As a small business, running marketing campaigns to attract customers in your area is the best way to create the awareness you need. The challenge for many companies is getting it right.
Whether you operate a brick and mortar business or offer just services or a combination of both, with effective local marketing strategies, you could start to reap the rewards of more footfall or online traffic. The beauty of it is that you don’t need to apply complicated strategy to increase awareness and boost sales in your local area.
Here are six practical marketing tips and tricks you could employ for your local businesses.
Six ways to promote local businesses.
Use Local Business listing.
Using free tools such as Google My Business allows your business to appear on Google Maps, making it easy for you to be found. To do this, you can create a free account, claim your listings and begin to make posts of what you have or offer.
The advantage of this is that you can geotag all your posts, including your business name, phone number, hours of operation, and directions to your office. You’ll also be able to share updates on offers, changes to operating times and much more.
Optimise for local SEO
Search engine optimisation or SEO is defined by Moz (a reputable source in the SEO world) as “a set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results.”
It’s a great way to attract more traffic to your website, and whilst having an active Google My Business is crucial, it’s also vital to ensure that if you have a website, it is optimised for local SEO paying close attention to all of the content you put out, ensuring that it is good enough to attract, and keep an audience. If you’re interested in finding out more about SEO for local businesses, you can download our local guide to SEO.
Speak with our team by booking a free consultation.
Target the local Audience through social media
With everyone on social media these days, you can affirm your presence on social media by being active there. Create captivating and regular posts about your products and the services you offer, and it’s a worthwhile consideration to run ads.
For example, Facebook allows you to create ads tailored specifically to reach your target audience. In making this, you could consider your potential customers’ age, location, and other demographics, among much more.
It’s also beneficial to become engaged in local groups, answering relevant questions and making helpful contributions to keep your business front of mind.
Hold or sponsor an event.
In creating awareness, you need to engage with the community so try not to skip the community get-togethers. You could partner with hosts of community events or even host one yourself. It does not have to be very complex. A community festival or Christmas party is an excellent opportunity to get involved.
Maximise referrals, reviews and testimonials
Many people make purchases through word-of-mouth, so you want to encourage existing customers to put in a good word for you. You could request reviews and post testimonials on your websites. Run a referral programme where your existing customers could get a freebie for recommending friends and family. This method could also be extended to staff where they could earn a bonus for also referring new customers.
Partnerships are vital
You need to expand your network by joining local business associations or partnering with other small businesses around you. This marketing strategy or partnership allows both of you to combine marketing efforts for a more effective result. For example, if you run a catering shop, you could readily partner with a restaurant or a café or share a space.
As we’ve seen, there are lots of different local marketing strategies and techniques that businesses can use to engage with their local audience; in fact, we’ve only just scratched the surface. While the specific tactics will vary depending on your industry and target market, the principles remain essentially the same. By understanding your customers and their needs, you can better understand where they will be, and where they will be, is where you need to be. Whether it be online or offline, the best marketing campaigns in the world will be lost if they’re not being seen by the right people in the right place.
