CASE STUDY $7$

River Pools and Spas: Reach Consumers Using Social Media

People love pools and spas. They remind people of fun and relaxation. Marcus Sheridan, co$-$owner of River Pools and Spas, provided some great insight into the ways he uses social media and inbound marketing to drive growth for his business. Like many business owners, Sheridan's online marketing efforts consisted of a static website. Then, about two years ago, this all began to change.

River Pools and Spas noticed that the needs and expectations of consumers were changing, since consumers are now expecting great content when they come to business websites. In addition to consumer expectation, River Pools and Spas realized that companies that publish interesting and relevant content could build thought leadership and become leaders in their industries. Two years ago, River Pools and Spas set out to become the thought leader in the in ground swimming pool industry through content creation and distribution.

Finding the Balance Between Paid and Organic Search Traffic

Sheridan pointed out that when they first began inbound marketing, they started with pay$-$per$-$click advertising on Google because he and his team did not fully understand search engine optimization and how to drive organic search traffic. The company used AdWords to generate leads but found that costs for valuable keywords were increasing beeause of amplified competition, which subsequently drove up cost$-$per$-$lead. Due to this increased competition, Sheridan saw the need to learn organic search engine optimization

as a way to drive free search engine traffic and allow River Pools and Spas to reduce search engine spending.

Quick Tip:

It can often take a few months to start

Use social media to help build links and improve organic search traffic quality and volume.

driving traffic from organic search marketing efforts, so many companies spend more on pay$-$per$-$click advertising in those months and reduce spending as organic search traffic begins to increase. During the past year, River Pools and Spas began to drive organic search traffic and lead results with business blogging and a long tail keyword strategy. Sheridan said it has blown away any traffic and branding expectations they ever would have had. He also explained that the company's blogging strategy has been to answer common consumer questions related to swimming pools.

The strategy is a simple one, but Sheridan pointed out that the real challenge is for businesses to put themselves in the heads of their customers. Business owners often talk in jargon and industry terms, instead of the terms their customers understand and are using to So you think noerglass pools look cheap?

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Online Video for Small Business Marketing Success

Quick Tip: Leverage YouTube to tell visual stories about your industry knowledge and Some businesses are more visual than others. When you think of pools and spas, your mind is axpand the reach of your content. $$ instantly filled with many images. It is a visual industry. It is important for industries that are particularly visual to use images and online video to help tell stories. River Pools and Spas uses YouTube as a component of its overall marketing plan. The goal of video for River Pools and Spas has been to let potential customers see everything that goes into building and owning a swimming pool.

Sheridan said these videos have worked wonders in terms of establishing his company as consumer advocates and thought leaders in the inground swimming pool industry. Sheridan uses these videos in blog posts and on his company website.

Marketing Costs: Inbound vs$.$ Outbound

As part of our discussion with Sheridan, he compared his marketing costs between inbound and outbound marketing. A few years ago, when his budget was only dedicated to outbound marketing, his business was spending more than $$150,000$ on radio ads, yellow page ads, direct mail, etc. Last year, after River Pools and Spas had fully established its inbound

marketing methodologies, the company spent less than $$50,000.$ Despite a major decrease in the budget, River Pools and Spas had its best year ever for new business leads, during a poor economic year. While many swimming pool companies were going out of business and suffering huge losses in sales, River Pools and Spas experienced growth and success.

To summarize, in the course of one year, the following occurred:

Advertising dollars were reduced by $70\%$

Website traffic increased $300-400\%$ on average

Leads, especially organic, increased over $400\%$

The Time Factor for Small Business ROI

Time is at a high premium for small business owners. So how does Sheridan budget time for his online marketing efforts? He said he spe