Our History
A2O Digital started as a yellow page advertising agency named A Second Opinion in 1988. At that time, yellow pages were just about the only place for local businesses to market to consumers needing their services. Fast forward more than 20 years and yellow pages have died, and it is virtually impossible to run a successful local business without the Internet.
Our Story
A Second Opinion added an internet division to the business in 2008, and it started out of necessity. The owner of the business, Doug Bencsko, also owned a garage door business. The garage door business had been living off of leads from the yellow pages for nearly a decade, but those leads were quickly drying up. He tried to work with countless SEO/SEM providers during the early 2000s to develop a website and bring in new leads, but not a single provider could understand or meet his needs as a local, home service business. Doug needed to find a new source for leads to save his garage door business and a new business model to save his yellow page business from becoming extinct. Doug’s dual dilemma resulted in the birth of A Second Opinion's Digital Marketing department, now called A2O Digital.
A Second Opinion brought on a new Managing Partner, Tim Coleman, in 2008 to oversee the development of the Internet division. Doug and Tim worked tirelessly to develop a strategy for a home service business that would bring in hundreds of leads a month at an affordable cost per call. Within ten years, A Second Opinion was providing marketing services to over 90 local businesses, and producing tens of thousands of leads a month.
We have recently rebranded from A Second Opinion to A2O Digital to better reflect our full transition into the digital marketing space, pay homage to our roots (with "2" replacing "Second"), and to honor the birth of a second chapter to this business and the second generation of family to continue to propel the business forward.
As an agency we spend every day focusing on being the best in class at internet marketing for small/medium-sized, local home service businesses. This includes industries like garage doors, pest control, roofers, HVAC, electricians and plumbers. SMBs in the home services industry rarely have time to manage their marketing program full time, or the means to hire an in-house team; you have an entire business to run after all! Our job is to manage your internet marketing program (SEM, SEO, Local, Facebook Ads and Reputation) for you, as if we are an actual branch of your business. We stay on top of changes in Google, new lead opportunities, and new optimization techniques so you don’t have to.
Our Team
A2O Digital has been successful over the last several decades because of the people on our team. Please take a moment to have a little fun and Meet Our Team.
Our Difference
We frequently get asked what makes us different from every other provider out there. If you are like other businesses we have talked to, the first few months with your provider started out decently and you received an increase in leads. Then about six months go by and things start to go downhill. The leads dry up, and you can’t get in touch with anyone to help you. OR you just never got the leads they promised you to begin with. Sound familiar?
Here are just a few things that make us different:
- We specialize in a very specific type of business: home services. This enables us to focus and be really good at what we do. To take it one step further, we will even limit the verticals within home services that we will take on, and we have over 15 years of experience working with a franchise.
- We are founded and owned by a home service professional. Doug has owned his own home services business for over 20 years. He is constantly looking for ways to provide his business as many leads as possible. Our owner’s needs will always align with our customers' needs, which makes for great motivation every day.
- Our Customer Success Strategist (CSS) team works closely with our clients on a regular basis. Each CSS is only assigned 10 - 20 accounts, so they have time to make your account a high priority and communicate with you directly, on your schedule.
- Computers and automation are great tools when it comes to marketing, but we don’t want to remove the human element completely. Ever had a situation where your account was mysteriously shut off for a few weeks, and no one realized? That was probably because an actual human was never actually looking at your account. We balance the use of automation with regular human involvement, for the best possible results.
- We want to provide a lot of leads, but your cost per lead is equally important. We actively manage your cost per lead to make sure your new business is coming in at a price that allows for a good ROI.
- We spend time educating our customers. You are probably a business owner or manager of your business. You spend time being an expert in the service you provide. You don’t have time to know everything there is to know about internet marketing, especially as it has continued to get more complicated over recent years. We will spend time educating you on the basics of internet marketing, so you can really understand the differences between pay per click and SEO, and how to leverage both for your business. This helps you understand what we do and makes you a better business owner/manager.
- Our customer retention rate since 2008 has averaged over 95% each year. Not only do we have happy customers that continue to work with us year after year, but they have referred fellow business owners to us. Some have even stopped using our services for some time before returning to our agency. Our organic growth from referrals has allowed us to grow as a company year in and year out.
- We work with clients on an exclusivity basis. That means that we will never work with another client that works in the same vertical and covers the same metro area(s) as you, if you choose to work with us on our full suite of products.