Definition of Local Marketing
In Offline Marketing, “Local Marketing can generally refer to any marketing techniques a localized business, in any industry, uses to market itself to the area it operates in.” Source
In Online Marketing, Local Marketing can generally refer to any online marketing techniques that a local business, in any industry, uses to market itself online to the area it operates in.
Local marketing is mostly used by small businesses like stores, restaurants and outlets, but franchise businesses also use local marketing to promote themselves around their specific location.
A local company uses specific marketing strategies to engage new and potential customers related to their specific community. Transferring that same marketing activity to the online marketing world may bring some outstanding results that can easily surpass those offline marketing activities.
A huge percentage of a Local Company’s customers search online to know about products and services. Those companies can complement their offline business strategies with highly effective online marketing strategies.
Local Marketing provides you with the ability to understand your customer’s behaviors and purchasing habits a lot more, because you can know more about your customers online than you can know just by their coming into your store.
You can use online channels like your website, mobile applications, social media, local search and emails to attract local customers which makes it more power for influencing your customers.
There are four key elements that you need to be aware of when immersing your Local Business into the Local Marketing world: Segmentation, Media, Messaging and Measurement.
Segmentation: This defines how one group of customers is distinguished from another group of customers. It also refers to “who” you are going to target.
Media: This determines “how” you will deliver your message. It shows what type of media you are using to communicate with your audience like website, mobile applications, social media, local search, emails, etc.
Messaging: This defines “what” you are communicating. These messages are directed to the local population, rather than the mass market. It establishes what you should say to your audiences and in which manner you should convey those messages to turn your audience into customers.
Measurement: This is essential for evaluating your marketing efforts and measuring your results. Positive results can show you how good you are at satisfying the needs of your customers.
Local marketing is an endless process instead of a campaign or event that will end after a fixed time. If you have the correct approach and do it right, it will always give you the highest return of your marketing investment.
How is Local Marketing generally used on the web?
In the online marketing world you can use online marketing strategies to do local marketing so you can build your brand awareness in your neighborhood.
It is all about how you can reach, know and interact with your audience as much as you can. Here are a few online media channels normally used to target local audiences.
Local Website: Local customers normally get excited when their favorite store where they usually go to purchase their goods, has a website showing their products and services. It’s a lot easier for a customer to plan with the use of a webpage where is he going to buy stuff before going there.
Having a very informative and constantly updated website will be a great help to your target audience. The majority of people feel too lazy to call sometimes, it’s just easier and more fun for them to go online and browse a website.
Local Social Media: People hang out a lot more on social media networks than on a website, and that’s where you should establish your presence as well. I have no words to explain how much time, money and effort social media has invested on behalf of local businesses.
The number of followers, likes, shares, reviews, comments, retweets and any other social action shows the interest of your audience in your products. Responding and engaging other social media users is a good way to show that you care about your audience and business.
Local Search: Is your website listed by your location and the local market it serves? Are the keywords and descriptions you used for the search engines used by those people who are searching for a business like yours in a specific area, for example ‘Builder in Shepparton’ and ‘Plumber in Orange’?
It is amazing the fact that you can target your audience directly by positioning your local business in front of them with the use of Search engines. It has been proven that ranking at the top of the search engines for local terms is crazy easy.
And the greatest thing is that just a few of your local competitors know about it, which puts you in a unique position to “Steal” their customers by using the internet.
Local Mobile: The time has come when every single thing created to be used on a desktop computer has to be optimized for mobile devices. If you don’t go mobile you will certainly be missing out on a great deal of customers.
If browsing a website is fun using your laptop or your desktop computer, imaging doing it from your cellphone. If cellphones are in people’s pockets and hands, imagine how often they would be able to check out your business.
Local Lead Generation: I have seen how important and trusted Cost per Action websites offer to pay $10 to $20 for every new lead generated on behalf of a business. But in our training we will show you how to get that almost free.
Having your local customers in a contact list is one of the greatest thing you will ever do on behalf of the ongoing success of your business. List Building is the greatest internet marketing strategy ever, and you can even do it locally.
