Local marketing is a key component of any marketing strategy. This can help you get your brand seen by a larger local audience who are likely to patronize your small business in the future. What can you as an entrepreneur do to increase your small business’s visibility with local audiences? This guide contains 14 quick tips for improving your regional marketing strategy.
What is local marketing?
Local marketing is aimed at people in the same city or region where your business is located. This plan is targeted at people who are within a certain radius of your location and could purchase your products or services at any time.
If you open a restaurant at Red Bank in New Jersey, you won’t get much benefit from driving traffic to your website from Sacramento, California. It would be best if you instead used local marketing techniques to ensure that most of your customers are located near enough to dine at your restaurant or to order takeout and delivery.
Travis McKnight is a senior content strategist for Portent Inc. He explained that the most important thing to do when selling a product or service to someone else is to understand who its intended audience will be.
Small Business Marketing strategies are not complete without a thorough understanding of your audience and what information to relay. It’s especially relevant for a local system that highlights your business’s geographic location.
Local marketing strategies are designed to help you spend your advertising budget and marketing campaign budget more efficiently. Digital marketing can be a powerful tool for all businesses. If you’re a small business, and your marketing efforts fail to reach a local audience, then it is all wasted.
Not all marketing traffic is created equal. Local marketing strategies ensure that you target customers likely to patronize the business.
What types of businesses can benefit from local marketing strategies?
Local marketing can be beneficial to many businesses. Nevertheless, certain business types need it. Here are some examples of the companies that require a local marketing plan:
The Restaurants: The restaurants are excellent examples of local businesses that require a marketing strategy. These are physical locations that offer services such as dine-ins, takeouts, mobile orders, or delivery. A restaurant’s physical location is its only way to reach customers.
Retail Stores: Even small retail stores often sell online through ecommerce. Local marketing can help increase foot traffic to a store and develop its brand. Small boutique retailers that compete against large chains need to be aware of their brand.
Professional Services: Professional service providers such as accountants and lawyers should use a local marketing approach. This rule is not universal. There are notable exceptions, like marketing firms that operate remotely. There is nothing like a face-to-face consultation.
Many businesses require a localized marketing strategy. Others can benefit by capturing a larger audience.
Start today with these 14 local marketing strategies
Local marketing begins with a few easy steps that any business can implement. Here are some quick and simple ideas to improve the local marketing of your business.
Optimize your website for local users.
Any digital marketing strategy must include website optimization to drive traffic. Is your website optimized for local customers? Here are some ways to optimize your site for local customers:
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. A mobile website will be crucial. Heather Lodge, the owner and chief strategist at Workflow Digital, says that businesses must make sure their websites offer a great mobile experience in order to attract local clients. Lodge noted that more than half of the traffic to websites comes from mobile devices. If you have a well-designed website with easy-to-read text on small screens and big buttons, it will be easier to attract local businesses.
Localize Your Website. Each successful business website must follow SEO best practices. Localizing your website involves determining key phrases and keywords based on local search engine optimization. Ask yourself: “What do locals search on Google?” As a rule, mention your community and nearby communities often. If you are targeting a regional market, for example, add language like “serving the Tristate Area.”
Use free keyword research tools like Google Analytics, Google Trends, and Google Search Console to discover which local terms are most relevant.
Update your title tags and meta description on your website.
Make sure that the title tags and metadata on your website are up-to-date. McKnight explained that there are several different types of metadata. However, most people should only be concerned with the meta description and title tags.
Title tags: A title is 60 characters long and appears on the SERP (search engine results page). Title tags should be relevant to the brand and location but no longer than 60 characters.
Meta Description: The meta description should not exceed 160 characters. Meta descriptions are less likely to affect search engine rankings, but they can increase click-through rates because they tell users what information is on the page. McKnight stated that data shows a good meta description can increase click-through rates. On the other hand, if a restaurant wants customers to call them, including a phone number is important.
Did You Know?
You can edit the title tag and meta description of your website using administrator tools provided by most web hosting companies. WordPress also offers a simple SEO function that small business owners can use.
Create local landing pages for each of your business locations.
Create a separate landing page on your website for each of your locations if your business has more than one location. This will help you with your localization efforts.
Lodge stated that many companies have multiple locations but do not include information about them on their websites. These pages should contain information about each store, including directions to the site and hours of operation.
These pages should contain specific information about your business. This is why a real estate agent located in Nashville, Tennessee, should not simply say that they are “real estate agents” but instead include the phrase “leading real estate agent in Nashville,” which helps search engines to serve local results.
This phrase also takes into account how to search for real estate agents: They are not looking for just anyone but the “best” of “leading” agents.
Claim your Google Business Profile Listing
Set up your Google Profile. This is one of the easiest and most effective local marketing strategies that you can implement immediately. Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business, provides information about a business, such as its location, hours, directions, and contact details, directly on the SERP.
McKnight advised: “Claim and update your Google Business Profile knowledge panel.” The profile should accurately describe any temporary restrictions or changes, such as holiday closings or takeout and delivery options.
Lodge said that you should claim listings for your business on third-party websites such as Yelp. Local marketing is more effective if users can easily find your business.
Optimize your social media sites for local users.
Social Media Marketing is essential for local online marketing. Your social media pages, like your website, should be optimized and localized. It is important to provide up-to-date information about your business, including its location, contact details, and hours of operation, while also maintaining an active account on social media.
McKnight explained that social media is primarily used to communicate about specials, promotions, or reopenings. “A lot is reputation management.”