Digital Marketing Strategies to Reach Ideal Clients with Liz Cortes

Small businesses are finding it more and more challenging to compete with larger businesses. Salim Omar interviews Liz Cortes to discuss tips, strategies, and resources on how to build your business.

Introducing Liz Cortes

Local business strategist, Liz Cortes has worked full time with her husband at their company, RebelFish Local Marketing Agency in San Diego for the past seven years. They help local businesses get more traffic using a combination of local search engine optimization, Google Ads, PPC ads and StoryBrand copywriting. Cortes can be reached on Instagram.

What Led Liz Cortes to Start Her Local Marketing Agency with Her Husband?

After a stint at a successful agency, Cortes and her husband began earning a great income while learning fun strategies. Tragedy struck when the owner gambled half of the company away. This is when Cortes and her husband teamed up and opened up their own agency—just two weeks later. "We've slowly grown with a few clients each month. It was always my dream to work with my spouse and this is how we began."

How can Small Businesses Grow Their Top Line?

According to Cortes the most important question small business owners need to know the answer to is what is their most profitable product or service? This is the starting point to growing your top line. If you are a small business owner who doesn't know the answer to this question then an easy way to find out is by looking at the data. 

• List out all your products and services.
• Determine what the revenue was for the previous year for each of those services.

"The goal is not only to figure out which one is the most profitable, but also which product or service is the most fun to fulfil."

Once a small business figures out what their number one product or service is then the next step is to figure out the objectives of the year. This will allow a small business owner to achieve the income levels they require while growing their top line.

The Perfect Product or Service Could Surprise You.

According to Cortes, the perfect product or service could surprise you. Once you look at the data, a small business owner gains clarity. 

Using her own experiences, Cortes describes how she worked hard to promote a new service that only provided 10% of the gross revenue that year. This was a lesson learnt. In the year to follow she cut down on the services she provided.

"When you're an agency, you agree to everything. We have large clients that we do a lot of things for, but we focus primarily on local SEO, Google Ads and StoryBrand copywriting work. Those are our three top services." 

Which Online Strategy Should a Small Business Owner Start With? 

Cortes focuses on search engine optimization, Pay-Per-Click Ads and StoryBrand copywriting. 

SEO is important for local businesses if you want clients or customers within about 510 miles radius of your physical location. This will apply to you if you're a coach or consultant. Setting up Google Business Profile using Google Maps is an easy way to create visibility. Cortes advises that businesses choose the right category. 

"It's a free page and very easy to set up. Google will send you leads who will click on your website. This is where I like to start." 

Part of SEO involves creating content that is organic, strategic and relevant to your potential clients.

Combination of PPC, SEO and Google Ads for Small Businesses 

Times have changed. Small businesses need a combination of PPC, great SEO and Google Ads in order to make an impact. "This is what works and it's awesome."

Cortes explains that during the past few years, people pulled back with their advertising due to fear, lack of knowledge and financial constraints. 

"We didn't know. We had loans, struggling to figure things out and people were scared." 

Cortes recounts that while many people pulled back her clients pushed in. "Our clients were set up for success. They've been working with us for a while. They upped their marketing, their blogs and increased services. It was really great, because then ads were cheaper."

Based on her experiences Cortes recommends a combination of all three strategies to win at online marketing.

StoryBrand Copywriting and Websites for Small Businesses 

StoryBrands is a seven-part framework for your marketing message. This allows a business owner to remain focused on the main message of their website. Your homepage is the page that your potential clients will click on the most. Homepages must have clarity about what the service or product is. StoryBrand provides "guardrails" allowing you to stay focused, leading you to more clients or customers who you want to work with. This is how conversions increase. For more information on StoryBrand copywriting read Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. 

Final Words of Wisdom from Liz Cortes

Keep trying things out. It can be frustrating when a strategy you invest in, your time or money doesn't work. Every business is a little different. What worked for someone else might not work for you. You can make six  figures or seven figures—whatever your financial dream is. Invest in your business community, listen to podcasts and reach out to people in your industry or other industries. Try out other marketing strategies and you will grow. Never give up on your dream of being a business owner.

Straight Talk about Small Business Success podcast is brought to you by Salim Omar, CPA. Straight Talk CPAs is a firm which provides individuals with tax return preparation and tax planning. If you are a business, we have a unique approach when providing Virtual CFO, Accounting services, and Tax Planning and Tax Preparation services. Contact us today.