Is your up-and-coming business struggling to market an amazing product? Would you like to know the best ways to promote your business locally? Don’t worry; you’ve made it to the perfect page!
Local promotion is a helpful way of establishing brand credibility. It can boost awareness of your products and create a community of loyal customers. Such a cult following can become the springboard to profitability and the basis of your company’s growth.
Whether you offer products or services, conquering local markets is always the first step to sustained success. Companies like Starbucks, Google, Nike and Facebook catered to local market segments before becoming behemoth corporations with diverse offerings.
But sometimes, even the biggest brands struggle to promote businesses locally. How to advertise locally is as much an art as it is a science. You must feel the stream of the market and follow its current. In this blog, we’ll tell you some tricks that combine the art of promoting local businesses with the science of how to advertise locally!
Follow along for the best ways to grow your business with efficient and effective local marketing!
The Great American Re-Localization – How to Promote Your Business Locally?
America and Americans are going through a wave of de-globalization. “Buy Local” is the call to action; people are clamoring for American-manufactured products. However, they are not just calling for local products; they also want the product sold to them in the American way!
What is the American way, you ask? The way we’ve all come to know and love – a smile, a value-for-money offer and a firm handshake that closes the toughest of deals.
However, just because local products are back in the spotlight doesn’t mean that the spotlight is back on American products. You might struggle to market your business locally if you’re a small enterprise. After all, you must compete on the same billboard where Lebron is modeling for Nike and Oprah is selling a spiritual life.
Just because people want American products doesn’t mean they can see them. If you want to stand out from the best of the rest, you must develop specific strategies targeting segments primed to hear your message. You must display your products to those who are already fishing the market for better alternatives.
Knowing that local promotion can help is one thing, but knowing how to promote your business locally is quite another! Let’s see how you can take advantage of the great American comeback and expand your business’ local footprint.
10 Proven Ways to Promote Your Business Locally
Visibility is key to your business’s success. The only way to grow in a cutthroat market is to get your product in front of the largest audience possible.
However, advertising your product to everybody is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. You won’t be successful unless you use a magnet. And we’ve got just that for you!
Local website promotion and marketing are the key to short-term success. It’s like gathering all the fish in a barrel before fishing – this way, you’ll have a much better chance of catching some.
But how do you do it? What should you use as bait before switching it with your product? How far should you throw the hook? Should you wait before reeling the customers in or pounce at the earliest opportunity?
There are several ways to locally market your products. You may even create a unique one on the way to your business’ growth story and become a local marketing trailblazer! And to help you with that, here we look at some of the basics of local marketing:
1. Local SEO
Local SEO is a search engine strategy to help you tap into the customer pool of your local community and area. In the current digital world, you’ll lose out on many things if you don’t have the proper SEO for your business. Local SEO helps you with the below-mentioned things:
- Enhanced Local Visibility of Your Business
- Increased Customer Reach
- Brand Credibility and User Trust
- Product Differentiation in the Local Market
- Better Marketing Return on Investment
All of these are non-negotiable for the growth and credibility of your business. Local SEO can help you derive these benefits. But how do you ensure that Local SEO works for you as it should? Some of the tips that will help you with better Local SEO rankings are:
- Use location-specific keywords in your website content, meta descriptions, and titles to improve local search visibility. Local business promotion must give equal priority to two things – the people to whom you’re selling and the product you’re advertising.
- Ensure your Google My Business profile is complete and accurate with the right business name, address, phone number, and category. People often search for local businesses, only to click away when they find no relevant information. Remember, people want to buy locally – you must ensure they can reach you easily. This is one of the best ways to advertise your business locally.
- Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google and Facebook. Positive reviews can improve rankings and build trust. On more than a few occasions, the buying decision hinges on a review of your past customers’ experience.
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly, as mobile searches are becoming increasingly prevalent.
- Actively engage on social media platforms and share local content to attract a local following. Reply to positive comments and reward them with incentives. Apologize for negative experiences and offer to make up for them. This will increase your customer retention rate. Promoting local business is first about caring for your locality and its people.
- Ensure consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information across online directories and listings. This builds credibility and enhances local SEO.
There are still many ways that you can incorporate into your regular local SEO practice. But having these basics sorted and on track is the most important. This way, you can build an organic reach for your business that will help with its credibility and awareness.
2. Listings in Directories
Listings in directories refer to the inclusion of your business’s information, such as name, address, phone number, and other details, on online platforms that serve as directories or databases of businesses. These directories can be general or niche-specific, and they help businesses promote themselves locally in several ways. Local listings, such as online versions of Yellow Pages, offer a time-tested way to promote your local business. Here are some of its benefits:
- Online Visibility
Directory listings significantly enhance a business’s online presence. When potential customers search for products or services online, your business is more likely to appear in the results if listed in relevant directories. Local directories are also an authoritative source that local consumers trust. Thus, your listing reflects the community’s trust through the directories.
- Consistency of Information
Consistency is crucial for local SEO. Accurate and consistent listings across directories ensure that your business details are uniform across the web. This consistency improves your local search engine rankings because search engines value trustworthiness and reliability.
- Valuable Backlinks:
Many directories allow you to include backlinks to your business’s website. These backlinks serve a dual purpose: they can drive direct traffic to your site and enhance your website’s authority in the eyes of search engines, potentially improving your search engine rankings.
- Mobile and Map Visibility:
Directory listings often include mapping features, which are especially valuable for mobile users. With the increasing use of smartphones for local searches, being present in directories can help mobile users easily find your business.
- Targeted Traffic:
Many directories are niche-specific or industry-focused. Listing your business in such directories helps you to reach a highly targeted audience interested in your specific products or services.
To summarize, directory listings are an essential component of local business promotion. They significantly enhance online visibility, boost credibility, provide valuable backlinks, and ensure consistency across the web, all of which contribute to better local SEO and the ability to attract local customers effectively.
3. Google My Business Profile
Google My Business is an online tool that helps businesses and organizations manage how they appear on Google Search and Google Maps. But more than that, especially in local search results, it lets businesses create their special online presence, which builds trust and credibility.
If you don’t have your Google My Business profile yet, then it’s time you take it seriously and create your presence there. Some of the important benefits GMB brings to your business are:
- Accurate Location Data
GMB lists out your accurate location data on Google Maps. This makes it easier for prospective customers to search for you online and visit your local store. Users often trust businesses more if they can physically reach them, which inspires trust and faith in accountability. After all, the best way to advertise locally is to show that you’re a local business!
- Customer Interaction
Imagine communicating with your customers about their experience of your services or product. Exactly. That’s what GMB helps you with here. You can respond to customer reviews, answer questions, and provide updates or announcements. All these build engagement with your customers.
- Website Integration
GMB provides a simple website builder, allowing you to create a basic website directly through the platform. This can be especially useful for businesses without an existing website.
- Photos and Videos
You can upload high-quality images and videos that showcase your products, services, and the interior and exterior of your business. Visual content can significantly influence potential customers.
This is especially true with the advent of Google’s SGE. People don’t just want to know; they want to know creatively. They want to experience information through pictures and videos. Thus, infographics, photos and visual experiences are essential to promote your local business.
- Google Posts
GMB allows you to create brief Google Posts that appear in your listing. These posts can highlight promotions, events, and other news about your business. They can help drive engagements, invite your users to common platforms and help you create advocates for your brand.
Further Reading: How to Create GMB Profile and optimize it to enhance your local presence
4. Create the Robust Content Engine
We live in the world of creative content. Having an online business presence and providing meaningful content to your customers is one of the most effective ways to promote your business locally. In this case, you can use various social media platforms to create meaningful content to engage your customers.
- Social Media Content
Maintain active social media profiles on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These platforms help you directly connect with your target audience and engage with them.
- Blogging
While blogging might look like an old way to promote your business, creating meaningful content in a blog form never goes out of style. If you provide content related to your business and similar educational content around the same topics, you’ll have your own set of audience pools ready.
- User-Generated Content
Encouraging customers to create content related to your business and then repost it. This lets customers actively participate in your content creation journey and build a repo with you.
- Email Marketing
Build a local email list and send newsletters featuring your latest content, promotions, and news. Segment your list to send personalized content to different customer groups. A good way to promote your local business is to include and collaborate with local events and other small businesses.
- Analytics and Adjustments:
Gone are the days when everything would work on just words and speech. The number speaks for itself, and so does the analytics of your content. You must regularly analyze the performance of your content through tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing metrics. Use the insights from these tools to better reframe and realign your content.
Focus on clusters of your users. Where do most of your users reside? Can you organize a local event for them? Where are you losing most of your customers? What can you do to reduce the churn? Are they migrating to a competitor? All these insights will help you cement the presence of your local business.
5. Join Local Communities and Groups
Local Communities and groups share similar interest areas, cause, purpose, mission, etc., as your business comes together. These communities or groups offer a tightly-knit, highly targeted audience, and participating actively within them can build trust and credibility.
Such groups are hubs of word-of-mouth marketing, making recommendations influential. So often, collaborating with other local businesses can expand your reach, and these communities often provide local advertising channels.
Engaging with them enables direct feedback, fosters community involvement, and strengthens local search engine optimization.
Building relationships in local communities can lead to loyal customers who return and advocate for your business, further enhancing your local presence and long-term success.
6. Sponsor Local Events or Sports Games
Sponsoring local events or sports games can be a game-changer in promoting your local business. When you sponsor such local events or games, people recall your brand later on and remember you being a part of it. Such sponsorships offer valuable visibility and recognition opportunities, often including branding at events or on sports uniforms.
This heightened exposure helps build brand recognition among residents and visitors. Furthermore, it also shows your business’s commitment to the local area, which increases your business’s overall goodwill and public image.
These events also provide access to a highly targeted local audience, as attendees will likely
be interested in your products or services. Additionally, the positive interactions and experiences at sponsored events can lead to word-of-mouth marketing, as attendees often share their experiences with friends and family.
7. Make a Place in the Local Press
Local Press is a great way to promote your local business in your community. By getting your place in the local Press, you benefit from many things, some of which are below.
- Local Exposure
Local Press reaches your immediate audience, making it an effective way to connect with potential customers in your area.
- Word of Mouth
Being covered in the local Press often generates buzz within the community. People tend to discuss and share news about local businesses, creating word-of-mouth marketing.
- Local SEO Boost
Links from local news websites can enhance your local search engine optimization efforts, improving your rankings in local search results.
- Community Engagement
A feature in the local Press can prompt engagement and interaction with the community, helping build relationships and customer loyalty.
8. Direct Email Marketing
Direct Email Marketing lets you build your local audience and effectively promote your services or products in the local market. Many businesses have successfully established and promoted their brands through direct email marketing.
Let’s understand this through an example of how Starbucks did it. Starbucks effectively uses direct email marketing to promote its business in the local community.
- Personalized Recommendations
Starbucks sends personalized emails to customers, suggesting products based on their past purchases. For example, customers who frequently order caramel macchiatos may receive an email with special offers on similar coffee beverages.
- Loyalty Program
The Starbucks Rewards program is closely integrated with email marketing. Customers receive emails about their loyalty points, personalized rewards, and exclusive member offers, encouraging them to return to Starbucks stores.
- Mobile Ordering and Payment
Starbucks leverages email to promote its mobile app, allowing customers to order and pay for their favorite beverages in advance, often featuring this as a convenient local solution.
- Community Engagement
Starbucks often shares stories of local store managers or baristas, highlighting their community involvement and contributions fostering a sense of local connection.
- Feedback and Surveys
Starbucks uses email surveys to collect customer feedback on their experiences, menu preferences, and improvement suggestions, allowing them to make data-driven decisions to enhance their offerings.
9. Offer Discounts on Social Events
Offering discounts on social events plays a very important role. It’s not just about giving a few percent off on selected services or products but rather encouraging the socio-emotional sentiments of your customers.
This also builds a long-time repo with your customers, who recall you whenever the same event occurs.
10. Partner with Local Influencers
Partnering with influencers plays a significant role in promoting your business in the local area and community. These people have built their audience, followings, and target audience. People following them trust whatever they endorse. This results in having more awareness and reach of your brand.
Joint events, social media takeovers, and collaborations can expand your local reach. Their social media posts generate buzz and interest in your brand. It’s a cost-effective, authentic way to promote your business locally.
Conclusion
The best way to advertise locally is to understand what links your business with its surrounding community. Wouldn’t it be better if your neighbor knew what you do so they can approach you during their time of need?
Promoting your local business aims to do exactly this! Common local marketing tactics involve leveraging local events, organizing community-based initiatives and curating a locally visible online presence.
So, how will you promote your local business? Will you register with your local directories and craft meaningful content? Will you stay uniform in your messaging and relevant to your product-user connection? Or will you channel local media attention towards products and services?
If you’re still confused about how to promote your business locally, why not schedule a free consultation with LeanSummits? We can help you discover a balanced way of marketing your business locally while staying within budget.
Don’t hesitate! Contact us now, and let’s brainstorm how we can help your business climb its local summit!
English
Portuguese
Spanish