In order to succeed in your local market, you must develop effective local marketing strategies to build your brand authority and attract more customers. Using digital marketing is a powerful way to connect your business or restaurant with its nearby audience.
Does your business market primarily to a local customer base?
Do you need your products or services to be found by local audiences?
In this blog we give some great local marketing strategies that really work to get more customers in the door.
Local Marketing Strategies for 2023
Create a Google Business Profile
Shoppers will often choose to visit a local retailer after searching and finding out information like menus, the in-store availability of an item, pricing, and store location and hours. But when that information isn’t available, they will find a local business that has the information available online, drive further, or choose online competitors instead. This is why it’s important to keep your contact and product information current and available.
When users search for products or services on Google, your Google Business Profile (GBP) will appear when someone searches for your business name or relevant keywords. This is a free local search tool. Google’s results for searches highlight businesses within the local area of the person searching and display their addresses with locations on Google Maps. They also show telephone numbers, store hours, service options, customer reviews, and even products and posts if you decide to add them.
It’s a simple process to claim and verify your Google Business Profile. Once you have verified it, you can add images and a bio, create posts and offers, promote sales, send and receive messages, answer customer questions, and more. You can also set the radius for services you provide to a specific distance, such as 50 miles.
Make sure to add fresh content to your GBP every week because unlike on other social media, they do expire. Keep it updated because it also drives traffic to your website. For local visibility, you can’t beat the cost or ease of utilizing your Google Business Profile.
Solicit Reviews
Good customer reviews are crucial for any business, but especially for ones that rely on local patronage. Reviews are automatically displayed on Google Business Profiles, so users will notice how many stars other customers have given their experiences.
Quantity and quality both count in the reviews game, as consumer trust grows with word of mouth (or online reviews). According to one survey, almost everyone – 97% of respondents – said they read reviews for local businesses. They also trust them about as much as personal recommendations – and in some cases even more. They rely on local reviews to guide them towards better purchasing decisions and experiences.
Local reviews help move customers through the sales funnel towards conversions or purchases. If you would like to know how your company can get more reviews, read our handy guide here.
Website SEO
Optimizing your company’s website can also help increase traffic and conversions. This is primarily done through keyword optimization. This may seem like it’s simple, but selecting the most effective keywords is an art and a science. If you want effective results, you will need to do keyword research and strategize specifically for local search, B2B, or whatever will be most important for your business. Competition for certain keywords can be highly competitive, so you may need to get creative to get your company to show in the results when your customers search for “___ companies near me.”
Content Marketing
Google rewards websites that create specific, original, helpful content, so the more content you have and the more relevant and consistent it is, the better off you will be. Create evergreen content that is designed to answer your customers questions and solve their problems. If you haven’t updated your website in a while, creating fresh content is an easy way to improve your search results over time. Make sure to include local keywords for places, events, or local products and/or cuisine to your content too.
Digital Advertising
Creating your Google Business Profile, optimizing your website, and updating your content will work long term to better your online profile and attract more customers, but for faster results we also recommend using digital advertising with Google Ads or other paid media channels. With Google Ads, you can target certain customers by keywords and location. When you set up your Google Ads account, you should also implement tracking. This will help you optimize your ad campaigns and achieve better success over time.
If your company’s success depends on attracting local customers, you need to implement strategies that are focused on local search. Some of the above strategies are more complicated than others. We know that. We are here to help you if you need help with digital advertising, content marketing, website optimization, or any of your other website or digital marketing needs. Book a time to meet with Tom about your business goals for 2023. Let’s talk!
