4 Local Business Marketing Strategies to Become The Next Big Thing in Town

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In episode 28, we’re going to dig deep into local business marketing strategies that will help you dominate your city.

Let’s go.

If you run a local business, you might think you have a disadvantage to global companies. You’re limited to a locale, and they can sell to the entire world.

But here’s the deal:

With local business comes less competition. And with less competition means a greater probability of dominating your niche.

People look online for information. If they want to find a restaurant, then they type in “restaurants near me” or hop onto Yelp.

They want to find a dentist, so they search for “best dentist in [city].”

The fact is that searching online is a lot more convenient than looking through the yellow pages or aimlessly driving around.

So as a local business owner, you need to make yourself discoverable where your customers are looking.

In today’s video, I want to go over 4 simple strategies that you can use to get more people through your doors using online marketing strategies.

The first is to build social proof where your customers are already looking.

Build social proof

The best social proof for a business is not a listing in the local paper. It’s to be highly reviewed on websites where your customers already are.

If you’re a restaurant owner, then ask happy customers to leave a review on Yelp.

If you’re a medical professional then look to RateMds.

Or if you have a Google local listing, then ask them to leave a review there.

Because when the next person comes looking for your business, they’re going to instantly see that other people trust it and they should too.

Next is local SEO.

Local SEO

Doing search engine optimization for a local business is much easier because of the lack of competition.

And it’s strange because there are more and more businesses opening, but the level of competition online isn’t really rising with that growth.

Toronto is the most populated city in Canada. So you’d think marketing a chiropractic business would be difficult.

One of the most common and popular phrase that people in Toronto are searching for is “Toronto chiropractor,” which gets 320 local searches.

After the ads and local listings, there are a couple directories like Yelp and Opencare. But then you see two chiropractic offices like Back Balance Clinic and Beyond Chiropractic.

And the best part about SEO is that ranking for a mega keyword will also help you rank for other related keyword phrases.

For example, Back Balance Clinic also ranks for “chiropractor Toronto”, “toronto chiropractor”, “chiropractor downtown Toronto,” and much more.

These 3 keyword phrase bring in 1,380 monthly searches of people looking to get treatment.

With a modest conversion rate of 3%, they can get at least 41 new leads every single month without spend a dime.

Now with SEO, a large part of the ranking factors has to do with the quantity and quality of backlinks that are pointing to a page.

And you’ll see that these two have an extremely low amount of referring domains pointing to it.

And if you dig even deeper, the quality of these links are mostly garbage or from those directories that anyone can create.

Compare this link profile to the top ranked page for the keyword phrase “online marketing.”

You can skyrocket your SEO, by building quality links through guest blogging or by simple outreach.

Try and go for relevant links that are within your niche and an even more powerful ranking signal will be getting links from domains that are in your city.

I’ll leave some links to other videos for you in the comments on how to do SEO.

The next strategy is to use Facebook ads.

Facebook ads

Facebook advertising is arguably the most powerful paid advertising channel.

You can target people based on demographics and psychographics. And what makes it absolutely mind blowing is that you can target people based on their freaking zip codes.

I tell real estate agents all the time to stop knocking on doors because people don’t want to answer it. Instead, throw up some Facebook ads and farm their computers instead of their neighborhood.

Maybe you’ve tried Facebook ads but you didn’t get the results you wanted.

It’s probably because you were doing them all wrong.

People don’t login to Facebook looking for a chiropractor. They don’t login to Facebook hoping to buy a new home.

They login with the intention of finding something interesting, helpful or socializing with others.

If you’re a local business, then you want to target people who are:

• Willing to commute to your location.
• Have a need for your products or services.

Targeting location is easy. You type in a city name, town name or add multiple zip codes within your area.

Take a look through your customers list and use their zip codes as a way to create a location boundary.

Now create ads that fulfill the intent of why someone logs into Facebook.

If you’re a real estate agent, create a lead magnet like a report on undervalued neighborhoods in the area. Make it interesting and educational.

Ask them to opt-in and then you can start communicating with them through email. Use that as your way to nurture your audience and sell to them.

Whatever you do, don’t send them to your home page that has information on your clinic. I can guarantee you that you’ll burn more money than you make.

The last strategy is local networking.

Local networking

Sure. It’s not exactly an online strategy, but I want you to take this seriously. Gary Vaynerchuk preaches about this all the time.

It’s called Bizdev.

The concept is simple.

You find non-competing businesses in your area and cross-promote each other’s businesses.

Take an afternoon to walk into local stores in your area.

Let’s say you’re a florist in a busy part of town.

Go to the chiropractor across the street and say:

Hey, I’m Sam and I own the flower shop across the street. I just wanted to introduce myself since we’re neighbors.

I thought we could help each other out. Would you mind if I left some business cards here for your front desk?

I’d be happy to do the same for you with any promotional material you have.

You might think it’s a dumb idea, but look at the local businesses in your area.

You’ve probably seen these before. And it’s because people got out of their chairs and started networking with other local businesses.

If you want to take this even a step farther, then go to related businesses where you can share customers.

So that flower shop might go to a wedding venue or a funeral home. And you’d promote those businesses too.

This strategy is going to help you build relationships with other business owners in your area.

If you take action on these 4 strategies, I promise you, that your tiny little boutique will grow to be the next big thing in town.

Conclusion

And that’s it for episode 28. If you found this video helpful than let me know by clicking that thumbs up button and share it with your friends who have a local business.

If you want more online marketing articles and videos that will help you grow your business, then click this link to subscribe to my newsletter.

Now I want to hear from you. Which of these local business marketing strategies are you going to use?

They’re all equally powerful and all you have to do is commit to doing it. And I hope you will.

Thanks for stopping by and allowing me to serve you.

And until the next episode, remember to take action, because every minute counts.