7 Local Marketing Ideas To Market A Small Business #6 Will Shock You [For 2020]
What Is an Inexpensive Marketing Strategy For Small Business?
You have got the best business plan and know the service or product you have will benefit your potential customers but don’t know how to reach them.
You can offer the best product and services but knowing how to promote your business locally is a key ingredient to flourish and crush your competition.
In this guide, we are bringing you tips and strategies that are sure to get you visibility and build a tribe of super fans who will buy your product over and over again while becoming your brand evangelists.
Here are 7 innovative promotional ideas for your local business marketing
1. Search Engine Optimized Website
If you ever asked yourself where to advertise online for free this is your answer, you will need a website.
It is 2020 and virtually any business should have a proper website that is optimized for SEO (SEO stands for search engine optimization, this is how your clients find you on Google when they search for certain keywords).
Let us say you are a high school tutor serving your local area when a potential client goes on google and search “high school tutor” the results they get should include your website.
Make sure your website is mobile optimized, more than 60% of your visitors will be coming from mobile.
Keyword optimized content
For search engines like google and bing to know what your website and business are all about you will need to have content that clearly explains what you do but also helps out your target audience. If you are a high school tutor you can write articles related to your way high school students can successfully pass their exams etc.
Lead capture
One of the key features that you will need on your website is a way for your target audience to contact you.
You will need a phone number, sign up form, and maybe a live chat feature.
This is very important because you need to be able to grow your client list/database and be able to communicate with them.
Email Autoresponder
One of the things that business owners need to start doing is automating their businesses so they can concentrate on revenue-generating activities, not answering emails all the time.
In comes email autoresponders; they help you send welcome emails, broadcast emails, and sales emails and more automatically.
Before you discredit email marketing you need to know that 99% of consumers open their emails every day, this is from Hubspot.
Web Hosting Company
As with any good business website you need a reliable website host that has good uptime and customer service. There are many good ones but if you are just starting up I recommend Bluehost.
When you sign up, you get a free domain, free SSL, easy 1-click WordPress install, and a great 24/7 support team. Their plans start at $3.95/ month and they have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
2. Optimized Google My Business Listing
Every business needs a fully optimized GMB (google my business) listing. Google is making all the moves to be the middleman between businesses and consumers.
Look no further than AMP, featured snippets and Google my business as evidence. It makes sense to try and rank on google maps because your clients are already going there to search for services like yours. What are some of the things that make for an optimized listing?
Correct Address
Your business listing needs to have a correct name, correct address, and correct phone number or NAP in short.
Google wants to provide the best customer experience when a consumer lands on your map listing so you must have those 3 essential things consistently correct.
Images
Your listing will need to have images of business, products, and if you wish your stuff. Make sure your image files are properly named and if needed include your geolocation information.
Website
If you have a website make sure to include it when creating your google local listing. Many consumers will click on your website to learn more about your product and services.
Work hours
Make sure to include your work hours, consumers want to know when business is open and when it is closed.
Content
You will need to post regular content to your listing, think things like service updates, announcements, new hire, and more which shows google that you are an active business that cares about your client’s experience.
Reviews
Don’t we all love reading reviews before visiting a business? Reviews are a major factor in conversion rate, you need to give your potential customers a chance to know how awesome your business is before they can spend with you. Customer ratings
3. Optimized Online Local Business Directories
A business directory is a listing of businesses in a particular niche and a way to be found online.
Most of these directories have built authority over time and many customers will go to them during their research process.
Make sure you have registered your business and all the details match what you have on google my business.
Here Is The List Of Other Business Directories
You will need to optimize your profiles on these directories matching your GMB profile. Here is the key tip: pick only a few of these and add more as you continue to grow your business.
Yelp, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, Yellow Pages, Apple Maps, Bing, Better Business Bureau, MapQuest, Foursquare. Yahoo Local, Kudzu. Local.com, Angie’s List, Yellow Book, Super Pages
Optimized Social Media Profiles (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube)
Your new business will need to have a social media presence. When starting up I suggest you decide on just one or two social media channels.
If your business is crafty and visual you might want to side with a platform like Instagram and/or Pinterest.
If you are a service provide let’s say a carpenter you might select YouTube and/or Facebook
What Are The Elements Of An Optimized Profile?
Name
Make sure your business name is written.
Image
You will need an image for your social media page that is well lit, this image can be just a clean photo of your team or business premises.
Feel free to include your tagline or your mission statement with cluttering the image.
Service Product Description
Make sure to include a clear description of your business and feel free to add links back to your website in this section.
Contact
Have your business contact and work hours correct. Make sure the days you are open for business are up to date.
You will be surprised how many customers will visit your social media profiles before coming to your location.
What To Post On Social Media?
Let’s say you are a realtor and looking to get your name out there you. You use social media platforms to post 2-3 pieces of content every week.
I strongly recommend you use video, for the most part, you can do live videos highlighting things like a popular coffee shop, talk about little league sports, talk about a closeby hospital, a park, interview the principal of the local school, etc.
All you need is your smartphone and start recording and sharing to your business page which will elevate you as an expert.
4. Partnerships
The partnership is one of the easiest and fastest methods of growing your list of potential clients and customers. The question is, how do you put partnerships into play?
There are several ways of doing it, for example, if you are a local pediatrician you may want to partner with a little league team or ballet studio and host an event or giveaway together sharing participants’ information.
Some of the other methods include attending niche-specific events, sponsoring an event, doing social media takeover, etc.
5. Networking
Join your local business organizations and attend their meetings because most of them will allow you to pitch your services.
(Nextdoor, Meetup, Local Facebook Groups, Chamber of Commerce, BNI…)
6. Podcasting
Yes, podcasting is a great way to promote your business to your target audience or lookalike audience.
If you are a plumber you can be a guest on a podcast and share several tips how homeowners can avoid clogged pipes etc and at the end of the episode you can make a call to action to one of your offers, example free inspection and then sign them to be your client.
Why podcasting? According to Edison Triton, 62 million people are listening to podcasts every week.
7. Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is probably the quickest way to grow your business right now.
With the algorithmic power of platforms like Facebook and Google, you can run several types of ads on these platforms according to your campaign objectives.
You can run brand awareness ads, engagement ads, lead generation ads, message ads, shopping ads, and more.
You will need to have a goal in mind when starting a campaign which helps you measure the success of your ads over time.
It is important to make sure your website has all the analytics and tracking pixels set up to get accurate reporting.
For most businesses, Facebook, Google (& YouTube), and Bing will be the best to start with.
Conclusion
All businesses need to have an online presence to be able to be easily discovered but also showcase their services and reviews to potential buyers.
Both online and offline marketing strategies must be a part of the growth strategy and truly embrace the evolution and use of social media to build long term relationships with buyers.