On this episode of The Marketing Hub we have marketing consultant Christina Clarkin from MX3 talking about Google My Business as a marketing tool; the benefits, how to set it up and maintain it.

The Marketing Hub series has experienced marketing professionals sharing their expertise, helping you to improve your marketing knowledge and grow your business.
The host, Paul McDermott, owner of video agency, Social Video HQ is right there with you learning and hopefully demystifying marketing along the way.

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Transcript

Today on the marketing hub,

we’re talking about Google My Business

and the merits of using it

as a marketing tool,

and I’m delighted to say I have marketing

consultant Christina Clarkin

here today from MX3 three.

Hi, Christina. Hi, Paul.

How are you today?

Not too bad.

Not too bad on this sunny day,

I know I’m

in the yellow and everything.

It’s a great day out there.

So thanks for having me on.

I’m very excited to be here.

I’m delighted to have you.

And so we were just talking recently

and you were talking about

the merits of Google My Business.

So can you tell us

what Google My Business is

and the benefits

of using Google My Business?

Sure. Absolutely.

So Google My Business is a free business

listing available on Google.

And you have probably all come across

It appears on the search,

on the search engine results

page on the right hand side.

And also in maps.

So you might have come across to say

if you’re searching

for a restaurant in your local area

and you Google it on your phone

and it comes up as a listing

and you have the option

to look at the reviews

and looking at a brief

bio about the establishments,

and you can click on the website

or look at their opening hours.

So that’s what I’m

talking about here today.

And it’s free to use for all of us.

We have this available to us

if we have a Google account.

And so that’s one of the first

benefits of it Paul.

And then the other benefit

is that it’s highly visible.

So if you have a Google

my business account

and your visibility for your business

just goes up and above

in terms of where you rank on Google,

particularly if you get your customers

to send reviews to you.

And I’ve seen this

with our own client base

within a short period of time.

If we have

a significant number of Google reviews,

come through our search engine results.

We tend to be ranking at number

one and number two

within local packs,

say within Wicklow or Kildare,

which is superb and it’s brilliant.

And it really helps the organic traffic

coming through to the websites.

But for a customer,

it’s a fantastic resource

because it gives us information

at a quick glance

as to what I’m going

to use at restaurants.

Again, as an example here about what

the restaurant is offering

in terms of cuisine,

what are they’re opening hours,

we might be able to see their menu

and we might be able to see, you

know, OK,

do they have a five star review?

What’s their price point like?

So before we even go on to the website,

we can have a quick

scan of it see where it is

location wise in terms of where we are.

So from a localized

marketing point of view,

there’s huge benefits to be gained here.

And it’s just convenience,

which is what we’re all looking for

at this point in time.

But we’re all impatient.

I would backed up because I used

Google my business

all the time, because you’re right,

it’s at the top of the search as well .

Yeah.

And it’s a great way

of seeing reviews and everything.

And just how would a business

go about go about setting up.

So Google my business

to set up a super easy.

So all you have to do

is have a Google account

and then you go to Google dot

com forward slash business.

And Google will take you

through the steps

that you need to take to set it up.

So you put in your telephone

number, your Web address,

all the essential business information.

And then what happens then

is you go into a verification process.

So what I mean by that is

and some of you might

have got this already, but

you’ll get a postcard in with a code

or you will get this through

an email or a text message,

whatever your preferences.

And what this does

is it verifies to Google

that you are based at that address

so that they will know put you

at your business address

and they will host

your Google my business from there.

So this can take maybe

about a month to do.

So if you haven’t set this

up, I’d recommend

that your actions is to do that.

And and just follow that process.

And and and then if it’s a

if businesses have done that already,

because I do know

you’ve got to update us as you go.

Yeah. OK.

So if businesses

have your Google business

account already,

and if businesses have Google

my business account already,

what you need to be looking at is

there’s a post section on the account

within the post section.

You can actually send

updates like what you would do on

social media, such

as Facebook and LinkedIn.

You can actually put your posts

in there with one or two hashtags

that are relevant to your business

and a link to your website

or a link to call you

whatever it might be.

So you should do that

every week without fail.

Update the posts.

Update your videos and photos section.

There’s an area where you can upload

photos, so say it’s restaurants.

You can upload some photos

of your cuisine, your menu.

But a top tip that I want to leave

you all with today

is that if you are a business

and you have your account there,

but you haven’t gone onto in some time

Please go on and check it,

because when the pandemic hit,

Google actually marked

a lot of businesses

are temporarily closed.

And I’ve noticed myself

a lot of service businesses

within the hospitality

sector are still marked

with temporary closed,

even though they’re open.

And for me, as a consumer,

put me off actually going

and ringing to make an appointment.

So it’s really vital

that you take responsibility

and go on and have a look

and make sure that it is set up as open.

And if not,

you just go into the dropdown menu,

select open and save it.

And there you go.

That’s great, Christina.

That really is a top top tip,

because I know that like

looking at Google over the last year,

I have seen businesses

that have been marked

as temporary closed.

So that’s fantastic as a tip.

And just before we let you

go, could you tell us a little bit

about MX3?

Your typical clients

and how people can

get in contact with you? Brilliant.

So our business is MX3

and it stands

for marketing experts by three.

So it’s made up of myself, Aidan

O’Connor and Jim Kelly.

And we basically believe

in smarter marketing strategies.

That’s what we’re all about.

So if you go on to our website,

mx-3.ie ,

you will see our process

and how we approach marketing

to make it smart,

efficient and deliver results to you.

And if you would like to contact me

also on a one to one level,

I would love to hear from you.

You can contact me

at my LinkedIn address, which I’m

sure is tagged here, and also by email

a christina@mx-3.ie

That’s great, Christina.

Thanks very much for your time today.

Thank you so much for having me.

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