We reflect on the lessons we’ve learned over the past three years and the changes we’ve made along the way as we strive to be experts in making businesses easy to find on Google.
If you’re like me, you’re probably motivated to do really good work, get paid well for it and be respected. In other words, you want to be an expert.
Excellence is an honest road to success. By solving specific problems, experts stand out. They work efficiently and charge more. By solving the same problems, they build a reputation. Opportunities find them.
When I started the agency, I set out to be an expert in making businesses findable online—specifically for cannabis and design. Odd duo, I know. Despite my fears, I went ahead and marketed ourselves as such. I put it all over the website, got on the first page of Google, and new clients trickled in. Three years later, we’ve learned a lot in our pursuit of being experts. I want to share those lessons and the changes we’ve made. Like dividing the company.
This is selfishly about our journey, but hopefully, something here resonates with you and your business.
1. Leverage Patterns
In chess, they say what defines a master is their ability to recognize patterns and leverage them to play smarter moves.
The same is true for mastery of any kind.
When we first started, we knew a lot about digital marketing, but we’re not experts in cannabis or design. Yet, with every passing project, we saw patterns. Jude from Sansa Interiors and Owen from Highland Cannabis were two of our earliest clients – and every other design and cannabis client that came after them had the same challenges, behaviours, and goals.
Like many designers, Jude had an incredible portfolio but was tired of small projects and budgets. She had dabbled with ads and social media, but nothing stuck.
After working together for 18 months, this happened:
- She ranked no. 1 on Google for “interior designer Toronto.”
- She received up to 13 monthly inquiries from her website – 3 times more than before.
- She landed features in Casa Vogue, Design Milk and Globe & Mail.
Highland Cannabis had the most reviews in the city, but they weren’t coming up top on Google. Like many dispensaries, Owen competed with big-box names and illegal competitors.
Within 21 days, this happened:
- He went from no. 7 to no. 3 on Google for “cannabis dispensary Kitchener.”
- His foot traffic doubled.
We learned how to leverage those patterns and design a service that re-creates the same results we got Jude and Owen for any other designer or dispensary.
2. Walk the Talk
We trust lawyers with diplomas and doctors in uniforms. People trust experts every day as long as they look the part. In psychology, this is called heuristics. In marketing, we call it branding.
As you can imagine, saying we do SEO for cannabis and design raised eyebrows. We realized that many found it confusing, and for that, we divided the company earlier this year.
Findable Digital Marketing continues to be an agency for design-build. In the spring, we re-branded and gathered the team in Toronto for a photoshoot. On our website, we stripped away anything to do with cannabis and highlighted our case studies and accolades related to design.
As for cannabis, we created a sister company called Cannabis Marketing School. Besides the agency, we also provide online courses for cannabis retailers.
Every year, we challenge ourselves to look the part and walk the talk. This year, it meant dividing the companies and re-branding. In the past, it meant doing our SEO, updating case studies and testimonials, upgrading certifications, joining an association, or even landing press features and awards.
3. Welcome Your Peers In
Like academic scholars or medical clinicians, experts publicly share their work with peers and listen.
In the agency, the team has retrospective meetings after every project. Over the years, I’ve shared our projects on podcasts and conferences. As much as I enjoy sharing with peers, it also scares me. It’s scary to subject yourself to scrutiny and judgment. Especially to randoms on social media.
But even when we fail, we learn. When we welcome it, others can teach us through their perspectives, give feedback, and fill our blind spots. We’re held accountable to do better the next time or encouraged to keep going.
So here I am, reviving Findable’s email newsletter.
Once a month, I’ll share our insight about making design-build firms findable online. With every email, I welcome you to respond with your two cents. Without it, what kind of expert am I?
