Strategies to Boost Your Local Online Marketing

Local businesses face distinct marketing challenges that require tailored strategies. Although operating in a smaller area might seem advantageous, online marketing for local businesses can be more complex than expected.

Unlike larger businesses, local establishments need to locate their ideal target customers within a limited audience. Balancing specific targeting with a sufficient audience size can be a delicate task.

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To overcome these challenges, here are effective methods that local businesses can utilise to enhance their online marketing strategies and reach their goals.

Types Of Online Marketing Strategies:

• Search engine optimisation
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• Email Marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Display Advertising
• Video Marketing

Online Business Strategy Steps: Improve Your Google Business Profile Listing

Take the time to optimise and enhance your Google Business Profile listing to maximise its effectiveness. Ensure that your listing is complete and well-optimised by providing detailed information such as an informative “About” section, accurate business hours, and up-to-date contact information. It’s also beneficial to include high-quality pictures and encourage customers to leave reviews.

What To Do?

Use the Listing Management tool to assess the performance of your local listing. By entering your business information, you can receive an evaluation of your listing’s presence and identify any areas where your business may be lacking visibility. This tool offers valuable insights to help you improve your online presence.

Utilise Geofencing Campaigns

Geofencing campaigns offer the advantage of targeting a specific and customised perimeter around chosen locations. Take advantage of the power of geofencing to tap into your prospects’ locations and the valuable insights you can gather from them. This marketing approach opens a wide range of opportunities to engage with your target audience.

What To Do?

Target individuals who are present at competitors’ locations, allowing you to identify potential prospects who may be interested in your offerings. Additionally, by leveraging a prospect’s location, even if they are not at a competitor’s storefront, you can gather valuable information about them.

For example, you can target sports stadiums during sporting events if your target market is likely to attend those events. Similarly, you can focus on home improvement stores to reach individuals who are likely to own their own homes.

Implement Geotargeted Search Campaigns

If geofencing isn’t your preferred approach (or even if it is!), tightly geotargeted campaigns can be equally effective. Geotargeted campaigns are one of the best online marketing strategies as they focus on specific local areas to ensure that you’re reaching potential prospects who are within reasonable proximity.

What To Do?

Geotargeted campaigns allow you to narrow your focus to a specific local area, ensuring that you don’t waste resources on prospects who are too far away to convert into customers. You can take this a step further by implementing a staggered approach based on the prospects’ searches.

For example, prospects who conduct non-brand searches are less likely to travel far and prioritise convenience, while those searching for a specific brand may be more inclined to travel greater distances.

Online Marketing Strategies Examples

Furthermore, if the keyword used in the search includes a specific location, you can expand your targeting to a broader area, knowing that the prospects intend to be within your local vicinity based on their search intent.

For instance, as a realtor in Chicago, you would focus your geotargeting on Chicago for non-brand searches like “houses for sale,” but you could target the entire country for searches like “houses for sale in Chicago” because it indicates an intention to buy a house in Chicago, even if the prospects are not currently local.

Additionally, by setting up and linking your Google Business Profile location as an ad extension, you can be eligible to display ads within the map itself as prospects conduct relevant searches. Utilising tools that can help you generate keyword ideas and assess the competitive density or level of competition among advertisers for those keywords.

Learn More: Why Local SEO Is Important for Your Business?

Utilise Google Ads Local Campaigns

Google offers a campaign type known as “Local Campaigns,” specifically designed to drive local conversions such as getting directions and in-store visits. These campaigns provide a slightly more automated approach compared to traditional search campaigns, making them worth considering as an additional testing opportunity alongside your regular search campaigns.

• Google provides local merchants with the opportunity to use Local Inventory Ads, which function similarly to shopping ads. These ad units are based on a product feed and appear prominently alongside other shopping ads at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).
• Local Inventory Ads offer various details, including images, reviews, pricing and more. The main advantage of these ads is that they highlight products currently available in local stores, enticing interested prospects to visit and make purchases.

What To Do?

To enhance your feed optimisation, you can utilise the PLA Research tool. This tool allows you to research the specific search terms that trigger your competitors’ shopping campaigns, providing valuable insights and ideas to improve your feed. Additionally, you can preview your competitors’ ads to stay informed about their strategies and approaches.

Utilise Google Display and Remarketing for Local Brand Awareness

Google Display and Remarketing campaigns offer effective strategies for creating brand awareness at a local level. By targeting your specific geography, you can reach the local audience that matters most to your business.

Furthermore, you can enhance targeting by utilising additional criteria such as demographics, remarketing lists, topics, affinity audiences and in-market audiences to ensure your ads are seen by the most relevant individuals.

What To Do?

To gain inspiration for your ads and stay updated on your competitors’ activities. It provides insights and ideas for creating effective display ads, and it allows you to monitor and analyse your competitors’ display advertising strategies.

Harness the Power of Paid Social Campaigns for Local Advertising

Paid social campaigns provide another effective avenue for local advertising, with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and more at your disposal. These platforms enable you to target your desired audience while maintaining a local focus.

What To Do?

Consider your target market and determine which platforms they are most likely to engage with. This will help you select the most suitable social media platform for your business. Experiment with different ad formats and targeting options to identify the most effective combination for your specific goals.

By leveraging paid social campaigns alongside other marketing channels, you can amplify your local reach and maximise your advertising efforts.

Build Your Email List and Maintain Connections

Email online marketing strategies serves as a simple yet powerful tool to boost sales. The best part is that many email marketing platforms offer affordable or even free options for beginners with small subscriber lists.

What To Do?

• Ensure you proactively collect email addresses from individuals engaging with your business.
• This allows you to establish a direct line of communication, either at no cost or at a minimal expense, in the future when you want to share updates like sales, new product launches.
• Sending a weekly or monthly newsletter filled with valuable content keeps subscribers engaged with your business, even when they are not actively considering a purchase.

By diligently growing your email list and maintaining regular contact, you can leverage the power of email marketing to nurture customer relationships and drive conversions effectively.

Harness the Power of User-Generated Content

One of the most impactful online marketing strategies is to showcase the experiences of satisfied customers. What better way to do that than by allowing them to share their own stories? If you have a pool of happy customers, a highly effective strategy is to encourage or incentivise the creation of user-generated content.

What To Do?

• Invite your customers to share photos or videos of themselves on your social media platforms or submit them through a dedicated landing page.
• By featuring their stories, you provide prospective customers with an authentic perspective of your business through the eyes of those who have already experienced it.
• By leveraging user-generated content, you tap into the power of real-life experiences, building credibility and establishing a sense of trust with your audience. It allows your customers to become brand advocates and helps you create a stronger connection with your target market.

Building and Safeguarding Your Reputation

Reputation management encompasses various online marketing plans aimed at monitoring and optimising how people perceive your brand in the market, whether it’s positive or negative. It involves proactively working to make the most out of these perceptions.

What To Do?

• Keep in mind that reviews often form the initial impression for many potential customers.
• Responding to reviews, including negative ones, constructively and positively is essential.
• Embrace these reviews as opportunities to enhance your business operations and customer experience.

By effectively managing your reputation, you can shape a positive perception of your brand, cultivate trust among customers and continuously improve your business based on valuable feedback.

Enhancing Local SEO for Your Website Besides Map Listings

In addition to optimising your map listings, it’s crucial to focus on improving your local SEO to ensure that your website ranks well for relevant local searches related to your products or services.

What To Do?

For instance, you can take advantage of free site audit feature to evaluate the performance of your website. Please note that the free account allows crawling up to 100 pages per audit per month. For larger audits, you may need to consider upgrading to a paid account.

Conclusion

In conclusion, implementing an effective digital marketing plan is essential for businesses in today’s digital era. These strategies enable businesses to effectively reach their target audience, enhance brand visibility and generate conversions.

If you need assistance with free online marketing strategies, we at Traffic Radius can help. By optimising your Google Business Profile listings, you can ensure your business appears prominently in local search results, attracting local customers.

What We Do?

• Leverage local inventory ads
• Encourage interested prospects to visit physical stores
• Run paid social campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter
• Collect email addresses for email marketing allows businesses
• Encourage user-generated content empowers customers to share their positive experiences, building credibility and trust among potential customers
• Monitor marketing strategies to refine and optimise campaigns ensuring maximum effectiveness.