Local Marketing
What can you do to stay in front of current customers and attract new customers when fewer and fewer people are out shopping?
What is Local Marketing?
Local marketing — also referred to as community marketing — specifically targets the community around a business’ physical location. Social posts or ads are directed to the local population, rather than the mass market. And social media platforms make it very easy and affordable.
Local marketing can work for any business, but it’s especially important for locally-based businesses whose primary business activity happens in-person (versus online, where consumers in any location can make purchases).
A local strategy is vitally important for small service businesses. Local marketing allows you to maximize your budget on a select audience by targeting the people that most likely to need your service or product.
You can stay in touch with existing customers and also attract new local customers by following these seven steps.
Step 1: Mobile Friendly Website
Everybody’s got a smart phone. Half of all internet traffic happens on mobile devices. Did you know that 61% of mobile searchers are more likely to contact a local business if they have a mobile-friendly site? A mobile-friendly site is critical to attracting new business, especially local customers.
Your website should load fast and seamlessly on a mobile devices. The text should be big enough to easily read. Menus and buttons should make it easy to get to move through your site while on the go.
Before you embark on a local marketing strategy, confirm your website is mobile-friendly. If you’re not sure about your own site’s mobile responsiveness, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool and GT Metrix.
Step 2: Localize Your Website
Localizing your website involves making your web content relevant to your local audience and consumer base. The first thing to do is add location-based terms to your website. For example, instead of “accounting firm,” your homepage could read “best accounting firm in Alpharetta”.
Localize your web content wherever relevant. Don’t force it and keep the language consistent between your website, social media, and digital ads.
Next add location pages and service area pages to your website. This is especially important if you have more than one brick and mortar location. The location pages publish your NAP – business name, address, phone number, services, and other relevant business information. The service area pages are a good way to tie your business to a neighborhood or city. Together, they help you rank on local SERPs.
Step 3: Google My Business Listing (GMB)
The most important listing you’ll want to claim is Google My Business. This will allow your business information (NAP) to appear accurately when people search for you or your products or services. This is also how you get on the map.
It is important to fill out everything you can on your GMB listing. Include as many relevant photos as you can. Add your logo, your business hours, your phone numbers and all other relevant information about your business. If there is something fill out you should fill it out.
Your GMB listing allows you to add offers and announcements that show up on your business listing in searches. They only last for about a week so incorporate updating those into your normal schedule. If you’re diligent about it you will see a return.
Step 4: Leverage Social Media
Everybody knows what social media is and everybody is on it in some form or fashion. It is arguably the quickest and most efficient way to connect with local and global shoppers alike. Most social platforms provide plenty of localization options, from setting a location in your profile and letting people check-in to tagging a location of each post.
You can also share local hashtags in the caption or comments. Include terms like your city or neighborhood to your listings and incorporate location data where possible. Making a habit of doing this for every post pays off.
Step 5: Know Your Audience
The key to successful local advertising is precisely defining your buyer personas. You’re the expert and should have a very good idea who your perfect customer is. Understanding your target audience’s demographic and psychographic information, including their geographic location(s), helps you maximize your effort and budget. Location data is how you pinpoint where to funnel your local marketing energy.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
When creating your buyer persona(s), consider including customer demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. The more detailed you are, the better. Learn more about Buyer Personas.
Step 6: Be a Part of the Conversation
When you support your community as a business and employer, your community is likely to support you, too. In the age of business from a distance, starting a conversation online is the safest and most comfortable way to interact with your audience.
You may not be able to be as active with community activities, sports, school events, county fairs or expositions as you’d like but remember, all those people and all those events exist online too. Go there and interact with people like you would in person. Being a part of the conversation is the best way to interact as a brand online. And Wendy’s is the best at it.
Step 7: Make an Offer, Reward Loyalty & Ask for Referrals
According to Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, acquiring a new customer is six or seven times more expensive than retaining an existing one. First create raving fans by exceeding the expectations of your current customers. After you create a positive association with your brand, make an offer, reward loyalty and ask for referrals.
The point of local marketing is to not only remain in the forefront of people’s minds but to also acquire new business. Email and social campaigns are great ways to do that.
