Originally Posted on Aug 30th, 2016
Local Marketing Ideas for Your Business
Looking for new ideas to market your local business?
Coming up with creative marketing ideas can be hard!
Plus the fact that there are 1000’s of different ways to market now-a-days with all of the different social platforms and video at your disposal.
Here’s the deal:
Effective local marketing is a good mix of SEO, PPC, & content marketing for your Website and Social Media. As a business owner, it is hard to maintain a consistent digital marketing strategy, let alone think up fresh ideas.
[Want Help Coming Up With an Effective Marketing Strategy for 2020? Click here]
That is why we put together this post of 14 ways you can market yourself as a local business.
Quick Summary
The most effective local marketing strategies we’ve seen to date:
1. Promote Your Customer Reviews on Facebook
2. Create Custom Landing Pages For All Campaigns
3. Use Remarketing To Produce Reviews
4. Leverage Call-Only Ads
5. Offer Email Mobile Coupons to Follow Offline Conversions
6. Test Storefront Photos in Your Retargeting & Display Ads
7. Claim Your Listings
8. Promote Your Content on Social Media
9. For Brand Awareness, Have Facebook Ads Going In Your Neighbourhood
10. Instead of Talking About Yourself, Try Third Person Ad Copy
11. Use Sticky Menus For Landing Pages
12. In Wikipedia, Add Applicable Local Marketing Info to Your Location Pages
13. Set Up A Detailed Radius Location in Your Google Ads Campaign
14. Show Distance From Store In Your Mobile Ads
15. *BONUS TIP* Google My Business
How can you actually use this?
If you ever get stuck, try out these 14 marketing ideas that will take you from a marketing rookie to a local marketing legend:
1. Promote Your Customer Reviews on Facebook
Leveraging Facebook adverts can spread brand awareness fast and show off your local reputation.
92% of consumers now read online reviews (vs. 88% in 2014).
2. Create Custom Landing Pages For All Campaigns
To prevent you from throwing money down the drain, make sure you track conversions and build landing pages. Every Google Ads campaign should have a simple flow chart: Click Ad > Go to landing page > Convert
Tips to Keep in Mind:
- Include a clear “Call to Action”
- Images are powerful – choose one that compliments your proposal & make it descriptive
- Make your phone number and/or email clickable
- Be sure to answer your Audience’s top questions
Here is a landing page example that includes all of the above:
Be sure to test your landing pages!
3. Use Remarketing To Produce Reviews
Sometimes you need to remind customers to leave a 5-star review about how much they love your products/services! A good way for you to do this is with REMARKETING. If you have a confirmation page where people fill out an event or a form in your Google Analytics, add a remarketing code to the confirmation page and create the list in Google Analytics to tag all customers who visit the URL. Then create a display ad that says something catchy like, “Spread the Love – Leave Us a Review” and give them options of where to leave a review. ie. Google, Facebook, Yelp etc.
4. Leverage Call-Only Ads
Call-Only ads will allow you to avoid landing pages or leaky funnels. They give you a way to sell directly to your consumers with a single focus; them calling in. Keep in mind that “Audience Targeting” is key with Call-Only Ads. You want to make sure that you are targeting an audience that applies to your business and void out the bad quality leads that could spend up your Google Ads money.
5. Offer Email Mobile Coupons to Follow Offline Conversions
To avoid the nuisance of tracking offline conversions, try Emailed Mobile Coupons! Customers can request an emailed mobile coupons through email & then when it’s time to purchase it in your store, all they have to do is pull out their phone and show you it. This is a great way to track conversions offline.
6. Test Storefront Photos in Your Retargeting & Display Ads
If you are a business that relies on foot traffic, create a correlation between your physical location and your online presence. It will tie the physical and virtual together for potential clients.
7. Claim Your Listings
You want to claim any online listings that apply to your business. This might include Yelp, Facebook, Yellow Pages/White Pages, Yahoo Local, Bing Places and Foursquare. Depending on your industry, there may even be service-specific ones you can list on. There is a MAIN one that everyone should be sure to claim. (We have listed it as our bonus tip below)
Listing your business in online directories can be a great way to associate your brand with a specific geographic address and location.
It is important to get your categories right. Your categories influence where your listing ranks organically. When this is done properly it can start to impact your lead volume right away.
8. Promote Your Content on Social Media
Social Media Ads are great for local marketing. When it comes to Facebook & Instagram, we have found that Brand Awareness is most effective campaign to start with. Whether you are a B2B or B2C, you can be sure that your customers are on Facebook!
9. For Brand Awareness, Have Facebook Ads Going In Your Neighbourhood
By running local Facebook ads, you are getting your name out there to the people that matter the most. Those who live around your business. This will help increase your chances of getting a word-of-mouth recommendation drastically.
The goal for any marketing campaign is that if somebody offline asks for a recommendation for your services, your company’s name comes up. Also, social branding and local SEO work well together. Google and other search engines will see you as a leading service provider in your local area.
10. Instead of Talking About Yourself, Try Third Person Ad Copy
To stand out from the crowd, try talking in 3rd person about your business. Go and grab reviews from customers on Yelp or Google, then copy and use them in your Ads. An example of this could be, “We Hired Them To Do Our Website & It Was Amazing!
11. Use Sticky Menus For Landing Pages
Sticky menus or headers ensure that your call to action is visible all the time. Put these on your landing pages and they will scroll down as the user scrolls. This will help you boost your landing page conversions.
12. In Wikipedia, Add Applicable Local Marketing Info to Your Location Pages
To make a great local page for your business, it is important to have relevant content. A great way to achieve this is by linking out important information. This will help Google understand what you are locally associated with. To get ideas about what to write about on your page, search your city name plus Wikipedia.
How Do I Do This?
- Type in Keyword + city in title
- Link out to events that you have been involved in within your community and about the history in the city.
- Write about local businesses that you are associated with. ie. If you a hairdresser, talk about suppliers your use in your area.
The idea is to create a page of relevant and useful information that shows your local bond to your searcher.
13. Set Up A Detailed Radius Location in Your Google Ads Campaign
Radius targeting with location bid adjustments will turn your business into a targeting king. Make sure to set up a campaign that will target those that have a high probability of visiting your business based from their location.
14. Show Distance From Store In Your Mobile Ads
Ensure that your mobile campaigns have ads with useful information that helps your consumers complete their tasks when advertising as a local business. Include your address – try including your area code in your Ad Headline. Be sure to add in the distance to your location and DON’T FORGET to utilize the extensions available including call out extensions and LOCATION EXTENSION!
15. *BONUS TIP* Google My Business
Google My Business is key to creating an effective local presence in your service area. This ensures that you will show up on Google Maps, and can help play a role in gaining more Real Estate on the First Page of Google. Make sure you optimize it and fill in all the applicable categories to really take advantage of the FREE local marketing tool.
Need help setting this and other Google tools up for your business? Check out our Google Trio Service. We will set up and/or optimize your Google My Business, as well as Google Search Console, and Google Analytics!
These ideas are here to help you stand out from the crowd and to help become the local king or queen for the services and/or products that you offer in your area. We hope that you have found this post helpful. If you use any of these strategy’s please comment below on how they are work for you, or if we have missed any, please share the knowledge. If there are any ideas here that you would like to try, but aren’t too sure where to start —> feel free to Contact Us, we would be more than happy to help!