As a local business owner, competition for local clients is fierce. Hence, it is crucial to associate with clients and be unique from your competitors. Winning local clients needs a combination of both in-person and digital marketing strategies. Some of those marketing tactics come at a cost, but a lot of them are free and easy.
As a business owner, you would want to have a good relationship with your local customers and consumers, be a part of the community, and be outstandingly unique from your competitors.
Due to the fact that there is a limited number of clients in your area, a local marketing approach constitutes a significant priority, apart from your competitors aiming at the same clients you are vying for. On that note, this article has described effective and creative ways how to promote your your business locally.
How to Promote your Business Locally
Be a Part of Local Groups
To promote your business locally is to be focused on the community. People would like to feel in a group. Meanwhile, being a part of that will make you have a competitive advantage over national and even international organizations.
A number of these local groups may have Facebook accounts and be in charge of local activities and online meetups. While you may be required to pay a token to be a part of certain groups, there will be room for you to attend meetings and activities where you will be able to bring exposure to your business.
This is a good way to create partnerships, develop relationships with other business owners and perform a more significant role in the community.
Create Contests and Competitions
Being in charge of contests and competitions is a fantastic method to connect the offline and online worlds, improve brand awareness, and enhance your social media marketing. A perfect way to develop competition and increase word of mouth is through your social media.
You could request local clients to post pictures on social media with specific and local hashtags, offering prizes to whoever wins the contest. An example of a contest you can run is a referral contest, with prizes for people who get the most referrals.
Furthermore, ensure you include the link to your shop in your bio so that people will know where to go whenever they wish to know more about your products or services.
In addition, you can develop lists for email marketing through providing competitions and requesting that potential new clients enter by sending their name, email, and phone number.
Partnerships with Local Influencers and Businesses
You do not need to have one million followers to become an influencer. Micro-influencers often have higher rates of engagement and report better conversion rates than people with thousands of followers.
As a local business owner, find local influencers and those in your community or industry who are popular and have a large rate of following. Then, become partners with them. Since they are micro-influencers, it may not be their only profession. Hence, they will not necessarily expect to get paid.
They may choose to voluntarily work with you for complimentary products or services, which will allow you to cut your costs. It will be possible for influencers to improve your business or bend. Still, they will develop many high-quality media that you can utilize for future marketing.
Through partnering with local influencers, you will not only be exposing your brand to your influencer’s followers, but it will help to emphasize that your brand is a part of the community.
Advertise With A Local Newspaper
Depending on what your target demographic is advertising with your local newspaper can be beneficial for you. Newspapers often are great for targeting people over 50 years of age and can be very effective. Advertising with a local newspaper to run print ads and digital ads can work great.
Add Your Business to Local Listings
Ensure you are on every local listing in your area. It could be a registry, citation, or an online form of the yellow pages. Although you may be required to pay a fee for every citation, it will expose you to your business more and give links back to your website.
A recommended way to get listings is to look for where your competitors are being linked and check if you can gather similar links.
More importantly, remember to include the address of your business, website, and contact details in Google Maps so your customers will see you when they are searching online.
Improve Local SEO
SEO can be defined as the tactics that will help you rank higher on Google. The initial thing you should do to start your search engine optimization strategy is to register with Google My Business. When you look for anything local, Google returns results for brands in that neighborhood.
The top results which Google returns in a local search will then be from Google My Business. Therefore, naturally, you should open an account. Registering is easy. You only need to wait for some days for Google to send a verification postcard to your business that guarantees you are a local business owner.
However, you will need to develop positive customer reviews. Request all your previous clients for a review, and provide a discount if people are unwilling to. Moreover, for future jobs or orders you will be getting, always ask for a positive review from the clients (just be sure you made an excellent impression).
Sponsor an Event or Team
It could be a school team, a sports team, or even a chess team. Consider sponsoring any team from your city related to your local community, especially if it relates to your business.
Sponsorship could refer to advertising on their website, having an outdoor banner anywhere their events occur, or having a logo on their clothes. Sponsorship will also contribute to boosting your SEO, as teams and establishments will be encouraged to link to you on their websites.
Marketing Your Local Business
Marketing your local business does not always need to be expensive. More often than not, all it requires is creativity, energy, and wise knowledge of where to get inexpensive and tools of high quality to help you achieve it.
Just make sure you enhance your visuals and reward your loyal clients, coupled with the strategies discussed above. Then watch yourself being outstanding from the competition and thereby capturing the attention of clients.
