Marketing
and
Local business
1)
Website – an important factor of marketing
Whether you’re targeting local or global customers, your website should clearly explain what you do, be easy to find and navigate, and be attractive.
Following things should be kept in mind while building or rebuilding your website:
o How goal-focused it is.
o The quality of your content.
o How easy your website is to use by its intended target audiences.
o How well it projects and communicates your brand identity.
o How search engine optimised (SEO) it is.
o Social media channel usage and integration.
o Mobile internet users.
2)
Blogging-a high priority
It’s important to add a blog to your website because it increases your chances of being noticed, and helps with your SEO as you can use your keywords and phrases in your blog posts. Websites get crawled quite regularly so it’s always important to have new, quality content.
Writing a regular blog also gives your audience an opportunity to interact with you by placing their comments about your posts. Remember to add social sharing buttons to your blog posts so readers can easily share them, and more people can discover you and your business.
3)
Distribute a press release once a month
It’s important to keep in touch with your local newspaper and submit press releases which have the potential opportunity to get you in print for free. These could be about anything from taking on new staff to winning a new client – it doesn’t have to be big news, just something to let local businesses know you are there.
4) Email marketing software – helps to increase sales
This method is fast, effective, immediate and easy to design. You can also track and understand exactly how your email marketing software is growing your business and see how individual customers respond so you can increase sales over time.
To get full value from your email marketing, ensure that you update and grow your database regularly, and try to get people to opt-in by signing up on your website.
5)
Videos – a major tool to market your business
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, so it makes sense to create a YouTube Channel and leverage proven video marketing tactics, like ‘how-to’ style video content and response videos, to improve search visibility and potentially drive leads.
One idea is to make individual video interviews on local news-makers in your niche using Skype. Once you’ve recorded the video, to maximise its benefit:
o Post it on YouTube.
o Embed the YouTube code on your website.
o Transcribe the video with a cheap tool.
o Post the transcribed content on your blog for search engines to find.
Or you could host an online seminar and share it on your website and via social media networks – a perfect opportunity to gain exposure.
6)
Being active on social media
It’s important to know who your target audience is, as this is one of the most popular ways to get noticed.
You can promote any news, events and interact with your audience as well as post your blog content through the most common media channels, including Facebook, Google+ LinkedIn and Twitter. (Twitter even has local chat hours for businesses – try searching for your nearest ones using #townnamehour or #countynamehour.)
7)
Verify your listing on Google+ Local
Previously known as Google Places, Google+ Local is a way of verifying on Google maps where your business physically is.
This can be verified by anyone at the business. Google will send a pin number through to your exact business address, and as long as someone enters this pin number onto your listing it means you are verified and can receive the benefits.
These include more chances to appear within Google local searchers, the opportunity to connect your Google+ profile to your Google+ Local listing, and the opportunity to gain reviews from your customers that will then show up as star ratings in your search results.
The best thing about this is that it’s completely free.
