“We’re making it abundantly clear. If you didn’t drink the Kool-Aid for Google yet, drink it now,” said Sarah Greenough, Chief Marketing Officer of Princeton Properties Management on Day Two of AIM | 18. “When we talk about Google Maps and such, think about how Google isn’t focusing on serving up results. They’re wanting to be the result.”
According to Greenough, by simply filling out information about your properties, you’re doing the “heavy lifting” for Google. And in return, those conveniently organized results are consistently served up to motivated prospects. “This takes a huge burden off your team,” she said. “You can triple their actions just with this one step.”
Download PresentationSome marketers may have mixed feelings about Google and the G-Suite, but not these panelists. Morgan Porter, Digital Marketing Director and Growth Hacker at LMC, added, “Even if your team does nothing but posts here,” she said, “it adds a ton of value. They make it so easy. It’s foolproof.”
Melissa Sampson, Regional Marketing Director of AION Management, was just as emphatic about the value of adding data to Google. “I’m a solo practitioner. Our Google My Business searches are up something like 1,300 percent over last year,” she said. “That’s crazy! And our map views ... once I saw that data, I couldn’t help but crack up. It was up 5,555 percent! In 2015, I didn’t even know what Google My Business Was. And now? We’re seeing exponential increases in traffic with this company. The increase in exposure thanks to Google My Business has been astronomical.”
Porter described similarly dramatic gains. “When I pulled my 2017 search data, my jaw was on the floor,” Porter said. “I was sending midnight emails to my team saying, ‘Look at these! Look at those photo views! Look at those direction views!’ I recommend everyone go into Google My Business right now and download your insights. You can see whenever people hit ‘Get Directions.’ You can see exactly where they are. Just in Q1 2018, my company is seeing exponential change.”
After such gung-ho advocacy of Google My Business by the panel, Riley asked the audience for a show of hands indicating how many people felt they were currently using Google My Business to its fullest potential. Not everyone in the audience is up to speed yet.
Google My Business is still working out kinks, and they’re constantly trying new things. Porter observed that analytics are now provided for floor plan searches, even though they initially weren’t. LMC has added Matterport data to its Google My Business listings, and Porter is carefully following how that impacts search results and traffic.
“Google is always trying something new,” she mused. “It has machine learning, and it’s always learning from itself. It’s constantly pulling data from your site and changing your listing. If you don’t have eyes on your Google My Business presence, you might not even notice it.”
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