Although you don’t really notice it, local marketing is all around you. Every time you open a telephone directory, turn on the radio or even go to your kid’s football game, local marketing is there. If you are like most people, you really don’t notice it. This is because local marketing tends to be really, really bad. Those little guys have all these advantages over larger corporations, but they just don’t know how to take them. If you are one of these little guys, avoid making the following mistakes.
#1 Not putting your stats in marketing.
All marketing for a local business should include your address, phone number and website. If you are near a well-known landmark, point that out. Otherwise, people who encounter your marketing will not know how to make that next step. Sure, they could always look you up. But they won’t. You can count on that. While you are at it, make sure this information is easy to find on your website and also through locally-focused websites like Yelp. By ‘easy to find’, I mean put your contact information somewhere obvious and ubiquitous, like your header and your footer.
#2 Failing to tag.
If your business has a physical location, this needs to be in your title tags and meta tags. Why? Google bots are just as clueless as your customers. They cannot magically discern where you are located. If you want to come up on the first page of local search, and believe me, you do, then you need to tell the bots with your tags.
#3 Ignoring major local business sites.
Yelp and Google Places are the two most important of these that I can think of, although there are certainly others. Why are they important? Consider the way a typical customer searches. They type something like, “shoe store Cleveland” into their browser, and one of the common local search sites will be the first to come up. The customer will then click on one of these reputable, recognizable sites and browse a bit. If your business is listed, they will then see it.
#4 DIY marketing.
If you plan a more complicated marketing scheme such as a television ad, an internet banner or even a simple flyer, please PLEASE consider hiring a graphic designer or at least someone with design experience. If you are going to go through the trouble and expense of creating a marketing campaign, let’s make sure it has a chance of bringing in new customers! There are so many pitfalls to design that I cannot even cover them here. Just take my word for it: DIY design is never a good idea.
#5 No means of measurement.
Marketing is one of those “practice makes perfect” areas. You need to start somewhere, see what works, and change your plan as you go. The problem is that you will never know whether something works, much less how well it works, without having some form of measurement. The great thing about business is that most of it is highly measurable—you can look at traffic, leads, conversions, anything you want really.
