Having a local business means most of its customers are located within a maximum radius of 120 km. If you own a local business, your customers either live within walking distance or can commute to your business location easily. You need to attract more people situated within this area to gain more customers. Out of all the marketing techniques out there, the most fruitful for you can be ‘Local Marketing’.
What is Local Marketing?
Local marketing is marketing that is limited to a certain radius. The target customers are people living in that neighborhood. Marketing for a local business is not the same as marketing for a business having a wider reach. Neighborhood Marketing is about reaching out to a particular community. As a local business owner, you provide services to people residing in a specific region. Local businesses do not focus on global marketing and aim at a broader market. Their focus lies in making a greater impact in a smaller area. They do not intend to have a bigger reach. You can ensure that your target customers are aware of your business through Local Marketing or Location-based Marketing. Maybe you own a flower shop and have started a page on Facebook. The page can have many followers who have liked it. But that doesn’t mean all of them will come down to your shop to buy flowers. Local Marketing aims at a smaller community living in a particular area and turning it into customers. As a business, you only try to serve one community and become popular locally.
Best Local Marketing strategies that can help your business
If you want to attract new customers from your neighborhood and also nearby neighborhoods, try these local marketing techniques. A combination of a few of these tactics will be most effective in your local marketing.
Make a Mobile-Friendly Website
More than 50% of internet users are doing it using their mobiles. It is important to have a mobile-friendly site if you want to draw new customers. Mobile searches are more likely to reach out to you if they can browse through your website smoothly. A mobile-friendly website has larger form fields, buttons, text, and menus. Mobile users should be able to find, see and read on the go. Check whether your website is fully responsive to mobile before you move on to other strategies. Use a ‘Mobile-Friendly Test Tool’ for checking the same.
Website Optimization for Local Users
You must follow SEO best practices to optimize your website. That means doing keyword research before creating your website content. You should use local SEO-based key phrases and words while preparing your content. Owning a local business means you are serving a particular region. Mention that on your website. Think about what the people of the local community must be searching for on the internet. Maybe you should learn to use behavioral analytics tools like WatchThemLive for this. Those are the keywords you have to use, in addition to naming your and surrounding neighborhoods. Take the help of keyword research tools for optimizing and localizing your website.
Manage Your Online Business Listing
As we have mentioned, a large part of your business will come from mobile users. They will first search for information on the internet using their smartphones before physically visiting a store. Search engines like Google and Bing have listing places where you have to claim a listing. For example, on Google, create a ‘My Business’ account (it’s free). Then provide information about your business like contact number, address, working hours, photos, etc.
Ensure your Listing on Multiple Online Business Directories
Try to have more and more citations on business listing websites. In digital marketing, a citation is also referred to as NAP (Name, Address, Phone number). Increased citations will make Google reward you with higher authority in your region. When you search for business directories online, you will also see the listings of your competitors. Approach every relevant listing website from where your business is missing. Place a request to include your business. If your business has been listed, check the information provided. It should be error-free and the same on all the websites. Examples of popular business listing websites are Google My Business, Bing Places, Hotfrog, and Yellow Pages.
Use Local Advertising to Reach the Target Audience
Paid advertisements are a great way to target local people. The ad content can help you to localize your advertisement and tap into the local market. For example, your phone number (fixed line/landline) and naming the area you serve in your ad are great strategies. Try to include location data. How about adding a visitor tracking tool to check if more people are coming to your website or not?
Keep your Title Tag and MetaData Updated
You must remember to keep your Title Tag and Meta Description of your website up-to-date. This is another essential SEO practice. A title tag has to be relevant because it appears on SERP. It is the first thing that search users see. You have to keep the Title Tag less than 60 characters. A good meta-description increases the click-through rate. Through 160 characters or less, it provides details on what information search-engine users can get on a website.
Use Social Media to Target your Local Area
Learn how to use social media to target people in nearby areas. Allocate a small budget and start a marketing campaign at first. Promote your business to other local social media users. Ask your existing customers to follow you on social media. Keep releasing interesting content and updates about your business. That would be enough to get you new followers. They might be family, friends, or followers of your customers/followers. No advertising is required.
Conclusion
Local marketing is one of the best ways to grow and reach new customers. It helps a business to grow popular among a community. The marketing strategies given above will help you grow consistently. In addition to those, you can also try other methods like using an influencer marketing platform. See an increase in your online traffic and your business rank higher on search engines when you use the seven listed techniques.