How to Market as a Local Small Business

When you first started your business did you realize that you would have to become the person who wears too many hats? We understand the struggles of local small business marketing because we have been there ourselves. You might think it would be easy to market yourself as a professional marketing agency, right? You might also think that the local plumber has the best plumbing and no leaks at his own house …. right? The fact is that of all the hats you wear in your business there is one that fits you best, the coach of day to day operations, the owner.

Expertise in what you do is what prompted you to start doing it and make a profit in the first place. Wearing too many hats in the business you can suffer from lack of performance in the key areas that really matter, delivering a good product or service. On the other hand your business needs a steady flow of customers who are buying or else you may not have any products or services to provide.

Local Marketing Key Factors

Even though most consumers find their information via the internet (Google search) it does not mean it should be the ONLY focus for inbound marketing. Some of the old fashioned (offline) printed media advertising is still a valid way to promote to potential customers. Things like publications, direct mailers, and business cards seem so simple or out-dated but actually are still strong signals for branding & trust.

In combination to offline (print) marketing strategies being present in a local market online is absolutely important in 2019 and beyond. When starting out to put your business online you must know that it will take some time for “organic ranking signals” to take hold and hopefully move your website near the top where customers are searching. To get faster results while your organic signals are building you could pay for advertising – just be extremely selective of what you are putting your marketing dollars into.

Combine these factors for best results:

• If your website is not producing results soon enough for you then you can consider supplementing with paid ad services. “PPC” Pay Per Click like Google Local Ads. Although you will still need a website that is READY to convert those visitors once they arrive from your local online ad. In many cases (depending on the local market and competition) can get somewhat expensive.
• Work on home base first, the website. If you are driving new sales to the website then all of your initial efforts should be focused on the website. Make it look as good as possible and it needs to funnel your leads into a conversion. The website should have more detail and depth than the competitor sites that are at the top of search results.
• Create the content, and make it better than your competitors. Website and blog content is so important. It will give the sense of authority and position your business or brand as the expert. This can be a signal for trust winning over more and more new customers. Use your website blog to create content that answers frequently asked questions.
• Drive new sales to your website from offline printed media & promotions. Since the new business website may not show immediate performance in search results your marketing dollars may be more strategically spent using offline printed marketing techniques with a website only exclusive offer, sale, or discount. This combination will generate lots of local searches and website traffic and will help add to your organic signals.

While there are a number of online website tools one can use for creating a very basic website none of which will offer the key factors that a business website should have to maximize advantages over the competition. When it comes to the website and online profiles the business owner needs to be in control of all online assets.

Print Advertising is Dying – Slowly

Think twice before running any ads in the local phone book and even most magazine publications these days. In certain local business markets it could make sense to advertise in a very localized publications so long as it can yield x2 the amount spent on it per month. The printed phone book is becoming less of a resource and although may send a trust signal may not produce any new calls.

Printed Ads Worth Your Money

You can still get some really good results from printed ads like direct mail postcards, flyers, business cards because these alternatives can be hyper targeted to the customers in the local areas you want. If you combine these type of printed ads with tracking phone numbers or promo codes you can measure the results and adjust them as needed so that you control the marketing expense.

• Direct Mail Postcards (Postcard Mania)
• Hyper Local Publication (must have lots of qualified readers, specific to locations & regions)
• Business cards left in strategic locations

Content Marketing & Promotion

Part of a successful sales funnel will make use of “content marketing” which is the creation of useful information (like blog posts, videos) that will genuinely help your targeted customers. Just think of any questions you have been asked by people who were interested in your product / service, could you write a few paragraphs about those questions?

Online content marketing is one of the most cost effective ways for a business to generate inbound sales. When potential customers hop online and search for information related to what your business does it would be nice if the content you created was at the top of results!

• Blog articles that are in depth and answer common questions
• Videos that show or explain your products / services
• Printed brochures, photos of your work
• Blog posts / pages that show detailed information of a project

Content creation and marketing is the way to have the assets needed to create sales funnels. Depending on what the person has shown interest in you can setup custom automated followup sequences.

When it comes to content marketing you need to share the content around the popular online places your target audience is hanging out. Having these social profiles helps your business appear to be more legitimate, but can also offer opportunities for new sales. You open the door to allow clients to come in to your business from a piece of content and then you have the opportunity to keep them interested until they make a purchase. If nothing else you at least have the opportunity to capture their email for followup sequences.

• Facebook – everyone is on it, and there are many niche groups where you can be involved in questions that your potential buyers are asking.
• Twitter – even if you do not use this regularly you need to share your blog or website content on Twitter.
• Google My Business – with even more features than ever before and the only way to show up in the Google Maps search results this is one of the most important business profiles to have.
• YouTube – every business has the ability to create videos about what they do and how they do it. In today’s world video is the most frequently searched & consumed type of content.
• Pinterest, Instagram, and more…

There are numerous social websites that you can create a business profile and the advantage to this is that your website is no longer alone. Every blog post from your website should be shared in such a way that it drives readers to your website to read the rest and in that way you can have the opportunity to sell to them. What is less known about this is that it will help Google to trust your brand a little more which results in tiny wins for your organic results.

Local Marketing Systems

Whenever possible you need to compartmentalize business operations into “systems” – meaning, the business can repeat the process and therefore measure the results accurately. As it works for streamlining the operations and sales process it also should be used in all marketing campaigns. We see too many business owners flushing hard earned money down the drain without even realizing it until we show them what they are capable of. With automation tools you can simultaneously syndicate content and track the results automatically at the same time.

An effective marketing strategy can be implemented as a system, a way to automate a portion of the process which allows more time and effort to be focused on the fulfillment and operations. The more efficient your marketing is the easier it will be for your sales process.

• Hire a marketing assistant
• Automate website blog & content syndication
• Track sales phone calls
• See how customers are landing on your website
• Learn which keywords to optimize for
• Automate closed sale follow up
• Automate request for reviews & referrals

How to be First in Google Local Search

You are going to need a “GMB” aka Google My Business Listing and it needs to be optimized for the keywords specific to your business services. At the same time you need to be working on your website to make sure it is ready for the people searching. Once these most important factors are in place you will need to do the following:

• Prioritize your marketing factors (focus on the ones that work, eliminate any that don’t work)
• Delegate tasks & consider having a marketing assistant who can do the busy work
• Content creation at “home base” (blog posts, videos)
• Create a sales funnel that triggers when someone arrives at the website
• Using the sales funnel, build an email list
• Get profiles on main local directories
• Generate reviews on the Google Listing

Although a very basic overview, the above mentioned actions will allow your business to gain some ground in a local market. As for more detailed and advanced techniques or special online methods used for ranking higher in Google Maps you will need to contact us for a free consultation.

Business owners often find themselves worrying too much about how to market their local businesses & services such that they may be distracted or stressed out so much that they either throw money away by hiring low level marketing services or some shiny online tool that promises unrealistic results. These methods are a spiral straight to the bottom of the marketing barrel, where you become generally unhappy with “marketers” and could lose hope in how to keep local brand awareness alive and strong.

How we can help

We encourage you to write down ANY possibilities along the lines of what we have mentioned here. Each business owner has particular goals and challenges, so we hope to have given enough information to formulate ideas that we can discuss and test the validity of. Our process involves training the business owner and / or an assistant in any of the marketing practices that apply specifically to your business.

• Local marketing consultations
• Develop strategy based on needs & competitive data
• Business Marketing campaign & strategy
• Implementations & Training
• Optional “done for you” & upkeep services

We take the time to fully understand the needs of our clients (business owners like you) and help them to create a working marketing plan / strategy. Then we take that even further with specialized training on the actions you must take based on the plan of action that we created. At the same time we implement these strategies and techniques WITH you while also providing support to your sales team to close any gaps in the sales process.