Effective Ways To Improve Your Local Marketing Strategy
Your business won’t grow if you don’t commit to marketing, so to reach the people who might make use of your product and service, you need to find ways to reach them. And you should start by focussing on the local community around you. When you have profited locally, only then should you consider marketing your startup to other areas, be that near home or abroad.
As part of your local marketing strategy, you should focus on the following tactics.
#1: Take advantage of what Google can offer you
Google is the most effective search engine in the world, and chances are, you probably use it already for personal and business purposes. To fully take advantage of what it could do for your business, you need to use it as part of your marketing strategy. You should also use Google’s other functionalities that can increase your businesses visibility online.
For starters, you need to make sure your business ranks highly when a potential customer Googles your business type in the search engine. You can do this by focussing on SEO; the process of optimizing your website for Google-friendly search results. If you haven’t done this already, then we recommend these SEO beginner tips to get you started.
Secondly, you should use Google’s local listing directory, Google My Business. Create your own account, and then include the relevant contact details, as well as pictures of your business and customer reviews to showcase what you have to offer. This is an excellent way for local searchers to find your business, and furthermore, it’s free, so if you’re looking to save money on your marketing campaign, using this service should be a no-brainer. For your information, you can also list your business on other websites, including Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, and Bing, so research these and others to give your business a further push locally.
Another way to advertise your business locally is through Google Ads. By placing ads on websites where potential customers are likely to visit, you stand a greater chance of custom to your business. Signing up for Google Ads is free, though when your advertising starts working, there will be a cost involved. This shouldn’t be a problem, of course, as if you are gaining customers as a result of your ads, then you will be making a profit anyway. To ensure greater success with your ads (and to make your life a little easier), you could automate your Google Ads campaigns with this software for Google Ads PPC. It has many functionalities, including keyword generation features to help you use the right wording for your ads, so click on the link to find out more.
Finally, another way to use Google is to research your competitors. With a quick entry into the search engine for businesses like yours, you can quickly get a handle on what your rivals are up to. If you notice they are doing anything better than you, you should then make the effort to make the relevant changes within your business, such as improving your website or offering more to your customers.
#2: Get involved with your local community
Through your website and your Google listings, potential customers should find their way to you eventually. However, you should also make the effort to get more involved with your community, as this way, those people who haven’t already heard about your business, finally will.
One way to get involved is to support those community groups who are reliant on donations. These might include little league sports teams or charitable organizations, for example. If you could use a share of your profits to support such groups, not only will you do them a great service, but you will also benefit your business as they should give you a mention in their own advertising and press releases as a thank you.
Of course, you can offer more than money to local groups. You might want to volunteer your time (or that of your employees) occasionally, perhaps by helping at a local food bank or doing something to support a homeless charity. If your business is specialized in a particular area, such as in IT, you could offer computer training to groups working with the unemployed, or help a charity create a website. While you might turn your nose up at getting actively involved with others because of your busy schedule, you need to remember that you and your business will receive positive word-of-mouth if you do. You will also be showing the human face of your business, and provided you behave sensibly, that should win over the trust of those local to you. As a consequence, you should then see an upturn in profits as customers flock to your business.
Finally
Your business won’t succeed if you don’t have any customers, so follow our suggestions to ensure your business is noticed and used by the community local to you. Profits and success will surely follow, and your business will then go from strength to strength.
Let us know your thoughts, and if we have failed to include any tactic here that you have used within your local marketing strategy, please share your ideas with us.
