Are you considering digital marketing for your local business?
We all know digital is the way forward and an absolute must in the ever-changing realm of business promotion. There’s no question there, you have to use digital marketing for your local business if you want to be part of the game.
We know it. You know it. Now, what can you do about it?
We´ve seen it all before: a budding business with a very promising future stumbles and fails when it seemingly has everything going for it. For some reason, it doesn’t quite take off the way it was expected to, but nobody can quite put their finger on why that is. It’s such a shame, isn’t it?
But hear this: it doesn’t have to be!
This is an entirely avoidable situation and the key to it is a very simple, straightforward act that can take your business from good to great in a matter of months. It can save your business and give it the recognition it deserves. It can take it to the heights you set your eyes on.
The answer is simple. In order for your business to reach its amazing potential, people need to hear about it! They need to see it, they need to know about it, they need to be curious about it and ultimately decide that it is trustworthy enough to buy from it. You want it to be the talk of the town and that’s only possible if it reaches the right people, so here are 5 practical ways you can use digital marketing for your local business!
Table of Contents
1. GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
In both traditional & digital marketing, this comes down to two things:
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Who do you address your product to?
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How can that product be optimized to cater to your audience’s needs?
Think about who you’re marketing to and devise your ideal buyer’s profile. Steer clear of assumptions, base your profiling work on real data as much as possible. Research your customers’ habits, interests, wants and needs. Survey and interview far and wide, collect your data, analyze it, identify trends and draw your conclusions. Once you’ve done that and you’re confident in your data, you’re ready to move on to the next step.
2. SET UP A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
So we’ve established that people want products that cater to their specific needs and, now that you know who those customers are and what their needs are, you can tailor your product to satisfy their desires to the highest level.
Your next step is to make that known within your local community first and foremost. People want products to be readily available to them – aka in close proximity to them, so once you know who your target audience is and what they want specifically, it’s time to get that product under their nose.
This translates into a solid marketing strategy and particularly, a solid digital marketing strategy. Why digital? Because let’s face it, we collectively spend increasing amounts of our time looking into a screen and if you still think or hope we’re not, chances are your product isn’t quite reaching your targeted audience and you’re left wondering why. We can tell you why: you’re barking at the wrong tree.
Also, besides being readily available one click-away, optimally revealed to the right person at the right time, the digital ad trumps the old-school means by allowing for one critical advantage: performance measurement in real-time. Having access to all sorts of web analytics tools, you can keep track of how well your ad has achieved its goal, offering you valuable insight into what works and what doesn’t for your specific situation, allowing you to tweak and tailor here and there before there’s a negative impact.
Placing an ad in a magazine and then hoping people will see it and buy your product is one thing. Having an ad pop up in their Google search results or inbox and place the option to buy that product at their fingertip, one click-away is a whole other level. In the world of marketing, the road from “What’s this product?” to “I’m buying this product” lies at its very core.
Using digital marketing for your local business is like choosing a jet over a train. Game-changer. That’s why the martech industry worldwide is worth more than $344.8 billion.
3. STAY ON TOP OF INDUSTRY TRENDS
We are talking about digital marketing, after all, and the name of the game is technology. Anyone who wants to make it in this space should take the time to ensure that their user’s experience isn’t bogged down by slow-loading pages, broken features, or unintuitive website designs.
What’s more, what is considered effective and the industry-standard one month can be outdated and sub-standard the next. Keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and tools that are popping up left and right and figuring out which one is worth your time can be a time-consuming but ultimately deeply rewarding and beneficial endeavor for your company.
If you need help setting up these systems or just want to find out how much of an impact can technology really have on your business, we would be more than happy to help you out. You can contact us right here if you want to scale your local marketing!
Not convinced yet? Here are some benefits of outsourcing to a marketing technology team.
We mentioned before that you can place ads in people’s inboxes, but the most powerful tool in this space is a well-crafted and persuasive email. Don’t stop at one, though. A sequence of emails is the way to go if you wish to nudge your potential customers in the right direction. And that direction isn’t set in stone, as email sequences can be adjusted to serve a multitude of purposes. For example, they can:
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Convince a potential customer to buy a product. This is the most basic one, but if done right it can closely follow the customer journey and close the deal in 5-6 emails.
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Keep your band fresh and at the forefront of their thoughts. You don’t need to be selling everything all the time. Sometimes just staying relevant is enough, so that when you do make your sales pitch, people will have already warmed up to your brand and what it is all about.
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Let people know about the new things you are doing. These last two are usually combined in the type of newsletters you see everywhere nowadays – news regarding that certain business but with a little bit of a personal touch to make it enjoyable and memorable for your readers.
5. INVEST IN YOUR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
The process of getting your product out there and making it successful can be long and arduous, with lots of variables, with twists and turns, with ups and downs, and in your effort to try and perfect it to the best of your abilities you risk losing sight of one key aspect: the people.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the people, because you can gather all the data, have your ideal customer profile, you can know all about them, you can have a near-perfect product and a solid marketing strategy, you can have everything going for you, but if people don’t want to buy your product, they simply won’t.
A real person needs to buy your product, not your customer profile, and that person needs to trust you first. So use every opportunity you get when using digital marketing for your local business to foster and grow those relationships, establish a connection and build on it! People may not trust you at first when you try to sell them something, but they will trust what others have to say about you and your product! Word of mouth, customer reviews and referrals are invaluable assets to your business, so make sure you always take the time to pour into this cup!
Bonus tip: Don’t shy away from unhappy customers! Be keen and set up open, respectful and meaningful dialogue to gain their feedback. Turn a sour situation into valuable advice!
Don’t forget: Returning customers are your seal of approval!
Before we go, we’ll leave you with one last word of advice – learn to cut the clutter out and focus on the essential. Less can certainly be more when you’re looking to use digital marketing for your local business. This can be applied in a number of ways.
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Aim for a clean, swift and compelling message.
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Tailor your message and make it search engine optimized using the appropriate wording and cues.
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Design your ads and your landing pages to be relevant, persuasive, yet simple and inviting. If you don’t have the time to figure this out, consider hiring a marketing technology team
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Think of your customer’s interest as the most precious, but fleeting resource. As we’re all zooming through life, time is of the essence and the simpler the message, the higher the chances it’ll get read.
We hope you will find these tips helpful, and if you need any help along the way with putting all of this in practice, don’t hesitate to reach out to us here!
