Marketing is essential for every business. 30 or so years ago, this meant coming up with a great product and then relying on the ensuing word of mouth marketing. If you had the budget, you could pop out a radio advert or put something on TV, but ultimately it was the aforementioned local marketing that made your business a success.
And then everything changed! The internet came around, then social media, and these days it’s digital marketing and ecommerce that rules the world. That’s why it’s important to ask the question: in a digital world that is so easily accessed via phones, tablets, and computers, is there any need to consider local marketing for your business?
Yes! Even in 2024, there are benefits to local marketing that can’t be achieved via any other method. Investing in it could be a very good choice for your business, whether you’ve got a bricks and mortar shop or you’re working from home. Indeed, if you sell to local customers, even just one or two, you can benefit from local marketing!
So let’s make sure you know what you’re taking on when you turn your hand to advertising in the local area. Here are pros you need to know.
Business Cards Can Say Everything
The age-old business card still has a lot of relevance in 2024. When you have a business card to hand out, you deliver your name, number, and purpose to people in the form of a tiny piece of printed paper. It’s a slick and easy way to keep your business’ existence on the mind, especially if you made a good impression before you handed it over.
A few good words, friendly body language, and a business card to top things off is one of the cornerstone strategies of local marketing. It makes you memorable, and that’s what you want!
Make sure your business card has been formatted properly and looks professional in your business’ colours, with a neat spot for your logo somewhere it can’t be missed.
You can also make the car double sided, to ensure there’s a little more detail and context for people to benefit from. If someone digs out the card a few months from now and can’t remember why they took it, it’s these details on the back that are going to remind them.
Flyers Can Be Conveniently Placed
Local marketing involves a lot of printed materials. Business cards, fliers, and even banner printing come in handy when you’re trying to get your name seen throughout the local area. And even though you may baulk at the cost of getting these items printed, it’s always worth the cost!
Why? Because items like flyers are convenient. They’re easy to distribute, if a little time consuming, and will introduce the basics of your business to anyone who could be even a little interested in your product.
Your name and number are right there, your products and their prices are right there, and you can routinely change the flyer copy to reflect any promotions you’ve got going on at the time.
You can also leave printed materials around the town in strategic places, such as coffee shops and restaurants, where people spend enough time to cast their eyes around the room and read what’s been put there.
Local Marketing Tends to Be More Affordable
Did you know that the cost to market locally is about ten times less than the cost to run a general digital marketing campaign? After all, when you know who you’re targeting, you can focus on turning these leads into actual customers! You’re not just working to get a bit of attention wherever you can find it.
And it’s not just about the people you’re selling to. Local marketing has quite a few free avenues as well. Google uplifts small businesses in a way that very few other websites do, and it’s totally free to register your business name, address, and contact details into their search console.
This then makes it ten times easier to collect reviews, post promotions, and make it easy for your customers to find you. Indeed, with a proper Google profile, your business is going to pop up whenever someone pairs a relevant product or service with a local keyword.
You Have a Better Chance of Making a Face to Face Impression
We’ve touched on customer service a few times here and there throughout this blog, but this is where we need to focus on it. Face to face interactions are invaluable to a business’ reputation. When you’re looking a customer in the eye and you can actually speak to them as a person, you have a far better chance of making them feel welcomed and valued.
This feeling carries a lot of good will with it, and that’s something that will be returned to you in the form of good reviews and recommendations. That’s something only local marketing can do for you!
Even in marketing, actions speak louder than words. Always do your best to deliver a service you can be proud of.
Local SEO is Incredibly Effective
Speaking of local keywords, local SEO is one of the most effective kinds of SEO you can invest in. People want to know when the products and services they want are ‘near me’, and that’s something you can use to your advantage. Create content using this phrasing, and using related phrases, and you’ll soon be near the top for these very same keywords.
If customers can come to you, whether you’re working from a salon in your own home or you’ve got a physical shop that displays your products, local SEO is something you can benefit from.
On the other hand, if you’re an online only business you may not get the same mileage from local SEO, but if you’ve got plans to start selling locally, this is a method to rely on.
You Can Run More Sales
Sales are a great way to bring people in at a moment’s notice. You can put up a post on your Instagram in the morning about running a last minute, 50% sale, and by the afternoon your shop could be packed with customers who had never even intended to visit you that day. That means more profit for you, even at a mark down, and more goodwill amongst the people who could end up becoming repeat customers.
Why does this work? Because the people in your local area are going to be the ones who can get to you within the hour. They can actually take advantage of these sales, and unless you’re offering shipping discounts to the people who live further afield, your online customers just can’t do the same.
You Can Donate to/Sponsor Local Events
Want to get your name out there in a big way? Sponsor a local event, or become the top donor for it! Local events are far more likely to have affordable sponsorship packages for you to invest in, and guess what? A load of your potential customers are going to be in the same place as well!
If your name is right in front of these people, at an event they enjoy and want to come to again, they’ll be more likely to check you out. You’re the business who made the event possible, after all.
Get to Know Your Competitors on a Personal Level
If the people in the same niche as you are right down the street, you can get to know them on a personal level. Not only does this give you an edge in competing against them, as you can see what they’re doing in real time, but it makes the idea of competition far less intimidating in the long run. After all, these other business owners are your friends, and even potentially your colleagues.
That’s a great perspective to have as a small business. You’re not so much competing as you are working alongside them, which helps to level the playing field and make it far less stressful to try and bring in customers.
You're all in the same market, trying to convince the same people that you’re worth shopping with, but you’re doing it from the same point of view. That can help you to come up with new ideas and angles which can be very beneficial.
So, Should You Try Local Marketing?
We definitely think so! Benefiting from local custom is one of the best ways to turn a consistent profit over time.
Ecommerce has a whole host of benefits to it, but the more you provide for the customers around you, you won’t have to worry about slow periods. After all, you have the chance to prove you’re the whole package when people can shop or work with you in person!
Keep the benefits above in mind the next time you want to put a marketing campaign out there. Digital marketing is great, but some local marketing methods deserve your attention as well.
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