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SOCL Media

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Ottawa, ON
SOCL Media

Marketing Strategy + Web Design. Ottawa’s Best Web Developer in 2020 & 2023 ✨ Marketing Strategy Consulting // Implementation // Website Development // eCommerce

04/30/2026

in case you needed a reminder 🤍

09/23/2025

🍕 Marketing Lesson Served Hot

Across the street, a guy was practically juggling menus trying to get people into a pizza place that offered everything: calzones, pasta, salads, frozen fries, you name it.

Meanwhile, Da Michele does pizzas. That’s it. Just three kinds of perfect Neapolitan pizza for 6 euros a pop.

The line wraps down the block. No signs, no social media ads, no upsells… just a century of doing one thing really, really well.

Moral of the story?

You don’t need to offer everything to everyone. You need to be known for something specific and incredible.

Build your business around your strengths, make the product undeniable, and let your marketing reinforce that focus, not dilute it.

Mangiare!

04/23/2024

➡️ pov: DIYing your marketing w/ no plan 😅

Struggle is real. And listen, don’t take it personally.

We took months to launch our new website and it’s still not finished but we’ve brought in an amazing consultant to help us nail down some elements and build out the depth.

Why the heck would we do that, right?
Websites are what we do, right?

It comes so easily for our client work, why are we struggling?

When you’re SO deep inside of YOUR OWN business and its marketing, it’s hard to be objective.

Even the professionals need outside perspective.

Don’t be afraid to get outside eyes on your marketing.
You may be surprised at the opportunities you’re missing. 👀

And you may even feel like hulk smashing your computer a little less often. 😉

📸:

Ottawa Website Design, Toronto Website Design, Marketing Strategy.

01/03/2024

Well… that year was a blur and a bit of a dumpster fire, yeah?

Cheers to a new year! Onwards and upwards, friends. 🖤

New website and branding dropping here soon. 7 months later. We may even revive the podcast in audio-only form, if I can get past my need for f*ing perfection. I know you feel me on this.

As one of our industry partners recently said, “We always mow our backyards last”.

What do you have in store for ‘24?

-Krystal

11/03/2023

Don’t market to your customers ✖️

Now that I’ve got your attention, hear me out.

What I mean is you shouldn’t necessarily *only* market to your customers or potential customers.

Especially if you’re a service-based biz.

Think about what step(s) a customer may make before they need your service?

➖What actions do they take?
➖What are their needs?
➖Where do they get stuck?

➖And most importantly, *WHO* are they engaging with before they need you?

We had a session yesterday with two clients who get a whopping 60% of their revenue from referral partners but only focus their current messaging, website and marketing on the customer, coming in at only 40%.

And, to boot, the referral partners are bringing in the highest quality leads.
OVER AND OVER.

They obviously want more of those….

Now don’t get it twisted, we are still designing the strategy - and everything it entails - around the end customers’ experience.

But, what if we marketed to the referral partners too?

What if we created a funnel that spoke their industry language, tapped into their experience and the problems they need to solve for their clients and lays exactly how the business helps to do that?

What if we engaged online with people who fall into the referral partner category and what if they were directed to this industry-specific content instead of just a generic home page?

I’d be willing to bet that they’d close more high-quality leads, more often, with a lot less energy and ad spend than trying to fight for a single customer conversion.

If your business is big on referrals, market to them too. If you’re not sure how, let’s talk!

Happy Friday! 🤍

📸 Tania Blake Creative
📍 Head Office Ottawa

10/10/2023

The marketing cards are in your hands 🃏

Most of the businesses we connect with want to maximize and optimize their paid media.

And rightfully so.

What they don’t want to do is optimize their organic media first.

Making the most of your organic influence before advertising gives you the opportunity to:

➕ Test Creative 
Why would you put money behind something that hasn’t been tested with your work audience first? Post as much content as you can and study your insights to find out what works best for your audience and promote that. Don’t create ad content and just hope that it’s relevant.

➕ Boost Social Proof

Content with existing reactions and comments perform better as ads than posts that have no social proof. Plus, when you run an ad with a post that already exists on your feed, you can pin in and/or reuse it for another campaign down the road while maintaining all your engagement and comments.

➕ Hand Pick Your Audience (FOR FREE)

Instead of waiting for your ideal audience to stumble across your paid content, go out and actively engage with the people who you want to get in front of. Go out and find the platforms and hunt down profiles that for into your ideal audience. Like their posts, comment something relevant to their content and give them a follow. They’re way more likely to click back to your profile, take a look around and maybe even engage. This is how you can hand pick your social audience — no advertising dollars required!

If you’re not already topped out on organic social reach, don’t throw money into ads.

FIRST:
Focus on great content as often as you can.
Test relevance and make more of what works.
30 mins /day of outbound engagement.

THEN:
Promote the most popular creatives.
Retarget, retarget, lookalikes, retarget…

The average touch points before purchase are now up to double digits in some industries so this is more important than ever.

Starting campaigns with relevant organic content gives you a foot in the door without having to ask for anything more than a simple engagement on their first interaction, making it easier for you to get them into your world and then retarget them effectively.

✌🏼

08/31/2023

72% of founders deal with mental health struggles (StartUp Snapshot, 2023).

Probably closer to 100%, amirite?!

Hands up if 2023 has been torture for you in one way or another 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

Question: What are you doing to stay sane?

When life hits, it hits hard.
This summer has been a LOT.

Dealing with a health issue,
coping with a significant loss,
caring for aging family —
all while trying to run businesses
with families of our own.

The perfect recipe for a mental breakdown, right?!

I know everyone deals differently but here’s what I do to fight the urge to curl up into a ball and cry at any given moment:

- Soak up some sunshine. When I’m feeling down, I’m always shocked by how much better I feel if I just sit in the sun for 15 mins to reset. Go outside. ☀️

- Find the water. A lake, the river, a creek, a pond, a waterfall, the bath, the TAP — whatever. Feel the water on your skin, wash your face, put your feet in the water. It’s an instant source of calm. 🌊

- Be grateful. When sh*t hits the fan, I have to freakin’ FORCE myself to step back and look at the big picture. We have life, a family, an amazing team and awesome clients. Life is good.

- Remember we are just human. Life happens and it goes on. Dwelling on things you cannot control only adds to the self-torture. Easier said than done, I know.

- Talk to someone. My business networking group is great for this. I call it business therapy. Everyone is going through it and when you can find others who relate, you feel less alone. 💕

- Eat something GOOD. For me, the ultimate dopamine hit is great food. I can’t cry and eat a taco at the same time, right? 🌮

It may not seem like much but it keeps me going.

As business owners, we are stressed but we’re also responsible for our mental health — or lack there of.

Whatever brings you that moment of peace or allows you to find the joy in the right now, do it!

Your sanity and your business will thank you.
❤️

08/15/2023

If your marketing leans on paid ads and using a social link service — like LinkTree — you’re losing out on some of the most valuable marketing data available to you.

The first c̶u̶t̶ click is the deepest.
And the first click needs to happen on your website.

Here’s why:

📲 The first click tells everything about their intent.

-> The first action taken by a visitor to your website can tell you a lot about why they’re there and, by properly collecting that data, you can effectively retarget them based on that intent.

📲 The first click is the one that happens most often.

-> It’s all downhill from there. Page view stats tank after the first click, people don’t stick around. To truly optimize pixel data, you need lots of it so capture users as early into their interaction with you as possible.

📲 The first click is your only chance for a solid first impression.

-> When you use a link service, you have almost no control over how that page looks. When you build the page into your website, you call the (visual) shots.

📲 The first click can help your organic SEO.

-> By giving the user link options within the website, you can keep them engaged and clicking through your website longer, and Google LOVES that.

Your link page can be as simple as 4 buttons or it can be more intentional with alerts, opt-in forms or trending products.

Stop giving away that first click.

07/05/2023

How does your bottom look? 👀
Uh. Hold up, let me rephrase that….

What does the bottom of your website look like?

Is it a dead zone with a couple social media links and maybe a logo?

Or, is it stuffed full of every. single. freakin’ link on your website, 3 policies, 3 buttons, a logo and maybe a couple of awards or badges?

Yikes and YIKES!

Here’s the thing, when a user reaches the end of your website it means they haven’t taken action yet.

They’re *looking* for something to do at this point.

Instead of giving your users ALL or NOTHING, do something like this in your website footer:

1. Small logo. No one cares. I mean *we* do, but, sorry friends, no one else does so keep it small. “Make the logo bigger” is never the key to more conversions. Link the logo to your home page and don’t include another home page link in your footer.
2. Make your website’s primary call-to-action a nice big button in your footer.
3. Add the top 2-3 internal links (less is more)
4. Contact page link
5. Back to top option for mobile
6. Privacy and term pages can be linked in a small section at the very bottom of the website, keep these out of the main footer area if you can.

Try it. And use the heat map software we told you about in our last post to see how people interact with your new footer once you intentionally give them something to do once they reach bottom. 🍑

06/29/2023

Working client website projects = 😁😁
Working on our new website = 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

That said, we’re getting there!

✔️ Photo shoot booked for the end of July.

✔️ Branding is done and on point! Wait until you see what the incredibly talented Amber from .curations has crafted for us. 👀

✔️ We’re using the new website to bring back our handy Resource Hub — and we’ll be updating all its content for 2023! You know how quickly things change.

So while we work away on our website, here’s something you can do to improve yours today:

Try adding call-to-actions in multiple formats throughout your landing page. Hyperlink text, use traditional buttons and try something different like an arrow → with hyperlinked text

Install a heat map software to watch how website users interact with these call-to-actions so you can see what’s working, what isn’t, and make adjustments based on your specific audience. ✌🏼

Address

430 Hazeldean Road #6
Ottawa, ON
K2L1T9

Opening Hours

Monday	7am - 3pm
Tuesday	7am - 3pm
Wednesday	7am - 3pm
Thursday	7am - 3pm
Friday	7am - 3pm

Website

https://socl.ca/

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