Local Businesses Can Still Benefit From Online Promotion, Here’s Why

We think that there is a train of thought that suggests local businesses can not benefit from online marketing. Local businesses selling directly to local customers should be concentrating on offline promotion. Is this the case? Of course not. Online media can be used by local businesses for promotion just as well as it can be by major corporations. The tactics and tools involved may be different, but the impact is remarkably similar. With online marketing, small, local businesses can find the attention online they need to reach high levels of success. Don’t forget that local customers do look online these days to find companies that they want to buy from. Most are not wandering down the high streets anymore. The know where they are going before they leave the house. If you think you can generate foot traffic to your business with an attractive sign, you may want to think again. So, what are the real options?

Mobile Responsive Design

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling to a customer down the street or half a world away. You must look into getting a mobile responsive design for your website. A mobile responsive design will ensure that customers can access your business, no matter where they are. Local service businesses are often used by customers that need something right away. For instance, if your car has broken down, you’re going to get a local mechanic. To do this, you’ll type mechanic and the location into Google. A customer will then click on a website that, with SEO, could be yours. Once they get onto the website, what happens next determines whether you get a sale. Either, the website is easy to use and completely accessible. Or, perhaps the website is completely useless. The writing is too small because the site has not recognized that it is being viewed on a mobile device. If that happens, a customer will look for a different site that is a lot easier. As you can see then, mobile responsiveness could be vital for a local business. Particularly, if you want to ensure that you get the interest of desperate customers.

Blogging

However, your website isn’t the only tool you can use to pick up new interest as the owner of a local service business. You can blog as well. You might think that there’s very little chance that people will find your blog online. At least, not without a professional SEO company on call. But you’d be surprised because you can use tagging to make sure customers find your business. Particularly, if your business is in a rural area that will be important to the locals and very few other people. Tagging any content, you release on your blog with the location is sure to get your interest of local consumers online. By doing this, you are directly appealing to a local audience, digitally. Again, this shows that online media can be just as strong as an offline promotion for a small company.

Local SEO

In a way, a blog is an example of local SEO, if you use it the right way. What is local SEO? You can use it to ensure your business attracts the attention of the local population online. Doing this is easy if you know how. For instance, you can set up a page on Google Business. This will allow customers to easily find your company online when they are nearby. In fact, they don’t even have to be nearby. You can control how large your reach is in the business settings. Thus, if you are running a business that travels to provide services, you can provide the distance you’re willing to travel. You can then get the attention of all the customers in the circumference around your business. You can even focus on one area that is heavily populated to gain the most attention.

You might be thinking that there’s plenty of competition here, even for local businesses. You’d be right, but there are always tricks you can use to beat the competition. One possibility that you might want to consider is changing your opening times. By changing your opening times, you can make sure you get customers finding your company throughout the entire day. No matter when they’re online, they’ll see your business. It’s a great way to drum up some extra interest.

Don’t forget that there are plenty of businesses online that offer local SEO services. We think that a lot of small companies miss out on using professional SEO services because they are too expensive. In most cases, you’d be right, but local SEO agencies know their customers. That’s why local SEO services by SixtyMarketing are priced to meet your budget.

Connecting Online And Offline Marketing

We’re not suggesting that you should stop marketing your business offline. In fact, we suggest you continue with whatever marketing tactic that you are currently using. Whether that’s handing out flyers or renting a billboard. But the marketing campaign doesn’t need to stop there. You can connect it to your online campaign. You can do this through the use of social media. Add your Twitter handle or an active hashtag on to the flyers you’re handing out. When customers get them, they can find your business online through social networks. They can follow your company and get the latest updates in the same way they do from other companies.

Remember, social media is a great way to attract new attention and keep old customers loyal. The problem is that local small businesses struggle to get any attention from customers. If you connect the online campaign with your offline marketing, they will easily be able to find your business.
As you can see the marketing tactics online are not useless in the hands of local business owners. It’s just a case of approaching the challenge a little differently. The good news is there are plenty of resources at your disposal. You can use them to make your small company a hit online and offline.