Did you know that 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find local information? Whether that be business hours, store address, or products available, people are searching for information when they choose local businesses.
This creates the perfect opportunity to take advantage of local marketing. Taking advantage of your immediate client base, but it can be overlooked in today’s digital age.
It can seem easier to target a larger audience when it’s so easy to turn to online shopping and home delivery. But local marketing makes a difference no matter how you run your business. This guide is here to show you how it can be done.
Read on for six of the best reasons you need to invest in local marketing.
What Is Local Marketing?
Before you can tackle local marketing, you need to know what it is. Local marketing is simply marketing in your business’s immediate geographical area.
When you advertise within a certain radius of your business, it becomes easier to hone in on your target audience or persona.
Developing a Target Audience
To take full advantage of local marketing, you need to create a target persona for your client base and do your best to aim any advertising directly toward them.
Who you target and how you do it is up to you, but conducting research before moving forward is going to give you the best results possible.
Now that you understand what local marketing is, you might be wondering why it’s worth investing in.
1. Creates Brand Awareness
Brand awareness might be the most important reason for investing in local marketing. At its core, that’s what local marketing is all about.
If you’ve lived in any area for a few months at a time, you’re bound to have come across local favorites. Whether it’s a restaurant, a grocery store, or that one law firm that everyone has seen an advertisement for.
Those businesses developed brand awareness, one way or another. Local marketing gives you the chance to do that with your business.
2. Local Marketing Done Digitally
Social media makes it easy to take local marketing to the internet.
One of the easiest ways to do this is by remaining active. Read (and respond) to your reviews online. Thank them if it’s a great review. Apologize and offer to correct the situation if it was a bad one.
People appreciate feeling seen, especially if it’s a local business working with them.
Location is also one of the many demographics you can target with marketing. Work to target a specific interest group in your area, and be as specific as possible.
Utilizing social media and its tools is a great, inexpensive way to reach your target audience.
3. Local SEO
Targeting local SEO so the majority of your traffic is from local consumers who have a use for your business is the key to creating sales success.
To achieve this, you need to conduct local keyword research, optimize your content, and up your visual game.
If you have other things to focus on, that’s understandable. You can invest in a marketing and optimization company to help.
4. Locally Optimized Website
There’s a reason this tip didn’t come before local SEO — research.
Building all your research into your site is more productive than building it, only to optimize later. Locally optimizing your website is the best way to ensure your business shows up in local search engine rankings.
Why Target Local Traffic?
You might be thinking, “Isn’t the point of SEO to generate as much traffic to my website as possible? Why optimize it locally when I could optimize it internationally?”
While high traffic rates might sound like a good thing, it isn’t always valuable. The point in generating traffic to your website is to make sales, not increase your bounce rate. Nothing good is going to come from a user clicking on your website only to find nothing of value.
Optimizing your website for those who will use your is much more useful than not.
5. Sometimes It’s Free
There are third party review sites and Google available for free to help you market locally.
It’s as simple as claiming your business on Yelp! and Facebook. You should also already have a Google listing.
A good Google listing has the following:
- Physical address
- Store hours (Keep them up-to-date if things change)
- Phone number and/or email address
- Photos of the store, its surroundings, and any products you have
- A photo of the menu if applicable
The best thing about these free options is the ability to leave reviews. Just like you should check and stay active on social media, you should also stay active on Google and Yelp! (or any other third-party review sites).
Address any concerns your customers might have, or just thank them for leaving an awesome review. Add an incentive to make them want to come back again!
Most importantly: Ask people to leave reviews. This is the BEST way to create free word-of-mouth promotion for your business, but it isn’t the only way.
6. Offers a Personal Experience
Local marketing gives you a chance to get to know your target audience on an entirely new level.
Whether you’re fostering these relationships through social media or in-person presence, local marketing allows you to get to know your target audience. You’ll know that they’re close to your business, and you’ll keep them coming back for more.
Use These Tips to Take Your Marketing to the Next Level
Taking these local marketing tips and applying them to your plans is a surefire way to guarantee your success.
Be sure to check your progress along the way. Tweak as you go and adjust accordingly when it’s needed! Your business is your own, and its success is dependent on your ability to adapt to the local market.
If you have any questions or would like to conduct more research, contact us today.
