More than 46% of all Google searches are local. These are people looking for local information.
Allow me to ask a question:
“How often have you looked up the terms like ‘best restaurants near me,’ ‘women’s clothing near me,’ or something similar?”
My guess is quite often.
In fact, here’s a graph of the most commonly searched local businesses:
You see – B2B SaaS businesses or companies with a nationwide or global target audience can’t tap into the power of local search. However, on the other hand, if you own a restaurant or a grocery store, or no matter what your business type is, if your target audience is local customers, you need to tap into local online marketing.
So, what exactly is local online marketing?
And what are the benefits of doing so?
To help you understand the strategy, we’ve put together this blog post. Throughout this post, we’ll discuss:
- What is local online marketing?
- Why local online marketing?
- Three benefits of local online marketing that businesses should know about.
We’re so very excited to share this with you!
So, without further ado, let’s dive in straight away.
Let’s begin with the first point –
What is Local Online Marketing?
Local online marketing is the process of trying, testing, and applying different online marketing strategies to help local businesses increase their online visibility and brand awareness.
And by local online marketing, we don’t just mean that you should invest in local SEO.
Local SEO is a part of local online marketing. If you aren’t familiar with local SEO, don’t forget to give our “Your Go-to Local SEO Guide” a read.
Local Online Marketing will help you get your product(s) or service(s) in front of your local customers – people who reside in your neighborhood or town. These will be people within a specific radius.
Let’s say you run a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. Suppose you want to attract traffic to your restaurant website or get your local customers to make reservations via paid ads. In that case, you’ll be setting your paid ads targeting filters in a way where only the people in your neighborhood can see your ads. You can apply other filters and narrow down your target market, depending on your business model and the industry you belong to.
If your target audience involves nationwide or global customers, then let me tell you that this guide isn’t for you! If your target audience is local customers, then you should plan to run strategic local online marketing campaigns.
From local SEO to running paid ads that target local customers to interacting with local customers on social media and publishing relatable content pieces, local online marketing is strategically implementing different digital marketing strategies to target and attract local customers.
And that’s what local online marketing is all about.
But wait! Does it even work?
Doesn’t it make sense to try to reach out to potential customers outside your radius? Wouldn’t that be good for our business?
Allow us to shed some light on this.
Why Local Online Marketing?
We run a marketing agency in Boise – and since you’re reading and enjoying our blog – you already know we go by the name “redfox visual.”
At redfox visual, we work with Boise or Idaho-based businesses.
And we rank on the first page of Google for numerous keywords like “web design agency boise” or “social media marketing boise.”
And trust me – if we’d had tried to rank at the top for generic keywords, our competitors would have crushed us.
We’re a 10-people-agency and launched our website just a few years back. And we’ve only focused on targeting local customers based in Boise.
BUT!
Other agencies with millions of dollars in investment can actually pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for backlinks, PR, and other activities.
Small and medium-sized businesses are limited on budget.
They can’t invest such an insane amount.
And without such a HUGE budget, they’d never be able to rank at the top for generic keywords. So – if you are a pest control business, you’d never be able to rank at the top for the keyword “pest control.” Thousands of top pest control agencies are already investing thousands of dollars to rank at the top for this keyword.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t rank at the top at all.
If you run a local pest control business in Boise, you can always target local keywords like “pest control boise” or if you are searching from Boise – “best pest control agencies near me.”
As simple as that!
In the world of marketing, it’s important to be realistic. There are marketing agencies out there who will claim:
“Oh! You’ll rank at the top for this generic
keyword in no more than six months.”
And after posting a bunch of random blog posts, generating a few low-quality backlinks, and dozens of “I am frustrated with your work” calls, you’ll end up dropping them.
Reason? They just wanted to get you in a contract and earn a few bucks to keep their agency running.
But that’s not what we do at redfox visual.
You’ll see that we do local, strategic planning.
If you don’t have the budget to compete with the top guns and rank at the top for generic keywords, we’ll convey this message during our first meeting. We’ll suggest alternatives – and we’ll definitely help you grow strategically.
That’s how we operate.
And that’s our clear-cut, honest answer to “Why local online marketing?”
That being said, allow us to share the three incredible benefits of local online marketing.
3 Benefits of Local Online Marketing Businesses Should Know About
Here are three incredible benefits of local online marketing:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Fight for rankings against your competitors
- Increase sales and revenue
Increasing Brand Awareness
When you run local online marketing campaigns, you’ll be:
- Creating content pieces targeting the pain points and problems of your local audience.
- Putting your ads in front of the local audience.
- Rolling out email newsletters targeting pain points and problems of the local audience.
- Interacting with local customers on social media.
And when you consistently put yourself in front of your local customers, you’ll see them showing interest in your business, especially if the messaging and other aspects are right. This will result in a smooth flow of high-quality local traffic to your website. And when your clients/customers purchase your product or book a strategy call with you and are 100% satisfied, they’ll spread the word about your business.
Soon, you’ll find your business to be one of the most well-reputed businesses in your community. But for that to happen, you need to not only craft strategic local online marketing campaigns but also deliver a genuinely high-quality customer experience.
This will, ultimately, result in increased brand awareness.
Helps Give Your Competitors a Tough Fight
If you run a fast-food restaurant in Boise, chances are that a few of your competitors are already ranking at the top with multiple 5-star raving reviews:
And the same can be said for a grocery store or any other type of local business.
Your competitors are already targeting local keywords.
They know you aren’t. That’s the reason they are multiple steps ahead of you.
So, if you want to give them a tough fight, tapping into local online marketing is the way to go.
Increased Sales & Revenue
As a result of targeting local customers and being more visible in front of your target audience, you’ll be attracting high-quality local traffic to your website. And if you want them to visit your store, you can convey this message on your website and they’d love nothing more than to visit your online store.
Overall, you’ll see an increase in high-quality traffic. And if you do everything right – from delivering a great user experience to putting the right messaging, you’ll see many of these website visitors taking the desired action like booking a strategy call with you, purchasing your product, or something else entirely.
This will, in turn, lead to an increase in sales and revenue- giving you an opportunity to expand your business and cater to other locations in the near future.
Local online marketing is a marketing strategy that most businesses underestimate. Instead, it should be highly valued since it has helped many businesses consistently generate outstanding results. And if you’d like our experts to work their magic and help your business increase its online visibility, contact us today!
Our Services:
- Web Design & Development
- SEO
- Animated Video Production
- Social Media Marketing
- Video Production & Marketing
- Branding
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