Local Businesses can no longer rely on traditional advertising or marketing strategies alone to generate business and compete effectively with other local competitors. This is why Local Business Associates has put together a strategic marketing book for local business owners just like you.
Your local business may be a "brick and mortar" business and you may not think you need to be doing Internet marketing, but that's no longer true.
One of the most effective tools for any local business is for your website to have a high Google ranking for keywords that are important for your business niche.
When you search for a business (i.e. plumber) on Google, there will be three listings and a map with all the other businesses in your area. This is called the Google 3-Pack.
This is prime real estate on Google because it's FREE advertising and nothing is better than free. To achieve one of these coveted spots requires setting up your website so Google can find you.
You probably get many calls from solicitors telling you they can do your search engine optimization (SEO) for you and get you on page one of Google.
Implementing a strong local SEO plan for your business is a must to compete effectively. So the question becomes, "How do I do this effectively?"
Four marketing strategies will help you build a strong SEO plan: video marketing, content marketing, social media marketing and email marketing.
Video marketing is the most important lead generation tool you can use today. Your customers carry smartphones and tablets everywhere they go and they will search for local businesses to do research.
Video marketing solves two problems for you. First, videos allow you to answer questions your customers may have and this also builds rapport and trust before they even start doing business with you.
Second, when you create YouTube videos and you combine it with "must do" SEO, your videos will get ranked on page one of Google. Customers will find your videos and they may begin a relationship with you as a result.
A content marketing strategy is something many local businesses probably don't think about. In their minds, too many other things need to get done.
If you look at the big box stores, most of them have blogs. They write blogs for two reasons: to drive traffic through the front door and to improve their Google ranking position.
Local businesses need to write about everything about their business to help customers understand what they're all about. When you write you should also add a local SEO strategy so your information can be found at the top of page one on Google.
This is the most efficient way to get found on the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing.
The third small business marketing tip that will help your business is social media marketing. Word of mouth advertising can spread like wildfire on social media.
Google Plus and Yelp are important players for branding your business. Since Google Plus is a Google product just like YouTube, it favors you when people search for information on Google.
Citation sites like Yelp have become very important because many Yelp listings appear at the top of page one on Google and if you have many negative reviews you could be in trouble unless you address them positively.
Email marketing is tied into all of this because if your blog posts, website and YouTube videos are found on page one, customers may want more information.
Email marketing allows you to continue a conversation with these customers for a long period of time.
These four concepts are some of the most important marketing strategies you can do to improve your business. We live in a nanosecond world; you have to capture customers' attention wherever you can.
Local Business Associates has put together information that will help your local business. We ask you to look at our book and see for yourself how much you can learn.
Best of luck!
Ray, Scott, Jerry and Kathy
