The Importance of Local Marketing

Google is a friend of startups or small businesses setting up new branches in new localities. 

Local residents use the search tool to find nearby vendors, businesses, and specialists in various city services. Whether yours is a salon, a gym, a locksmith, or an appliance repair shop, consumers can easily find you through a quick Google search. 

But, you must invest in local marketing for your business to be discovered through local Google searches.

Approximately 97% of consumers, according to statistics published on Hubspot, learn more about local businesses online than through other marketing channels. 

The stats indicate that actually 88% of searches made online for local businesses, from mobile devices, lead to either a visit or call to the business within 24 hours.

What is Local Marketing?

Local marketing is a set of strategies businesses adopt over the internet to make their products or services accessible to people in specific local areas. The strategies also help local businesses to attract and engage potential clients within a particular distance from their location.

The goal of local marketing is to attract new or potential customers and convert them into loyal clients. Businesses with physical stores such as bars, restaurants, medical offices, spas, and chiropractors can benefit from local marketing.

Local marketing strategies and resources enable local businesses to attract and win over customers who bring repeat business for sustenance. Otherwise, it would be difficult to grow your business without this type of marketing. 

Simply put, local marketing allows you to market your business to an audience near your location. The marketing strategy benefits brick-and-mortar stores. A typical example is when a local gym sends a leaflet via your letterbox.

What Types of Businesses Benefit from Local Marketing?

Local marketing can benefit local businesses with a local audience and a physical store or brick-and-mortar location, including multiple service areas. You must have at least one physical business location, whether you’re a chain or local business, to gain from local marketing. 

This marketing strategy works for businesses that focus on in-person operations instead of online sales. With local marketing, you can tailor your resources to a particular target audience guaranteed to respond to your efforts and buy from both your print and online advertisements. 

You must define your buyer personas precisely to succeed in local marketing. The process allows you to better understand specific details and behaviors of your target audience, including information on their geographical location(s), and psychographic and demographic data.

With the information on your target audience, you can choose the correct place to funnel your local marketing efforts and energy. 

Benefits of Local Marketing for Local Businesses

The internet and increasing technological advancements, including several print options, allow people to easily find the local services they need. 

Although local businesses traditionally relied on referrals and word-of-mouth to grow their businesses, they need much more to continue generating profits in the modern era.

Therefore, more local businesses worldwide increasingly adopt local marketing strategies to target specific target audiences in need of their services. And, the businesses are reaping Big Time from their local marketing efforts. 

Here’re a few ways your local business can benefit from this marketing strategy:

Increase Visibility

Local marketing is a search engine marketing (SEM) strategy for your local business. The strategy focuses on finding all relevant local keywords specific to your local business area of operation to attract potential clients.

Your business must use location-based keywords on its official site to attract relevant customers. The right keywords include your county, city, or geographical area in the keyword phrase.

Every page on your business website must include keywords and phrases to boost site rankings when users make related local searches. 

When people make local searches relevant to your business product or service offering, your business site appears on the first page of search engine results.

The goal of this type of interactive marketing is to rank your business high on SERPs whenever a relevant query is made based on your local keywords and phrases. The keywords differentiate your business brand from other local businesses.

Determine the kind of search keys your potential customers would use to find your local business. The keywords increase your brand visibility online when relevant local searches are done. With increased visibility, local marketing drives traffic to your business to gain more customers.

Attract, Keep & Motivate Customers

Local marketing gives local businesses access to direct customers and ensures that your brand is present where (channels) your target audience or potential clients hang out online. It also provides you with information on the most popular social media channels.

Your business also gains insight into the main information sources for your clients. As a result, your brand marketing strategy becomes efficient. These lead to faster and higher penetration of your business into your local market. 

The marketing strategy also allows your business to better understand your customers’ specific needs. This allows you to customize your brand message and adapt it accordingly. 

Your after-sales service and customer service also adapt to meet the unique expectations and needs of your clients for an exceptional shopping experience. Therefore, your business is able to attract, keep and engage customers to keep buying from your brand. 

Increase Brand Awareness

Local marketing can attract many customers to your local business. With relevant keywords that potential customers are likely to use and an online business presence, your brand targets a wide base of customers.

Your online site, optimized for local keywords, gives your business an online presence. Your business gains increased brand awareness as it continues to appear on SERPs and gets discovered through local searches.

Mobile devices and social media make it easier and faster to attract a large base of potential customers to your business. You can gain a large following on social platforms, making your brand popular among your target audience.

With increased popularity, you’re likely to gain even more followers from people who want to be associated with popular brands. The large crowds your business can attract online increase brand awareness. 

Your online followers are also likely to share your business site or social platform with their network, further boosting your brand awareness. In turn you also gain from higher and faster market penetration. 

Boost Sales With Hyperlocal Marketing

Location-based marketing strategies eliminate various barriers to sales. You’re positioned to persuade potential customers located near your business to buy from your physical store.

For example, you can push notifications of umbrellas for sale at discounted prices to potential customers in nearby areas on a rainy day. Whether you send out the message through an email or text message, your customers are likely to convert.

Hyperlocal marketing converts leads or potential customers into business sales. With boosted sales, you’re bound to generate more profits and thus return over investment (ROI).

Local PR Good for Business

Local marketing is also a great way to network with local businesses. If your business is offering a unique service or product in a local area, there’s a need to network with other businesses within the same location to spread the news about your brand.

You can ask for referrals from other businesses or post fliers in areas with high traffic, such as doors, to increase brand exposure and attract more customers. Display all the services or products your business offers on the fliers.

Alternatively, use local fraternal organizations or churches to spread the news about your business and its product offerings. This is also a great way to expose your brand to a wider audience. Whichever direction you take, you’ll gain referrals, improve your local reputation, and build brand PR for good business.

Encourage Positive User Reviews and Engage Online

You can engage your target audience online to keep your brand in their mind at all times for increased sales. Encourage your prospects to leave feedback or make comments on the content you post on your business website or social media platforms.

Local business directories such as Yelp also allow businesses to display information about their brands. Top review sites enable customers to leave reviews of your business, further promoting sales and growth. 

Ask your existing customers to leave positive reviews of your products or services and brand experience. The positive user reviews can motivate potential customers to buy from your business.

If you receive any negative reviews, make sure you address the issues raised and use the feedback to improve your services.

Best Practices for Local SEO

Local search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy for local businesses to improve their brand visibility online. It resembles organic SEO except that it has an added geographical feature.

You can adopt local SEO practices to rank your business high in SERPs whenever local searches are made based on relevant terms or keywords. This means that if your business is based in New York, you’d be ranking high for local keywords relevant to the city. 

Potential customers searching for similar businesses in Houston, Texas, would be of no use to your local business. Therefore, you must target your business to potential customers in your locality. 

Statistics on Statista show that about a third of online consumers in the U.S. search for local businesses on the internet daily. And, 16% of Americans make similar searches several times a week.

The local marketing strategy allows you to use local keywords to attract potential customers who use similar phrases to make searches online. The keywords often include a geographical location to make the searches local to your business.

Local SEO optimizes your business website to ensure that potential customers located near your business can discover it online.

An article on Hubspot indicates that 50% of mobile users who make local searches visit physical stores, offering the products or services they want, within 24 hours. You can use Google Trends to find popular keywords relevant to your local business location or industry. 

Ranging from promoting local gatherings to creating local content to optimizing your site for local searches, you can adopt various best practices for local SEO. 

High-quality SEO services allow local businesses to evaluate their competition and determine what they’re doing wrong or right. Create a plan to attack and deliver a better user experience. 

Here’re a few strategies to help you localize your business website and present it as an industry authority in your location:

1.Create an Account on Google My Business

A business profile or optimized Google listing can effectively rank your company higher on Google Maps. You also gain improved visibility in the search results of Google searches. 

The information you display on your business profile dashboard becomes available to potential customers looking for more information about your brand.

2.Ask Happy, Regular Customers to Review Your Business

Reviews can optimize your business presence online and encourage other local customers to buy your products or services. Request for reviews in in-person post-sales or send texts or emails after purchases and respond quickly to existing feedback accordingly. 

3.Create a Business Website

Hire a web designer to create a simple yet interactive website for your business. You can optimize the website for local SEO and gain from improved brand presence.

4.Start Blogging

Create high-quality, interesting, and compelling content to market products, and engage and convert your target audience. It’s also a good way to keep your audience informed about your brand and product/service offerings.

5.Invest in Content Market

Create high-quality content to market your local business, attract customers and retain them through better experiences and online engagement. 

6.Optimize Your Business for Voice Search

People ask questions into tech devices to make search queries; this is unlike regular searches based on typed keywords. Voice searches make use of long-tail keywords and user intent, hence content must be conversational to make the search terms relevant. 

7.Use Local Events and News Stories to Create Content

Creating content from local issues renders them relevant to your local business audience. Some ideas to help you create content include:

Videos about local causes Blog posts about local activities, news stories, or events Location-based webpages with top quality content

8.Optimize Your Business Site for Mobile Access

Take advantage of the millions of users worldwide who access the internet from their phones. This is a great way to drive more traffic to your site and attract leads that convert.

Other SEO Strategies Include:

9.The optimizing site, blog, social media channels, and all types of content for local keywords

10.Adding location-specific pages such as “About Us” to websites

11.Listing on online business directories such as YellowPages and Yelp

12.Getting high-quality backlinks or link signals

13.Creating pages dedicated to particular products or services

Conclusion

Local marketing can help your business reach a wide audience, improve its rankings on SERPs, receive more traffic, and establish your business as an authority in your niche. It can also help establish your business in the local geographical area where your physical store stands. 

Invest in local marketing and SEO strategies to attract, keep and engage new customers. Therefore, your business must invest in local marketing and focus on it to drive growth and enjoy success.