10|20 Marketing specializes in helping location-based businesses succeed in competitive local digital landscapes. Through organic and paid media strategies, our team and tools can help drive leads via search and social media to help new and established businesses succeed online – and own their digital networks.
What is Local Marketing
Local marketing is a marketing strategy that targets intent-based buyers within a certain radius of a business’s physical location(s).
Suppose you have at least one brick-and-mortar business location (this applies to local businesses and chains). In that case, local marketing can work for any brand with a physical location. Still, it’s vital for locally-based companies whose primary business happens in-person (versus online, where consumers anywhere can make purchases).
Local marketing allows you to hone your resources on a select audience that is physically close to you and actively looking for the goods or services you provide.
Why is Local Marketing Important
We’ll let some statistics tell the story.
Did you know that 97% of people learn more about a local company online than any other medium? In addition, 88% of mobile online searches for local businesses result in a call or business visit within one day.
Did you know that a purchase follows 28% of all local searches and 78% of local searches on mobile results in an offline purchase? Or 72% of consumers who conducted a local search visited a store within five miles of their location?
The resources linked above do an excellent job of proving the value of local search optimization. Bottom line? Local marketing strategies must be at the top of your priority list.
Local Marketing Strategies
What are some of the tactics you can employ to launch a proper and effective local marketing presence? Here are some that you can use individually or in tandem.
Directory Marketing (also known as Local Listings Management)
Definition: Local listing management is the automated process of continuously updating and maintaining a business’ location data across online directories, websites, and other customer-facing platforms.
Benefits: Google wants to know that your information in Google Business Profile Manager is as accurate as possible. When crawling the web, Google compares the information you’ve provided to them to your listings on other websites to see if there’s an exact match. These other sites include search engines, social networks and mapping services. The more consistency you create, the more trust you build with Google – resulting in more views of your listing on Google and more clicks on the phone call, directions and website buttons on their network. All of which are leads for your business.
Local Search Marketing
Definition: Local search ads are a way for businesses to be featured and stand out within the local results section of a Google search. When a user is looking for a specific service near their location, they may see advertisements that show your location, phone number, hours, and reviews.
Benefits: Running local search advertising campaigns allows businesses to intercept intent-based shoppers looking to spend money on goods and services practically immediately. And with search marketing campaigns – also known as pay-per-click advertising – you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. In addition, when you design this process to drive people to a landing page on your website, you can control the process and close the transaction.
Geofencing
Definition: Geofencing marketing involves setting up virtual boundaries around a point or area that tracks whenever someone with a mobile device crosses them. When this happens, behind-the-scenes technology allows the advertiser to send digital display messages to the qualified target consumer on their mobile device.
Benefits: Geofencing campaigns are highly measurable and allow the advertiser to accomplish two things. First, they will enable you to build awareness through digital advertising banners linked to the advertiser’s website, where you can capture leads. Second, because you’re targeting boundaries – think about your competitors and other places where your ideal target audience shops or works – you can measure walk-in traffic to your location by those the technology has been able to track.
Geofencing gives you feedback on how effective your advertising is, as only a certain percentage of the people being tracked will see your ad (because you probably can’t pay to reach everyone!). As a result, you have a test and control group created, which allows you to measure the difference between the two. In other words, those who have seen your ad and those who haven’t.
Local Online Ratings & Review Management
Definition: Local online ratings & review management refers to monitoring and encouraging ratings and reviews for your local business and highlighting this user-generated content on your website and social media.
Benefits: Building trust among potential customers is a crucial tenant of ratings & review management strategies. The higher your ratings and the more favourable your reviews, the more likely people will want to do business with you. Studies show:
- nearly 90% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations;
- 91% of internet users have read online reviews to determine the quality of a local business;
- 88% of people have decided not to buy from a business because they were unhappy with the reviews they read online;
- 31% of customers will look elsewhere after reading just three poor reviews.
Website Search Engine Optimization
Definition: Also known as on-page SEO, this specific type of SEO refers to optimizing your web page’s content and source code to increase your website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). Excellent on-page SEO strategy helps search engines accomplish three things:
- Understand the webpage context;
- Identify the page as related to a search query;
- Locate a page that is optimized to rank well.
Benefits: This is all about driving more traffic to your website, of course. However, the tighter your on-page search optimization commitment, the more like you will be to rank higher on Google, boost organic search traffic to your website, increase click-through rates, and, ultimately, convert website visitors into qualified leads.
“Near Me” is Only Growing
Local marketing strategies are vital for location-based businesses with a single location or dozens or hundreds. Why? Because each location has its local ecosystem. Not every neighbourhood has the same number of restaurants, banks, dry cleaners, pizza shops, or dental practices as the neighbourhood over. And because every business – even huge chains like MacDonald’s, for example – has unique local competition, getting your strategic mix right is crucial.
When you consider that the number of searches for “near me” has increased by 500% in recent years, the importance of getting this right becomes clear.
At 10|20 Marketing, we’re here to help. Our team of experts will create a local marketing plan for you that drives results. And our plans start at as little as $99 per month (per location). So reach out for a free consultation and implement these local marketing strategies today.