Many businesses need to reach local audiences with their marketing efforts. These are some local marketing strategies that small businesses can use.
Local marketing is a strategy that targets local audiences close to your business.
Local marketing is particularly effective for businesses that are tied to a specific location such as restaurants, boutique retailers, and professional advisors.
It’s easy to get your small business’s local marketing strategy started. These tips will help you immediately improve your local marketing efforts.
What is local marketing?
Local marketing targets people who live in the same area or town as your business. It targets people within a radius of your business’ physical location. This is usually a reasonable driving distance. These people might be able to purchase your product or services at any time.
If you own a restaurant in Red Bank (New Jersey), driving traffic to your website from Sacramento, California is unlikely to be a good idea. You should instead use local marketing strategies to ensure that your target audience is actually located close enough to be able to drive to your restaurant, or order delivery.
Which types of businesses can benefit from local marketing?
While many businesses can reap the benefits of local marketing, there are certain types of businesses that require it. Restaurants are an excellent example of this because they offer delivery, take-out and dine in services. A restaurant is by nature locked in its location.
A retail store is another example of a local business that requires marketing. Even though small retail businesses often have ecommerce shops, local marketing can help increase foot traffic and brand awareness. This is particularly important for boutique stores that compete with larger chains.
Local marketing strategies that you can begin today
1. Optimize your website and localize it
Website optimization is crucial to driving traffic. But is your website optimized for local visitors? Heather Lodge, Click and Mortar’s chief marketer, stated that you need to follow the best search engine optimization (SEO), practices such as keyword research and ensuring your website provides a great mobile experience.
She stated that more than half of the traffic to websites comes from mobile devices. Local businesses will be attracted to a website that is well-designed and simple.
2. Update meta descriptions and title tags.
McKnight also suggested that SEO should be considered when updating your site’s title tags or metadata.
He said that although there are many parts to metadata, most people only need to be concerned about the meta description and title tags.
The title tag is the 60 characters search engine users see in the search engine results pages (SERP). McKnight stated that it is important to keep your title tag relevant to both your brand and your location but not exceeding 60 characters.
3. For all of your business locations, create local landing pages.
To further localize your business, create a page for each location if you have multiple locations.
Lodge stated that there will be many companies with multiple locations. However, they don’t have pages on the website with detailed information about those locations. These pages should contain information about each location, directions to get there, as well as store hours.
4. Claim your Google My Business Listing
Claiming your Google My Business listing is one of the most efficient and cost-effective local marketing strategies that you can use immediately. Google My Business gives search engine users information such as your location, store hours and directions.
McKnight said, “Claim your Google My Business Knowledge Panel and ensure that it is up-to-date.” “Especially during COVID-19 make sure that it accurately explains any restrictions such as delivery or takeout and reflects the current store hours.