Category: Digital Marketing Resources

With the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), you are not only responsible for your personal health and the health of your loved ones, but also for the health of your business. With the U.S. economy potentially headed for a recession, the country is in a severe state of economic uncertainty, and that is not good for business. However, it can be good for your business if you take certain steps to adapt. 

Consumers will continue spending, and someone has to be there to meet that demand. Just because there’s economic uncertainty, doesn’t mean that you still don’t have payroll and other financial obligations to meet, or sales goals to achieve. You must adapt in order to keep the train on the tracks, and potentially come out of this economic turmoil with an even stronger business.

Here are five ways you can take advantage of the current state of uncertainty.

Step 1: Ramp up marketing while your competitors sit on the sidelines

Henry Ford once said, “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” With many of your competitors pulling back, this is the perfect opportunity to ramp up your sales and marketing activities, potentially at a lower cost. Advertising costs in general will decline, which means your marketing budget will go further than it did before. This presents a prime opportunity to gain market share from your competitors, and position your company to be even stronger and more dominant than it was before.

Step 2: Evaluate expenses, and trim the fat

Times like this present a great opportunity to evaluate your expenses and determine if there is any fat you can trim. Do you have any unnecessary expenditures that can be reduced? For example, we recently replaced K cups in our office with a 30oz can of Folgers. With this change, we went from spending roughly $80 per month on coffee to just $7 per month. This resulted in a savings of almost $900 over the course of a year. We also reduced the janitorial services for our office from twice a week to once a week. The office is just as clean as it was before, but for half the cost. We’re now saving over $1000 per month from those changes, and have since reallocated those funds to our own marketing efforts, where we typically see a 3x to 5x return. So, we’re not only saving $1000 per month, we’re actually earning an average of $4000 per month from those reductions in our office expenditures.

Step 3: Strengthen your team and encourage professional development

Use this opportunity to strengthen your team. Economic uncertainty impacts your employees just as much as it impacts you. It’s important to keep employee morale up during this time. Take a few minutes to check in with each of your employees and see how they’re doing. This also gives you an opportunity to provide your employees with feedback and encourage them to take advantage of professional development opportunities if business slows. If you have any employees who are underperforming, this is also a good time to address those issues. You can’t afford to have employees who aren’t significant contributors to the company’s bottom line during uncertain economic times.

Step 4: Reevaluate your business plan and be prepared to pivot

In the event business slows, use that time to reevaluate your business plan. There may be opportunities for growth that you haven’t thought of, or weren’t present before. For instance, you may be able to pivot to a different offering or serve a different audience. There may also be opportunities to improve your operations. For example, if and when things slow for your business, use this time to focus on building better systems and improving efficiencies. This can result in increased productivity and ultimately a more profitable business once things pick back up.

Step 5: Place more emphasis on digital marketing

Companies that typically rely on in-person networking, conferences, and tradeshows to drive new business will have to find alternative means of generating business. Sales quotas must still be met, but the traditional planes, trains, and automobiles method isn’t going to work as long as COVID-19 is an issue. There is a tremendous opportunity here for those that have historically relied on networking to create a digital marketing strategy to replace this lost revenue. Develop a digital marketing plan with a heavy emphasis on search engine optimization, social media marketing, and retargeting. Keep in mind that if people are stuck in their homes for long periods of time, they will be spending a lot of time on Google and Facebook.

Regardless of what the future holds, take this opportunity to evaluate your business and make the changes that are necessary to not only survive, but to continue to grow and thrive.

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As an attorney, establishing a positive reputation on Google and Avvo is crucial for remaining competitive in your local market. If you have no reviews — or worse, negative reviews — you’re going to have a hard time capturing prospective clients who base all of their decisions on online reviews. That’s why we’re going to show you how to deal with negative reviews and protect your online reputation.

How Damaging Are Negative Reviews?

If you’ve ever received a negative review after serving a client, you understand how disheartening it can be to learn that your best efforts weren’t enough to garner positive feedback. Unfortunately, reviewers don’t always treat lawyers fairly, and there’s evidence to back it up. Clients that have a negative experience are ten times more likely to leave a review than those who had a positive experience. 

Let’s run the numbers: if only one out of every ten positive experiences results in a positive review, and you receive a single one-star review, it could take up to 40 positive client experiences to offset your bad review. That’s a lot of work to overcome one negative opinion! And if you get targeted by review spam, you’re going to need more than luck to dig yourself out of the review badlands. This is part of the reason why law firm reputation management is so critical for lawyers that want to grow their practice.

Should You Manage Your Own Reviews?

Before you decide to manage your own reviews, you might want to consider how well you handle criticism. Many lawyers make the mistake of attempting to respond to reviews themselves. Despite their best efforts to remain professional, everyone has a boiling point, and you might later regret the response you penned in the heat of the moment. Negative reviews can attack more than your legal services. Reviewers might attack your character, insult your practice, and question your integrity; when this happens, you need to detach yourself from these critiques to maintain a high level of professionalism.

“Sometimes, facilitating some separation between yourself and your critics by allowing a third-party to manage your reviews is the best way to ensure that your responses are helpful, cordial, without emotion, and most of all, professional.”

If you do attempt to take on this task alone, you should always picture your reply attached to a bar counsel complaint. In this situation, would you be confident in the way you opted to handle your reply? Was your tone and content appropriate? Sometimes, facilitating some separation between yourself and your critics by allowing a third-party to manage your reviews is the best way to ensure that your responses are helpful, cordial, without emotion, and most of all, professional.

How to Address a Negative Review

You never want to be seen responding to client reviews in a manner that can be viewed as insulting, aggressive, or unprofessional; after all, your reviews and replies are public. Try to abide by the community guidelines of Avvo or other comparable sites whenever you respond to a negative review. For instance, Avvo’s community guidelines recommend that lawyers, avoid excessive self-promotion, draft original responses, and answer questions while maintaining client anonymity, among other things. 

Appropriate Response to a Negative Review

Here’s a good example of a response to a negative review that doesn’t disclose confidential or attorney-client privileged information: “Thank you for the feedback. It is our goal to serve every client’s legal needs. We are always looking to improve our services for our clients. Please contact our office at XXX-XXX-XXXX with any questions or concerns you may have.”

As you can see, this review didn’t “take the bait,” instead, it accepted the feedback and made a deliberate attempt to take the conversation offline. This is one of the fundamental principles of review management: Always take the conversation offline.

Inappropriate Response to a Negative Review

Now, let’s cover an unacceptable response to a negative review: “Thank you for the feedback. I’m personally sorry that I couldn’t get your husband’s DUI reduced to a reckless driving charge. However, there’s only so much that can be done when a DUI results in over $25,000 in property damage. As we discussed in our initial meeting, Mr. Smith’s criminal record played a significant role in the judge’s decision. I hope this justification is sufficient enough for you to remove this review.”

This response divulges too many details about the client’s case. Furthermore, it references past discussions that were conducted under attorney-client privilege. There’s more to be lost than gained here, so it’s better to tone it down.

Alternative Response to a Negative Review

If you absolutely have to get the last word, consider a response such as this: “Unfortunately, in your particular case the law didn’t support your suggested argument or strategy, we had to pivot in order to give you the best chance of achieving the best result possible.”

There’s some merit to responses like this. For one, you prove that you aren’t willing to fold, which is a great attribute for many attorneys. These types of replies also help you dismiss the negative review. However, you need to cut off communication after you leave a reply. You don’t have the time to be corresponding with past clients when your new clients need you.

Are You Having Trouble Keeping Up With Reviews?

Whether you’re unsure of how to respond or don’t have the time to engage every review, it’s important to realize that proper review responses can help you maintain relationships, attract new clients, and grow your practice.

At LEVERAGE, our reputation management services are designed to work in tandem with your SEO and social media marketing to ensure that your prominent online visibility is enhanced with an excellent online reputation. When you consult LEVERAGE for lawyer reputation management, your law firm’s reputation will soar with a comprehensive strategy that combines reviews management, solicitation, aggregation, and more. Best of all, you’ll no longer have to worry whether or not the time you spend managing reviews is paying dividends for your practice. Our experienced team puts in the necessary legwork to support your brand and position your firm as a responsive and respectable legal partner.

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Online reviews remain the single most influential way for patients to voice their opinions of your medical practice. Whether true or false, these opinions will be raw, unfiltered, and emotionally driven. They will gravitate towards being high praise or strong disapproval. Your reputation as a healthcare provider hinges on these reviews and your responses to them. 

While many business owners have the freedom to respond to reviews however they see fit, healthcare providers have their hands tied by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Such was the case when a physical therapy office was fined $25,000 in 2016 for posting testimonials on their website without patient consent. We’re here to tell you how you can manage your reputation and craft review responses while remaining HIPAA compliant. 

What Is Protected Under HIPAA?  

Briefly, HIPAA protects “protected health information” (PHI) which relates to “the individual’s past, present, and future physical or mental health or condition, the provision of health care to the individual” and anything that pertains to payment information. Altogether, there are 18 identifiers that indicate when patient information is considered PHI. 

“Avoid responding to reviews with information that can reveal a patient’s medical history or medical payment history.”

Bottom line: Avoid responding to reviews with information that can reveal a patient’s medical history or medical payment history. No matter what information they divulge in their review, you cannot respond in kind. Above all else, avoid using their name in conjunction with confirmation that you provided them with health care services. 

“How Can I Possibly Respond to Reviews?” 

Keep it anonymous. Keep it general. If the review is positive, a simple thank you will suffice. If the review is negative, again, thank them for taking the time to post a review and offer a phone number they can call to further discuss the issue. Negative reviews may be extremely biased, but people trust them nonetheless. You won’t have the flexibility to solve problems online, so your goal is to take the conversation offline. Only then can you offer a detailed, comprehensive solution to the patient’s grievance. 

Appropriate Response to a Positive Review

Here’s a great example of a HIPAA-compliant response to a positive review: “Our practice strives to provide each patient with the outstanding service and attention they deserve. We love hearing success stories. Thank you for the recommendation, and we wish you all the best! Sincerely, Dr. ______ and team.” 

Appropriate Response to a Negative Review

Here’s an appropriate response to a negative review: “Thank you for the feedback. It is our hope that every patient leaves our care having had their medical needs met and exceeded. Please contact our facility at XXX-XXX-XXXX with any questions or concerns.” 

Inappropriate Response to Any Review

Here’s what to avoid: “Dear Mr. Roberts. It was our pleasure to see you this past Tuesday concerning your intestinal surgery. Thank you for your positive review and recommendation!” 

Not only does the above post include the patient’s name, but it also includes information confirming their medical history, including confirmation of their visit, the date of their visit, and details of the patient’s treatment. 

Whether Positive or Negative, Respond to All Reviews

Now that we’ve discussed HIPAA compliance, it’s time to touch on how your reviews should be managed. We recommend responding to every review you receive, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative. By doing so, you can mend fences and further build a rapport with your patients while showing potential patients that you are serious about providing the best health care experience possible. 

Your goal is to maintain a trustworthy persona that your patients will recommend online as well as to their family and friends. Only then can you build your online presence, manage your reputation, and attract patients that would have otherwise never trusted you with their health and wellbeing. 

Maintaining Compliance and Your Reputation 

When you take into account reviews across Google, Facebook, Vitals, Healthgrades, WebMD, and other review platforms, managing your online reputation has never been more of a challenge — a challenge you must face nonetheless. Patients are oftentimes blindly trusting of online reviews. They may not know the people leaving reviews, but they value them nearly as much as personal recommendations, sometimes even more so. Don’t allow your reviews and reputation to fall by the wayside. The only way to dominate your local market is by taking all aspects of your online presence into account. 

Are you unsure of how to respond to Google reviews? Keeping up with reviews and crafting proper responses can help you maintain relationships, attract new patients, and grow your business. Your time is precious and better spent looking after the patients under your care. At LEVERAGE, we offer the top-tier review management services you need to ensure that patient reviews are responded to in a timely and HIPAA-compliant manner that both improves and extends your relationships with patients.

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Surprisingly, many organizations still don’t have mobile-friendly websites despite there being over 5 billion unique mobile subscribers worldwide. Usually, they are reluctant to invest because they lack resources or don’t see the value. If your organization falls into this category, and you would like your brand to remain relevant on the most widely used search engines in 2019—which, let’s face it, is quickly approaching—you need to invest in a mobile-friendly website.

Here are three reasons your organization must have a mobile-friendly website as you gear up for 2019.

Reason 1: Increased Mobile Visits

Now that Google labels websites that are optimized for mobile as “mobile-friendly” within its mobile search results, failing to have a mobile-friendly website can have a negative impact on your website’s click-through rate (CTR).

Think about it this way. If a user performs a search with their mobile device, and four of the top five results have a mobile-friendly designation, if all other parameters are equal, the mobile user will give preference to the four results that Google identifies as “mobile-friendly.” This results in a greatly reduced number of click-throughs for websites that haven’t been optimized for mobile while simultaneously stimulating the volume of click-throughs for websites that are.

Fortunately, Google provides a tool that allows website owners to test if their website is mobile-friendly. If a website passes this test, it will receive the mobile-friendly designation.

Reason 2: Higher Mobile Rankings

Google already penalizes websites in mobile search that are not mobile-friendly to ensure that websites that have been optimized for mobile devices rank higher. The world’s most widely used search engine is dedicated to improving the experience of surfing the internet, which is why mobile optimization is so highly coveted. Since 2014, mobile-friendly sites have been steadily increasing in ranking while others have been demoted to search engine results pages (SERPs) that rarely see human eyes.

Consider this quote from the Google blog post that announced the new “mobile-friendly” labels:

“We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal.” This announcement was made in 2014. Four years later, Google’s dedication to mobile-friendly websites has been unwavering, and mobile optimization has become the foundation of a successful online presence.

Reason 3: Increased Revenue From Mobile

If increasing rankings and click-throughs to your website don’t provide enough incentive to invest in a  mobile-friendly website, hopefully, lost revenue is. Lacking a mobile-friendly website at a time when so many users are turning to mobile devices to find the products and services they need is essentially forfeiting customers over to your competition.

The bottom line is this: without a mobile-friendly website, your organization is already losing revenue. Consumers are becoming less and less willing to put up with poor user-experiences on their mobile devices. If your organization fails to adapt to changing expectations, you will fall by the wayside as your prospective customers seek out the path of least resistance to an improved user experience. Typically, this path will lead them straight to your competitors who have invested in a mobile-friendly website. If you want to continue growing your business in 2019, a mobile-friendly website is crucial to your ongoing success.

Conclusion

Ensure that your organization has a successful SEO strategy in 2019 with a mobile-friendly website. Your organization will benefit from more click-throughs, higher rankings, and most importantly, increased revenue.

Mobile phones possess nearly all of the functionalities of a desktop computer, so it comes as little surprise that more and more interactions are taking place on mobile devices. If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, you risk missing out the important micro-moments that drive potential customers into your marketing funnel. At Leverage Digital, our creatives work side-by-side with our web development team to craft award-winning websites that feature superior performance on displays of all sizes.

Ready to partner with an award-winning agency that delivers results? Let’s get started.

 

Brands often create content strategies that cater to specific devices and their expected user behavior. Does smartphone and tablet user behavior differ so much that unique content strategies have to be crafted around each device, or should brands provide content that caters to the user regardless of their device?

Seamless experiences are extremely important to users. When users can access your content from any device, you boost engagement and increase the probability of conversion. If your brand wants to stay competitive, you have to decide if you’re willing to invest in a cohesive user experience that encourages sales and prevents customers from leaving your site to interact with one of your competitors.

Mobile Users

Mobile users are typically on the go. They want information quickly so they can take immediate action. They’re generally interacting with their devices to find phone numbers, get directions, schedule appointments, find hours of operation, place orders, and so on.

Because on-the-go users expect quick information, we’re seeing a sharp rise in the number of dedicated mobile websites that present only essential information for smartphone users with high purchase intent. However, many users feel like these mobile-optimized sites don’t have enough information.

Is providing a stripped down version of your brand’s website really the best strategy? In reality, not all smartphone users are in a hurry, and many of them have the desire to digest more content if it’s readily available.

Therefore, brands must find a way to strike a balance that provides smartphone users with a positive user-experience without sacrificing content. In other words, brands should continue to prioritize pertinent, task-oriented content for on-the-go users with high purchase intent, while also making additional content available for the smartphone users that want it.

Tablet Users

Due to their larger screen size, tablets are preferred over smartphones for performing research and other activities like reading and watching videos. Despite only a few inches separating mobile displays and tablet displays, there is a sharp contrast between user behavior for tablets and mobile phones.

As a result, brands often serve the same content to tablets and desktops. A lack of content isn’t the issue, but issues do arise when brands rely on their desktop user-interface to capably serve users who are interacting with your brand via tablet.

Navigating a website designed for desktop on a tablet can be cumbersome. The optimal solution is for brands to provide the same content available to desktop users, but in a user-interface designed for tablets.

The purchase intent of tablet users also differs from mobile users since tablet users are more likely to utilize their device for researching products and services that may potentially result in a sale sometime in the future. So, although purchase intent may typically be lower for tablet users, tablets still play a fundamental role in facilitating the purchase process, particularly for products or services that require a high level of involvement from the user.

Example

Take for example someone looking to buy a new 60-inch television. Before making the purchase, the user probably researches different models, product specifications, and customer reviews. This research is most likely performed on a tablet or desktop in a home environment.

After the user narrows down their options, and goes to the store to physically see the models they’re interested in, they will most likely rely on their mobile device to recall that same information. This is a critical moment because the user-experience is disrupted when the mobile version of that store’s website is stripped down to the point where it is missing the information the user is attempting to find.

This can lead to the user referring to a competing website to find the information they’re looking for. If that competitor just so happens to also have better prices, the disruption in user-experience may ultimately result in a lost sale.

This is a perfect real-world example of why brands should provide their customers with a consistent experience across all devices. Failing to do so not only frustrates the customer and negatively impacts brand perception, but also disengages the customer, and gives them a reason to refer to your competitors.

Conclusion

Consumers expect to have access to the same content regardless of device. Meeting this expectation can result in better brand perception and increased sales, while failing to meet this expectation can result in stifled user engagement, limited sales, and diluted SERP rankings.

Our award-winning agency understands that providing a seamless user experience for your customers is integral to capitalizing on every visit to your website. Driving traffic to your website is important, but your ultimate goal is to convert those users into customers. We provide our clients with the online infrastructure to dominate the competition and the support to ensure that their customers’ experiences are unparalleled.

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You’re probably aware of the importance of installing an SSL Certificate on your website, but shopping for one is a daunting task. If a business resists utilizing an SSL Certificate, their site will be flagged as “not secure” by Google. This causes your business to stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

SSL Certificates come in a variety of flavors, but the most important characteristic to consider is whether you want to invest in a full-fledged, paid SSL Certificate or go for the free alternative. As long as you utilize a reputable provider when acquiring your SSL Certificate, your site should meet the requisite benchmarks for security. However, there are still numerous, considerable differences between paid and free certificates.

Whether you opt for a free SSL Certificate or a paid one, the level of SSL encryption will remain largely the same. Free, cheap, and premium SSL Certificates are generally issued with 256-bit certificate encryption and 2048-bit key encryption. Plus, free SSL Certificates, such as those provided by Let’s Encrypt, are trusted by major internet browsers. Unfortunately, that is basically where the similarities end. Free and premium certificates will give your website the “lock” of assurance that reminds users that browsing your site is safe, but if you want your current and future customers to be fully protected when interacting with your site, you should consider the limitations of free SSL Certificates.

Domain Validation Only

Validating your domain gives users peace of mind when browsing your site. It also prevents malicious sites from replicating your domain and deceiving users. Due in part to their limitations, free certificates can be issued almost instantaneously, but faster isn’t always better.

On the Let’s Encrypt FAQ it states: “Let’s Encrypt offers Domain Validation (DV) certificates. We do not offer Organization Validation (OV) or Extended Validation (EV) primarily because we cannot automate issuance for those types of certificates.”

If you plan to collect personal information from your customers, relying exclusively on domain validation could put your website’s visitors at risk.  Additionally, paid certificates more readily support One-Domain, Wildcard, Multi-Domain, and Code Signing SSL Certificates.

Inapt for E-Commerce

Does your business utilize its website for e-commerce? Collecting credit card and personal information to process transactions requires a higher level of validation than free certificates typically offer. Paid SSL Certificates allow your business to authenticate itself through Business Validation or Extended Validation. Domain validation alone ensures that the website is encrypted, but it doesn’t guarantee that your users are browsing the correct site. For example, someone can own the URL “amazonbusinesspro.com” without having any ties to Amazon.

Limited Lifetime

Free certificates are typically offered in 90-day increments. In other words, your business will be responsible for updating its SSL Certificate every three months. If you forget to update your certificate in a timely manner, your site will be flagged as “not secure.” Customers who notice that your site is no longer secure may not visit it again out of fear of falling victim to cyber crime. Paid SSL Certificates last significantly longer, generally one or two years, which means your business can focus on generating leads and retaining customers without worrying if your certificate is going to expire.

Lackluster Customer Support

Free certificates don’t have the same level of financial backing as paid alternatives. As a result, when your business is having an issue with its SSL Certificate, the level of customer service will be limited, often lackluster, and entirely deficient of the needs of most businesses. Remember, if your site relies on a website to acquire leads or process payments, a compromised SSL Certificate can lead to stifled revenues and a shrinking customer base.

No Liability Protection

Possibly the greatest strength of paid SSL Certificates is liability protection to guard your company against any damages that occur as a result of a hack or data breach. This warranty can be valued up to $1,500,000, which alone justifies the average cost of a paid SSL Certificate. You never know when your site could be attacked, so it’s important to have your bases covered with a paid SSL Certificate that gives your business strong liability protection.

Free vs. Paid

Like the popular idiom states, when it comes to SSL Certificates, you “get what you pay for.” If you still aren’t sure whether or not your business should be utilizing a free or paid SSL Certificate, consider contacting a digital marketing agency like Leverage Digital. Our customers are automatically equipped with free SSL Certificates while we help them determine which type of paid certificate is best for their business. Although you can save money by opting for a free certificate, you can’t go wrong with a paid one.

At Leverage Digital, we take the guesswork out of growing your business, but we can’t accomplish this goal without securing your website against malicious online attackers, data breaches, and hacks. That is why we recommend that all our clients—current, future, or otherwise—are equipped with paid SSL Certificates. Not only do these certificates protect your customers from more threats, they ensure that your customers trust you and continue to utilize your products or services in the future.

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Micro-moments, a concept first introduced by Google, are high-intent, short bursts of activity characterized by consumers who turn to their mobile devices to quickly access information (i.e., watch a “how-to” video) or take action (i.e., find the nearest Starbucks). Marketers must learn how to reach consumers during these high-intent micro-moments by providing their customers with the information they want, when they want it, and in the format most likely to engage them.

How Search Influences The New Customer Journey

The customer journey has become a nonlinear path of micro-moments that ultimately lead to a purchase. Oftentimes, search is at the beginning of this journey, but for higher-consideration purchases, search can also play a significant role in assisting the customer through the middle and even to the end of the sales path.

For example, someone looking to buy a new mid-size SUV may begin their journey by searching “top 10 mid-size SUVs,” followed by a search for customer reviews of the specific mid-size SUVs they’re interested in. This helps them narrow the number of vehicles they are  considering down to a few, specific models. With this information, they will begin their search for the nearest dealerships that sell those particular SUVs so they can test drive each vehicle and make a decision.

In this scenario, the consumer performs three distinct searches to move along the purchase path. This may take place over a few days, weeks, or even months. While there are other influences that may affect the buyer’s decision in this scenario, such as brand reputation or the opinions of friends and family, the buyer’s ultimate decision will be largely based on the information they derive from each micro-moment.

Taking Advantage of Micro-Moments with Search

In order to take advantage of micro-moments, brands must leverage search. Consumers have become accustomed to reaching for their smartphones and searching for answers when they have questions. Brands need to make sure they’re visible in these searches and have the necessary content to answer consumers’ questions.

In order to do this, brands must develop a thorough understanding of the key moments in which their customers make decisions that push them further along the path to purchase. For example, home builders must understand that home buyers want to see virtual tours before visiting a model. Similarly, a hair care product line should know that their customers like to see how-to videos for different hairstyles before buying their hair product. On the same ticket, a car manufacturer knows customers want to see 360-degree views of a car’s interior before taking a trip to the dealership. Regardless of your industry, consider the fact that 69 percent of online consumers’ perception of a brand is influenced by the quality, timing, or relevance of the brand’s message.

Conclusion

Brands that learn how to provide their customers with the information they want in these micro-moments will gain a significant competitive advantage. As consumer behavior becomes increasingly reliant on mobile devices, expectations become greater, and attention spans become shorter, the value of effective micro-moments could be the factor that results in your company clinching the title of industry leader from your competition.

How do your customers experience your brand? Every moment, no matter how big or how small, can leave an indelible imprint on your clientele. There’s only one way to ensure that your business is primed to direct users into your marketing funnel, and that’s through effective and powerful micro-moments. Your brand is constantly vying for business with its competitors, and micro-moments can spell the difference between more conversions or an increased bounce rate. At Leverage Digital, our personable team understands that many agencies lose sight of these important moments, so no matter how large your digital marketing campaign grows, every facet of it will be carefully monitored and analyzed to provide you with measurable results.

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It feels good to be on top of your industry, but you didn’t get there because you’re lucky. All of your success is derived from a determination to dominate your competition and grow your business. The road to success is filled with perils, but you’ve subsisted through the trials and tribulations to reach the top of your industry. And guess what? It’s only just the beginning.

Once you attain success, your next goal is to maintain it at all costs. As we’ve seen over the last few years, unexpected occurrences can derail a business virtually overnight. Without an effective marketing strategy, a business can come and go as quickly as the seasons. But there’s good news: by examining the collapse of other famous companies with irreparable brands, you can avoid those mistakes and keep your brand on the right track toward future success.

United Airlines

What Happened: A male passenger was literally dragged from his seat by two airport security officers on an overbooked plane departing from Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Unfortunately for United, cameras were rolling when the incident took place, and the dispute quickly went viral. The video, which showed a distressed man with blood on his face and mouth screaming for help as he was forced from the plane, disturbed viewers nationwide and quickly lead to protests and backlash against the almost one-hundred year-old company.

The Result: United’s stock dipped 4 percent in the days following the highly publicized incident and nearly $1 billion vanished from the company’s market value. CEO Oscar Munoz announced new preventative strategies to quell future conflicts including increased monetary incentives to leave an overbooked flight, reduced overbooking, additional employee training, and limited paperwork for lost luggage reimbursement. However, these reparations were unable to lift United from its low ranking in customer service satisfaction among airlines. United Airlines earned a 70 out of 100 on the 2017 American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is five points below the average score of 75.

The Lesson: Your company is always being watched, so there’s very little space for lapses in judgment. All of your employees should be familiar with your company’s brand, mission statement, and code of conduct. One bad apple, even in a minor role in your company, can cause irreparable damage to your brand. This catastrophe resulted in a major public relations crisis that was only compounded by what many viewed as a disingenuous apology on behalf of CEO Oscar Munoz. The United Airlines fiasco also serves as a cautionary tale for the power of viral video and social media content. Bad news tends to spread even faster than good news, so your company should always remain cognizant of how it is being portrayed internally and externally online, and especially on social media.

Sprint

What Happened: Although Sprint once kept stride with other major telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the company’s inferior customer service infrastructure and inability to adapt to a changing market has caused it to fall behind its competition. There were once two tiers of telephone service providers. The first tier was mainly composed of companies like the aforementioned AT&T and Verizon Wireless that offered monthly contracts on two-year service agreements. The second tier included prepaid or no-contract service providers like MetroPCS (now just Metro) and Cricket. Then something changed: companies like AT&T started offering both, despite already possessing stock in prepaid service providers who were piggybacking off their cell towers. Sprint didn’t know what to do. With lackluster service and an ineffective brand that failed to land with customers, the company’s leading executives found themselves in a poorly defined niche with no clear target audience.

The Result: On a poll conducted by Zogby and 24/7 Wall St., 44 percent of respondents reported a negative customer experience with Sprint. Among the 150 companies listed in the survey, Sprint had the fifth largest share of negative customer feedback. This was a significantly higher share than other mobile telephone companies like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. In addition, RootMetrics, a wireless network performance insight company, ranked Sprint behind all competitors in speed and data, arguably two of the most important considerations for customers shopping for wireless plans. Sprint didn’t rank well in calling, texting, and overall reliability either. The struggling brand ranked second to last in all three of these important service areas.

The Lesson: Technology is important, and if you aren’t willing to invest in the next wave of innovation, your business will quickly grow stagnant as it finds itself unable to compete. Sprint, a company whose brand is closely entwined with technology, failed to capitalize when new technology changed their market, and their brand suffered as a result. Our agency is vigilant of important changes in digital technology that will affect your online rankings, visibility, and traffic. We prime your business for success in advance so we can continue to implement changes to your digital marketing strategy to future-proof your business.

Equifax

What Happened: Equifax fell victim to one of the largest data breaches in history in 2017. Blackhats infiltrated the Equifax servers between May and July of 2017, amassing an enormous trove of personal data including driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, and birthdays. The information of more than 145 million Americans was vulnerable to the hack. Equifax’s lackluster handling of the incident, including the baffling decision to announce the breach over a month after it occurred, outraged Americans and proved that legislation concerning the protection of users’ personal data was outdated, weak, and in need of revision or replacement.

The Result: The consumer credit reporting agency made it easy for users to find out if they had been affected by the hack or not by simply logging on to their site and filling out a form, but people were not thrilled about the lack of help they were receiving. First, they needed to visit a website and submit information to a company that had just bungled the security of their information. Second, Equifax required consumers to not join a class-action lawsuit if they wanted to see if their information had been hacked. Lawmakers have done very little to prevent another incident like this from happening again.

The Lesson: Security is vital to the success of every business. In order to retain customers and find new ones, you need to have a way of reaching them. Personal data is the key to building strong connections with customers and clients, but if you don’t have the digital infrastructure in place to keep this information safe, your business will be hard-pressed to keep those customers happy. For instance, there’s never been a more vital time to invest in an SSL certificate for your website. This certificate encrypts data on your website to ensure that it can’t be accessed by the wrong users. At Leverage Digital, we’re outfitting all of our clients with free SSL certificates as a stopgap solution for their online security needs, but we’ll also be offering extended coverage using paid SSL certificates that feature significant upgrades like liability protection, multi-domain certification, superior server compatibility, and more.

Growing your brand and dominating your competition is easy when you partner with an award-winning digital marketing agency like Leverage Digital. We understand that success is something you have to earn, and we’re constantly working to ensure that our clients are positioned at the top of their industry. We customize digital marketing strategies to help you connect with more customers, carve out a niche for your business, and achieve your growth objectives with measurable results.

Ready to partner with an award-winning agency that delivers results? Let’s get started.