In today’s new economy, digital marketing is a very important aspect of growth for local small businesses. You need to have in your arsenal great strategies and tactics to get off the ground and continue to run, successfully.
It does not matter if your company offers the best product or services. If your brand awareness is insignificant, then most probably, you wouldn’t be able to make enough sales to last you up a lifetime.
Building Your Brand Awareness
For a small business, creating a local brand identity and digital marketing strategies is the key. Only this way you will expand your business operations. It is also key to building a loyal customer base and to remain competitive in both local and international markets.
We know that as a small business owner, building brand awareness from the bottom-up may not be easy. But if you use these effective digital marketing strategies and tactics, for building your brand, you will see your traffic and conversions soar.
But you wonder what digital marketing tactics will work best for Local Businesses? The internet offers so much information you are not sure what works and what to do.
Your craft is not digital marketing, yet growing a local business the old way is no longer viable. Thus it seems you now need to learn it all about digital marketing in order to grow. The truth is, the more you know and apply the better. However, you could just use the following simple digital marketing tactics and start seeing your business grow.
Here are a few almost all free or next to nothing digital marketing tactics you can start using right away.
You Must Have a High-Converting Website
Everyone has a website these days, and for good reason. They say your website is your window online. While that is true, we like to see it as something more than just a window.
The growth of the internet has massively impacted consumer behavior. And you can bet that your potential customers are performing Google searches before they buy products. If you don’t have a website these google searches will be landing on your competitors’ pages.
A website on its own won’t automatically start generating fresh clients for your business. Ensure your website is optimized, because even if your website were to get tones of traffic, if it is not well optimized for conversion it will do you no good.
An optimized website will have all the following qualities…
- Easy navigation – visitors must be able to find relevant information with ease otherwise they will leave your website. Your top navigation should not have more than 3 to 5 links. If you want to display more, have a drop-down, or simply put those links on your footer section. etc.
- Headline: Your headline should convey the core message of your company. Make it so simple a fifth grader will understand in 5 seconds which market you serve, what problem you solve.
- Call to action buttons – If you don’t tell visitors what to do next, chances are, they will do nothing. It is recommended to have at least one primary Call-to-action (CTA), and sometimes a secondary CTA.
The primary CTA is about the ultimate action you want them to take. It could be making a purchase, book an appointment, request a callback, etc. The secondary CTA is a second option you offer in case they’re hesitant to take your primary action. - Lead magnets – we’ll talk about email marketing a bit late in this post. Email marketing succeeds when you make them an offer that entices them to give you their emails in return. This is called a lead magnet and could be an ebook, newsletter, free report or other such.
- Good copy – web copy is all the content people get to see on your web pages. Your core message (headline, sub-headlines, CTA) being one of the most important pieces on your homepage for example.
Think of it as your salesperson, if he is not persuasive enough, you’re going to lose the prospects. - Local SEO: Once you have a website, you should now optimize it so that it comes up in search engine results. But Imagine if you’re a cleaning company based Buenos Aires and you can serve only at a 20 km radius, but your business shows in search results in Canada. That wouldn’t be helpful, right?
No, it wouldn’t be. Hence the reason we believe this is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics for local businesses.
Get on Google My Business
Apart from optimizing your website for local SEO, another great way to get Google to direct lots of traffic to your website is to get on Google My Business (GMB). GMB is Google’s own business directory and of course, it sends traffic to businesses that use it.
Your competitors are likely to have GMP profiles too, so a further way to stand out from the crowd is to add at least one video to your GMP profile.
Email marketing
Lots of local business owners who do have websites are not aware of how much email marketing could help them. Nonetheless, Email marketing could be a huge part of your digital marketing.
Think of it this way, once a person comes into your store or visits your website and then leaves, you may have lost an opportunity to make a sale. Unless of course, you find a way to continue the conversation later.
However, if you have the customer’s email address, you can send them emails to let them know about new promotions, specials, and products, and nudge them towards making purchases.
Pay per click advertising
Ensure you put into practice the tactics we’ve discussed so far. Remember, these can be done almost for free or next-to-nothing.
However, you’re going to need to set aside a budget to advertise on platforms such as Google, Facebook, and other ad services.
Pay Per Click, otherwise called PPC is possibly the single and fastest most effective way to generate traffic within a short amount of time. The best thing about it is that you don’t pay anything until people actually click on your ads.
Think of all of your online marketing as being connected. Look at it as a three-stage process, where you get people interested in what you’re offering and then persuade them to make a purchase. In marketing terms, this is called a sales funnel.
At the top of the funnel is the traffic generation phase, where people are drawn to your website for all sorts of reasons. Some of them are interested in making a purchase, others are just looking for more information.
Your Copy
The persuasiveness of your web copy will be the deciding factor in generating more interest in your products at this stage.
Increased interest doesn’t necessarily mean prospects will go ahead and buy immediately. You can nudge them towards sales by clever use of call to action text such as “buy now” buttons. Frequently, even very interested buyers will want some time to consider their options and may navigate away from your website.
To make sure you don’t lose them entirely, you will need to find a way to continue to engage with them even after they’ve left your website. One way to do that is retargeting. Or, you can also follow up if you successfully get their email addresses.
With more engagement, you are likely to push your prospect towards the last phase of the funnel, which is where they make actual sales.
