with a highly engaged audience. For example, if termites are a major problem in your local area, developing content around termite mitigation should be well received by your target customers.
The best part about content marketing is that it is highly customizable. You can easily segment your customer list into groups and tailor content specifically for them. While a homeowner and restaurant owner may both have issues with ants, customizing the message for each can help the customer better connect with the information.
2. Create Clear Marketing Goals
Setting goals is an important element of any marketing campaign. Content marketing is no exception. Goals serve two purposes. First, setting goals gives you the ability to look back at a later date and confirm whether you did or did not achieve what you anticipated. If you want to gain 500 additional followers on your social media, you’ll know whether the campaign was a success or not. Another benefit of goals is to help drive your strategy. There are numerous different ways to approach content marketing. It’s important to make sure that whatever options you deploy ultimately align with your initial goals. If the actions you are taking don’t align with your goals, you’re probably working on the wrong things.
As a part of setting goals for your content marketing strategy, you may also need to create a marketing budget. The good news is that most content marketing is free (or almost free). However, dedicating a small portion of your marketing budget to content marketing can improve your results. Your marketing budget could range from simply providing a monthly spending limit for online advertising all the way up to hiring a marketing agency to manage your content marketing campaign from start to finish.
3. Check Out the Competition
When building a content marketing strategy, it’s important to understand what your competitors are doing in terms of content marketing. This can be a great way to generate ideas and find out what is working well. For example, you might notice that a social media post that provides pet friendly pest control tips has a lot of likes and comments. This is an indication that these types of posts are popular. Start by checking out the websites, blogs, and social media profiles of other companies in your area. It’s critical to note that the idea isn’t to steal or copy their content (we don’t condone plagiarism). It’s much better to provide your own original content around the same topic by adding extra value or your own spin.
In addition to looking for what your competitors are doing, you should also look for what they aren’t doing. Gaps in their content could be an opportunity to stand out online. For example, if your competitor doesn’t have content around a certain topic, it might be an opportunity to engage your target audience without directly competing with them for attention.
4. Create Compelling and Engaging Content
The possibilities are practically endless when it comes to creating content for a pest control business. These options include articles, blogs, videos, online classes, podcasts, downloadable guides, case studies, infographics, and pest identification tools. The type of content you choose to leverage may depend on the information you are sharing. For example, it’s much easier to show a homeowner how to identify a termite with a photo on Instagram or Facebook than it is to try and describe the same pest over a podcast.
In the beginning, you might want to start with one or two methods like a blog or social media profile. However, it’s effective to try and reach customers through a few different methods. Some of your customers might be avid blog readers while others might spend most of their free time casually scrolling through their social media feed.
No matter what, you want to stand out as an expert. Your content needs to be as original and unique as possible. Visual elements such as photos and videos can be a great way to catch the reader’s eye and draw them into your content. The content needs to also be extremely engaging which can be tough in the realm of pest control (let’s face it, pest control isn’t the most exciting topic for the average consumer). Don’t be afraid to have a good balance of educational content and pure entertainment.
5. SEO and Keyword Research
When home and business owners have a pest control issue that they need to solve, the first place they are likely to look is online for the answers. Whether they need to identify a strange looking bug or want to find a DIY option for dealing with ants, most people start with a search engine. For this reason, ranking high on a website like Google can make a huge difference in the number of people who end up visiting your website or social media.
Search engines rely on a complex algorithm to match its users with the information that is most relevant to their search criteria. The more specific a website is to their request, the higher it will rank on the search results page. Your ultimate goal is to rank on the first page of the Google results, ideally in the top three spots which typically receive 70% of all clicks.
Using the right keywords tells Google what your page is about and can greatly increase your chance of ranking well. Finding the right keywords can be a challenge. There are typically two types of keywords – short-tail and long-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are usually single words or terms such as “termite” or “pest control”. Long-tail keywords are more complex phrases like “ant mitigation in Dallas”. There are pros and cons to long and short-tail keywords. Short-tail keywords are more commonly used. The problem is that this means they will also be highly competitive. Long-tail keywords aren’t requested as often. However, you’ll be more likely to land at the top of the search engine results page.
6. Build the Right Content Schedule
The frequency and time that you distribute your content, can have a significant impact on your marketing results. Despite having the best content, you could miss out on views if you send it on the wrong day of the week or don’t post frequently enough. It’s important to have a clear distribution schedule. The goal is to share new content on a regular basis so your audience feels engaged but not so frequently that they are annoyed and unsubscribe. Also, be mindful of the time of day you publish content. Publishing a new social media post at 3AM will likely get buried before your audience signs onto their account when they wake up in the morning.
7. Track Performance and Adjust
It’s very unlikely that you will find the secret to viral success on day one. It’s more likely that you will need to test out different types of content, fonts, layouts, and schedules to find out what resonates best with your audience and gets the most views or clicks. The perfect way to measure performance is by establishing a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that will let you know how you are performing. These metrics can include email open rates, new social media followers, or other interactions with your target customers.
Leverage the Experts in Pest Control Content Marketing
Creating a social media profile or blog is relatively simple. However, many pest control business owners underestimate the amount of time and research that is required to build a content marketing strategy that actually works. At Rhino Pest Control Marketing, we’ve spent years developing a highly-effective approach to making sure your content gets maximum exposure and achieves the results you want. So, instead of struggling through trial and error to nail the perfect content marketing strategy, let our content marketing experts support you in getting ahead of your local competition.
