Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
There are lots of businesses that experience the dogged persistence of Yelp sales people calling them. Float On has done both buying Yelp ad space and living without it and Graham and Ashkahn break down exactly what that experience was like.
They also go into exactly what Yelp ads mean and how it impacts your float center (or doesn’t, as the case may be) as well as how well Yelp stacks up in comparison to other ad sources.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is: “I have a lot of contacts coming in from Yelp. Should I pay for Yelp ads?”
Ashkahn: A lot of contacts coming in, like a lot of customers coming in from Yelp? I think.
Graham: Oh, I guess it’s unclear. I assume they meant Yelp contacting them, but either way, I think we can answer this one.
Ashkahn: I definitely can relate to lots of Yelp contacting you. They’re pretty relentless. Like I feel like it’s Christmas morning, I’m like, “Oh, who’s calling me?”, and I pick up, it’s like, “Yeah, it’s Greg from Yelp here.”
Graham: “Merry Christmas.”
Ashkahn: “Just wanted to connect, you know, see if you’re maybe interested in some Yelp ads.”
Graham: And I guess the other side of that is we do actually get a lot of contacts, at least going to Yelp to look us up and look at the reviews and hitting our website from there, so they do direct a fair amount of contacts our way too. But they do that without paying them for advertising as well.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean, that’s just Yelp’s platform. I mean it’s a big, Yelp is a big thing that I think a lot of people look at, especially if they’re something kind of strange like going through a float center and they’re like, “Is this gonna be weird? Is it gonna be kind of expensive?” Stuff like that. At least here in the US, or maybe US and Canada, Yelp seems to be much less important other places, or when I travel to other countries, there’s way less activity going on in Yelp.
Graham: For sure. Shockingly so if you’re actually used to using that as one of your review sites. When you’re here in the States, people are just totally confused when you mention it, you find one business in the entire city that’s on there. So we don’t actually use the Yelp ads. We used it for a very brief period of three months accidentally. I’m responsible for that. I think they called us in the middle of another conference call, I’m like, “Yeah, whatever, I got it. I gotta go,” and I think I accidentally signed us up, and then didn’t realize it.
Ashkahn: “Yeah, we got em!”
Graham: They were billing us, so we do actually have a little bit of experience paying for Yelp ads, although not the most pre planned marketing strategy there, and we didn’t personally see results coming in that were higher or more significant or big upturn in customers, or in reviews or anything like that coming in as a result of our personal Yelp ads over a few months.
Ashkahn: When people are paying for ads, that’s just when you do a search result… ’cause you see them in there. If you’re searching for something, then usually, the first, the top two things are sometimes, it’s like, peppered in, the kind of top 10 list.
Graham: Yep, and they’ll also actually put you on competitor’s things too, so if when someone’s going to look at the Float Shoppe reviews on Yelp, they can see a little Float On the ad, on the Float Shoppe page with one of our, usually one of our positive reviews. So to be like, “Oh, and Float On got five stars! Look at this!”
Ashkahn: It would be a little weird if there was just, “Don’t go to this other place.”
Graham: That’s pretty much, well, you know, it’s not entirely what the ads are, but that is one factor.
Ashkahn: I mean, if you put on a bad review for our place as an advertisement.
Graham: Oh, I think they only use positive reviews.
Ashkahn: I’d imagine they’d have to have some sort of algorithm, making sure.
Graham: Otherwise that’s super awkward! What are you paying for? So we’ve also talked to other float centers, and the general consensus is that a lot of places have not gotten a ton out of their time with Yelp ads.
Ashkahn: I think, can’t you, doesn’t paying get you a few things like you can upload certain photos to your Yelp page and stuff like that?
Graham: Yeah, and I think you can control the order of the photos as they appear on Yelp. You get a little more control over how you appear to the public on just your Yelp listing, is what I’ve been told. When I was trying to figure out how to change our default profile image on there, that’s what they said is “Pay for ads, and we’ll talk about it,” kind of thing. So you know, the overall response that we’ve heard has not been great. That’s not to say that there aren’t centers out there somewhere that are advertising with Yelp who are loving it and are doing a great job, and if you’re out there and just killing it with Yelp ads, let us know, and let us know if there’s some special features you’re turning on or something like that, but so far, at least with my experience doing consulting on marketing, it hasn’t been one of the things that people say, and in fact, if you look at the 2017 Industry Report, Yelp is not one of the platforms that’s on there that’s worked most effectively for anyone, even as a write-in.
Ashkahn: Yeah. And it might just be, really what you’re trying to do is get people to realize floating exists, come in, try it, stuff like that, just like taking float customers away from someone who’s considering looking at other float centers, maybe not like the biggest thing that’s gonna move the needle for you.
Graham: Yeah, you know, and without knowing too many details about exactly who their target audience is or what businesses they work really well for, my instinct is that they do better for restaurants or something where there’s just hundreds of this type of business in a city, and we’re really deciding on, “Hey, I’m gonna go to dinner tonight. What restaurant should I hit up, or even what Thai food restaurant should I hit up?” as opposed to a float tank which is something you don’t need to do three times a day. There are certain activities that are so-
Ashkahn: If you type in “float, or “float tank”, or “float center” into Yelp, there in the listing, t’s probably gonna be every float center around you.
Graham: Right, you’re not gonna get to page two, unless you’re in Vancouver BC or something. So you know, it could just be, again, that we’re not that type of business that works really well with Yelp ads, and that’s why centers haven’t been seeing as much of an uptick as a result. I would say your advertising money, if you’re looking for an online platform to throw money into, is best spent with Facebook, and the industry report seems to back that up, conversations with other float centers seem to back that up, it seems just the ROI, the return on value for every dollar you put into Facebook is better in terms of online advertising than other platforms that people are using. By a significant amount too.
Ashkahn: But if you’re lonely and you’re looking for somebody to talk to, then I’d say get on Yelp’s radar, and they’ll probably call you everyday, and you’ll have someone to talk to for a little bit.
Graham: Yeah, so maybe the question should be “how do I stop Yelp salespeople from calling me?” Which you know, good luck.
Ashkahn: Move, change your phone number.
Graham: Yeah, change your telephone number.
Ashkahn: The witness protection program.
Graham: ‘Cause we haven’t found out how to stop them, that’s for sure. So good luck, and again, if you’re out there and you are using Yelp ads, let us know, let us know how it’s going. We’re curious. Don’t do like I did and try to get them off the phone by accidentally signing up. It’s not always the best strategy, I guess. And if you have other questions about online advertising or anything at all, really, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Resources:
Industry Report
Recent Podcast Episodes
Benefits of a Free Float Giveaway – DSP 315
Float On has been known throughout the years for pulling off outlandish marketing stunts with mixed success. For example, we ran a giveaway on social media back in 2014 for a full year of free floats to our lucky winner.
Derek and Ashkahn provide a follow up on the success of that campaign and talk about the primary, secondary, and tertiary benefits that came from doing such a major giveaway.
The Importance of Social Media – DSP 314
Social media seems to be the only marketing platform that anyone talks about anymore. How to do facebook ads, when to post on Instagram, how to improve Google SEO… it’s a broad topic that seems to dominate the conversation in marketing.
Ashkahn and Derek explain not only why it seems this way, but the misconception of relying too heavily on social media in marketing strategies, as well as a defense of social media as a platform.
How to not be salesy selling memberships – DSP 313
Derek and Ashkahn give the low down on pitching memberships to customers. A lot of float center owners don’t want to come off as pushy sales people after people get out of their floats.
Ashkahn sympathizes with this a lot, since that’s exactly how he felt when he first started selling memberships for Float On. He and Derek suggest a perspective shift on the idea of memberships, as lots of customers end up being appreciative of the opportunity, and don’t feel like they’re being overly pitched to.
Why is Water Treatment Important? – DSP 312
If float tank water is safe, in part because of all the salt, then why is there such a huge emphasis in the industry for water treatment? After all, there haven’t been any reports of anyone getting sick because of floating.
Ashkahn and Graham tackle this question and challenge the idea on its face, because, well, just because something hasn’t been reported doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, and given how little is known about water treatment in float tanks, it’s a good idea, as an industry, to minimize the risk of infections and illness as much as possible. Really, there’s a lot of reasons, from peace of mind, complying with health regulation standards, and even marketing, to maintain your float tank solution to as high a standard that you can.
Soundproofing Windows of Your Float Center – DSP 311
Graham and Ashkahn discuss soundproofing windows of a float center, but first they talk about which situations may even warrant soundproofing in the first place. It may be that soundproofing is better prioritized elsewhere.
If you do decide to soundproof your window, the guys give you some tips on how best to do it and what to look for when picking out which type of glaze you may want along with a few other options.
Latest Blog Posts
What? Another Product Announcement? The New and Improved About Float Tanks Guide!
We’ve learned a lot since then, so has the industry and the rest of the world. Floating is no longer considered some obscure practice. The industry has become very well established the world over and is continuing to grow. As such, the About Float Tanks Guide in particular desperately needed updating.
There has been new research, new standards in manufacturing, and as an industry, we have a much better understanding of all things float tank.
Download the latest version today!
Announcing: The 2017 Float Tank Industry Report
In 2014 we started gathering answers to a survey that would eventually become the very first State of the Float Industry Report. We've released one every year since, and this year we (once again) have the most contributions that we've ever had. In total, 193 existing...
Working with a Landlord
If you’re planning on opening up a float center, it’s likely that you’ll end up renting and, therefore, working closely with a landlord. Like any business relationship, it takes communication, discernment, and openness to make a renter-landlord relationship feel truly comfortable.
Everyone involved is taking a risk and the reality is that, when it comes to floating, it’s probably more risk than your average small business – craft shop, bar, hair salon, law office, what-have-you.
This piece also includes a free download – a compilation of support letters from float center landlords!
Employees vs. Independent Contractors. Which is better when offering additional services?
Part of what makes all of this so confusing is there isn’t a one-size-fits-all set of actions that differentiates a standard employee from an independent contractor. Your State regulators, the federal Department of Labor, and the IRS all have their own criteria for what constitutes an “independent contractor”. Here, we’ll just be using the IRS definitions as a sort of jumping off point to the issue. If the status of employees is ever challenged, the IRS determines the status on a case-by-case basis over several criteria by a panel of judges, very similar to American Idol.
Basically it comes down to who is in control of the work. How much control does the company have over the type of job being done vs. how much control does the person providing the service. This manifests in different ways, but to fit the definition of an independent contractor, a service provider really does have to be independent. Beyond just using this guide, you should always consult an HR lawyer if you feel like there’s any confusion or ambiguity.
Basically, the rules fall into three main categories…
