Successful Local Marketing Strategies you should use in 2022!

If you're looking to build brand authority and attract more customers in 2022, thinking about your local marketing strategy is a good place to start. You can reach potential customers locally both online and offline- regardless of whether you’re a new business or not; but a digital strategy is a complete must.

So how can you tailor your digital marketing strategy to your local area- Google says 83% of people visit a store, and are likely to have googled them beforehand, so make sure your basic Google information is correct!

Optimise the search.

As mentioned above, making sure that your company's details are correct, and as much information about your business can be found online will really help. Not only that, but you can use Google Business Profile to help you show up on searches when a potential customer is searching any of your keywords- it’s also completely free!

If you aren’t aware of what your keywords are, take time to think about what your target market is looking for and what types of language they’d be using. For example, if you’re selling software to help people stay organised- a keyword might be “organisation planning” or “weekly planner”.

Completing your profile on Google Business Profile can help you drive traffic to your business as long as you keep it up to date. This includes any company information and adding fresh content frequently, that keeps the business relevant to what is happening in your sector.

“Look at the reviews!”

If potential customers Google you online, you use one of your keywords- more often than not, they’ll take a look at the reviews. Reviews can help you push people through the sales funnel, people really do take reviews to heart, they can either draw people in to make a purchase or completely turn them away.

A positive review can confirm to a user that this is a place they need to visit, or this is the product they should be buying. It’s that persuasive power to choose your product/service- and it won't be coming from you. Reviews from customers are honest, and therefore more believable that it’s you they should purchase from.

“What about bad reviews?” Every business has them, but not many use them. Bad reviews can give you brutally honest opinions and feelings about your product and service- so why not use it? This is an opportunity to use bad reviews to improve your product or customer experience; you can also reply and try to make right the wrongs the customer has spoken about. This will show potential customers you strive to make customers feel heard, and will do everything to make it right.

If you’re struggling to build reviews up- look at creating a call-to-action. Or engage customers (or even your staff) in an incentive driven project. “Who can get the most reviews with their name in it over a 3 month period?” “Write a review and be entered in our October prize draw!”

Are you localising your content?

Creating fresh content that relates to your local target audience will help massively in your inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing relates to creating content that draws and attracts people in because it’s tailored to them- for example, blog posts are a popular way to do this.

If you're looking to strategically market locally, then this strategy is a must. The more consistent and valuable your content is to your target audience- the more traffic you’re likely to receive. So what content are you looking to make?

Any content that hits the problems your customers have, and how your product/service helps fix that. Unfortunately, there is no timesaver for this kind of work- you’ll have to put the research time in, and find the time to create the content yourself (make sure your writing tone is for humans too- they’re the ones reading it!)

Localised content brings the best organic results (this is people finding your website on Google without businesses having paid a penny for an ad at the top of the search page etc.)

These are just three of the ways you can improve your local marketing strategy in 2022- make sure you stay active and keep your business fresh and user-friendly!