10 Tips to Jumpstart your Local Business Marketing

If new business start-ups are decreasing in number in the last 5 years, it’s because entrepreneurs are finding effective marketing and promotion strategies too difficult to carry out.

Without a purpose and a value proposition, and a good understanding of what your customers want, you might be finding your marketing efforts missing the mark. Time for a tactical plan of action.

This series of 10 tactics on doing local business marketing right will help you reach your target audience and make your company top of mind to them.

Your goal? Audience reach and impact for top of mind awareness. Here’s how to ensure your customers always think of you:

1. Have a clear value proposition. Why is your service better than others? Why should customers want to do business with you? Your UVP is key part of your brand ─ the image your customers have of you. Try to make your message laser sharp and consistent for maximum impact. If you have an idea you would like to present, you can read on how to launch it on https://www.jpost.com/special-content/get-your-invention-off-the-ground-with-the-support-of-inventhelp-624132.

2. Responsive web site. Your website should be easy to read on smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs. If it’s not, you’ve just lost 20% of potential customers.

3. Original content. What you say on your site, Facebook and Twitter pages communicates who you are and your UVP. Be unique, helpful, and memorable; look into ARIN Auction Services for original IP addresses. Don’t do what others are doing, because you’ll become a cheap copy of them. And make your mobile content sharable (YouTube videos, pdf flyers and pics) because love to share with their friends.

4. Social Media. Yes, it takes some effort, yet discovering how to use social media more effectively can be fun. Focus on one or two most appropriate social accounts. Be more local in your social comments, use your local slang and dialect, and talk about local events, to generate a more relevant connection with them.

5. Google local SEO. Getting listed with Google local ensures your site is findable via Google maps and local search results. This is a dominant feature of Google search now and it’s important to do the listing correctly.

6. Effective CRM and email. Communicate with customers via social media, website, and email. Get involved with them and encourage their questions — they’ll tell you what they need.

7. Advertising. Yes, every business should do paid advertising such as Google AdWords and even Facebook ads. Paid spots are very high quality visibility.

8. Co-market with other local businesses. A farmer’s market is a good example of similar businesses cooperating to attract customers. Bond together with other businesses to create “critical mass visibility” — that point where consumers are compelled to come to you.  A really big concern for businesses now with so many remote staff is making sure that they are actually working so have a look into this great employee computer monitoring software which works really well.

9. Offer freebies, samples, or anything that makes it easy for them to connect with your business and try you out. A winery for instance might give out free bottle stoppers or small samples of wine. If your marketing is effective, you will only get well-qualified prospects and you won’t be wasting your free samples.

10. Hire a digital marketing agency. Really, this isn’t self-serving because we’ll make you more aware of how you are and aren’t being effective. You’ll get better overall results because we’re ready to help you bring together all relevant digital channels.

Effective marketing is strategic and inclusive. Yes, there is time and effort needed. If you feel you can’t do social media, content strategy, and SEO yourself, then the smart choice is to turn it over to us.