Many small operators are relying on Google for local business to get their brand on the map, however it is far from being the only digital marketing solution to attract local customers.
Local businesses based in the community need customers just as much as any business if they are to thrive. Unfortunately, it can be challenging to bring those customers in if you’re operating in a small community where there aren’t as many people or maybe as much money around to spend.
Local business is much more likely to land customers via mailed out flyers and walk-ins that saw your sign by the road as well as the internet. However, you need to invest in digital marketing beyond Google for local business. Let’s look at a few of the reasons why local businesses must make use of digital marketing.
It Is Essential to Attracting Customers
Digital marketing is essential to attracting customers. Your customers may not know you exist if you don’t have a well-designed website and social media presence. After all, these things along with the feeds from business directories to search engines are part of your digital footprint and show up when people do a search via search engines for your business. And most people will type your business name into a search engine like Bing, DuckDuckGo or Google before hiring you if they receive your business card. Furthermore, most people will do an internet search for local service providers to identify likely prospects.
It Is Cost-Effective
Digital marketing has an incredibly high return on the investment compared to printing and sharing business cards, putting up billboards or mailing advertisements to local businesses. Whether you use online ads or create locally search engine optimized content to attract local people searching for a business like yours, it is relatively low-cost compared tp Google for local business ads.
Yet it attracts a lot of customers. The only digital marketing method that has a higher ROI is email marketing, and it can be hard to get curated email lists that mostly contain people in a geographic area. Contact a digital marketing agency Essex based to learn how to use local search terms in your content and profile to maximize your rankings in location-based searches.
Note that you can use a landing page to collect email addresses of likely prospects so you can better market to them. Then you could send them coupon codes when business is slow or sending them tips on how to manage problems while letting them know when to call a pro.
It Can Increase Conversions
A good digital marketing strategy that goes beyond Google for local business ads can increase the odds that people shop at your store or hire your employees when they need your services. For example, automatically emailing customers after their appointment asking them to leave online reviews for your store will result in more reviews. If your business doesn’t have online reviews on sites like Yelp and Google, many people will go to your competitor, instead. If your only reviews are dissatisfied clients, they’ll certainly go to your competitors.
Another variation of this is that advertising your business as a local business can attract dedicated customers who want to help local business. Or they’ll choose your business because it is obvious that they are in your service area. This is why advertising the cities or neighborhoods you serve are essential to attracting more customers.
It Is Necessary to Show Up in Local Maps
Your business must have consistent business name, address, phone number and other contact details in order for the right information to show up in search results. Unfortunately, too many businesses fail to keep up when they change names or move locations. And if people show up at your old address, you’ve just lost them as a customer forever while likely getting a negative review. But they may show up at the old address, because search engines pull from the contact information on your website and in business directories to determine what address to tell the customer to go to.
The task is made more difficult when you have multiple locations, each in a different location. However, it makes local search engine optimization all the more important. If the NAP information is considered “diffuse” or “conflicting” by search engines, it will downgrade you in the search results. Then your competitors rank higher in local searches, though someone doing a local search is unlikely to go to the second page. That’s especially true if they’re looking at the search results tap next to a map.
The solution is to have a hyper-local SEO strategy for each store. This includes a separate business directory for every retail outlet as well as your main office and service center. Then you don’t have people show up at the corporate office when they want to buy your stuff or arrive at a retail store for an interview at corporate. And you should have separate social media pages for each location. Consider it additional channels to market to customers with.
