Any small business or franchise should prioritize local marketing tactics within their marketing efforts. I’m sure you’ve probably read somewhere that content marketing is an important element to consider when enhancing your organizations online presence, but why?
When implemented effectively, a proper content marketing strategy can lead to increased brand advocacy, sales, awareness, and market relevancy. Here are some tips to make sure your organization’s local marketing is effective as possible.
Search Engine Optimization
With SEO rankings becoming increasingly important, local SEO is a concept that marketers should get themselves acquainted with. If you expect your business to appear in a location-specific google search, you must first optimize your website for the local web search; this is local search engine optimization. “Coffee near me” or “ best bagels in NYC” are two examples of local web searches.
Having your website appear as one of the first results of a google search is an excellent and effective way to gain visibility. Google prioritizes local listings by means of SEO tracking and keywords, then places the most relevant listings at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). In the context of local searches; a company is only competing with competitors in the same location as them, making it easier to gain the visibility you want and reach your target audience.
Local SEO can have immense value by means of not only increasing web traffic, but increasing customer traffic and daily sales. According to google’s research on understanding local search behavior, over a third of users who perform a local search from a laptop or mobile device, and over half of the users who local search on a mobile device, visit the physical store location that same day.
Better Content Beats More Content
A popular mindset is that content marketing is simply producing a certain amount of content consistently, such as 10 blog posts a week, 20 blog posts in a month, etc. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be more incorrect. Publishing large amounts of average or below average content isn’t going to position your company as a thought leader within the industry - it’s the quality of the posts that drive results.
Why post every day, or even every week, if the content isn’t going to serve its full potential value to the organization. Producing content only for the sake of producing content isn’t an effective content marketing strategy.
Now don’t get me wrong, constantly posting high quality content will absolutely bring more traffic to your site. The problem is that many organizations are not focusing on the quality of their content as much as the quantity, ultimately producing mediocre content in order to maintain their publishing schedule. Coming up with creative ideas for content can be difficult and time-consuming. Regardless, a business should only post when it has prepared creative, well-thought, and thoroughly researched content.
Divide and Conquer Your Audience
Traffic can come to your site from a variety of sources, and these sources could indicate what your audience is looking for when they visit your site. With that being said, why would an organization address their entire audience the same way? A one and done marketing approach will likely not garner effective results for your organization, even if your target audience is particularly niche.
The most effective way to ensure your brand’s relevance, in terms of both local and traditional searches (as relevance is a key ranking factor), is to segment your target audience and publish personalized content for each group. This is a great methodology to apply when engaging your audience through both social media marketing and direct mail efforts.
Your Brand Should Look & Feel Like Your Own
No matter how big or small your marketing strategy, brand compliance is always pivotal to the success of your campaign. A consistent customer experience combined with integrated marketing efforts will result in higher conversion rates, elevated brand awareness, and consumers putting trust in your brand.
A useful and increasingly popular means of establishing brand compliance is with local marketing automation software like CampaignDrive by Pica9.
CampaignDrive combines SaaS with insights from in-house industry experts who are always available to work with users to develop and innovate their marketing strategy.
Learn more about CampaignDrive and request a free demonstration.
Related reading: Top 3 Marketing Optimization Tips to Boost Customer Engagement
