Events — 01 Aug 2022
15 Best Local Business Marketing Tips
You can have the best product or offer the best service, but if nobody gets to hear about it, it’s like you don’t exist. Don’t worry, though: that’s where our local business marketing tips come in.
Without a properly executed marketing strategy, your business cannot reach its full potential. A good local marketing campaign will help you spread the word about your business, build reputation connections and nurture relationships with your customers.
So, let’s get started.
One of the best and most cost-effective local business marketing tips is to put your business online and help others from your community find it. You can list your business on:
Google My Business is a free online business listing that’s both helpful to customers and marketers. It allows businesses to be more visible to people who might need their services, showing important information such as their services, opening and closing times, contact details and so on. Showing up on Google Maps is a great way of getting noticed in your local area!
It also allows customers to share their experiences and rate the service they received. Given that 98% of people read online reviews (with 77% saying they always do), the Google My Business page might be among the best local marketing tips anybody can give you.
Quite a few people use Bing instead of Google as their preferred search engine. To reach them, you can list your business on Bing Places for Business. The best part is that you’ll only need to copy/paste the information you’ve put on Google My Business.
Today, almost three billion people are using Facebook. Considering the popularity of this network, it’s only logical to create a page for your business in order to reach more customers. Plus, you can use a page to interact with your customers and promote your products and discounts. This also gives you a start point for Facebook ads and other social media marketing techniques.
One thing almost everyone does when they hear about a business is to do a quick Google search. Having a website for your business means that when they come looking, they see what you want them to (great for brand awareness). Plus, having a website comes with a wide array of benefits such as being able to target local customers more specifically with SEO and Google Ads (more on this later). It also means you’re no longer restricted to what you can sell in your physical store – having a website can help you put your services online, follow ecommerce strategies and, ultimately increase revenue.
Once you have a website, it’s time to start creating useful content and posting it regularly on your blog. Besides helping you rank better on Google, SEO optimized content should provide value to your customers, educate them, and increase their trust in your brand. Make sure to talk about things you know about, and what you can provide expertise in. Keep an eye on Google analytics to see how you’re doing, and ensure your online presence is as solid as your offline one.
If you want to start content marketing but don’t have a blog section, you can add it easily, using just two lines of code. BlogHandy is specifically made for non-techies to help them add a content section to their website with no learning curve.
You’re a local business, so act like one. Don’t forget about the potential of engaging with your community! People generally trust brands that show a strong sense of purpose and aren’t afraid to give back. In other words, people will rather go with brands that care about what’s happening around them, rather than just making profits. You, as a small business owner, can leverage this by organizing different initiatives that will put your business in the spotlight. Some tactics to try include:
Creating customized invoices for your customers can help you improve your business’ reputability, especially if you own a B2B business. Subscribing to online invoicing software such as InvoiceBerry can help you deliver customized invoices in a way that’s most convenient to your consumers.
Why custom invoices? Well, you can add referral discounts in your invoices, include customer testimonials, or announce new products or services as a part of your local marketing strategy. Think of it like a business card they won’t lose.
A cornerstone of any marketing plan should be to carry out email campaigns and regularly send newsletters. If you understand your demographic, this can be an inexpensive, yet effective method for marketing your local business.
Newsletters can help you find out what your customers want, communicate with them more effectively, and build the credibility of your brand. You can also run giveaways, highlight local events, or talk about your referral program. They’re a great way to show your existing customers who you are, and what’s currently on offer.
However, it’s important to highlight that you shouldn’t bombard your customers with too many emails, as it will have the opposite effect of what you want. Make sure to think through the timing on when you’re sending your emails, and customize your content as much as you can to meet your customer’s needs better.
If you run a brick-and-mortar store, you can use it to drive customers to your website. You can, for instance, ask your customers to sign up for your email list and join your loyalty program, give out flyers with promotion codes, and put your web address on receipts, allowing people to stay engaged with your business even when they aren’t physically there.
Ideally, you want a back-and-forth relationship, where foot traffic turns into online traffic, which turns into even more foot traffic!
Even a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a boost in profits of 25%! While bringing in new customers is important, make sure to nurture existing relationships. After all, your customers have already purchased your products, and they know and trust you. They’re likely to be the biggest promoters of your brand (free marketing!), as well as coming back time and time again.
While it’s better to work on building long-term organic traffic, short-term plays can definitely pay off. PPC advertising targets customers who expressed high interest in products you’re selling and are likely to purchase your product. It’s a great way to get your name out there, send people to your best landing pages and start building a reliable customer base.
Of course, since you’re targeting a local audience, think about print ads too – a mention in a local newspaper is likely to be as effective as targeted social media posts.
Remember, though, a good strategy should include this and long-term SEO plans…
Unlike PPC advertising, search engine optimization takes longer to show results. But, once those results start coming in, they stick around (and at no extra cost). SEO optimization will help you rank higher in SERPs (search engine result pages), meaning potential customers can find your business more easily.
There are two main types of SEO optimization:
Research shows that people are more likely to shop after a local search compared to non-local ones. But that only works if they know who you are! As we mentioned before, local SEO includes listing your business on Google My Business, Bing Places and Apple Maps Connect. You can go further with this – create localized content for your website, focus your keyword research in a particular area, and link up with other local brands.
While local SEO helps target specific geographical areas, traditional SEO aims to help businesses, regardless of their location, expand their digital reach. It’s especially worth investing in traditional SEO strategies to boost your brand’s visibility if you have an online store. Traditional SEO includes overall website optimization, product listings, using well-researched title tags and meta descriptions, conducting keyword and target market research, and so on.
As we’ve already mentioned, customers tend to look at reviews rather than ads, and they’re almost always seeking the opinion of others before making a purchase. In order to improve your reputation and reach your target audience, consider joining various local forums and Facebook groups to post and share opinions on topics related to your business. However, while doing this, you should ensure your posts and comments don’t scream ads. They should be concise, clear, and helpful. Customers will come once they gain trust in you.
Don’t forget to make use of local directories either – simply having your name and phone number out there can do a lot.
One way towards customers’ hearts is through top-notch customer service – 93% of customers are more likely to make repeat purchases with a brand that offers great customer service! Improving your customer service is one of the best, and most cost-efficient, marketing tips we can give you. (Plus, it helps avoid those bad Yelp reviews).
To make your customer service impeccable, you need to try to listen and understand what your customers want, their problems and how they can solve them with the service or products you’re offering. Other tips include:
Great products and amazing customer service work just fine. However, if you want to expand your business, you need to let other people know how well you do your job. It’s not just word of mouth anymore – small business marketing relies on online reviews! Make sure to ask your customer to leave a review on your business pages and, most importantly, respond to their comments once they’re online.
Appreciating positive ones can help customers feel valued, while responding to negative ones can show compassion, understanding, and effort that you’re willing to improve. Just make sure you actually take any steps you say you will.
We’ve read numerous articles about marketing your local business, but only a few of them include competition tracking in their local business marketing tips. If you want to improve your business, you need to follow what your competition is doing. Having competition is healthy, as it pushes you to do your best and improve your service. So keep track of what your competitors are doing, inspect their top-performing pages, best-selling products, which keywords they’re using, and so on.
Once you’ve done analyzing your competitors, you can do things that are proven to work well, avoid those things that failed, and expand your business to encompass things they’re not offering.
We live in a digital age, and the use of social media channels has become the norm. Considering the influence social media has on our lives, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t leverage influencers in your online marketing efforts. Look for local influencers on Instagram, Facebook or even TikTok who would promote your brand or services to locals. You can even make an affiliate network, where they make a percentage based on how many customers purchased their product via their recommendation.
If you’ve got your quality product, great customer service, and a niche in the local market, it’s time to start applying these tips. The marketing strategies we’ve listed are great ways to help your business increase revenue and broaden its customer base. Remember, some of our local business marketing tactics might take more time to give results, but once they do, you’ll be sure that the leads they generate will be genuine ones, and hopefully, future loyal customers.
Written by
Uwe is the Founder and CEO of InvoiceBerry. invoiceberry helps small businesses and freelancers to create, send and manage their invoices online. He's been in the tech scene for over 15 years with companies ranging from FinTech to AdTech and games publishing. His newest venture is BlogHandy, a WordPress alternative.
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