Local area marketing is crucial for businesses that rely mostly on the support and clientele of their local area and surroundings. It allows businesses to connect with their local community, understand their needs, build relationships, and ultimately drive customer loyalty and business growth within a specific geographic region.
Local area marketing can be beneficial for a wide range of businesses. If you are curious about what types of businesses are best suited to local area marketing, click here to find out more.
10 Local Area Marketing Strategies for Small Business
Local area marketing should be incorporated into your marketing plan. It should encompass various tactics and channels, both online and offline, to reach your target audience. Below, we have complied a list of our top 10 local area marketing strategies for small business:
1. Google Business Profile
Create a Google Business Profile for your business so you can be found in local searches. The listing should include your business name, address, phone number, hours of operation, link to your website and also allow customer reviews.
2. Local Listings and Directories
Ensure the business is listed accurately on local directories, review sites, and online maps to improve visibility in local search results. Some local directories to consider include True Local, Yelp, White Pages, Yellow Pages, HiPages and local council directories.
3. Local SEO
Optimise your website content, meta tags, and keywords to rank higher in local search results. This helps to improve a business’s online visibility for searches conducted within a specific geographic area.
4. Social Media Engagement
Use social media platforms to connect and engage with the local community, share relevant content, showcase products and services, respond to comments and messages and run targeted local area ads.
5. Local Events and Sponsorships
Consider participating, supporting or sponsoring local events, community gatherings, sports teams or schools to increase brand visibility and foster community connections. Quite often if you are supporting or sponsoring local events the organiser will provide recognition through advertising or promoting your business to the attendees or community members.
6. Collaborations with Local Influencers
Partnering or collaborating with influential individuals within the local community can help promote your business and gain credibility. Local influencers may include bloggers, social media personalities, community leaders and local celebrities.
7. Online Localised Content
Content creation specific to the local area and demographic. You could choose to highlight local attractions, events or stories that resonate with the community. This can be done via social media or your Google business profile.
8. Offline Marketing for Local Area
Don’t forget about traditional offline marketing techniques such as distributing flyers, brochures, direct mail campaigns and advertising in local newspapers or radio stations. You could offer a special promotion and easily measure the success of the campaign.
9. Local Partnerships
Consider a collaboration with another local business. Together you could create a cross-promotion, joint event, a shared product/service or a joint promotion. This should be with the view to increase local awareness for both businesses and attract local customers.
10. Signage to Stand Out
Effective and well designed signage will help you stand out and draw the attention of people passing or driving by. Signage should be consistent with your branding and flow through to all aspects of your business. This helps to increase brand awareness and when done consistently it will create familiarity and builds trust with your local community.
How to Measure the Success of Local Area Marketing
Measuring the success of your local area marketing efforts is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies and make informed decisions. Here are some key metrics and methods you can use to measure the success of your local area marketing:
- Website Analytics:
Track website metrics using Google Analytics. Monitor metrics such as website traffic, page views, bounce rate, and conversion rates for visitors from your target local area. Analyse these metrics over time to identify trends and measure the impact of your local marketing efforts on website engagement and conversions. - Local Search Rankings:
Monitor your local search rankings for relevant keywords in search engines like Google. Use tools such as Google Search Console or third-party SEO software to track your position in local search results. Improvements in rankings indicate increased visibility and potential organic traffic from your local target audience. - Customer Surveys and Feedback:
Gather feedback from your customers using surveys or feedback forms. Ask specific questions related to their awareness of your business, how they discovered you, and whether they have been influenced by any local marketing initiatives. This qualitative data can provide insights into the effectiveness of your local marketing efforts. - Foot Traffic and Sales Data:
If you have a physical store, track foot traffic and sales data. Compare these metrics before, during, and after implementing any local marketing campaign to measure the impact on driving customer visits and sales. - Online Reviews and Ratings:
Monitor online review platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, or industry-specific review sites for customer reviews and ratings. Positive reviews and increased ratings indicate a positive outcome and can influence customer perception. - Social Media Engagement:
Analyse social media metrics such as followers, likes, comments, shares, and engagement rates specific to your local target audience. Measure the growth of your social media presence and the level of engagement generated by your local area marketing campaigns. - Local Partnerships and Collaborations:
Evaluate the outcomes of any local partnerships or collaborations you have engaged in. Assess the impact on brand awareness, reach and customer engagement resulting from joint events, sponsorships, or cross-promotions with other local businesses or influencers. - Promotional Tracking:
If you distribute discount or promotional codes as part of your local marketing campaigns, track their usage to measure the effectiveness of your promotions. Monitor the redemption rate and the impact on sales to measure the success of your local marketing initiatives.
Set Marketing Goals
It’s important to set specific marketing goals and metrics before implementing your local area marketing strategies. Regularly review and analyse the data from these metrics to identify trends, make data-driven adjustments, and continuously improve and refine your local marketing efforts.
Incorporating local area marketing into your overall marketing plan can help you effectively reach and engage with your target audience, build strong community connections, and ultimately drive business growth within your local community.
If you are finding marketing your business challenging or don’t know where to begin, we would love to hear from you. Our aim is to make marketing accessible and as easy as possible. Register for a free 30 minute Marketing Chat and let us know your marketing challenges.
